customs going into canada was a breeze, as expected. though they asked me increasingly detailed questions about my host Heather, they were unconcerned when my level of detailed knowledge was low and i rolled out into the lobby to find her waiting. we biked to her house (5 minutes from the train station, and past her favorite bike shop to boot), acclimated her dog to me, and chatted a bit before sleep--mostly me planning the next day with her advice, since she'd be occupied in classes for most of it.
morning arrived earlier for me than accustomed, since i wanted the nickel tour of her school and had offered to ride to campus with her before classes to get it. but the way i saw it, i can sleep all day in portland so up i got and we rolled in the freezing, but somehow not quite slippery morning; the moisture was more in the form of frost than ice and this was in fact the beginning of an awesome 4 days of weather--i saw no rain at any time from my detraining to re-entraining at the vancouver amtrak station (and even a fair amount of sun, which judging from the reactions of the locals, is at least as rare in the vancouver winter as it is in PDX). Heather's campus is downtown and that was about all the time i spent on the streets amongst the highrises as opposed to riding the waterfront trail. not that downtown is bike-unfriendly, i just wasn't going anywhere else downtown. aside from a funny/embarassing moment wherein Heather bemoaned the required presentation style of an upcoming class in a stairwell seconds before we found the teacher of said class coming up from a lower floor; plus a great view of the harbor, her (satellite) campus was just another high-rise building with a remarkable number of windowless rooms, so i skedaddled onto one of my favorite stops anywhere foreign: a grocery store!
i don't think i got to experience the full joy that is canadian grocers; the two i visited were somewhat-organic urban markets without huge selection, and i wasn't there for misc, just for pb&j, apples, broccoli, garlic, and applesauce. and the urban-ness was really claustrophobic--too much stuff in too little space to pass people comfortably. and i don't think this is a thing about geography or culture, just, both that i visited while in vancouver were facing the same major commercial strip and i guess there was a safeway down the block, but i didn't make it there. so, the natural grocers feel much the same as many others in the world. i did find that washington honeycrisps were the cheapest apples, and WTF? but hey, yum.
on my way back from shopping, i saw some excellent murals and a cute little pocket park that was full of mosaics, and took some pictures and thought to myself, "man, those mosaics look like cute little creeks". and then i thought "duh", as i saw the sign that labelled it mosaic creek park. this park was on a popular bike route that intersected the one that Heather lives on a few blocks away from her place, which was called the 'mosaic' route. and there were also (at least) mosaics on the roundabouts, a few houses with mosaic numbers. it was kinda neat to have a topically named route, tho confusing because the streets it used were none of them called mosaic drive. but anyway, happenstances involving cute public art are totally my kinda thing.
and speaking of, murals are seemingly even more a part of vancouver than portland and austin: even though both of those burgs are mural-friendly, vancouver is just overrun with the things. you'll see a few examples below. the last one there is on the side of a major road & train underpass along a bike route and while there is some graffiti there, it's minimal. it wasn't minimal along many other spots that weren't pre-arted intentionally, so my conclusion is: public art discourages lesser "public" art is definitely a budgetary win, even if i'm a bit conflicted about it as a lover of the better kinds of graffiti (see: banksy).
dropped back by Heather's for sandwichmaking and a bit of internaughting to figure out my route and then i was off, down the cycletrack that starts about 1/3 of a mile from her house--this cycletrack is two-way, gets snowplowed first, and totally used to be a lane of the entrance ramp to the highway. when i used it during my stay, i just about always beat the traffic queued up on the adjacent highway to my exit from the route, which was less than a mile down the way. i set off to try to duplicate my ride around portland, but all of my lollygagging (the waterfront was like the esplanade on a sunny winter day--crowded with a variety of stroller suv's, dogs on long leads, and inattentive pedestrians, only really full of interesting stuff and also curvy plus occasionally under construction and sometimes diverting bike traffic to the street and and and...well, anyway, not designed for travel at speed. plus the picture opportunities were many!) left me out at the tip end of the area having successfully circumnavigated much of the north part of the isthmus but without time to go deep south before returning to Heather's house in the north, so i'll save the second half for another visit. plus, there's a lot to the east, though the ocean constrains there being any more to the west, so i'm certain i was at the edge of the land for the entire first part of the ride at least!
