Well, we're about to get on a bus to Calgary to fly back to Seattle for a couple of days.  What an awesome time we had here.  Good people, good fun.  The Banff Centre and the Banff New Media Institute put on quite an event along with RainCity Studios.

 Below is a shot of Lloyd Hall, where we stayed for 4 nights. We're off to home to pack the last bit before leaving for good on Sunday.

Updated:  The photo below was uploaded during a podcast in real time. Once the podcast is online, I'll link to it and you can list to me talk about posting this photo with my Treo 650. Here is the podcast of our talk.

Kris' Rats Nest, originally uploaded by Lee LeFever and TwinF.

This morning we got up and ventured into the town of Banff for breakfast, we thought.  We found coffee shops, but didn't come across any place to have a sit-down breakfast.

I'm sure I've never felt air so cold.  Right now, weather.com says it's -13 (f), but feels like -24.  It's so cold that the breathing in makes me cough and any moisture inside my nose gets frozen.  Sachi's hair froze on the way.

 Banff is a nice little town that obviously makes a living via tourism.  It has a mix of chain and local stores along with all the things you expect of a ski town.  Of course people come to Banff for the beauty of recreation of the whole area, not just the town.

I think this is Cascade Mountain, but I'm not 100% sure right now.  The mountain looms over the town and really impresses us both.

 We're just about to go dog sledding with the folks form the workshop, so there will be lots of pictures to share soon...

As I mentioned before, this trip to Banff is a bit of practice, both for the blogging and living in a hotel room, etc.

Apparently, we have some things to learn.  We dutifully packed our toiletries, including a small dispenser of floss (one of many from home given out by the dentist).  This morning I awoke to learn a lesson about what to pack.

First Item:  A floss dispenser that actually contains floss.  The one we brought contained approximately one inch of floss.  

Second Item: More than one toothbrush.  Apparently, I forgot mine and had to resort to rather rudimentary methods.

Luckily this is all pretty small in the whole scheme of things, but it goes to show how all the little things can start to get lost in the madness of the final days.

I'm quite sure that we have only begun to be perplexed by international tiolets.  I didn't expect Canada to be the starting point.

 

Apparently, this one has two buttons and the size of the button indicates the amount of water used in a flush.  It's an enviromentally friendly toilet, which sounds like a better toilet to me.

 

In case you're wondering, we don't plan to chronicle the various features of toilets around the world, but hey, it is kind of interesting and it's too cold to go outside.

This is the first ever TwinF post from another country- Canada, feel the love.  Holy crap is it cold up here, but it is a dry cold.  It's 15 degrees (f) and getting down to 8 tonight.  Along with being some of the coldest weather we've seen, it's the farthest north we've both been.

Behold, the first international location pin on the global map.

Though it's not officially part of the trip, tomorrow we'll arrive in Banff Canada, our first international destination since starting the site.  As you can see on our newly updated itinerary (from the About page), we'll be there from December 4-8th. 

Lake Louise by Topato.

We're both really looking forward to Banff - we've wanted to go for a long time.  I'll have to do some work on a workshop on blogs, but Sachi is pretty much home free to hit the slopes and be a ski-bum (what a loser).  We'll both get to go dog sledding as part of the workshop, something we've never done that should be loads of fun.  It should be a stark contrast to New Zealand in a month or so as well.

 Like Hawaii, Banff will be a time to practice blogging for the big trip.