Today we left Vancouver, British Columbia and returned to Seattle. To be frank, at times I had my doubts we were even in Canada. Until yesterday we didn’t hear anyone say “Eh”. I’ve never met a Canadian who didn’t use that expression, so what gives? I kept asking myself where are we? Then like a shot from above, my faith in mankind was restored. A stranger walking by us turned and said, “Looks like it’s finally gonna cool down eh?”. He went on to say something else but I was so excited I didn’t hear the second sentence except that, it too ended with “Eh?”.
Prior to leaving the city we went to the Granville Island Public Market. This is your typical farmer’s market with lots of wonderful booths. We saw the usual farmer’s market type vendor with fresh fish, fresh vegetables and all sort of confections. There were also a number of artists sharing their wares and I bought Patrice a lovely necklace as a souvenir. I didn’t get anything at the market but was sure tempted. See below.
After the market we headed back to the USA. Unfortunately border control had other ideas. I don’t recall if I mentioned, but it took us about 18 minutes to cross the border from Washington to British Columbia last week. Today it took us 1 hour more than that (yes 1 hour 18 minutes) today to go the opposite direction. If we had a Global Entry pass (which we do but didn’t bring) crossing back into the USA would have taken about 5 minutes. But we made good use of our down time by trying to learn the Canadian national anthem just in case they wouldn’t let us back into the USA (like they threatened our friend Lance you might recall if you read the blog comments). We did a great job; after one hour we had the first line completely memorized (the first line is “O’ Canada” for those of you not familiar with the tune). We will work on the second line our next trip. That reminds me, I heard recently that President Trump wants to change our national anthem as part of his program to “Make America Great Again”. Apparently he is upset because he is under the impression that the first line is “Jose can you see”.
When we finally made it into the city we decided to visit the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This was of modest interest but I would not recommend it unless you have run out of other things to do. If you have young children and would like to teach them the value of community service this might be a worthwhile stop.
After that we met Patrice’s childhood friend, Lynn and her husband Terry for dinner. We ate a Duke’s Chowder House (there are a number of them but we ate at 7850 West Green Lake Dr N) and had a splendid meal. After dinner we took a walk around Green Lake and had a wonderful chat with two very dear friends. On our walk we met a budding photographer and asked him to take a photo of us. See below.
Tomorrow we head for home and back to work. Let’s hope we won’t have to wait another 27 days for our next vacation. After all, I need to write.
Robert Reiss Travel Blog and Other Ramblings 