Touchdown

Well, here I am in Canada – all the planning and plotting has finally come to be! First impressions are great. In and out of customs in about 10 minutes, an e-mail from my AirBnB saying to check in whenever it suited and then a taxi into town.

The flight was easy and relaxing – movies, a brief snooze, not a lot to eat, but no complaints about what was served. The 16 hours went in a flash.

My first experience with AirBnB was fantastic. I was staying in a ‘cosy south facing loft’ as part of a 2 story walkup about 5km from the CBD (or Downtown as its called here). Cost was about $90 AUD per night. It was very comfortable, nicely furnished, had a big bathroom with toiletries supplied and breakfast included. Have the run of the place and my hosts, Tanika and Jeremy, are wonderful – so friendly, helpful and have made me feel like I’m at home. It’s the only accomodation I’ve booked for the trip and I’ll be here for 3 nights, so it’s an auspicious start. I arrived at 8.00 am, was unpacked and settled by 9.00 and then headed off to check out Vancouver.

Tanika had said to bring wet weather gear and something warm. They’ve had a rotten summer. It’s been glorious though – perfect weather, with blue skies, the sun shining and 20 to 25 degrees. Most of my gear is with the bike and I only had jeans, so needed to buy some shorts PDQ. Didn’t expect to get sunburned on my first day.

I has a few jobs first up though. I’d managed to leave my toilet bag behind, so had to replace the lot. For those that know me, that’s not the slightest bit surprising. Also, I needed to get a SIM and some data. This proved a bit more problematic than I expected, but I finally found a mall full of telco’s. I bought a local SIM through Virgin for $5 CAD and paid $35 for 1 gig of data. Calling through it was far too expensive, but I found $10 phone cards which, at $0.02 pm for international calls, was pretty cheap. Nice to have some connectivity away from WIFI.

Started off walking into town until I picked up a bus. I got the system worked out pretty well after a while – it was very easy to get around and an all day pass on any public transport was about $8. There was a really surprising cross section of people on the streets – so many nationalities and lots of demographics. There were also a lot of homeless people and men, in particular, that were obviously struggling. Also, lots and lots of tattoos – especially the girls! A pretty liberal place it would seem.

I wandered around for the day without any real destination in mind. Gastown is an older area by the water – lot’s of places to eat and drink and plenty for the tourists to do. Found my first coffee and it was excellent. I was terrified it would be impossible to find respectable coffee, but that fear would seen to be groundless (excuse the pun) – might be different as I get into more regional areas though.

Had a late lunch in a little Mexican restaurant – I couldn’t be much further up the North American continent from Mexico, but what the hell. The reason I stopped was it was packed with locals – always a good sign and the burrito was excellent. I ended up on Granville Island in the afternoon. By the water (obviously), it’s also pretty heavily touristed. Lots of buskers, markets, food and entertainment. Was pretty busy on a Sunday, but a good place to while a few hours away. Bratwurst for dinner and a couple of beers before taking a little taxi boat up False Creek to grab a bus and home.

It’s been about 32 hours since I last slept – amazing that I’m still upright! Feeling OK, but time for bed. In hoping to avoid jet lag, I stayed up purposely and didn’t really sleep on the plane. By 9.00 pm (only just dark) it’s time though. Reckon I’ll sleep well!