during that ride, i could not help but noticing that vancouver's facilities were stellar! bike routes spaced intelligently across the entire city grid with great labelling even when they wander all over (reflective green signs with large arrows at every turn), bike-only crossing signals at major streets and nary a one without a button right at the curb to trip them without dismount, and i just generally felt like the city was catering to my active transportation joy. i got a chance to revisit stanley island (the only thing besides grouse mountain and a bookstore that i can remember visiting back during my only other visit, in circa Y2K), and try to ride around it..but i got bullied off the seawall path by construction and some movie that was being filmed, so i got to do some cyclocross portaging, some ridiculously uphill offroad riding and i ended up just underneath the lion's gate bridge. that is unfortunately approximately 200 feet above sea level, which is where the seawall trail is (unsurprisingly) located. i actually ended up walking my bike up some of what felt like 20% grade to get to the top, unable to pedal successfully in the gravel. shortly after my (huffy, puffy) arrival, an old man on a 3-speed from the dawn of time pulls up behind me, visibly not at all winded, and i feel ridiculously out of shape. or like he or his bike is magical. or maybe he's some zen bike guru version of mr miyagi. i'm gonna go with option 2, actually. definitely magical.
the rest of the waterfront trail was pretty and took me out into lands less populated, along beaches that were dog-free, people-free, and sometimes even beach free, with the bike path out right up against the sea wall and water lapping against it and even a few feet deep. the path was sometimes non-obvious and i at one point ended up wiping out as i followed it (i thought) into the deep sand. turns out i missed a turn and cut behind a boat storage facility onto the beach. oh well, i like sandy shoes, and i especially prefer falling on the sand to just about any other surface type. also: STOP! hammertime!
Heather had warned me that the last stretch up to the university (which owns quite a huge parcel of land at the end of the peninsula) was steep, and it was, but the views at the top were worth it. she'd also suggested the museum of anthropology to me, which is not usually my cup of tea, but then i saw that there was a Man Ray exhibit inside. i don't really understand his art but i do usually like it, so i bit the bullet and paid the admission. this museum seemed pretty not my kinda thing, with a huge room bigger than a gymnasium full of totem poles, and a gallery of woven baskets. the man ray exhibit was pretty disappointing, though a neat idea (original artifacts next to his art that featured them), and i prepared to leave dejectedly but got lost retracing my steps and ended up in a twisty maze of passages that was positively STUFFED with aboriginal/native artifacts of every kind imaginable and many i never would have imagined (there was no information about that wicker motorcycle. but it was awesome!).
this great hall was so stuffed, in fact, that i now need to go back and spend a full day just basking in some of the incredible stuff. i saw masks that were much like the ones that my friend jason brought back from new guinea, kimonos and samurai armour, dolls, heads, eskimo chess sets with iglous and polar bear figurines, and that was only a scratched surface, since the hall was quite stuffed beyond the available time in the week if you really wanted to read the little info next to every item--at least tens of thousands of them. very much worth visiting if you're in the area, but skip to that huge hall, since it is incredibly densely loaded with artifacts AND by far the most interesting part of the place.
now worried that i'd be late, i calculated an abbreviated southern end to my loop so i wouldn't have to retrace my steps (life is too short for out-and-back touristry; loops are superior!) which accidentally placed me on the shoulder to a 80 kph highway. still, the shoulder was large and lacked any debris, and my route was downhill, so i basked in going 25mph (i never did change my speedometer over to metric) for several miles, during which time i outpaced a random daytime coyote that was loping alongside the road. later, pondered the incredibly ridiculous real estate prices on the nice houses i saw; rode up a steep hill more slowly than the shuffling prep school kids were moving after a day in the classroom; passed a crazy bike-seat bus stop; and made it home to meet Heather only a few minutes late after all. we had a fairly unremarkable evening with mediocre thai food and an eventually successful beer run that terminated in a state run liquor store. but we got maple & chile/lime beer, so that was acceptable.
Sometime between last night and my first attempt to stop and spend more than $5, i'd managed to lose my debit card (the only charge card i ever use), which was kind of a bummer until i found my backup credit card which i'd happened to put into my money clip when i started carrying it again a couple months ago. so the day was saved, and our adventure continued: through chinatown, where we shopped in stores where nothing said made in china but everything was (and was priced accordingly), saw a jesus bird standing on top of the water--a frozen pond--in the Chinese garden, and visited the world's skinniest building (with Genuine Certificate of Authenticity from the Guiness Book of World Records hanging in the window).
on the way out of chinatown, laden in wicker and trinkets, we stopped at a chinese bakery where we categorically determined that all available pastries contain crack, or at least, something highly addictive, since we almost went back for round 2 before we were done with round one. at a later dinner party we heard the story of that same bakery, and how my new friend called the proprietors "the sticky bun bitches" since the chinese workers supposedly kept up a steady stream of customer insults in chinese when they thought nobody would understand. but someone once understood, and thus they earned the epithet. however, our buns were still tasty and life was still good.
