Wonderful Vancouver Vacation!

Just got back from excellent three-day Vancouver vacation with Emily and Rasha, both of whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, so I was doubly excited about seeing Vancouver and seeing my friends. I think it was actually one of the best vacations I’ve been on: No arguments, good food, lots of activities and going out!

Vancouver is kind of a mix of Portland and Seattle and is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a Pacific-Northwest city: Mountainous, cloudy, edgy, druggy, strong Asian influence (lots of sushi!), outdoorsy and fun in a laid-back kind of way. Rasha and I talked about it and came to the consensus that we’re just too mainstream and not edgy enough for Pacific Northwest cities, although they do make excellent vacation spots.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been in Panama for the past five months, but Vancouver seemed particularly expensive…a glass of wine cost about $9 and the cheapest bus ticket $2.50. The only thing that was inexpensive was sushi, which appeared to outnumber burger joints 10 to 1. I haven’t gone out in the U.S. for a long time, so maybe those are just normal prices and my perception is skewed by my time abroad.

On our first full day, we walked around the city and Rasha and I did some shopping while Emily visited the Vancouver Art Museum. I insisted on wearing four inch heals even though there was a heel nail poking the sole of my foot, but after about an hour of that, I realized the magnitude of my mistake and bought the first cheap flat shoes I found. So as of 1pm Thursday afternoon, I became about a foot shorter than both of my travelling companions in all pictures.

In the afternoon, we rented bikes and rode around Stanley Park, Vancouver’s version of Central Park, and it was a really amazing bike ride…lots of water, mountains and beaches. I was in biking heaven. Later that night we had a drink at our hostel where we were joined by a 70 year old man who informed us that men can have purses too and showed us his. He then started talking about the Canadian army’s role in Vietnam and let us know that 10 percent of Canada’s navy is made up of women. In a hotel full of mostly 20-something year old men, our group of three managed to attract a 70-year old grandpa with a purse. So anyway, we left the old guy pretty fast as he was pretty weird and went dancing for a couple hours at Hip-hop/soul/funk night at a local bar, which felt pretty much like your standard Adams Morgan bar, same kind of crowd and everything.

The next day, after a most educational and enriching trip to the Museum of Anthropology, where we saw a bunch of totem poles (see picture below), we headed to Wreck Beach, a fine nudist beach. The first thing to catch my eye was a young groom-to-be running laps around the beach with assless briefs and about a dozen cans of beer tied to his underwear. I guess that’s some kind of pre-wedding ritual in Canada. There were lots of naked old people and very few naked young people. Funny how the old ones like getting naked more than the young ones. We spent the evening drinking whisky at a very nice-pub like place with long benches and excellent ambience. The last couple of months in Panama really ruined my low tolerance, so a night out is no longer as cheap as it used to be, which is a real shame when one lacks money, which I do. Vancouver is apparently the Hollywood of the north and Rasha wanted to see some celebrities so we headed to Elixer after the pub, which is supposed to be ground zero on the celebrity-spotting scene. Unfortunately, they all decided to stay home that night.

And here I am, back in D.C., at least for the time being. Camping in southern Virginia next weekend! I am still looking for travel companions to Cartagena/Medellin, so spread the word…