Leaving Whistler

Well, Pesach is over, most of the family is making its way back to NY and Israel, and the rest of us leave for Oz in a few hours. I always see out Pesach with mixed feelings of relief and nostalgia. Just when you start to get used to it, it's over. But man, the pizza and beer after Shabbos were good!
So I did a little whine about feral kids in my last post, but things didn't really get out of hand after all. Either that or I got used to it. Also my own grandchildren, under the influence of too much candy and nosh (which was freely available 24/7, no exaggeration) and late nights and jet lag, were misbehaving a tad. (But they do know how to say please and thank you etc and that's what I'm talking about.)
Was Pesach on the Mountain the fressathon-dressathon that I feared? No. I mean, yes, there was too much food on offer, but it wasn't obscene. And yes, one dresses up for Yom Tov in Whistler as one would anyway.
In fact, I am not going to complain about anything because it was great. The skiers had a fantastic time Chol HaMoed, the kids enjoyed ski school too, the environs are just beautiful, the weather was great. I rode the Peak to Peak gondola from Whistler to Blackcomb and back and the whole time switched back and forth between marveling at the natural beauty of the route and at the incredible feat of engineering that this is.
But the really big pleasant surprise was the quality of the speakers. The star was Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth. What an impressive guy. Apart from all the great stories of rubbing shoulders with kings and queens and princes and prime ministers and archbishops and the Dalai Lama and just about every religious leader in the world; apart from the 24 books and countless essays and commentaries, he is such a riveting speaker with a clear and powerful message to Jews and nonJews alike, and he is just a good guy. It was such a privilege to chat with him about things great and small and he always seemed interested and listened as well as he spoke. He is retiring soon to teach at Jews' College, and he will be a hard act to follow. Rabbi Dovber Pinson, Chabad rabbi and Kabala scholar- excellent. Really deep scholarship, given over in accessible form. And in case that was all a bit too frum, Dennis Prager weighed in with his homey American brand of Jewish. I find Prager something of an anomaly or enigma. He is the product of a misnagdish religious education which he rejected. He is not Orthodox, Conservative or Reform. He is what he feels like being. He was also quite entranced by Rabbi Sacks; it was a bit of a mutual admiration thing. His life has been quite colorful to date. He is a great advocate for Israel, his radio show and Internet 'university' are educational and entertaining and I want to give him a big hug. But there's just this bit of him that I think is an apikoros, deep down. Enough about Mr Prager.
What else? Entertainment was also good, with a stand up comic one night and a mentalist another. Sorry guys, I never caught your names, but you were first class.
Some doctors also gave informal chats about various medical topics. Including yours truly, but nobody turned up. Well, 2 people came; one was my daughter-in-law (thanks for that, D) and the other was a woman expecting her second child who had had difficulty nursing her first child and wanted some tips on how to avoid problems next time. That's how it always is with breastfeeding; nobody cares about it unless they have trouble doing it. Oh well.
I finish my report here, because I do not wish to bore any readers further. Just credit where it is due, to Rabbi and Rebbitzen Wineberg and family of Vancouver. Job well done.
(If I come again in the future, I'll bring all my boobie slides on a flash drive and I'm sure a much bigger audience will come... Like 6 people maybe?)