after a quick series of hassles to enable my unused-for-3-years credit card for canadian purchasing power, we stopped by Heather's favorite bike shop, which by virtue of the very nice proprietor and the way it was the only bike shop i visited in vancouver, became my favorite too. check out jet grrl bike studio if you're ever up northwards! we had a very pleasant conversation with Tracy and we decided to stay long distance friends so we could continue to use eachother as sounding boards about when it was time to move to the eachothers' cities.
afterwards we went on a bit of a ride along the waterfront to the local quasi-arty-tourist-markety thing out on a well-connected island called granville. we perused artisan foods, food-colored arts, and drank some tasty beer at a major farmeresque market with nearby microbrewery just before heading up to a dinner party with Heather's landlords and some of their friends. but before we could even depart, we stumbled upon some very amorous gingerfolk. looming 12 feet tall and into the sloppy makeouts (though my camera wouldn't behave so you'll have to believe me--they snogged with spirit upon the slightest provocation!), they claimed to be honeymooning. yay, keeping vancouver weird! at any rate, the dinner party we ended up at sounds more somber--they were all gathering to remember a friend who'd died a year prior. But it was actually in quite good cheer, except for a memorial toast, and i met some really interesting folk--professional musicians, many, cyclists, a few, a filmmaker (his movie), (just the one) and more than a few drinks accompanied by very tasty noms. Heather was done by 10 but i helped shut the party down since i only needed to stumble downstairs, now with multiple offers to come visit folks next time i'm in town. whee!
so we ended up stopping at the deer lake, though we thought we were marvelling at the frozen beauty of burnaby lake instead until we asked nearby gps-bearing tourists for our heading. we giggled at some more birds sitting on top of the lake (which was also frozen) and then congratulated a dog who refused to follow a stick thrown which bounced off the lake--he was smarter than his keeper.
we decided to make the ride a loop (our route) and hook up with another cross-town special (eventually) and after some pretty incredible hill climbing ended up on top of a hill, heading down towards the skytrain tracks whereunder laid the 7-11 trail. yeah, look at that picture. it's almost as surprising as finding the mcdonalds health facility, but there it was, long and in ok repair, and much used since it funneled you to a skytrain terminal if you followed it long enough. there was art and great sunny weather and we made it home happy, though tired, a bit before dark. the latitude really gets to you up there, with the dark coming even earlier than portland. as we contemplated tired dinners and the siren song of pizza, we arrived home to find an invitation for a hanukkah meal with one of Heather's better friends in her group at school, and so we found a bit of variety at another cramped semi-organic grocer (fry broccoli and sliced garlic in a bit of oil for 1 minute on high heat, then lid and let steam for 5 minutes, salt and then you have simple pleasure!), a bit of booze, and then hightailed it to Jessie's house.
on the way there, a strange thing happened. though i found most of the vancouverian drivers to be polite and safe, and indeed felt generally at least as good about riding there as i did in portland and boulder, this evening was to have a different tone. hilarity! and not just at the dinner party. Heather and I pulled up to a stop sign to turn left, well lit and signaling, when a driver zoomed up next to us on the narrow street and so we called him out on it. the young man rolled down his SUV driver and asked us why we were taking up so much of the road. as we tried to explain that we were within our legal rights and about to turn, he gave a hearty "fuck you", pelted me in the chest with an apple, and sped off. all the layers i was wearing made an appleproof chest and i just stood there surprised and amused for a few seconds while Heather waited to see what my reaction would be. so surprised was i, that i forgot to get mad. but at least i deprived the yahoo of some of his nutrients! perhaps he will get scurvy as a result. or, you know, not. twas an interesting contrast between rather courteous and unhonky drivers and actually being assaulted. but it didn't get me down...
shortly after, we arrived just before Jessie's cousin Allan, who works for the Royal Canadian Mounted Patrol, who told us many funny tails of being a government man (but not a cop, honest!), and sometimes international representative of his country's law enforcement personnel. and we talked of technology, canada, childhood memories, family, and much else..and much hilarity ensued. such as a dramatic reading of one of Jessie's childhood books that read like high-school Dr. Seuss who hadn't yet had his lesson in poetic meter and scansion. but the interesting thing is that the book featured a "google bird"--copyright 1913, long before google.com was even a gleam in anyone's eye! a second great dinner party in a row!
Jessie was a new homeowner so there was much talk of how owning houses was treating us (but i think not so much that we bored Heather and Allan who also own houses but less newly so), but the incident that sticks in my head as indicative of the kind of constant hilarity at this dinner party was the toilet puzzler.
