Oh Canada

Daniel and I drove Vancouver, British Columbia for Labor Day weekend and had a blast.  We camped in a tent at an RV park - I'm not super adventurous and basically wanted a cheap hotel so we still had bathrooms, hot showers, a pool, and a hot tub.  It actually turned out to be an adventure though since the "sand" we were supposed to sleep on was actually gravel, the "4 man" tent we thought we were borrowing was actually 1.5 man (we still appreciate it dad! luckily we like snuggling) and the train that ran "near" the camp was actually on the other side of a hedge and literally shook the ground when it went by . . . at 1am and 3am and 5am.   Needless to say we didn't get much sleep and were quite exhausted but still had lots of fun.  We spent the first day exploring Stanley Park which was absolutely beautiful!  We hiked several miles through the park, awarded ourselves with delicious ice cream at Prospect Point, walked along the seawall and even dipped my toes in my first Canadian beach! The water was quite frigid but there were still lots of people swimming!  We drove around the city a bit and ate at Japadog - not impressed, especially after all the work it took to find it!  Because silly us forgot that we would have to pay a ridiculous amount to use our phones in Canada! We started freaking out when we reached the border because we realized we didn't know how to get anywhere, so much so that Daniel missed an apparent stop sign and I guess looked really suspicious so we had to go inside and get our passports cleared and wait awhile before they would let us in (At least I got my first passport stamp!!!)  Needless to say, we have become quite experts at finding Starbucks in order to use the wifi to find our way around.  And we resorted to good old maps so it wasn't too hard to navigate.   Our campground was supposed to have free wi-fi but it was HORRID and most of the time we couldn't even get a signal.  The next day we spent almost 12 hours in the city, going to the market on Granville island (where we had delicious food including wasabi chocolates, crepes, homemade salsa, garlic peanuts, and the most delicious raspberry chocolate French macaroon bought from a lady with a very thick French accent that I couldn't really understand).  The harbor was beautiful and the area was very industrial and artsy.  We then walked around the waterfront, took a seabus (unfortunately I was expecting a Seattle-like ferry, not so much) to North Vancouver and took in the beautiful skyline views.    We walked around gastown and ate at the yummiest "Canadian" restaurant, the flying pig.  We even tried "pounine" - and apparently super Canadian dish that was basically loaded fries.  Not much to write home about.  The weather was beautiful and luckily it only rained a little the morning we left.  We attempted to find some yummy places to eat for breakfast but every place we tried was closed! And then every place we tried in Seattle for lunch was closed too!  Apparently people don't eat on Labor Day?  But we did stop at a Canadian bakery and buy yummy treats with the rest of our Canadian money.  It was really nice to get away and it was beautiful.  The air there felt so fresh and the weather was absolutely perfect.  I highly recommend beautiful BC!

PS this is a lot of pictures, but after this maybe you'll have seen enough that you won't need to make the trip yourself!