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Published: March 13th 2007
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Sunset
Me and Andy loving the sunset Well after leaving Calgary it was going to be quite hard to get back into the swing of things with the travelling. Luckily we have started with Vancouver. It is easily the 'Nicest' city that we have been to. We left Calgary yesterday in bright sunshine, and arrived in Vancouver with terocious rain! It made us less homesick though, with the green grass and lots of rain. It wasnt the best start to Vancouver that we would have wanted, but we stayed positive.
The hostel is good, it has a lot of space, and most importantly the room is comfortable with nice beds. Once we had droped all our bags in our room, got ourselves comfy we decided to brave the rain and go and explore. Got our raincoats and went to see Vancouver. We are very close to a main restaurant and shopping street, so we walked around and got a feel for the place. We then had the best and most stupid idea of this holiday yet......we decided that we wanted to see Stanley park.....wait for it......via bike! "But it was pouring with rain", I hear you cry, and yes you are correct the rain was coming down
at a very fast rate, but we just had to do the bike through Stanley Park thing.
Needless to say that we got wet.....very wet.....VERY VERY VERY VERY WET! Actually we were pretty soaked after 2 minutes cycling (before we even reached Stanley Park). But we were enjoying it, and that was the main thing. The hard thing was that the brakes were the other way round from English bikes, we i went to slam my back brakes on, and jumped around a foot in the air, and nearly went over the handle bars! We cycled along the sea wall, and got some amazing views of downtown Vancouver, and the harbour and Stanley Park. It really was a beautiful place...even in the rain.
After around 45 minutes of cycling, we realised that we were getting very wet and cold. This probably wasnt the best for my throat, but i didnt really want to miss out on this opportunity. We were soaked to the bone, very muddy, our shoes were completely water logged, and we were tired. So we decided to head back....after another 20 minute cycle to get back to the shop, we trudged back to our hostel (buying an unbrella each on the way...which kinda defeated the object, oh well) and jumped straight into the shower.
It was a lot nicer being in dry clothes and shoes as you can guess. We both wanted to do a good amount of diary writing, so we relaxed on our suprisingly comfy beds and caught up with everything we had missed. We both wanted some warm food after our previous outing, so we decided to go for some Indian - Horah! So we went out and found what seemed like a very nice Indian. We were greeted by a weird, fat, white Canadian trying to speak Indian and wearing a dress - oh well you can't win em all. The food was good, if not very hot and supprisingly cheap (only cost us 7pounds each for food and drink). After this, we were both tired so decided to sleep it all off...and we did....for 11 hours!
Day 2 in Vancouver started well, with us sleeping in and feeling nice and refreshed. We missed the breakfast at the hostel, so decided to just start our day and do what we wanted. We got my favourite North American breakfast of a cream cheese bagel and orange juice at a local coffee shop, and started off. We headed to Vancouver harbour through downtown, which was very nice and not too busy which we both liked. We caught the sea bus over to the other side of Vancouver and then caught a bus up to Grouse Mountain.
Grouse mountain is the highest point in Vancouver, and you get a fantastic view of downtown Vancouver Island. There is also a ski resort up at the top, which was hard because me and Andy both really wanted to ski! It was great to see the whole of Vancouver...it isnt the largest city, but it does have a lot about it. We got the large Gondola up to the top of the mountain which was pretty special and enjoyed that, there were quite a lot of Englishmen working there, obviously quite a popular place to work. We even got a free
sleigh ride...which wasnt as exciting as it sounds - but because there was so much snow, it just took you to different points of the mountain....at around 3 miles an hour-- yawn!
After this, we headed back over to Vancouver Island and spent some time down by the harbour. Vancouver is quite famous for its sea planes, so we saw a good amount of them take of and fly into the mountians. Sadly we arnt rich enough to take a trip in one! There is some interesting arcitecture and artwork around Vancouver, not always to my taste, but some amused me slightly!
It was then late afternoon already, so we walked through the city back to the hostel, and spent some time on the computers (writing this blog for one), and doing the washing of the clothes from yesterday -- Very Very muddy! Its great reading all these emails you guys are sending me, I love hearing all your stories from home, and I miss you all very much!
We were told that English Beach was a great place to go, so we decided to try and see it during sunet....but we realised the sun was setting already -- so we ran as fast as we could for 5 mins to get to this beach, but it was worth it. Its the first sunset we have seen, and it was so unbelievably beautiful. It was so red, and shimmering on the ocean. We took so many photos, but they dont do justice to just how beautiful it was. Im sure there will be many more of these at NZ and Oz, but this really finished of Vancouver for us nicely.
We really loved Vancouver, it is a city of beauty and people are so kind and happy. People seem to liek the city themselves, which is different from other places we have seen. I am finishing this of at vancouver airport (in the nicest air canada lounge yet), and we are about to get our plane to San Francisco. California here we come!
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Lexi
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hehe
In the sunset picture, you look like you have pig tails!