vancouver 7 years later

i had missed these logs!and just seeing the ocean, although b. says this is not really "the ocean". also, my memory is SO unreliable! throw in a bit of extra construction, and i'm hopelessly confused. i got lost on UBC campus!! though i have to say, the construction level since 2010 has been more than "a bit". i had to dig an old picture from 2008, of my view over downtown and compare it with present-day view to prove ppl/myself that i'm not crazy. the number of new buildings is out of this world!

but quiet spots are still as nice as i knew them. here's me with lora and gladis at spanish banks on our day 1 in vancouver. a bit too far apart for a typical band-posing-for-album-cover look. (i was wearing a hat!! this is may 13th.

dogs having fun at the beach. we met many more dogs in vancouver than we do in montreal generally. my tentative explanation is that people have more money/space...?

very noisy kids, exploring

breakfast with lora and gladis. this trip i went to town on ALL the pastries on Main and Commercial - i had just been on an inventory walk from broadway up to 14th: cobs breads, 'bean around the world' and JJBean and kafka's. usually i'd come back with at least 3 pieces of baked goods: huge zucchini/chocolate muffins, white chocolate/raspberry scones...i don't do this in montreal (working in a bakery, duh) - maybe i was just missing bakery smells

the start of a walk around false creek on a weekend morning (sunny, to boot!) brings the surprise of boat racing

this is something i had not yet seen during all my time living in vancouver, so it made me feel very touristy.

muddy park full of dogs and kids, with the eternal background highrises, and the permanent (we'd just arrived! i was cautious!) raincoat worn just-in-case.

closer to granville island. i was pretty sad we'd missed all the spring blooms (apparently they lasted just a few days this spring), but revelling in all other kinds of vancouver-typical vegetation.

these ducklings (in the creek next to granville island) were bigger than the ones in regina, less green :), and obviously taking some sort of diving classes, with adult supervision: floating around at an even pace, and all of a sudden 2 or 3 of them go under - it was really fun to watch.

this bead shop is like a fantasy of mine come to life. plus the purple color is amazing, didn't come out well in the photo. glad to see it still there, this was one of the small vancouver memories i was holding on to

new-to-me developments on granville island...

and this girl who considered it necessary to walk with her arms inside her shirt unbeknowst to her grandmother (i assume) the whole way around granville - yes, i was semi-stalking her.

window selfie

old wooden statue on the boardwalk

this is from steveston, where gladis drove us at the end of our day 2 in vancouver. it's one of her favourite places around the city, she comes on weekends to buy fresh fish from the boats. apparently this is where the fraser river meets the ocean, "the real deal", more ocean-smelling than the city beaches. so this was another touristy activity for us (my first time there too, obvs!) and we learned about the fishing village and the canneries. very interesting, and definitely one of the high points of the trip! (oh, and we were walking behind lora and gladis all the time trying to take cute couply pictures of them :))

boats at sunset. i swear in vancouver it gets dark at least half an hour later than in montreal. why?!

me and lora against the back wall of georgia cannery

b. was taking dozens of these pics. apparently dusk is a challenge that has to be taken on

surprise of the night: the relocated (to steveston) 'romania breads': in 2007-2008 it was called 'transylvania breads' and it was on broadway, in kitsilano. i never bought anything from there, not necessarily because i thought it too expensive, but back then io hadn't even gotten to the level of "this is too expensive" - i simply wasn't buying anything if i could help it. anyway, this time we stopped to talk to the owner (past closing time, but we saw him inside and apparently lora&gladis are quasi-frequent customers). we had a fascinating conversation about the invariables of romanian politics and driving across the canadian shield lol

b. always makes best friends with any pet in a house. here he's posing with lajos, lora's friendly (and high-maintenance) dog:)

eating burritos at budgie's: one more thing crossed off the list

i lived in this place for 1 1/2 years, most of it on that chair next to the window, in front of my third-hand laptop. it's a bit strange to come back as guest in someone else's house, but such is life. i was glad to see the apartment again, and see how much it is the same, but different. clearly much tidier, huh.

one of the very few pics we took of visiting UBC (also featuring my new hoodie - see below). this is walking down on the trail to wreck beach. the campus is too big, too town-like - and i got lost!!most of the buildings i didn't recognize, didn't know how to get to the library from any other point than my department building, had a mini-crisis because they were renovating the SUB...but on the trail everything's fine.

wreck beach art photo. no nudists around, maybe because it was around 15C. not many people around generally.

this cat lived in the house where we airbnb-ed for 3 days - she was always there on the back porch one level below us.

and a view of the back alley from that place - i find this house so typical east van that i had to take a picture

on our way to stanley park, another touristy attraction point. somebody gave this lady some flowers, and i was trying to approach her about them :). but i also liked the details of her dress and sweater.

this is your classic "yes, we've been there, folks" picture. couldn't have done better.

instead, we took about 50 pics of this heron grooming itself, and declared it a great sighting

i couldn't have missed the chance of getting lost in a rhododendron wall

back in west end. laughing at kids running around laughing statues

overpriced cupcakes because why not. i will use this photo to mention all the food i haven't taken pictures of because i was too busy eating it. so many good meals out!! i'm just not instagram-ready, i guess. there was the sushi we had at sushiyama on broadway (b.'s first sushi meal ever!), the fish and chips downtown, a whole dosa palace dinner spread, Banana Leaf, what else? the meals our various hosts offered us, and those b. cooked for them (i am the sous chef = assistant chopper mostly)

walking in our temporary neighbourhood, somewhere around fraser and?? 13th?

and another quintessential east van image, right next to sonja's place as we were waiting in the car.

house on commercial drive, on our last evening in the city

and the last cat we made friends with before leaving

 things i avoided doing: spending too much time downtown: either in gastown/souvenir shoppey area, or along the route of the 20 (though we did take the 20 through there a couple of times)

things i thought i would do and never had time for - dozens:
- didn't go windowshopping in kits. (i had planned to leave some worn clothes behind and replace them, a pair of jeans and a hoodie; i ended up buying a hoodie in a second shop on main on a rainy day (6$ extremely well spent) but no jeans and definitely no hours contemplating potential buys)
- no china town, no sun yat sen garden and no carnegie hall - for some reason i had described to b. very enthusiastically how we'd walk all over there one day - ooops
- no queen elizabeth park :(
- no going up/down past 45thto little india
- no walking by the ocean from UBC campus into the city
- no meeting people, except 3-4 individuals, whom we stayed with. i was torn about it, but, it was just one week! most of which time our internet was patchy, so annoying to make plans.

but all in all, of course it was a successful trip, and it produced a truckload of inside jokes/memes. we'll see about the memories. right now all that is SO far away, as i'm again immersed in our weird rainy montreal summer.  a very different rainy from the west coast one:)