Back to real life

After two weeks of being in Vancouver, I slowly started to get back into some kind of daily life. What did I do?

While still at Brad's house, I wrote my English resume to apply for a job finally. :P
I got the idea that it might be fun to work at an outdoor store (selling equipment for climbing, hiking, camping, cycling, etc.) - there are a lots of them along 4th Avenue and Broadway. Unexpectedly, this went pretty good. I gave my resume to several stores (one of them were looking for new staff at that time!). Still until now - no answer! But I am optimistic - as some of you might know me. If I won't get a job with them in a couple of days, I will go on searching, maybe starting with the hundreds of coffee shops, even though they don't pay that good.

Another task which I did was informing myself about the conditions of having a Canadian cell phone. I'm sure a lot of you guys know exactly that I have been some kind of a greenhorn concerning cell phones in Germany. And I don't deny it at all. So you might have an idea of how hard it was for me to find my way through this maze of contract conditions, monthly payments, etc. The whole thing became even more confusing as there are some "interesting" differences between Canada an Europe/Germany.

1. Usually in Canada you have to pay for outgoing AND receiving calls and text messages. Can you believe that?! How stupid is that!
2. When buying a prepaid card like I had it in Germany, you sign an obligation to refill the card after a certain period. If you miss to do so all calls (and again the outgoing as well as the incoming) and messages will be refused to be delivered.
Finally, I managed to find the (hopefully) right kind of contract for me and am now proud owner of a Canadian cell!

After I left Brad in Kitsilano - which has been a fun time with lots of beer, good Indian food, soccer games, free rides on the bus (hihi) and really easy-going guys - I stayed with Krista, a loving girl and surprisingly from Vancouver (!!!). I stayed at her amazing apartment in the middle of Downtown for three nights. These days have been the best days I have had so far in Vancouver!!! Krista, thanks so much for all your help and please say hello to your Dad for me!

Krista showed me some spots in Vancouver I haven't seen yet. We went to Commercial Drive - an alternative and culturally mixed neighborhood in East Vancouver with lots of Third-World-shops and small resaturants and cafes. After that she brought me to the most amazing icecream-cafe I have ever been. Can you imagine how hard it is to make a decision for one (!) icecream flavor when there are 100 (!!!) of them available?!?! Believe me this is not easy, but I had Krista with me for a recommendation: raspberry-chocolate-truffle - YAMMI!!!

The other day we cought the bikes and drove all along the seewall-cycle which goes around Vancouver Downtown and through Stanley Park, one of the biggest parks in North America! That was when I saw my first raccoon (yippie!!). Cute little creature but still very bold.

Krista is the perfect guide when food and drinks are concerned!! :D

We went to several bars, cafes and restaurants (met some of Krista's great friends), but still were keeping an focus on cooking meals on our own (Moroccon food, Chinese dishes and the best salmon I have ever had).

My next destination has been "SameSun", a hostel on Granville St. I only stayed there for a night. Why? Because I had a voucher for a 20-dollar-night (which is quite cheap compared to the other hostels). The other reason: This place is a crappy shithole (and again I appologize for my way of expressing myself!). Lots of teenies running around like idiots or sitting in front of there laptops all day long. I had to get out of there asap!

I moved to the hostel I already have been before awaiting Canada Day on July 1!

Good to know!

Hey folks,

since I just moved to Brad - an Aussie guy from couchsurfing community, I have a bit time to give you some information about Vancouver and the people over here that I found out and might be interesting for those of you intending to go to Canada. No statistics this time - I promise! Skip the passage if you still think that this is useless shit! (sorry for the expression!)

Food and Grocery: Basically, the type of food you can get over here is pretty much the same as in Germany, I suppose. However, the Canadian grocery stores are no alternative to the restaurants and fast food stores as far as money is concerned. The prices for grocery are way more expensive than in Germany. Just some examples:
- just cooked pasta with gorgonzola-cream-sauce, shrimp, onions and a pineapple as dessert for three persons - spent 21 bucks/17.50 EUR!!!
- alcohol: six-pack beer (0.33l) - 12 CAD/10 EUR!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't ask for the prices when you go out in a bar/pub...
- vegetables: tomatoes - over 2 CAD per kg
- cigarettes - normal package for 9 CAD
etc. ....

