Greetings from Vancouver, British Columbia

While it's easy to get around in Vancouver, and we really felt like we weren't too conspicuous as American tourists, there is something "foreign" about being in a foreign country. : ) And while there's nothing wrong with Canada (in fact it's really quite lovely), maybe we take for granted the privileges of being a U.S. citizen...but I digress...

This morning we made the quick 20 minute trip into Canada. Another 15 or 20 minutes later, we headed into Vancouver. It's a very cool little cosmopolitan area surrounded by mountains and water everywhere. I'm terrible with geography, so you'll have to ask Tim exactly which mountains and bodies of water we viewed. When we first got there, we checked in a the Best Western in downtown Vancouver so that we wouldn't have to worry about a place to stay. Shortly after that we headed up to Grouse Mt. on a gondola to see Vancouver from a high vantage point via a drive through Stanley Park--1,000 acres of green at the end of the peninsula--while the park does not have the cultural events (the Muny, the Art Museum) like our Forest Park, it's a beautiful park. There were many "Canadian" activities up on the mountain--a lumberjack competition, grizzly bears, and a birds of prey demonstration. The ride up was fun. When we came down, we went for a different bird's-eye view--Vancouver Lookout in Harbor Centre. From there you could get a 360 degree look at the city. We walked to Chinatown, apparently the second largest western North America behind San Francisco. It was Monday at 6:00, and there didn't seem to be a lot going on. We headed back to Vancouver Lookout to watch sunset--it was beautiful. For dinner, we wandered around for a while and decided upon Steamers--a little pub downtown. I had halibut and chips (again) and Tim had a shrimp salad--both where good. That's about it--tomorrow we may visit the public market on Grandeview Island, but our primary destination is Victoria.