Vancouver Vancouver, this is it.

2008-03-20, Vancouver, Canada

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Day 1 in Canada. After a relatively good night’s sleep we cashed in on the free breakfast and headed off in to the city. For those of you interested in our sleeping patterns, we were briefly interrupted by an odd rustling coming from the corner of the room. Other than that we got a good 8 hours. Vancouver was pretty cold and a little wet. Apparently it’s always wet in Vancouver. With not a great deal planned we decided to explore the city by foot. We spent the morning browsing in shops and having the odd coffee. We stopped in at the city cathedral, a lonely planet recommendation. Despite looking rather plain from the outside it was quite spectacular inside, especially so due to the organ rehearsal taking place as we entered. Presumable they were getting some final practice in for Easter. After that we headed to Stanley along the sea wall past a couple of marinas and the exhibition centre. Stanley park was very pretty but probably a lot more enjoyable in the summer. We considered going to the aquarium but when we got there we couldn’t be bothered. Lunch was calling so we headed back in to the city in search of a recommendation that had since closed down. We settled on a nice little bar at the end of Denman Street and stuffed our little red faces. With the rain hammering down we made the most of the beer on special before heading back out for some more city strolling. In the evening we headed out to an old fashioned diner around the corner from the hostel. Inside it was decked out like a proper 50s diner complete with chrome, vinyl booths and duke boxes at each table. For less than the price of a ride on the tube we fed ourselves then headed back to the hostel to sleep. It turns out that a seven hour time difference takes some getting used to.