So if you like to grab some fast food (and I don't mean big MD or Burger King!), you'll probably safe a lot of money. On the other hand going to a restaurant in Downtown Vancouver always means spending at least 10 CAD for a medium sized meal.
As I told you before, Sushi is one good option to get a proper dish for little money.

transportation: Well, now the good news - The Vancouver public transportation is really good and not exactly expensive. The bus and SkyTrain network is pretty dense and it stretches all over Vancouver Metro (which also includes the outer parts of the city additionally connected by ferries and even floatplanes). 2.50 CAD is the regular price for 1 zone (which covers pretty much the core of Vancouver city); the ticket is valid for 2 hours which means that you can use it as a return ticket.
Please don't mind me mentioning one interesting behavior of the Canadians: Whenever someone gets off the bus, he/she always thanks the driver for the ride!!! In my opinion in Germany we should think about it, too!

locking doors: Well, Michael Moore proved it in his movies and it's true - Canadians usually never lock the doors to their homes (maybe Downtown is an exception in this matter). When I came to Brad's house in a quiet neighborhood named Kitsilano, the door was even open!

bikes: These days I heard that Vancouver is the city with the longest bicycle road system in the world, right after Amsterdam. Although it might not be true, it is a matter of fact that the city spends millions of dollars every year for new bikeways. It is possible to take the bike all the way around downtown by just using these bikeways - take a look on google maps to have an idea of the dimensions!
Some day I noticed bikes on almost every balcony of the apartments in downtown. Of course, I was wondering what this could possibly mean. The answer: In Vancouver the rate of bike theft is pretty high, a lot of guys over here told me about having a bike once before it has been stolen by someone even though they locked it in the cellar or the storage room. So when you like to explore Vancouver by bike - watch out!! ;)

Okay, that's it for this time. If you are interested there will be more of these short stories to tell... . :)

Action, please!

It's over a week now being in Vancouver and things are becoming better and better. The more activities I do and the more people I meet, the more my excitement for this trip grows.

I met a lot of great backpackers and local people over here and each and every one of them is linked to a story that is worth telling it. So let's start! Follow me on my path and I'm sure you will find my experiences as interesting and entertaining as I do.

Alex

I met this American guy over couchsurfing - a worldwide community of people offering there couch and/or apartments to backpackers and travellers for a few days mostly. Honestly, that dude is really crazy! And this crazyness enables him to entertain people in the most possible way which in turn is the best qualification for his job: being a tour guide (also see http://www.moosenetwork.com/).

So besides surfing his couch, I decided to go on one of his tours through the Western part of Canada. This time I went for a 2-days-trip to Whistler with 20 other great backpackers.

So we got into the bus in the early morning and made our way to the small town of Whistler - famous for the latest Olympic Winter Games 2010 and the most popular skiing resort in British Columbia.

We used the Sea-to-Sky-Highway, an extension of the amazing Highway no. 1 (also known as Trans-Canada-Highway) which goes all the way from Victoria on Vancouver Island in the West to St. John's in Newfoundland - so with 7,000 km one of the longest road systems in the world!

The Highway to Whistler is amazing - passing by beautiful waterfalls and snow-covered mountains (the Coast Mountains), all of them surrounded by forrests and water. Now and then huge rocks appeared almost out of nowhere which are a paradise for climbers (but let me tell about that later).

Whistler itself is just a big bunch of hotels and souvenir shops and very touristic - so in my opinion not really worth describing it.

While we had a whole lodge on our own instead of being in a hostel, Alex and I decided to go climbing in one of the many canyons and rocks nearby the other day.

It was awesome! We climbed several routes on granite rocks and enjoyed the not so usual silence in that area. A bit tired and exhausted we headed back to the others of the group. Some of them went to the so called "Peak-to-Peak-Gondola" which links the peaks of Whistler and Blackcomb Mountain over a distance of 4.4 km. Full of excitement they told us seeing a bear with three babies from above which I thought has been a pitty to miss - still climbing has been worth it!! ;)

On the next day Alex and I got back to Squamish where we had climbed the day before. This time no group was with us but the whole climbing area was full of people! Every single route on the rocks seemed to be occupied by someone - from the license plate of the cars I could read that they even came all the way from Québec!
All in all these three days were definitely the best days throughout my first week in Vancouver.

Julia and the Swiss

Julia is a German girl who joined our tour group to Whistler on her way through the main parts of British Columbia and Alberta. She and five other guys from Switzerland represent the huge number of Germans and Swiss I met on my trip so far. And although they are amazing and great people, sometimes it can be a little annoying to meet no people from other countries over here. It seems to me that Vancouver entirely is populated by German-speaking backpackers! :P

