Vancouver

We spent in Vancouver 10 days, a bit more than we thought we would, but we had great time there and we met great people. It was the first big city after we left New York nearly four months ago. Did we miss big cities? I think we did, surly some aspects of them; the first thing we did, after arriving to Van, was to go for lunch. But not just anywhere – we went to an Ethiopian restaurant; up until then the only ‘exotic’ food we came across was Chinese…

We wanted to stay longer in Vancouver, because there was few things we had to get done and only big city offers this services; first of all catch up a little bit with blogging (hope you can appreciate this; for those who haven’t checked it yet go to ‘route’ – Marta spent the whole day mapping our trip!), fix/buy/exchange some equipment (unfortunately one zip in our tent stopped working, but luckily we found a tiny repair shop run by an afghan guy who replaced the zip for $20, so we didn’t have to go through the whole reclamation process, that would be pretty complicated for us; apart from that we had to exchange the sleeping mat that was faulty and to get some more bits and bobs) and last, but not the least check our bikes. By the time we arrived to Van, we had over 5000 km on our speedometers – high time to do a check-up. We made small research and found out that there is in Van a community bike shop, as they call here places like The Bike Station; and so we visited one that works pretty much like TBS (we hope to write a bit more about this place and any other alike we come across soon). The things we were concerned the most were our wheels – if they are nit well centered they can get damaged quicker and after that many kilometers the spokes could easily lost tension. And so we were content to find out that they need just little adjustment – well done ‘bikeys’! (and those ones who built the wheels!)

We obviously did some sightseeing as well and we truly like Vancouver. It has just the right size (excluding metro), right location, not bad climate at all and great vibes. There are lots of green areas, plenty of beaches, ski resort 2-hour drive of town and plenty of nooks to discover. Our favourite place was Granville Island (thanks Justyna!), a tiny peninsula just outside of Vancouver Downtown, where there is always something to do – market with local food, arts&crafts, live music, small shops and galleries, we could wander there around for hours…Vancouver (and area) are definitely on our bucket list; maybe was the people, good weather, great time we had there, amazing food, but definitely Vancouver make a great impression on us. But this is most of all thanks to the people and their hospitality.

Justyna, Michael and little Lily, thank you guys so much! It was so good to meet you and to connect! If we ever did a list of most hospitable people, they’d be the leaders with little Lily on the top, as she let us sleep in her bed and in her room for all 10 days! But there was more than just warm welcome, we connect, had fun, we made friends and we hope to see them again.

And, thanks to Justyna, we discovered raw food. And Raul was so happy! J I’ll write about it soon an share some recipes for those who dare to try.Hhowever, the principal of raw diet is eating food raw, which means no cooking, roasting, baking etc., no high temperatures as this is what kills enzymes and all good stuff food naturally contains. The only process you can use is dehydrating. So we made our attempt to prepare dehydrated cookies; well, they were edible J still lots to learn…We tried some amazing food prepared by Justyna and we left their place with three big bags of dried fruit. We cannot wait to experiment more with it once our adventure is finished!

Victoria

We spent in Victoria just one day, but we like it a lot. We had only time to stroll around downtown, get lost in their little Chinatown, have our ‘good-bye-Canada-and-well-done-guys!-Canada-completed!’ dinner (that we were again invited by some Angels, Thank you very much!) and in the evening go for a walk along promenade in Victoria’s little port and listening to great live music there.

It was also our last day in Canada and we felt a bit sentimental; over those three months we got to like Canada, or shell I say BC and a bit of Yukon? We haven’t even seen half of this country, but what we saw we liked a lot and what we experienced was only positive.

Thanks to all of you, who made our Canadian experience so special!

m.