It was an early call; 5:30am train ride up to Seattle. The kids behaved so well, you wouldn't believe me if I described it. We had a peaceful journey up there, though (as expected) we had a little bit of an issue with food. In Seattle, we had to run to our bus because the train was a little late, but we got on. That ride was pretty difficult. Odin passed out for the first half of it, so that made things easier, but Freya was really loud and active. Not in a bad way, just a bit to handle is such a small space. At least on the train we were able to walk around a lot. The bus was delayed a bit for an accident, but we got there okay. Crossing the border was no big deal, either. They stopped us to ask a bunch of questions because there were 5 of us traveling together, reminded us to sign our passports next time, and sent us on our way.
Figuring out the busses in the city to get to the hotel was interesting. It's a really busy and complicated place, like Portland, but was no trouble. It was hard getting all our luggage to the hotel, but we made it eventually. Everybody relaxed for a bit and Alyssa and I walked around to check out the campus as everything was closing. The air in Vancouver is so nice (it's not in the Valley of Sickness, like Eugene), it's like breathing at the beach. And the water is so much nicer to drink.
The next day we took off to check out Odin's new school. We met the teachers and toured the place and learned that he's going to have a great time. We also looked around the neighborhood we'll likely be living (same one the school is in) and decided we really like it (though, sadly, I didn't get a lot of shots of that neighborhood). Spent some more time wandering around campus. The campus is really set off to the west a ways from the main part of the city, but there's so much development around it that it's almost like a separate city to itself. We'll have everything close to us except the grocery store, which we discovered is only one bus away.
The grocery store was pretty amazing. It's just like Market of Choice, so we'll be able to find everything we need. It's got a gluten-free bakery, and the deli has so many vegetarian/vegan stuff it's incredible. Also, almost none of the alternative diet stuff (like gluten/dairy free) has soy in it (unlike here) so we don't have to check labels nearly as much. (I guess Canadians wouldn't tolerate something like Monsanto.) There are some price discrepancies, but we'll manage.
The next day we walked around campus forever, it seemed, looking at all the nice gardens and great views. There were two places on campus we wanted to see; the Japanese Gardens and the Museum of Anthropology. We ran into the MoA so we did that, and boy was it a good idea. There's a ton of pictures in the new album online, but it wasn't even half of the stuff there. I was in historian/archaeologist bliss. I highly recommend it to anyone coming to Vancouver, BC, and if you visit us we'd be happy to take you because it never gets old (pun intended).
The last day was mostly about exploring a bit more, and getting to know the place. We really didn't want to leave. The bus ride down wasn't really a problem, and customs was just as easy (though you do notice how much more paranoid the US is when you go through), and the train ride was uneventful. We got in to Eugene at about 11:30pm and went home and to bed. First thing I did this morning was get up and upload the pictures (linked below) and write this post.
Vancouver is so nice. The people are really kind (they get up off the bus and move out of the way if you have kids, rather than just sitting in place and waiting for the bus driver to yell at them) and they just want to help you and make you feel welcome. The whole place is nice, actually; they don't have things like "Don't do this!" and "Stop doing that!" but they have things like "Remember to be courteous" and "Don't act like you're the only one on the bus" (rather than "No loud music! Sit quietly! No feet on the seat!"). Everything is in English and French, and there are more than 70 languages spoken there so you hear a lot of accents and funny conversations. Everybody has a relaxed attitude (even the college students); nobody is rushing anywhere, nobody gets mad at bus delays or bad traffic, shops open late and close early (which is sometimes annoying, but not too bad), nobody cares if you're taking a long time in line, nobody yells at us for having loud kids or letting them play to happily in public. We really liked it there, and, sad to say, as soon as we got to Eugene all we could talk about was how much we couldn't wait to get back to Vancouver, BC.
We had a really great time, and I'm sure we're going to have a great time living there (lonely as it may start out.)
Here's the link to the album of the pictures from the trip: Vancouver, BC. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of them with us actually in them (I got a little crazy with the camera and never posed for any). There's some of our room, some of the landscape and buildings on campus, and some of the attractions. There's some good ones of the MoA. Paula took a lot with her iPhone and when I get those from her, I'll add more to the album.
In other news, I uploaded a few more shots and vids to new Apr - Jun '11 album (and moved a few mis-placed ones there as well) so enjoy.
