Day 1: The eagle has landed
September 9, 2012
We made it! Getting to BC is definitely an accomplishment by itself because you have to endure the 10+ hours flight to get here. Luckily, our drive to Frankfurt and the flight itself went smoothly, with Katrin and I having three seats for ourselves.
We arrived in Vancouver at about 5pm local time and took the SkyTrain downtown, and then the bus for the last stretch to our hotel. The hotel is … well, basic, and kinda old, with bathrooms shared for the whole floor. Nevermind that, it’s cheap and we’re not here to stay indoors. We took a quick stroll down to the shore (photo above), looking towards North Vancouver and Stanley Park. After that, we bought some light snacks at a nearby Safeways (open till midnight) and returned to the hotel, where we fell into a very natural coma for the next twelve hours (the jet-lag-b-gone sleep).
We rose at 9am today (Day 1) and began the day at a small breakfast shop on Denman, with a cream-cheese bagel and a mug of good ol’ coffee. After that, we decided to start our day by taking a quick walk around Stanley Park (about 10km). We shared the trail around the park with lots of other people, from joggers to tourist to people participating in numerous charitable jogging/walking drives. Walking around the park gave us a really good impressions of the general dimensions and directions we will be heading tomorrow. After we left the park, we walked downtown where we wandered about aimlessly, looking at many store windows and a few small shopping malls. Our final destination was the Canada Place, where two cruise ships were anchored, busy performing their safety drills. From Canada Place, we took the promenade along the shore back home for a quick refresher.
At about 6pm Daria picked us up at our hotel. By now we had walked more than 20km, but luckily, Daria had two additional bus-tickets, so we took the next one to Gastown. Unfortunately, this is where the Vancouver weather kicked in again, with light but constant rain coming down. We strolled through Gastown a little while before settling on the Spaghetti Factory for dinner and a nice beer at a nearby brewery.
Now we’re beat again, both exhausted and probably a little jet-lagged. But I still managed to squeeze out a blog-post using the free Wi-Fi here. You probably won’t have to read quite as much in the next few days.
