Canada: exploring the city
I took the sea bus across the ocean from North Vancouver into downtown Vancouver for $2.75.
Alain had previously given me walking directions to some of the more popular streets so I started out in that direction.
I stumbled across some street entertainers, the best ones were young college aged kids break dancing in the streets. They were incredible! I took a video but of course I don't know how to attach a video to my blog. So you'll have to settle with a photo.
I walked into The North Face store next to where the brake dancers were and looked around a little.
I won a large gift card to this company a few years back and I still haven't spent a dime of it.
I started talking to one of the employees and I asked her if she knew of this ".... days" event near a beach that I was trying to find. She knew exactly what I was talking about and she even had a city map to give me. Things were going perfectly!
It was called Kitsalino days and it wasn't in a park. It was nothing like what I was picturing. Instead it was a HUGE street fair just up from the English bay beach. The beach was crazy close but after a several hours of walking to the street fair, through the street fair and then knowing how far of a walk I had ahead of me still to get back to the condo, I decided to skip the beach.
Tom's were not the shoes to wear on this particular day.
The street fair was full of food vendors, live music, art booths, and unique people. The fair held my attention for about 4 hours before I decided it was to
time to walk back towards the sea bus.
By the time I arrived to the condo my feet wanted nothing more then to kick back which turned out to be on the bed which meant an early bed time. It was definitely needed.
Sunday came and I walked around North Van before going back to the condo to wait for Alain to arrive. When he did he had plans to head out right away and get dinner at whole foods. We then took our chicken and salads and drove to west Vancouver with plans to eat on the beach and watch the end of day port activity as the sun set. It was a perfect end to my weekend.
We filled the rest of my time in BC with Crossfit together, exploring mountain bike trails but not ridding them. A tour of the Lynn canyon trails one evening that ended with is jumping into a water hole on a hot evening. The park was beautiful!
We explored Stanely park by ridding bikes over the Lions Gate bridge durng rush hour and then we made our way to the sea wall.
We biked around it being entertained by the beachcombers playing their bongo drums, dancing in drum circles, smoking weed, swimming in the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean and blasting their stereos.
We stopped at the adult only beach and cooled off in the water before pedalng to the end of the sea wall path where we biked into the city for a sushi dinner.
After dinner we rode like crazy kids thru the city down to the sea bus. Before boarding Alain showed me where the Olympic torch was lit during the Olympics and we checked out the outside of the convention center and a giant whale make out of what looked like Legos.
We hiked the famous Gross grinde to the top, several stairs later only to take in an excellent view and take a gondola back to the bottom.
Typical errands were included during the week with a trip to costco, Canadian tire (reminded me of a GI Joes) and save on food.
We found a fun Irish pub towards the end of the week where we stopped for drinks and to do some work on my computer. Alain was nice enough to help me upgrade my Mac as much as it could be at its fragile age.
On Friday we hiked deep cove in the mid afternoon and hit the city for a nice dinner that night. We dressed up and Alain took me to a place called glowbar that he had never been to either. I rode the sky train for the first time and we walked around around different districts of the city while witnessing the Friday night life.
Saturday we cleaned the condo for another showing and left for whistler. We stopped at Shannon falls to hike a lil ways in to see the waterfall and drove by chief rock, a famous rock climbing area.
As we got closer to Whistler we started looking for a campsite finally finding one by a creek. We set up our tent and drove into whistler with our bikes.
Walking around the village was first on the agenda and then grabbed lunch and went on a bike ride around lost lake. Did some fairly low key mountain biking as well.
Gelato and a movie was the plan fir the evening. We went into a market to grab some treats for the movie. Alain introduced me to cheesies (the Canadian version of Cheetos) we saw sex tape with Cameron Diaz which was awesome, totally funny!
After the movie we went to the DubLinn for really great live music and ciders. I heard, what do we do with the drunken sailor live. It was the first time I heard that song since signing it myself as en elementary school "Hopkins Hummer!"
After all that excitement we headed back to the tent to hit the sack.
We slept tell 10am and had veggies, crackers and dip for breakfast. We washed ourselves off in the brisk water of the fast flowing river next to our tent. I snuck over to the bank, hiding behind a tree I took some funny photos of Alain bathing himself.
We hit whistler for downhill mountain bike riding. 3 rounds for me! Holy crap I have a new appreciation for that sport! Alain bought me a trial pass to take the lift up with our bikes. I crashed on my second down hill trail! It freaked me out and Alain was so sweet, he was in front of me and didn't see me take the spill but saw me on the ground. He came running at me in a panic making sure I was okay. I was totally embarrassed.
That was an intermidate trail I crashed on and the first trail was a beginners so I opted for my last and 3rd ride to be on the big fiber trail again.
after my 3 rides we decided to have lunch at the GLC where Alain had a discount. We ordered a massive pile of nachos and I talked to Alain about the rest of the day and convinced him to go hit a few trails without me so he could go at his own speed and I'd chill inside while he continued on. And that's what happened.
I took the Bolt bus home Monday morning. It was my first experience on this bus but I has heard a lot of great things about it. I loved it! Friendly driver, electric outlets, reclining seats that were covered in a pleather and wifi.
Immigration at the boarder went fast. We all got off the bus with our luggage and went inside to show our passports and answear whatever questions we needed to. I went on to meet up with my dear friend AJ (Alissa) from my days at OCAC (Oregon college of art and craft). She lived on one of the islands near the San Juan islands in Washington. I stayed with her for 2 nights before taking the grey hound (not as nice as the bolt bus!) back to Portland.