Vancouver, Canada

As my time out west comes to an end, I knew I wanted to do one last hurrah before the big move back to Chicago within the next few weeks. When my dear friend Erin mentioned she could visit Halloween weekend I knew I wanted to either visit the San Juan Islands or head even further north up to Vancouver. Since Erin had already visited me once this past year and we did all the Seattle touristy things then and with boarders open and everything looking ok on our end we made our way to the City of Glass.

Vancouver is only about a 2.5 hour drive from Seattle so it was not a bad drive at all. I can also say I have now driven in an international country. Am I ready to drive in pretty much any other country, absolutely not. Too much stress and I don’t understand what the signs say or how to read in kilometers. Please don’t put that pressure on me again. I also noticed that streets in Vancouver are a lot more narrow then in cities in United States and their traffic lights blink. Poor Erin had to hear me ask why are they blinking every time we were in the car. Still doesn’t make sense to me.

Ok enough about blinking traffic lights and the metric system that I don’t understand. I loved Vancouver! It helped that we had perfect fall weather the entire time, low 50’s and sunny the entire time. Vancouver also gave me very strong Chicago vibes. Multiple times I had to pause as I felt like I was walking through The Loop back home. I also didn’t realize how large Vancouver was until I visited. You have the main downtown area where most tourists go then you have north and west Vancouver where most locals work and live. Everywhere you look there are different sub cities all around. And they are most definitely not wrong when they say that Vancouver is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. On any given day at any given time I could hear 5-10 different languages all within a few blocks of each other. Very cool experience.

This weekend was pretty much Erin and I walking around or finding random stuff to do till it became the next time to eat. Vancouver is definitely a foodie city. So many different foods that there is always something for someone to try and love. Everything from mussels to perogies to brie fondue to a thing called pannekoek which is a Dutch breakfast item that is between a crepe and a pancake. You will definitely not leave hungry when you go and visit Vancouver.

We stayed at the Pinnacle Hotel right on the harbor front and both of us agreed it was a great location. Hotel was nice, nothing amazing but the best part was that we could walk a block and be right on the harbor. Taking in the beautiful nature view around us, the sea planes taking on and off and the permanent floating dock that boats could pull up next to and fuel up. On Sunday the streets around our hotel were shut down for a filming production. They claimed it was for a commercial but I am not convinced that Meryl Streep was not in the limo that passed us by. But on the chance that it was a commercial and I ended up in a Canadian commercial please let me know. My mom would love to see it.

I will hands down visit Vancouver again if I ever get the chance. Would love to see it in both summer and winter. It’s a great city with friendly people and amazing food. If you are an outdoors person this would also be a city to check out. A little of everything all around. Thanks for one last hurrah Vancouver!