Vancouver

Sigh. I have a crush on Vancouver. I'm sorry Boston, I'm still married to you but my one night stand with Vancouver was very satisfying.

I lied when I said Ketchikan was our final port. Vancouver is where we disembarked and we spent the day and night there on Saturday. We rented bikes and rode around the perimeter of Stanley Park. What an amazing park indeed. Now before you play the next video please note the following:

1) My husband tends to be reckless and does things he probably shouldn't do.

2) His bicycling skills are piss poor. I mean when I was riding behind him it was unsettling. For some reason he pulls on the handlebars when he pushes the pedals and the result is, well, he's kinda all over the road.

So when I saw he was videoing while riding My reaction was this:




Now take note of the joggers he could have run down and that "line" in the middle there is actually a curb oh and the wall we could have crashed into on the left. Yeah, no need to worry there.

The park is really full of cool stuff like this crazy island that is just off the shore

And this artist that stacks the ocean rocks precariously:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/19/sports/la-sp-olympics-rock19-2010feb19

Oddly enough that's all I could find on the guy. There are some Youtube videos too

After a bit of lunch we headed to the Public Market on our bikes. This place is what Fanieuil Hall should be. Veggies and seafood and meats and cheeses and spices. No Banana Republic, real fricking bananas, thank you very much. I loved it.

We went back to the hotel with some olives and cheese had a snack and then off to Yaletown. Our first stop here was a place called The Keg. Now, when I say The Keg what do you think? A beer bar..maybe a little grungy. Nope. This place was like a trendy NYC roof deck bar. It was really nice but served three kinds of beer. At The Keg. Three kinds of beer. Huh.

We moved on after a couple of drinks to what is hands down the coolest bar I have ever been to. It's called Raw Canvas and the sign in the window said "Eat, Drink and Make Art." Color me intrigued. We went in and looked around. They weren't kidding. You can eat. You can drink. and you can make art. The front is a bar. Mismatched chairs and beat up wood tables but a very clean and trendy atmosphere. Go down the ramp into the back and there is a bunch of easels set up and you can buy a canvas and paint to your hearts content. Cool, cool, COOL! JP is screaming for a bar like this!!

Now what I really need to stress here is the people of Vancouver. If we had walked into a bar in NYC or Boston that had the trendy vibe that these bars did we would have been treated like crap. We were clearly tourists and Michael was wearing a sweatshirt. We were wrung out from our vacation and showed the signs. Neither of us was up for a night of gussied up shenanigans.The bartenders in both places could not have been nicer and more welcoming. In fact everyone we encountered right down to the cab drivers were so genuinely friendly.

And PS the people in Vancouver all seem to be really fit and beautiful. The only fat people we saw were carrying maps and looked lost.

I will absolutely go back to Vancouver.