It’s been awhile, so I really should at least comment a bit on my trip to Vancouver.
It was my first time to the city, outside of airport layovers. It really is a beautiful place, although I think it was trying too hard. The downtown waterfront was filled with tall, glass buildings, that all, generally, looked the same. Expensive, but none stood out. Anywhere else each would have been fantastic. There: face in the crowd. (Brick in the wall if we want to use an architecture metaphor.)
I noticed a number of interesting differences between there and Alberta, that probably aren’t mentioned in any travel books.
The first difference was that it is a lot more socially acceptable to smoke. I have two theories as to why that is. B.C. and Alberta both have laws against smoking indoors, but in Vancouver it is not necessarily an excursion into winter to do so. You don’t have to suffer nearly as much for your habit. Also, because a lot of people smoke pot, and don’t think I didn’t notice the smell, it is hypocritical to complain about smokers if you are an illegal one.
The second difference was more beggars. Similar to the above theory, they have less chance to freeze to death. Why wouldn’t you go there?
The third difference was the credit card machines. Here, I have trouble remembering the last time I signed a credit card receipt. There, I did it almost all the time, including the old, chunk chunk carbon-copy “machines”. Chunk chunk, sign here. Pin numbers haven’t caught on yet.
On one of the days I hung out with a friend from Seattle who had driven up. She had a car so we drove around looking at things she was interested in. That included vintage clothing stores. In other words, I got to talk to the local proprietors for long periods of time. One was complaining that the city was very expensive. Everyone was so busy trying to earn money to afford their homes.
That may have been true, but what they spend on homes, they save on food. Two restaurants stick out in my head. The first was the sushi place that I went to with a bunch of friends after my run. Because I was on a post-run meal, I was hungry and ordered a lot. Still much cheaper than Edmonton.
The last meal I had was at Save on Meats, a diner. A store clerk had recommended it to me. It was fantastic. It used to be a cheap diner, but it had been gentrified recently, even featured on some reality shows. They had their own butcher and bakery on the premises. The food was great, and quite affordable. I would recommend it to a friend.
I’ve covered food and accommodations. Now I need to turn my attention to transportation. My flight to the city was annoyingly delayed, so I was late to the party I wanted to attend that evening. I made up the time by springing for a taxi instead of taking a bus to the hotel. While in the city, on the last day, instead of taking a convenient bus downtown, I walked, despite being told, truthfully, that it wasn’t scenic. But the hotel clerk had also said it wasn’t walking distance, and if they lie about that, how can you trust them. Pfft. 5km is totally walking distance.
The return trip to the airport was confusing. I used my iPhone and Siri to try and use the bus system. It wasn’t entirely easy. But I paid $2.50 for a bus back to the hotel so I could pick up my luggage, and then transfer right back out to go downtown again. (The bus stop I waited to go back downtown listed the bus number but implied it was drop-off only. Thankfully it lied. Thankfully there was also a small woman there taking the bus to help me out.) When I was back downtown I got onto their train system to get to the airport. I still had my bus transfer, but no one asked to see it. And I don’t even recall seeing a place to pay for the train. I just walked on and sat down. Security?
For the flight home, I was able to score the exit row seat. The window seat even, so I was responsible for the safety of the plane. Unfortunately, I probably didn’t give this as much respect as I should have. I had my GPS watch with me, and I decided to ignore the electronic device warning and use it for the whole trip. (It doesn’t broadcast, I’m pretty sure.) If this was the US, I’m sure some air marshall would have been handcuffing me on the floor before the flight landed. But, due to sensical Canadian policy, I have a nice map of the route the flight took. I wish it had been daylight so I could try and recognize landmarks for the map.
In any case, good trip.