How Aboot Vancouver, Eh?

Aaaah...Vancouver!  Where have you been all my life?  And why don't you have an American sister?

Vancouver has to be the one city that could actually make me want to live in a big city - and that takes a lot!

We arrived in Canada on none other than Canada Day (July 1), their national holiday similar to our Independence Day.  Crossing the border wasn't as easy as we'd expected.  We were interoggated with a barrage of questions:

Why are you visiting Canada?
How long are you staying?  Where are you staying? Do you have reservations? No? Why not?
Where is home?
What do you do for a living? (don't say you're currently not working!)
If you're not working, how can you afford to travel?
What states have you passed through?  Where are you going when you leave Canada?
Do you have any weapons?  Anything for protection?
What's in your car?
and on and on and on...

After finishing our interrogation (luckily no rubber gloves and/or lube involved), we headed straight for downtown Vancouver, to see the city and the Canada day celebrations.  More specifically, we wanted to see something we had read about online, the "Cannabis Day" celebration.  On 2 days each year - April 20 and July 1 - thousands of Vancouver citizens gather near the Vancouver Art Gallery downtown to protest Canada's national ban on marijuana.  British Columbia (B.C.), the province that includes Vancouver, is known for taking a liberal stance on the subject, in contrast to their conservative federal government in Ontario.  B.C. allows individuals to buy and use marijuana if they possess a medical card, similar to Washington, Oregon, California, and a handful of other states in the U.S.  But Vancouver has gone a step further towards full legalization.  They have a "coffee shop" downtown where open consumption is allowed, as well as at least one store that openly sells seeds and growing supplies.  Supposedly, open use is well tolerated in public parks as well.  On these two days (April 20 and July 1), however, as a peace protest against it not being totally legal, the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery becomes an open farmer's market for marijuana.

There are uniformed police all around the event, not there to bust anyone, just to keep the peace (which they rarely have to do).  This had to be one of the most amazing things I had ever seen.  I'm sure my jaw was dragging the ground the entire time.  Right there in the open - huge jars and bags of buds, tasty looking confections made with THC oil, rolled joints, pipes, papers, plants and the list goes on.  Pictures are worth 1,000 words, they say, so here ya go.

The pinnacle of the gathering occurred at none other than 4:20pm.  Thousands of pre-rolled joints were tossed into the audience (like candy at a parade) for everyone to light up together in one mass protest.

A cloud of "protest" did indeed rise above the crowd.  I'm sure a few of Vancouver's finest got a buzz just from the smoke in the air, standing at the perimeter of the festivities.  The event carried on for several hours afterward with live Reggae music and hip hop, which everyone enjoyed.

As we were leaving the rally, we noticed people lining the streets, preparing for a parade.  Unfortunately we still had to secure our accommodations for the night and couldn't stay to watch the parade.  With no parks that offered camping anywhere nearby (the closest was 2 hours away), we chose to splurge on an Econolodge in Surrey, B.C., a suburb of Vancouver.  Before heading off to sleep, we decided to browse through Couchsurfing listings for Vancouver and contact a few folks to see if we could find someone to stay with in Vancouver.

The next morning we had a response!  A lovely lady, Trina, was willing to host us in her condo near downtown Vancouver!  After a quick phone call to get directions, we headed straight there and were greeted by the super sweet Trina in her super nice condo right next to the subway and bus routes!!  After a quick orientation we were off to explore so she could get some work done.

We took the subway into town (super cool!) and our first stop was the visitor's center which had great maps and helpful people (it's true what they say about Canadians - they're so nice!).  One of the guides recommended we try Gorilla Food for lunch.  Our bellies were growling, so we headed straight there.  It was a raw, vegan, organic restaurant, located below a book store.  If it wasn't for the good directions and the sign above, we would've missed it.  We shared a delicious sandwich and enjoyed the cool atmosphere before heading off to Chinatown.

I know many cities in the U.S. have a Chinatown, but this was our first experience visiting one.  Everywhere you looked, there were open storefronts with bins piled high with all manor of disgusting, stinky, and sometimes unidentifiable objects.  Most seemed to be dried sea creatures of some sort or another.  It was part horrifying and part fascinating.  No, we did not buy anything, but it was good entertainment.

Next, we headed to historic Gastown.  On the way, we noticed several streets were blocked off and there police all around.  What was going on?  Certainly not a drug bust :)  Turns out, it was a guy threatening to jump off the roof of his downtown apartment building!   From what onlookers were saying, he had been there since 6am.  We never found out if he jumped or not but likely he had a change of heart after waiting that long!

Gastown was beautiful, with its treelined streets and old, interesting architecture.

We were lucky again when we walked up to Gastown's historic steam-powered clock right at 5pm and got to enjoy the Westminster chimes played by steam pipe!

Before heading back, we walked to the Olympic Cauldron, where the torch was lit for the February 2010 winter Olympic games.

We then took the subway back to Trina's condo and had a delicious meal of vegan sushi and asian coleslaw (luckily she was vegan too!)  We shared some great conversation before crashing on our air mattress in her living room.

The next day, July 3, we headed back into town, this time via bus.  Vancouver has these HUGE double length busses that run via electric cables attached at the top (like cable cars).

Some routes run every 3-4 minutes, making it very convenient.  Before hopping on the bus, we checked out their huge outdoors/camping store called Mountain Equipment Co-Op.  We headed to Commercial Drive, which was the hip, punky, vegetarian area of town and found an awesome, totally vegetarian restaurant called Cafe Deux Soleils.

We enjoyed an amazing lunch, then took the bus and subway over to the public market on Granville Island.

By the time we were done checking out the market, our feet were tired and we were exhausted, so we headed back and fixed up a Middle-Eastern themed dinner of pitas, hummus, and tabouleh with some of Trina's sunflower pate.

For dessert we had vegan crepes with strawberries and, since it was our farthest Northwest point, we felt it proper to pop open our bottle of nice French champagne, a gift from Tom at work.  It was magnificent!

The next morning we thanked our gracious host before heading back into the States for the 4th of July.  We were sad to leave Canada!

At the border we received an equally painful interrogation from US Customs and Border Patrol but made it through.  Next stop - Finney Farm in Concrete, WA.

Vancouver was beautiful and we'd love to spend more time exploring it someday.  Thanks again to our wonderful neighbors to the North!!!