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Published: April 4th 2009
Photo 1
Me with the usual BC accessory.You gotta hold your head up high and watch all the negative go by.
Don’t ever be ashamed to cry, you go ahead,
Cause life’s like a jump rope.
Up, Down, Up, Down, Up, Down, Up, Down, Yeah … It will get hard, remember life’s like a jump rope.
I want to tell you that everything will be okay.
That everything will eventually turn itself to gold.
So keep pushing through it all.
Don’t follow, lead the way.
Don’t lose yourself or your hope.
Cause life is like a jump rope.
Blue October - Partial Lyrics from the song “Jump Rope”
I arrived in British Columbia Canada on March 30th to a rainy cold day. I could feel the emotion starting to well up inside me as I was waiting for customs (which was only about 5 mins). When I arrived at the booth, we talked for 2 minutes and then he let me in … and said “Welcome Back”. As I drove through the gate, I could feel the tears start to flow. I pulled over at the Visitor Information Centre and just let it all out. I cried for about 5 minutes and
Photo 2
The first thing I saw when entering Canada. It sure felt like "the best place on earth" that day. I kept asking myself “why am I crying?” I could feel though that they were complete tears of joy. I was home.
Now it was time for my next “army” reunion of the trip. Back in January I was lucky enough to meet my old friend Lisa Bush whom I hadn’t seen for 25 years. Now it was time to see “X” again after a quarter century. That’s right, his name is “X”. I spent the evening with him and his family and met his beautiful son Marlow. We went out for a beer and chatted about old days and got to know each other all over again. It was great. I spent the night on his sofa, and then it was off in the morning to see Vancouver.
The clouds had lifted and the sun was out so I decided it was a day to see Stanley Park as I can never really know for sure what the weather will belike tomorrow. It was nice to walk around the seawall and see the regular sights like “Lion’s Gate Bridge”, “Woman in a wetsuit” and the lighthouses etc. It was extremely windy today so that made it particularly
Photo 3
Valeska, Marlow and X my old army cadet buddy. cold as well. I stopped for lunch in the park for some fish and chips (and to warm the hands and face up). Afterwards I found my car again, checked into the hostel and relaxed for the evening uploading photos, reading etc.
The next day (which was April 1st) was rainy and cold again. I headed off to the University of British Columbia. When I arrived at UBC there was a spot to pull over to see a map of the campus so I decided to stop. I got out of the car and to my horror I realized that it was in fact not raining but snowing. I looked across the street and the snow was forming a thin layer on the grass. I took a picture as proof! UBC had a nice botanical garden and a tree top suspension bridge. I enjoyed both in spite of the rain/snow. The garden didn’t have much in bloom yet, but it was still beautiful and peaceful. This would definitely be a great place to visit later in the spring (and on a sunny day).
After the gardens, I thought it time to find my favourite store … Mountain Equipment
Photo 4
Marlow ... the cutie! Coop. I punched it into my GPS and it gave me an address in Richmond and nothing else. I thought that was kind of weird but I decided to check it out anyway. I knew I was in the wrong place when I was getting close and I was in the middle of a warehouse district. Nothing was there. I decided to head back into the city again. After I got close, I tried again. This time, it came up with two stores, one on Main Street so I thought I would give it a try. When I got close to the place, I parked my car and walked to the store about a block away. Guess what …there was no store there but instead there was a Starbucks. I decided to go in as I knew those “yuppies” would know where it was. I was right … a few of the customers gave me directions to the store. That location was never in my GPS … I will have to report that to the Garmin Gods. I bought a new pair of hiking pants and I was a happy camper (pardon the pun).
My next stop was Chapters
Photo 5
ok ...another picture of Marlow ... I couldn't resist taking pictures of this beauty. where I raided the ESL section of the store for about an hour and bought a couple books about teaching and learning grammar (of which I desperately need to keep plugging away at before my course starts).
Thursday April 2nd was my last full day in Vancouver. I went out in the morning to Granville Island. I bought a few little things (like a container to carry my banana so it doesn’t get squished in my backpack) and then it was back to the hostel. I decided to have a little nap which accidently lasted a couple hours. I woke up at 2:30. It was time to finally walk around Vancouver. I went to Robson Street, Gastown, Chinatown (including beautiful Hastings Street - those of you that know Vancouver know I am being sarcastic) and Yaletown.
I made it back to the hostel around 6pm, just in time for my next “army” reunion. Nitin and I are going to have dinner together and we haven’t seen each other in ... you guessed it … 25 years. Nitin picked me up at 7pm, made a quick stop by his place then walked down to Yaletown to have dinner.
Photo 6
Woman in a wet suit ... I sooooo wanted be her on that rock! We ate at Glowbal and it was awesome. The food, the wine and the conversation were all great. Again, we talked a little about the old days and then spent time getting to know each other again. After dinner, I relaxed in the hostel and hit the sheets pretty early as in the morning I was going to catch the ferry to Vancouver Island.
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