Trendy and Chic in Vancouver

A Youthful Canadian City

A few years ago I was speaking with an older couple from Canada.  I don't remember if I was in line at the grocery store on a cruise or where else.  What I do remember was that the husband told me that if I were to ever visit Canada I should go to Vancouver, because it was a youthful city.  I wasn't completely sure what he meant by that, but I added it to my mental list of places to visit sooner rather than later.  

The very busy water ways of Vancouver, as busy with boats as seaplanes.

The perfect opportunity arose last year when I was looking for a cruise to visit my brother in Hawaii and I found one leaving out of Vancouver and ending on Oahu.  So I arrived in Vancouver by train from Seattle.  Then my boyfriend and I piled into a Prius with a trunk that wouldn't close over our giant suitcase holding our snorkel gear.  The cabby assured me it would be fine, but my nerves didn't calm until we safely pulled up to our hotel and unloaded our bags from the still open trunk.  

A bend in the train tracks in Canada, en route to Vancouver.

Vancouver is a city on a peninsula, with our hotel smack dab in the middle.  We decided to walk to the northern coast and around downtown.  I underestimated the size of Vancouver.  It is a huge city, and it took us twenty minutes just to reach the coastline before starting our exploration of the area.  The downtown area is filled with ultra modern sky scrapers that jut into the sky at oblique angles form the pavement, and it was bustling with people, including many tourists.  

Where was I again?  Oh right, Canada.

Of course the plethora of tourists made for a great location for a tourist information center.  Entering that information center proved to be on of the better decisions of our brief layover.  The center sold discount tickets for shows, and we snagged some last minute tickets to a comedy club show that night only a few blocks from our hotel (The Comedy Mix).  We love comedy and a show for less than $10 was a deal.  Knowing our show was not until later that evening and tired from our early morning train ride and subsequent wandering, we headed back to our hotel for a nap, snagging a snap from a Tim Horton's (a Canadian chain of coffee shop/fast food restaurant recently purchased by Burger King) on the way.

The ultra new cruise port in Vancouver shaped like a ship jutting out into the harbor.  Sails on the building roof contribute to the ship-like facade of the building.

I've been to many many comedy shows, but the show that night was the first one I attended while abroad and proved to be an experience.  Canada is just similar enough tot he US for me to forget I am in another country, and just different enough for occasional awkward reminders.  It started off with the club demanding two photo ids for entry for those close to the drinking age.  In my mid twenties I was not yet far enough away from the US drinking age of twenty one to pass without id.  I whispered worriedly to my boyfriend that I only had one photo id with me when I saw the sign.  He laughed and reminded me I looked well beyond eighteen years old, the drinking age in Canada.  I laughed at my forgetfulness, relaxed, and we went in.   

Downtown Vancouver is awash with modern style buildings and lots of seaplanes. 

The comedy show was one of the better I have seen, although I did get lost a few times when references to small towns in Canada or buying deli meat in grams came up.  Satisfied with our cheap entertainment for the evening, we headed back to the hotel to ensure we would have plenty of sleep before the start of our cruise the next morning.  We would need it.

By far my worst embarkation experience on a cruise ship was in Vancouver.  It started with the getting to the port.  Our ticket merely said to arrive at the Vancouver cruise port, which I assumed was the nice new building shaped like a ship we had explored the previous day.  We piled in a cab who took us to that location, only for us to be turned away by the port employees saying we were at the wrong port.  What?  How could this be?  Our ticket says the Vancouver cruise port.  As it turns out there is a second older port in the outskirts of the city (near the largest homeless encampment I have ever seen) where we were to meet our ship.  Our taxi scurried to the other port depositing us at the baggage check.  We then spent the next several hours standing in line on a concrete floor trying to get on the ship.  While I've gotten n cruise ships in fifteen minutes before, I do not expect that to be typical.  A thirty minute to hour wait is more my reasonable estimate, and I have plenty of patience for a wait of that magnitude.  The three hours I spent standing in cramped quarters on a concrete floor in Vancouver was unacceptable though.  I don't know if it was the port's fault or the cruise line's (RCCI) fault, but I hope I never have to endure that again.

Now that I am done ranting I want to return to how I started this post.  I mentioned an older couple who told me Vancouver was a city for young people.  After visiting, I have to agree with them.  It was a bustling city of mostly young adults in their twenties and low thirties.  So if you are that age range, visit Vancouver, sooner rather than later.