Jessie's house has only one bathroom, and it's upstairs, and it's divided into the toilet room and the everything else room. so in theory someone can soak in the tub but everyone else still gets to pee--all good! but the kitchen has the next nearest (and only other) sink in the house, and it's downstairs and around the corner. unwashed hands heading for food prep zone, aaaah! and Jessie, being the environmentally friendly sort, finds somewhere a fitting for the top of her toilet that takes the water to be used on the *next* flush and runs it through a basin when you flush (as the upper tank is filled), and you can use that stream to wash your hands! non-intuitive and even scary until you do the math (ok, yeah, i just flushed but this is clean water, right? right!). but since i used the toilet and then couldn't find the button to flush, i had plenty of time to figure it out while i searched and searched for a handle, a button, a foot pedal, a pull chain...anything! the house is 100ish years old so it could have been any of those things...but what it turned out to be was just hiding under the slightly oversized and thus overhanging (one size fits many!) toilet lid replacement, right where it should be but completely invisible from any angle at which you'd be looking, as long as you were not scrubbing the floor. it was Allan and my first time using it and we both took a fair amount of time to figure it out and then laughed as we retold eachothers' story of discovery and flushitude.
at some point, we all got to light a candle in the menorah as Jessie sang songs in Hebrew, and it was really quite a nice ceremony (that is, short and thankful and contaning none of the bad hallmarks of a too-worshipful ceremony for the less godly types). to cap the night off, we made some great cookies at about midnight, ate half of them promptly, and then rolled home and i proceeded to pack, since i had to head out before dawn for my 6:30am train checkin. it was probably 2 or so by the time i went to bed with the promise of an alarm going off 4 hours later. except Heather's went off 3.5 hours later and woke me up so i started moving, and thank goodness i did since i still only got seated about 10 minutes before departure, despite Heather living only 1/3 a mile or so from the train station.
arrived in seattle around noon and headed straight to Casey & Jennifer's to meet baby Draeger and hang out with Jennifer til Casey got home, then i hung out with the three Coopers until Cyndy showed up and there were 4! we ate, dranked, played with baby (who was surprisingly cute and even at his whiniest still rather well behaved) until the wee hours. friends whom you share almost an entire friend circle with and have for 15 years, though that circle may exist entirely at a distance of almost 1500 miles from any of your homes, are still excellent friends to spend time with. i can't recall much else about the night other than great times were had. but that's all it really takes for me to have a wonderful evening =)
that i only stayed in vancouver for a couple days wasn't really quite enough to make me feel like i was really in a different place--sure, i noticed only a single cop car and people talked a little different, and the childhood TV series references were closer to monty python than the dukes of hazzard, but vancouver really felt much like portland. i guess it's not much different except the canadianness--close enough to a major US metro area to feel its pull, cultures separated by only a small gap which is not ideological (they seem liberal, green, bikey, arty) and barely physical. the most easily observable difference was in the attitude of the border patrol people on either end. anyway, the vancouver vibe was copacetic to a dork of my type, but coming back to the states wasn't the culture shock i was almost secretly hoping for. perhaps next time i can stay for some weeks and get it right =)
Tuesday:
Homeward too soon?
tuesday i made plans to lunch with Cyndy and slept in quite well considering that Casey goes to work at 5am and there was a 6 week old baby in the house, but i slept through the night just fine and woke, showered, packed, and hit the road to land of Cyndy. the bike route was pleasant and i only got lost once. though i don't have a picture of any of seattle's bike facilities, they do beat portland in at least one aspect--sharrow density! if you thought 2 sharrows per block on bike routes is too many, then don't ride in seattle, where they tend to have 4 instead! but yeah, still got lost. just a little lost tho! as a bonus, and i even found a street named after me, but spelled like everyone thinks my name is spelled, on the way around town that morning...
i soon arrived at Cyndy's lab and she demo'd her fantastic chess-playing robot, who was winning handily when i conceded. (in the picture, the 'bot is taking my queen.) that led to some good pho + chatting + the usual promises to visit more often, after which i skedaddled trainwards and got to be "that guy", who almost missed the train, sprinted to the baggage car to drop off my bike, and was just getting to my seat as the train rolled. fortunately, the train ride was smooth and pleasant and timely, and i worked and wrote this trip journal for much of it. fear not, points north, i shall return and soon! there are already plans to come up for velopalooza and for the sort of good times that knowing a few folks on the ground (bike camping on vancouver island? sure!)