Back in the land of Tim Hortons...

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As soon as we arrived in Vancouver, we went straight for Tim Hortons. We didn't even wait to get out of the airport! Any sad feelings we had about leaving South America were easily lessened by a maple dip donut and a hot chocolate! Just the idea of being able to get these treats whenever we want them is enough to make our trip back worth it! Oh and being able to flush toilet paper! You don't realise what a great thing that is until you've travelled through countries without adequate plumbing!!

So Jamie and I spent the first couple of hours just enjoying the wonders of the modern world. Oh the comfort!

Years ago when Jamie was visiting Vancouver by himself, he was mugged in the park outside the bus station. So whenever we've come to Canada, we've always bypassed Vancouver and headed straight for the mountains. Any attempts I've made to visit Vancouver (say on a stopover) have been scuppered by Jay, who will conveniently book our connecting flight within an hour of us landing. But this time I put my foot down. I took charge of booking our onward travel, and left enough space for us to have a look around Vancouver and do some emergency shopping (it's FREEZING in Canada!).

We only spent two days in Vancouver. The first was spent staking out all the Tim Hortons, and having a walk around Stanley Park (to burn off all the Timbits). The park is absolutely huge, and just glorious! Within a minute of entering the park, we'd seen our first racoon! I'd heard they were dangerous (still not sure if this is true) and kept my distance, but the cute little thing wandered right up to Jay and the camera. We saw squirrels and lots of different birds, and the walk around the harbour was spectacular. Jay checked out every single rock wall for it's bouldering and climbing potential, and we talked about our future and how exciting it all was. A new adventure! Canada! After all this time! 4 years spent waiting for our residency, and now we're here! It was fantastic just to walk around and soak it all in.

On Day 2 we spent our time shopping. Our bus to Jasper wasn't until 6pm so that was a whole day to find ourselves some clothes to protect us from the elements. Also, most of our other clothes were looking a little ragged (hand washing on a concrete washboard really takes it out of your clothes) and we needed to look respectable for our future employers in Jasper. It was impressive - in 8 hours we'd bought ourselves new jeans, work pants, shirts and winter jackets. We were prepared!!

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