After arriving by bus in Vancouver (on Thursday), Jenn and I
arranged our luggage on our backs and started the walk to the hostel. We stayed
in Gastown at the Cambie hostel with an attached bar and bakery, and it had a
very hipster vibe. The 20-minute walk took us through streets lined with tall
buildings and skyscrapers, very different from the 3-4 stories of Victoria. It
was clear we were in a metropolis with buses, skytrains, and cars whizzing
past. The city of Vancouver had a different flavor than most urban areas. There
was art infused throughout with theatres, street performers, and art galleries.
It had been 14 years since I last stayed in a hostel, and a
new experience entirely for Jenn. We walked in, not sure what to expect, and a
hippie in his 30’s from New Zealand greeted us in the laid-back but friendly
way hippies do. We paid for our ridiculously cheap room, were given 3 keys for
the many levels of security (a comforting realization) and a list of
instructions. We went up two flights of really cool hipster stairs, wait… how
can stairs be hipster? I will try to explain. The circular wooden stairs were
hidden behind the first level of security, and kind of worn, in the way that
makes it look like they might have been sanded to get that worn look. I think
that’s the difference between hippies and hipsters. Hipsters put a lot of work
into making it look like they’re hippies. Hipsters are showered, have groomed
beards, and wear organic, metal free deodorant. Hippies tend to go with the not
usually pleasant musk smell that can only be naturally acquired. The stairs
looked like they were trying to be old and worn.
Our room had a nice size and was simple, with tall ceilings,
a sturdy wooden bunk bed, hipster desk and chair (you know what I mean), and a
bathroom in the corner. That was it. There was no flat-screen tv, like our last
hotel, and not even enough space to unpack. The best part of the room, though, was
two nearly floor to ceiling windows spanning the length of the wall. This was
the kind of room that I envision myself living in, if I were cool enough to
live in New York or Vancouver.
We rested for only a few minutes, and to the annoyance of
our aching limbs, we headed downstairs to grab a light meal and find our bus.
We passed a few fantastic shops that could only be found in somewhere like
Vancouver. One shop exhumed a style that Lucille Ball could found in, with a
touch of Goth to make Ricky swoon. Other shops had sweet summery dresses to
match the warm weather. I literally skipped (so excited) away from a take-out
sushi place, eager to consume the oh-so fresh raw salmon and tuna that had
vibrant colors I’ve never seen for sushi. (For those of you unfamiliar and
probably a little grossed out by raw fish – the bright orange color of raw
salmon is very hard to find and means it is fresh fresh fresh!). We found a Tim’s
for Jenn and I think I inhaled my food before she found our table.
We rushed off to find our bus that took us down Granville
Street to the Stanley Industrial theatre to see Dreamgirls. This level of
production was somewhere between travelling broadway show and community
theatre. A lot of money was spent on set design and costumes, and the singers
were incredible! But like you would expect with local talent, the actors’ ages
didn’t quite match their characters’ ages. (Skip this paragraph if you don’t
want a review of the show). Despite the incredible pipes on Effie and the other
characters, I left the show feeling disappointed. I hadn’t seen the entire
movie, but I thought the musical might hold my attention better. Unlike Jersey
Boys where every song is memorable, has a distinct sound, a purpose and an end,
the songs in Dreamgirls were just musical scripts. One song bled into the next
without any closure or transition. Most songs sounded the same but I think they
were supposed to be different songs. It had the feeling of an opera in parts
where one person sung their line and the next responded with a different long
song. Additionally, though the plot was generally about how a few people made
it big in music and was loosely based on Diana Ross and the Supremes, the
character development was terrible. There was no hero or villain. You disliked
a character at one points and rooted for the same character a few acts later.
The same was true with multiple characters. It may have been a social
commentary about life, how there really never is a villain or hero, but that’s
not why I go to musicals. I want to root for the one good, kind person who’s
just trying to make it in this big bad world, and I do want to hate the big
meanie who’s trying to stop them.
Also, of the few hundred people in the audience, there were
less than 5 black people. I found this interesting because one of the themes of
the show was to break down the racial barriers and bring the black performers
in front of a mainstream, white audience. This was achieved, though I had hoped
that 50 years later, the segregation would be less obvious. I realize
Vancouver’s multi-ethnic vibe has more to do with the Asian/First
Nations/Indian influence, but you would think for opening night of an all-black
show would produce more diversity. I don’t really have a point with this
paragraph, other than I found it curious and unsettling.
The next day was full of walking and sight-seeing. We stored
our bags in the luggage area, had a complimentary fresh muffin from the bakery,
and went straight to my retro-goth store. We had a blast trying on 50’s and
60’s inspired dresses, and I had to leave with two. I have no idea where I will
wear these, but I have been waiting decades to find them. (No I’m not being
dramatic – I really have been looking for decades!!) We touristed Gastown, saw
the steam clock, Chinatown, the BC Stadium sports thing (for Jenn), and had a
long walk to Granville Island. Jenn hadn’t been in a public market like
Granville Island before, so we had a lot of fun walking by all the booths with
amazing fresh fruit, pretty art, meat and fish stations, and rows and rows of
sweets. Jenn settled on a nice Carrot cake cupcake for lunch and I devoured a
plate of sushi. Shocking, I know. I need to leave Vancouver before my mercury
levels skyrocket!
While on our walk, we happened by a park and took a few
minutes to swing. I’m not talking about dancing or anything dirty, just good
old-fashioned swinging on swings. They were definitely intended for adults as
I’ve never seen such tall swings before. The chains were at least 12 feet long,
so it took a lot of ‘pumping’ and effort to get to where you could see over the
pole. It was nice to be on vacation with someone as random and silly as myself,
to take 30 minutes to swing and take goofy pictures while doing so.
A bus took us downtown to do a bit of shopping in nice mall
with a two-story H&M. You would have thought the store was closing for how
frantic everyone was inside. The dressing
room had a 15-minute wait! I left with a cute, more wearable, summery dress
(than the retro ones) and a few flowers for my new hat.
I realized while touring around Vancouver what a commitment
it was to buy the hat in Victoria. The hat is too expensive to roll up and
leave in my bag (plus it would break it as it’s straw), but it felt funny
wearing it while shopping. The hat has a nice shaped brim, and is made by a
Canadian hat designer who distributes to very few places. I have one other hat
by this designer and just love how it feels when I wear it: like I’ve been
transported to a different era when people dressed leave the house.
We found a Mexican food restaurant for dinner – the only
thing that would tear me away from sushi, and I was pleasantly surprised. The
Tex-Mex I grew up on in San Antonio has spoiled me for Mexican food anywhere else.
The Bowling for Soup song ‘Ohio – come back to Texas’ has an awesome line I
have always identified with: ‘The Mexican food sucks north of here anyway’. I
belt this line with such vigor when the song comes on! Anyway, this restaurant
was authentic! I greatly enjoyed homemade flour tortillas and ate literally 3
times as many fajitas as Jenn did, haha. Life was good.
We went back to the hostel, retrieved our bags, and boarded
the skytrain (subway – transportation mode 4!). We arrived at the train station
an hour early, sat in our first class seats, and though we were excited for the
next 24 hours, we were mostly exhausted from walking miles in the beautiful
warm sun. We turned in much too early on lovely soft beds with fluffy pillows,
but justified it because the sun was down. We will leave the excitement of the
train (transportation mode 5) until tomorrow, when we will be rested enough to
enjoy it!
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