Beautiful British Columbia

I am sitting in a café in Vancouver as I am writing this. It’s my last day here and that’s sad, because it took only little time to fall in love with this town.

I left from Hilo for L.A. at night, a week ago. The waiting area at Hilo airport was very hawaiian. There were huge lounge chairs with hawaiian patterns and ukulele music playing. When I got on the plane I had checked in my carry-on as well, because the plane was booked out. I talked to some Canadians that were on their way home. They are such nice people. I will have problems to get accustomed back in Berlin and probably get punched in the face for smiling.

I had the seat at the aisle and there was a guy sitting at the window. The seat between us stayed empty, so I placed my ukulele there. He asked if I played and from there we pretty much talked for half the flight and slept through the rest. He was from Ukraine, but works in L.A. now. We had the same humor, so time flew by quickly. We talked about, how he finished to read Animal Farm and how I always wanted to read it, because I try to close the huge gap of „books you should read“ that is left from the time, when I didn‘t like reading as a teenager. When we left the plane he gave me his copy.

It was 5 a.m. L.A. time, so it was time to get some breakfast. The people around me got breakfast burgers and fries, but since I had been on a healthy food frenzy over the last couple of weeks (I‘m counting Bennies as healthy food), I bought a yoghurt with granola and fruit and a coffee, which would leave me with a nasty yoghurt-coffee-breath, but this time I was smart and had my toothbrush with me, in consideration of my seat neighbours.

When I arrived at Vancouver I might have met the only unfriendly Canadian in town at the immigration desk, who screamed at me, when I didn‘t understand what he mumbled. But I was too tired to get nervous and just answered. I picked up my rental car and drove to one of Vancouver‘s secondary schools to pick up my Airbnb apartment key. Eric is a teacher there and was super nice. I wasn‘t supposed to check in before 4 p.m., but as I didn‘t want to leave my stuff in the car, he let me in earlier, but had not cleaned the flat yet. The area around Main Street in Mt. Pleasant was very nice and the flat was cool as well. There was an extra bedroom and a kitchen/lounge with a balcony. I only dropped of my stuff as I had promised Eric and left the flat to explore the city until he would have finished cleaning, after work.

I had some errands to do, so I knew exactly what to do and where to go.

1. I needed a new rain jacket, because now I was in Vancouver and it was only a question of time until it would start to rain

2. I needed to get a stamp for Elle‘s birthday card

3. I wanted to shop for groceries, because it was time to cut shorter on the twentysomething dollars breakfast checks.

So I walked and walked and walked. There was still snow on the side streets that I took to avoid the traffic. Getting the rain jacket I wanted, is a long story I won‘t tell. But I got one… not exactly the one I wanted (it has a different colored zipper, something that I thought I would never buy… way too outdoory), but it works and it hopefully will for the next ten years. I have some friends in Vancouver‘s Patagonia store now… and in the one in Victoria.

Laura and Steve had told me about the indoor market on Granville Island that I thought would be somewhere outside the city. But somehow I stepped into it by accident. I bought some very nice bread there (here comes the bread again), had a coffee and hung around a bit. From there it is either a walk over a big bridge with lots of traffic or a ferry ride to get to downtown. I decided to take the ferry, which was a nice ride and only took like two minutes. I did the typical „when in America/Canada underwear shopping“ and slowly made my way back to the apartment. It was five already and Eric gave me his OK. I did my grocery shopping near the apartment. I really needed to do some laundry, so I did. I went downstairs with my bag full of dirty stuff and a bottle of Tide, dressed in my clothes that did not need washing and that were not to be seen by other people. I had my pockets full of coins for the machine. After I put in the laundry and the detergent, I realised that I didn’t have any 1$ coins. But the machine needed exactly 1$ and two quarters. So, of course, I had to go outside again to find a place to change my coins. The apartment was so well heated, that everything would dry very quickly. I ate my bread with olive oil and avocado that evening and went to bed early, still tired from the flight.