Vancouver: An Arrival, a Departure

Over the past 10 days (June 19-29), I took a trip to Alaska with my parents, my youngest brother Tony, his girlfriend Ann, as well as my friend Jesse and his parents. It was an absolute blast. After taking three planes (Tallahassee > Atlanta > Toronto > Vancouver) I arrived in Vancouver on the afternoon of Thursday, June 19.  This particular blog post will explore those first few days in Vancouver. I’ll post more about the rest of the Alaska trip later.

June 19-21: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

That evening, I gathered up with Tony and Ann. They live in San Francisco and had made it out to Vancouver earlier than I had. When I arrived, I took a quick 20-minute trip on the light rail that went directly from the airport to the Yalehouse area we were staying in. This seemed to be a very hip, young, trendy area of town. We had dinner at The Flying Pig, a nice restaurant in that area of Vancouver (of note, they have another location in the Gastown area of town). Part of my meal consisted of poutine. It was delicious, but is probably better for late night drunks. And had I known what it was, I may have actually passed for a Canadian. It wasn’t until I asked what it was that the bartender/waitress asked if I was not from Canada.

Speaking of which, I love Canada. I have now been to Toronto, Niagra Falls, Windsor, and Vancouver. I’ll have to make it to Montreal someday. But every time I’m in Canada, it’s almost like America. The people are also so friendly and they seem to share much, if not all, of our culture. As someone told me today when I was describing my enjoyment of Canada, they said, yes it’s like America’s hat. Couldn’t agree more. But they must need that hat for the cold weather they get in the winter.

Later that night, my parents arrived and we were able to greet them before we all went to sleep.

On the second day, Tony, Ann, and I did a 5-hour guided bicycle tour of the city of Vancouver. It was really great. We rode around and through Stanley Park, which is the largest urban park in North America  – it’s 10% larger than Central Park in New York City and it includes a rain forest. Yes, right there in the city! The park has been there since the 1880s.

The bicycle tour we did was through Cycle City Tours. We did the “Grand Tour” of the city and Nancy was an excellent tour guide! The price was a little more than I’ve paid for other similar tours, but it really did include a lot of history. Also, it was not strenuous at all. We went at a very light pace, made lots of stops (including a 40-minute stop for lunch at the False Creek Market). We went through various neighborhoods, learning a lot about the beautiful city we were seeing before our eyes. I was quite impressed with Vancouver and the mountains that surround it. And just like we’ve done in other cities where we were not spending more than a couple days, I thought it was an excellent way to see the city. We are on designated bike paths for probably about 90% of the tour. How ideal.

A few things I learned: One of the bridges we saw was built by the Guinness family, in Canada they call Native Americans “First Nations” people, and they have the world’s large sea plane airport, along with the tallest radar tower. In the winter, they actually don’t get a lot of snow in the city, but they are just a 20-minute drive to ski slopes.

Later that evening, we met up with my parents at our hotel. (They had spent the day seeing other sights). From there, we walked about 20 minutes over to the Gastown district, where we did dinner. We ended up eating at a place called The Alibi Room. I had a good burger there, along with some great local craft brews. If you’re looking for a good craft brew in Vancouver, they are all over the place, but this restaurant had quite a few on the list, both bottled and draft!

After dinner, we walked up to the convention center area and we found what is considered one of the highest rated gelato places in the world, Bella Gelateria. This meant we had to find it and have some. We did, and it was fantastic. We then walked around the bay area there, saw the Olympic torch, and then walked back to our hotel.

The next morning, I got up and hit the hotel gym before ultimately getting prepared to leave on our cruise to Alaska. I was pretty stoked that I got in this much exercise already on vacation, but I would soon learn the cruise and its excursions would be a combination of relaxation, outdoor activity, exercise, and stunning sights.

We made it on the boat around 12:30, ate some lunch, took in our last sights of Vancouver, and met up with Jesse and his parents on the boat (they had arrived in Vancouver late Friday night) before we sailed under that Guinness family bridge and on to the last frontier, Alaska!