Vancouver March 12-14

As I said, I visited Vancouver for a weekend in March. We were 4 exchange students (Julia, Leila and Yin-Yin) and Yin-Yin's counselor and his wife and we had an amazing time! We stayed in the Suttan Place Hotel right in Downtown Vancouver and just the exchange students got their own suite :) Julia and I shared the couch in the living room. We left Calgary at 9 o'clock on Friday morning (I missed school for that) and arrived in Vancouver at 9:30 (Vancouver is 1 hour behind Calgary and the flight was 1.5 hours). The first thing we all notices was that everything in Vancouver is green! We were totally amazed, but not by the rain we had...We took the skytrain, that has no driver, from the airport to our hotel and then had to walk in the rain. We ran into the Paralympic torch and saw a change. Lucky us! And then we waited at Robson Square where we saw some celebrations. We continued the tour to our hotel in the rain, but when we left the sun came out and it was really nice. We took a taxi boat to Granville Island where we looked at the market and had fish 'n' chips for lunch. I met some German people there and talked to them for a little. It is so strange to hear German again! We then walked along Englisch Bay and took a look at the Inukshuk. You'd be surprised to hear that all the trees were blooming! :) It felt soooo nice. We finished our tour along the Northend of Downtown and walked by the unlit cauldron. Back at the hotel, we had a couple of hours break as our feet hurt really bad! Of course we had to take a look at the stores on Robson Street. We started watching the openings of the Paralympics and for dinner, we all went out for Thai food.
On Saturday, we left the hotel early to drive 1.5 hours up to Whistler. We had tickets for the Alpine skiing event and when we arrived, the competition was already delayed for 15 minutes. And after 2 hours waiting in the cold and not properly dressed, we decided to leave the place. :( That was too bad. And then a volunteer told us that the competition got cancelled. We were glad that we left for good. We walked a little around Whistler village which is really nice :) In the evening, we went to a little restaurant and I had a wrap and a milkshake and afterwards we went into a candystore. Just like the ones one would imagine. The last thing we did was driving by the cauldron, this time lit and in the dark! and it looks really a lot better this way. When back in the hotel, we all fell asleep right away.
On Sunday morning, we had time to sleep in and went out for breakfast (bacon, hashbrowns and eggs). We packed our things and rented tandems. We took a 2-hour tour around Stanley park and had a really great time. Julia and I saw some racoons and we were still amazed by the nature in Vancouver! I found a shell with a hole in it that I put on my blazer :). For lunch, we had fish 'n' chips again in Richmond and went to the airport. Our fligth left at 6pm and we reached Calgary by 8.30pm. When I came home, dinner was prepared for me - wraps again :) I love that the food is so international in Canada. It felt like coming home - and it was weird, because in the beginning Calgary was holiday, and now it is HOME; and Vancouver was holiday for us!
Love from Canada