You have reached your final destination.

Cannot begin to tell you how incredible that sentence is. Not that we were travelling for that long, but it does make a big difference when you finally arrive in the country you plan on living in.

We hit Van City on Thursday, and headed to Kitslano to crash at our friend Carla’s spot. Kits is a suuuuuper cute area to stay in, right on the “beach” (I use this term loosely), nice little strip of shops and cafes, and only a 5km walk into Downtown.

The main purpose for hitting up Vancouver was to get the admin side of life sorted, which we smashed out in half a day! We got our Social Insurance Number plus great deals on a sim card and bank account (Virgin Mobile and CIBC if you’re wondering). The banking system is so backwards here, they still use cheques, have only just begun using internet banking and most of the bank will charge you for internet transactions.

Once we finished the boring things, we took advantage of the sunshine and hit up Stanley Park. After the longest wait for an average burger (there are always downsides to travel), we grabbed some bikes and road the seawall.

The ride was so flat and the bikes were amazing to ride, 14km went by so quickly.

This cool kid.

The sunshine continued through Saturday, and with Carla not working we had a buddy! With a car!
After an amazing brunch (following from Perth traditions) at The Oakwood, Carla drove us all out to Lynn Canyon to walk around the falls and NATURE.

Doing this little walk has gotten me so excited for living in Whistler, hiking and riding every day!

Rewarding ourselves with ice cream, naturally…

Our little group headed into Gastown in the evening, for drinks and dinner. I managed the dinner portion before taking myself home with a mother flippin’ cold. NOT HAPPY.
Gastown is very cute though, old school-style gaslamps on the streets, cool little restaurants and bars down alley-ways. I hope the others enjoyed it to it’s fullest!

We took Sunday a little easier (easy like a Sunday morning, some would say) due to my stupid sickness. Not wanting to waste the whole day though, we did a quick visit to Granville Island for chicken noodle soup and pot pies.

The markets are gorgeous, full of fresh fruit and vegetables. We, however, were drawn to a different kind of dessert;

We had to try a maple donut in Canada 😉

After this I basically retreated to the couch for the rest of the day, but we did manage to watch Eurovision and laugh uncontrollably at the outrageousness. This made me feel a little better 🙂

Hi Canada! I like you, I think we’ll stay.

Hanbel.
x