Thursday, October 30, 2008
Vancouver Photos
1. Gorgeous tree near our hotel.2. Kirsten in her office cubby at UBC.
3. Reflections in the Exhibition Hall at Canada Place.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Crossing the Border
In August we crossed into Canada to help Kirsten move into St. John's College on the UBC campus. The weather was hardly perfect--we got some real downpours after we had her things moved. We stayed at an uninspiring B and B in a nice residential neighborhood. Our border crossing going home was horrendous--2 1/2 hours of inching along.
We have just completed another trip "across the border" to take Kirsten her ballot so she can vote in the upcoming election. It was a much better trip. Going up we had a 3 car wait at the border--and coming home there wasn't even that. We just whizzed right through. The weather was fantastic--and the fall colors were wonderful. We spent Sunday afternoon visiting with Kirsten and touring the campus and then left her to her studies. This time we stayed at the Sylvia Hotel and explored downtown Vancouver. The Sylvia an old hotel with an amazing location on the waterfront near Stanley Park. The Sylvia has this wonderful old bar --perfect for sipping a glass of wine and watching the sun go down over the water. We spent Monday walking and walking and walking. Pretty much covered most of downtown Vancouver. What we can tell you is that most of it is under construction at present. There were worker dudes at nearly every corner. In the afternoon we did more walking into the park along the seawall. What we can tell you is that there are more babies (in baby joggers, strollers, etc) along this bit of beach walk than there are in all of Anacortes and maybe in Skagit County. Oh, and did I mention restaurants. Just a block from the hotel there was a whole street of restaurants--at least 6 in every block. (I think the whole city may be like this--except for the Univ. district where there seem to be no restaurants or grocery stores). We had Vietnamese, Indian, and Malaysian. The Malaysian restaurant was good enough to warrant another trip. On the down side, Vancouver is still one of the most difficult places to drive --even with our GPS. Luckily we didn't have to drive much.
On the way home Tuesday we stopped at IKEA--in itself a reason for "crossing the border". There is also IKEA south of Seattle but not as accessible as this one for us. We had a great time buying little odds and ends but nothing in particular. I found an alarm clock--one of those old ones that your actually have to wind up, (no batteries) and a mod bathroom scale that does take batteries. Plus we got a great little table for my mom in the scratch and dents.
Now it's back to the island routines. Will post some photos soon--I still haven't looked at them.
