Monday June 22, 2015

Today we had to get a new SIM card for the phone. We went to Best Buy and were able to see all the available packages and opted for Virgin, they are linked to Bell, hopefully we will get a good service all the way across the country.

After we got the phone sorted out we had a wander around Central Vancouver.

It is an interesting City in the sense that there are a lot of high-rise condos and therefore a lot of people living in Central and downtown Vancouver.  Whereas, in other big cities most people live on the outskirts and commute into work.

The condos are not the average square boxes, some of them have very interesting shapes.

This is a livable city in the sense of good transit, lots of cycle lanes and small neighbourhoods, but very expensive.

The average condo sells for $1,000 per square foot, 750 sq feet = $750,000.00.

We went into the Bill Reid Art Centre, but the price although not expensive was above our budget. We really have to stick to the budget on the last leg.

We walked down Granville Street all the way to Granville Island and had a lovely walk around the market area.

Then we caught the little ferry back it was so neat.

The Hostel is on Granville Street and is surrounded by bars and restaurants, with all manner of people wandering up and down the street.

Vancouver is a big bustling city, I quite liked it. I felt safe, but maybe that is my perception of Canada. Ralf was not so sure, I could sense him being very attentive of our surroundings.

Of course Ralf always spots a car or two he likes.

We missed seeing our friends in Vancouver. Laurie who was at our wedding almost 30 years ago, lives near Tsawwassen. We thought she lived in Vancouver, so we contacted her brother (Shaun) in the hopes that we might be able to connect with Laurie and Gregg. Unfortunately if we had known where she lived we would have taken the ferry from Sidney and could have popped into see her on the way up to Vancouver. Although it was nice to cycle up Vancouver Island.

The other friends we will miss seeing are a lovely couple we met in Cuba (Carol and Doug). Carol had been checking my blog and knew we were in the area. She offered us a place to stay for the night. Unfortunately, we needed to be on the road tomorrow and she wasn’t available on Tuesday night, which is when we would be in her neighbourhood.