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Vancouver, Calgary and Banff (28 May - 6 June 2008)

"When I think of all the things the USA has done for the world, it makes me proud to be... a Canadian!" I heard that on a TV ad once hehe, but anyway happy 26th birthday to me. This year's destination: Canada! I've been seriously considering making the move to Vancouver when I leave the UK, and so I used this trip as an opportunity to scope the place out for myself after hearing so many good things about it. Calgary and Banff National Park aren't too far away and so I threw in some camping and a small road trip just for fun :)

Typical fucking British day for our departure, although as it turns out we were to get a lot more of this crap while Edinburgh actually basked in glorious weather.		The flight was long and boring - 11 hours of flying from Glasgow to Vancouver. The movies were boring...		...and even reading was boring evidently - this guy was asleep hehe.

Looking down somewhere over northern Canada. Not much happening down there.		Just to make a long flight even longer, we actually landed in Calgary, sat on the ground for an hour while Calgary-bound passengers disembarked and their luggage was chucked out, before taking off again for the final hour's flight to Vancouver. This is looking over downtown Calgary. We'd be back here in three days.

Just west of Calgary are the Canadian Rocky Mountains - pretty bloody spectacular! We'd be back here somewhere in four days.				Looking towards downtown Vancouver out in the background, with more mountains even further out. If you get lost in Vancouver just look for those mountains - that's north :)

After the 11 boring hours we were finally here! Vancouver is in the state of British Columbia on the southwest coast of Canada, not far from the US border into Washington State. The city's population is a bit over half a million, but the population of the greater metro Vancouver area is over two million making it the third largest in the country. Almost half of those two million have a first language other than English making it a pretty ethnically diverse place (so I'll have to avoid the good racist jokes if I move here ;)		Canada: home of the 'Mounties' (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) with their cool hats!

No such thing as a toilet or dunny or shithouse here - they have washrooms.		No such thing as soft drink either - they have pop hehe.

And they've stolen Beef Jerky from the Yanks. It doesn't look overly inviting, but it's pretty yummy!		We stayed just south of downtown (13 blocks south in fact, on 13th Avenue). All of the suburban streets in the area were lined with trees from end to end - pretty (but probably a real bastard in autumn, or fall).		We arrived at 8pm local time (4am UK time) and so we were pretty stuffed, and did nothing but eat and sleep the first night and spent the next two days exploring the city.

The south end of downtown looking east, shot from Burrard Bridge.

The first thing that really struck me was the architecture of the skyscrapers - they all look the same, with a particular emphasis on glass!		The second thing that really struck me is everybody seems to own a boat.

So yeah the Vancouverites seem to love big glass buildings...		Greenery...		Greenery on their big glass buildings...

Cycling and rollerblading (which suits me fine)...				And Starbucks. Lisa supposedly counted 53 along the one street we walked from south to north downtown (I'm not sure about her math and counting skills though).

Oh and totem poles - they're everywhere!				Vancouver is hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, and south of downtown is a mess at the moment with the Olympic village being built here.

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