Mirijam, Julia, Valentine, Matti

I met these guys in the hostel Vancouver Downtown. For the first time being here in Vancouver, I wasn't able to find someone to surf his/her couch - honestly, I didn't try too hard though! ;) I was wondering how it might be to stay in a hostel for some days. Unexpectedly, it didn't take long to get in contact with the first travellers. Surprise, surprise!!! They are from Germany and Switzerland! :D
Anyway, we spent some enjoying days together: cooking, going to the beach, exploring downtown, eating Japanese HotDogs (try them, when you have the chance! They are way better then the ones you can get on every corner), eating Sushi (probably the only kind of food that is CHEAP in Vancouver!!!), etc.
The Highlight of these days has definitely been the tour to Lynn's Canyon. The tour guide was an elderly Danish guy named Erik living in Vancouver for several years and doing these kind of tours since 1995. He describes himself as "The Viking Globetrotter" and has been to every continent except Antarctica! It is amazing how much he knows about Vancouver and its architecture. We started the tour with some sightseeing through Vancouver and got to know a number of buildings that we haven't even took notice of.
After that we got on the bus to Lynn's Canyon from where we started hiking through the rain forest surounding the city. Yes, that's right: it IS "rain forest" actually. One of just a few temperate rain forests in North America. These huge areas of forests formed because of the massive amount of rain coming down from the Pacific Ocean. The clouds are being stopped by the Coast Mountains which leads to a high humidity in and around Vancouver. This humidity however has been the reason for our exhaustion just after one hour of hiking. ;)

Yuni


She is my new personal banking officer of Scotiabank where I opened a banking account today. ;)
It was interesting to learn how banking systems work over here. The result: positive - quick activation of the account (just 20 min), low paperwork (just one form for opening the account and one for the debit card), got my card immediately (!!!), Online Banking included, free of charge (need to maintain a certain balance).
Now, having an account on my own, this is the next step to my new one-year-life in beautiful Canada.

Vancouver

Being up for over 40 hours is something I haven't done for a very long time. Maybe that's the reason why I have been that exhausted on Monday when I finally arrived here in Vancouver. But let me tell it in the correct order.

I got up at 6 AM on Monday morning and immediately made my way to Frankfurt airport where I arrived at around 9 AM. Since my flight was going to depart at 3 PM, I had plenty of time to spent over there. It is pretty hard to find something to do fighting boredom at an airport. So I had a lot of coffee and a short breakfast. I also tried to get an internet access...you cannot imagine how expensive that is. There is a WiFi-access all around the area, but good old Telekom asks for 8 EUR/10.50 CAD per hour!!! I'm sure you agree with me that this is too much.

Anyway, I managed to keep me busy. The flight was delayed for nearly an hour but I used the time to get to know my seat neighbour, a Bulgarian woman who lives in Vancouver since the year 2000 and just came back from her vacation in Rome. We had a quite interesting talk about Canada's system of education and studying at UBC (University of British Columbia) and SFU (Simon Fraser University), both renowned and well equipped (as well as expensive!) universities in Vancouver. She also gave me some suggestions concerning finding a job or an apartment that is well situated and payable.

The flight itself has been uneventful. The good thing of arriving early at Frankfurt airport was that I have been able to choose the best seat available on the plane (which is of course the one directly next to the emergency exit). Why? 1. In the case of an emergency, I might be the first one leaving the plane! ;) 2. The space between my seat and the one in front of it is bigger than for the rest.
What I did NOT know was that because of the emergency exit you are always and permanently facing a draft that is even colder than the one from the air conditioning. Lucky I haven't got a cold!

The plane took the route over Greenland which was amazing to see. The scenery from above was beautiful: ice shelves as huge as a village or even a town, numberless icebergs swimming on the Atlantic ocean...ice as far as my eyes could see and in such a bright white that it was impossible to look directly in the ice fields for long.

I arrived in Vancouver after a 10h flight. After landing I headed for the immigration office at the airport to get my visa. And you know what?! I will never again complain about the attitude to work of German administraion officers! Four counters for nearly 30 persons...that's madness! Took me an hour to stand in line. Got my visa after all, picked up my baggage and left the airport to meet my hosts, Hannah and Richard.

They welcomed me really friendly. I felt myself at home immediately. After having dinner I went straight into bed. above: the view from the apartment on the skyscrapers of Vancouver Downtown

On the next day I started to explore Vancouver a bit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rMikFc6w_4).

Mainly focussed on Downtown. In Vancouver there is a huge contrast in society. On one hand downtown is full of beautiful parks and gardens, brand-new apartment buildings, skyscrapers and business offices, shopping malls and restaurants, all of them used by the middle and upper class. On the other hand especially on East Hastings Str there are a lot of homeless people, most off them adicted to drugs (so it would seem) or mentally and/or physically handicapped. All the travel guides I have read strongly advice to avoid this area, so I decided to go there and find out myself what it looks like. ;)
And although I never felt unsafe, I still got the feeling to get out of there as fast as possible.
Another thing that I noticed is the strong consumption of coffee in Vancouver. You will find a coffee shop at almost any corner. I heard that Starbucks for example alone has over 90 shops in Vancouver City!!! What a paradise! :D

Now, I have some plans for the next days but I will let you know about it later on.