After driving through some pretty bad traffic trying to leave Seattle, we continued north for about two hours to reach the Canadian border. There we encountered a very suspicious border agent, who asked all kinds of questions from the usual, “how long are you staying” to “are you working” and “let me see your AirBnb reservation.” I guess he didn’t run across too many people who stay for a month, while continuing to work remotely! The final question made me smile: “What does your license plate mean?” After I explained that is an abbreviation of “Alexandria Singer” and that I belong to a pops chorus back in Virginia, he finally let us into Canada. 

We actually stayed in a suburb of Vancouver called Burnaby. It was a quieter area, but still with lots of restaurants and shops to explore. Our AirBnb was next to a library and community center, and behind those was Confederation Park, a grassy area encircled by a running track. At any time of day, many people could be seen walking, running, playing ball sports or Ultimate Frisbee, or even doing Tai Chi. One day, we saw a couple who had brought their toddler and Pomeranian for a walk around the track. They had brought a large remote controlled car for the toddler in case he got tired along the way. What was funny is that when we saw them, the man was carrying the baby, and the dog was riding in the car!

The weather had definitely changed to fall at this point. The highs were in the 50s and it rained at least 50% of the time. Apparently this is very normal for Vancouver this time of year! So we suited up in our raincoats and tried to do as much as possible. We walked around Chinatown, and Gastown, drove around Stanley Park, and visited Granville Island. On the last weekend we were in town, we took the ferry to Victoria for the weekend. It’s as beautiful as we’ve heard. We spent quite a while sitting on some rocks in Beacon Hill Park on the southernmost point of the island. One thing we’ve noticed about western Canada is that they have a lot more monuments, signage, totem poles, and just plain respect paid to the Native Americans in the area compared to the U.S.

On a more personal note, I hit a bit of a wall while we were here. The AirBnb was a disappointment – no more than a small basement space with two small rooms and not much seating, as you can see below. We need to get better at evaluating a place based on the photos! We had both caught colds and with the change in weather I was cold most of the time, and after several months of being on the go, I was depressed, tired, and actually kind of lonely (though it took me a while to realize that). Upon receiving some sound advice, I tried going with the mantra, “I accept how I feel” instead of beating myself up for not feeling the way that I thought I should be feeling.I also made more of an effort to reach out to friends back home, which really helped alleviate my isolated feeling. And we are both learning that the best way to feel connected to a new place is to talk to people, not just visit places. So we also made more of an effort to talk to the wait staff at restaurants.