From Port to Airport: Vancouver B.C.

Getting off the Zuiderdam was quick. Clearing customs and finding our lime tagged luggage was not so quick, but shortly after ten we were ready to head out and find our hotel. Two helpful women convinced us to take the skytrain instead of a taxi. They assured us that luggage on the train would be no problem and they were right. We found the ticket vending machine which took debit cards, got our cut rate ticket, and headed to Burnaby.

Vancouver is like many cities, made up of many smaller communities. Burnaby is a little east and and north of downtown. Fifteen minutes on the train got us to the Metrotown station. On the train we chatted with an older man from Viet Nam and a younger man who is moving to Hamilton, Ontario soon. At the station, we were not quite sure the best way to get to the hotel. We were helped by two transit workers: one from India originally, the other from Kobe,Japan originally. After taking the elevator down, we crossed the street and left our luggage at the hotel.

We needed Canadian money, so our first stop was a bank which I was surprised to find open on Saturday. After that we ate lunch at Boston Pizza where I had soup and salad and Klep had a massive prime rib burger. We then started walking toward mass transit. Instead of the way we had come, we ended up walking about a mile before we found a bus stop. After a long wait, we decided that we really didn't want to spend the afternoon walking around a garden/park. We hopped on the train, went back to the Waterfront station, found a tour bus, and spent the rest of the afternoon seeing the different neighborhoods that make up Vancouver and many of the landmarks including the Olympic Calderon, the first Cathedral, the First Baptist Church, Stanley Park, Gastown, English Beach, Granville Island, the Burrard Bridge, Granville Bridge , Library Square, the old courthouse which is now the art museum,and China town. What really amazed us was the amount of high rise apartment buildings scattered through all the neighborhoods.This city is still very much alive in the downtown area with shopping and lots of people out and about on a Saturday afternoon.

We hopped off the Big Bus (http://bigbus.ca/home/) at the market area on Granville Island to shop for supper. We bought beautiful fresh cherry, Swiss cheese, and a fresh loaf of bread. We made our way back to the bus stop, caught the last bus of the day back to the Waterfront Station, found the train, and returned to our hotel where we ate our meal and watched the sunset over Vancouver.

Sunday we were marvelously lazy, spending a lot of the day resting. During a late lunch at Opa!, a Greek food place in the food court at Metrocity, we people watched: young Chinese girls in their Daisy Dukes, mothers in their saris, ethnic groups from all over the world. Vancouver is truly an international city.

Monday morning came early with a three fifteen wake up call. We loaded into a taxi and passed quickly through the empty streets with the sky just beginning to show predawn light. As we passed through customs, we ran into our new friends from West Virginia, Stan and Carolyn. We talked all the way through and then parted as they headed to Alaska Airlines' gate and we headed to Delta.

The flights home were uneventful with a long layover at the Atlanta terminal. We were home with the luggage in before eleven. It was a really good trip.The memories of wilderness, snow capped mountains, wild rushing rivers, glaciers, and good friends newly made will be with us forever.