I have been busy, enjoying Vancouver to the utmost, so I didn’t have that much time to blog. Let me make up with a concentrate of my experiences in Vancouver. First of all, I naturally was partially occupied by the conference, but I did have enough time to see quite a bit of Vancouver, which, all things considered is probably like a US american city but better (judging from my biased viewpoint here, of course). I really like the relaxed spirit of the Vancouverites, even the “spare change” beggars are somehow more inspired here…
Besides the conference, I did a lot of sightseeing, visiting Kitsilano Beach, Granville Island, and so on and so forth, and I filled my stomach with excellent sushi (which seems to be available at just about every corner in Vancouver, thanks to the large asian population, the closeness of the pacific, which of course makes it very easy to have really fresh fish, and a population who is almost as health-posessed as the Californians, and therefore really go for this lo-carb lo-fat (and whatever else you’d like to attribute to it) dish.
What else did I do in Vancouver? In preparation of my trip to Vancouver Island, I bought some robust shoes, not quite hiking boots, but definitely something you can wear on a trail (and how could I anticipate that most trails in Pacific Rim National Park are actually paved with wood planks and could be done in flip-flops … But I am getting ahead of myself).
Also, I went to a Salsa club in Vancouver. That’s right – salsa is a pretty big thing in Vancouver, just like everywhere else. In fact, Josie Neglia, the “Princess of Salsa”, is from B.C. and currently lives in Nanaimo. Unfortunately, I just missed the Vancouver International Salsa Congress, which started just on the day of my departure. The funny thing about Vancouver salsa was that everybody is dancing On2, but (from what my eye could discern) not the sort of stretched, shuffled, New York Style On2, but pretty much a puertorican style, just danced on 2 instead of the one beat. That was reason enough for me to draw back to the sidelines, drink some excellent beer and watch in amazement, I wouldn’t have trusted myself to adapt to that style quickly enough to be a convincing lead.
One last factoid: Vancouver has the highest relative density of Starbucks in the world, 79 cafés in a city of 600′000. That’s even more than Seattle, and there’s more: Starbucks gets fierce competition from Blenz Coffee, which must have almost the same amount of cafés. So, if you’re a caffeine junkie, don’t worry, you can get your fix anywhere, anytime.
