Embarrassingly I had never been to any other country in North America until the day after my 45th birthday, so finally I get to knock Canada off my bucket list.  Vancouver was the most beautiful of all the eight countries I visited in July 2013, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t fascinating and interesting things in the other countries, and the uniqueness of Iceland still sticks out in my mind as well.

Economically it makes more sense to fly into Bellingham, Washington, which is basically a Vancouver suburb.  Mike graciously picked me up from that little airport and so I got to cross the border and get questioned on why I was visiting.  I had to take some pictures, one of which I included here, of the amazing land formations and water in that part of Washington state.

Mike and I went to law school together in Brooklyn years ago, and he now practices both in Canada and the U.S.  He and Pangus were great hosts, and showed me some of the beauty of their area.  I’m so glad I went this time of year because there was light until about 11pm.  It was great to see the contrasts and similarities that the people in western Canada have with those in the northwestern U.S.  Native “Tribes” are called bands in Canada, and to my pleasant surprise they had phonetic spellings of some of their landmarks and towns, which used characters that are not used in the European alphabet to denote sounds, including numbers.  I also was elated to see so much French in all of the federal signage.  I wish I had captured pictures of some of those signs with native verbiage while we were driving, but suffice to say it was a cultural surprise.  I made sure to get a native-created bear icon art when I was at Shannon Falls.  In a little town north of Shannon Falls you will see the creative coffee shop sitting area made out of re-purposed skiing equipment.

I noticed almost right away the jaggedness of the mountains and the profundity of the fjords.  I expected it to be green, but I didn’t expect to see so much color in the plants that far north.  There was art everywhere, as well as natural beauty, making for a great combination for the ambiance.  Shannon Falls was a lot of fun, as well as Horseshoe Bay.  Downtown Vancouver had lots of wonderful charm and cultural diversity, as well.  One of the cutest things I saw was a full grown tree that I took a picture of on top of an apartment building.  We ate at a Persian restaurant and the waiter asked me if I was Persian myself since I know I look pretty middle eastern.  I had to stop at Cafe Calabria, of course, although no one there spoke Italian.  I did, however, hear Italian spoken on the streets among some older people walking by when I was having a coffee in another part of town.

As you will see, Mike and I did a lot of hiking while Pangus was at work, and Mike didn’t warn me how scary the suspension bridge at Lynn Park was until I got on it with my HOT coffee in hand, so you will notice me holding on for dear life as some asshole walks by me in a rush jiggling the bridge and burning my fingers int he process.  I didn’t mind at all that we walked down the hill to another bridge to come back over the river below…a nice, stable wooden bridge, under which you will see (Canadian) pennies had been thrown for good luck.  I also was surprised at some of the trees that grew out of the side of the ledges with their roots seemingly growing out more like branches, but still growing steadfastly upward.  The large windows you see are from the coffee shop where I bought the finger-burning coffee.  I still don’t understand why people need to have coffee thathot when they first buy it.  It is undrinkable at that temperature!

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