Vancouver – Dale and Becca

Travel across the continent

4am does exist. I don’t think it should. Nor do I think I should have to get up then.

Up at 4, quick shower, dress, and lug all our stuff out the door. We booked our flights quite soon after we decided to go, so we booked an 8am flight. 8am seemed like a reasonable hour. Getting up to be at the airport 3 hours before for an 8am international flight is not so reasonable.

Waiting in the subway, with all our lovely bags

We managed to check in with the lady, after our online checkin didn’t work, then our kiosk check-in didn’t work. She took a while – the computer was going slow, but she was very lovely and helpful, especially for it being 5am in the morning. She even sorted our seats so we were sitting together instead of separate. I want to send her chocolates. After that, we had to go through security. Shoes off, belts off etc etc. Forgot that custard counts as liquid, found out after we had gone through security, so we had to go back one at a time and eat as much as we could, otherwise we would just have to throw it out. After eating, we then had to go through USA Customs. I was taking an orange through (I thought it would be ok, as it was an orange from the USA, but no siree, not good), so we ended up going through extra screening to make sure we didn’t have anything else. Also, because we had been on a farm, they had to go find our checked bags, get them from wherever they were waiting, bring them to the special screening place, then scan them again. We had to sit around a lot. Then they had to send the bags back off to the plane.

Finally made it through, to sit and wait for our plane. First flight was 3-4 hours. Tea and cookies, and we watched Top Gear.

Changeover in Minneapolis (everything was snowy), then onto a little plane to fly to Newark, New Jersey. It seems that so many planes go through Minneapolis on their way to other locations. On the plane I slept for a bit, coz just soooo tired (my travel pillow immediately proved its worth!). We arrived at Newark Airport on time. Dale’s bag arrived, my bag, and the snowboard bag didn’t. After being the only one waiting alone, forlornly, by the empty carousel, I asked baggage services. Luckily my bags were only an hour behind me, on the next flight. Better than the people ahead of us in line, whose bags weren’t arriving till the next day. The thought of wearing the same smelly travel clothes for a couple of days made me sad. They also gave us free food vouchers while we waited. I bought a salad, knowing I should eat some veges at some point. Bags finally arrived, and Dale got the snowboard bag and ran off with it, and some poor guy came and took it off us..coz it was actually his. Turns out we had exactly the same snowboard bag. Our one came out soon after

We had booked to fly into Newark when we thought we would be staying in Manhatan, which we didn’t; ended up staying in Brooklyn. It meant a bit of travel once we arrived. We caught a sky train, then another train, then another train, then another train, all the way through the city to Brooklyn, where we only had a 2 block walk to our hostel. We are staying at NY Loft Hostel, which is really quite nice, it is a bit more of an upmarket hostel, although the shower next to our room is a sad one.

We grabbed dinner from the mexican food cart around the corner, and it was filled with delishuz. We sat down to briefly plan the next day, before falling asleep.

We have 6 days in New York, and need to make sure we do all the things we want to!

Bonus pictures of messy poutine from Vancouver 😀

Hot mess II - Nacho version, with guacamole, sour cream, salsa — Hot mess II – Nacho version, with guacamole, sour cream, salsa

Hot mess - poutine with mushrooms, pork, peas, — Hot mess – poutine with caramelised onions, mushrooms, pork, peas,

Vancouver Take 2

We got lost trying to leave Kamloops (gmaps doesn’t work well if you’re driving in anywhere that has highways and ramps, and you leave it on walking mode), then had lunch in the small town of Hope, before finding a place called Chilliwhack, where we examined a museum. Vancouver surprised us by being warm when we arrived, like 15 degrees, and a little bit sunny. has rained since then though. It likes to rain a lot in Vancouver.

The town of Hope is very specific about what goes on in its' parks. — The town of Hope is very specific about what goes on in its’ parks.

We spent Friday sorting out the car, which we sold and sorted that day. We also sorted our New York accommodation, and my flights back to NZ. A very productive day.

Saturday was time to see some more sights of Van, and we took a walking tour of Granville Street and Gastown. It was very interesting, and the tour guide was interesting and seemed to enjoy what he was doing. The main thing I took away from the tour was that Canadians like to drink, they like hockey, and they occasionally like to riot. Once, they rioted after they lost a hockey game (a very important one), but it is ok, because the next day they all helped clean up the mess. The town as a whole seems to like neon signs (they show up well in the rain).

The Art Museum. Protesters protesting outside

It was a bit chilly, and it rained a lot on the tour, but it was still good. We went out for good poutine with our roomate Emma, who was having her last poutine before heading back to Australia.
Sunday was just gonna be relaxy, but we heard bagpipes outside, and remembered that there was some sort of parade on, so we threw on some clothes and ran off down the street, where we watched the St Patricks Day Parade, (which had 6 different pipe bands playing!) and then wandered through the food stands and irish stands.. They had bands playing during the day, and people dancing in the streets (which were closed especially). The guy who was introducing the bands amused me greatly, by exclaiming that the weather was good! It was actually overcast, and the ground was wet.. but it wasn’t too cold, and most importantly, it wasn’t raining! The only sad thing about parades, as an adult, no one gives you candy or balloons. Even if you are wearing a fox hat :<

Unicycle bagpiping with flaming drones (not shown)

After lunch was stocking up on maple syrup, sorting photos for blog posts (boo), and discussing packing. I finally gave in and bought one of those bean filled travel pillows. The silly one you wrap around your neck. I’ve always thought they were a bit silly, and annoying. But in light of the last long flight I did, and knowing how much plane travel I’m doing in the next couple of months, I totally gave in and bought one. It has black plush on one side, and red and black smiley face Canada Maple leafs on the other. We have to pack tomorrow. Boo.

Saturday 21st December, 2013. Lantern festival

Woke feeling super sleepy, wandered around Vancouver, checked out some of the shops, figured out what other clothes we need so we don’t freeze here, and was still super sleepy.

The evening we went to the lantern festival, which marks the Winter solstice. It started with a small group of people walking down the street, following a few guys playing instruments, drums and a saxaphone.

The guys who led the people, playing their instruments

Was interesting, but didn’t seem that big a deal. We stopped in a park, ate pies and had a drink, then the marching line continued to the next park. Here there was a roped off area, and a whole pile more people were congregating. There, a group of fire dancers performed, with feats like a burning hula hoop, fire poi, and fire eating. It was a bit surreal, surrounded by the lights of the city, with fire and snow. You can’t see from the picture, but they had a post in the ground that was pretty much just embers, they must have lit it on fire earlier, and were using the embers now to light their poi.

Later on they had a lantern labyrinth, which was pretty cool, and a few other things going on: making light drawings with rice and stuff, and a planaterium, and a lot of artists doing performances throughout the night.

The final one we saw was a group of three people doing trippy music with a keyboard, guitar, drums, or a digeree doo. That room was all dark, with a crazy lit up balloon tree, and large lantern flowers. A bit trippy overall, but quite relaxing. People were just lying around enjoying the music.

Friday 20th December, 2013 – ferry boats and snow

We awoke to a world covered in a lovely blanket of white. The flakes had fallen softly all night, and there was a snowy glow in the air.

My phone had decided it was in Denver before I put it in flight mode for the night, as no reception, so the alarm was all wrong, decided a to wake us up at 5am instead of 8. Back to sleep for a bit, thenwe were treated to a delishuz breakfast of blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup. After breakfast we got driven in the 4wd truck, slowly to town through the snow. It was very pretty, with the fields all covered.

We picked up our tickets and caught the ferry from Friday harbour to Sidney, which was exciting, as it was where we were entering Canada. It was a bit more sad in Sidney, with the rain interspersed with hail and cold. We got offered a ride to the other part of the island where the next ferry was, which was about 15mins drive, but we got stuck in customs for ages as we were getting our work permits, so we didn’t get our ride. We walked the short distance (short yes, but 20mins walking with the packs and the snowboard in the rain was a bit of a pain) to town in the rain and hail, and managed to catch the bus. We had to run to catch it,which isn’t that pleasant with packs, but we made it. Most of the buses in both the us and Canada seem to like correct change, which is a pain in the bum. Luckily the bus guy accepted American dollars, and the bus took us across the island to Swartz Harbour. We got on a much bigger ferry, that headed off to Vancouver.
People told us that the ferry would be a lovely way to enter Canada, such a pretty way, to enter by sea… but we didn’t see a thing, just mist and cold and rain. Off the ferry, onto a bus, then off the bus and on to a train, then off the train and a wee walk to our backpackers. We are staying at the Samesun backpackers.. is not as nice as the Green Tortoise in San Fran, but it will hopefully do.
By the time we arrived we were pretty tired, we lay around for a bit, got dinner and then went to sleep