The Canadian border agent who grilled us before grudgingly allowing us into Canada asked if we had driven all the way from Boston just to visit the Hutchinsons in Burnaby, BC. We told him that no, we had been on a road trip for several weeks, and this was one of many stops. What we should have said was that no, we also came for the pear-gorgonzola-bleu-cheese ice cream.
Roger's high school friend Brielle married a Canadian a few years back, so while all of us were threatening to move to Canada during the Bush administration, she actually did it. She and her husband Mark live just outside of Vancouver in one of the several thousand high rise apartment buildings that surround the city. We arrived Monday around 6pm, and spent the evening relaxing and catching up.
Tuesday we adventured into the city in search of the Promised Land: the Lululemon Factory Outlet. (Or rather, Ellen went in search, and Roger dutifully accompanied her.) There was oohing, there was ahhing, and luckily there was minimal damage to the wallet.
From there we made our way to Cliff Hangers rock gym. The gym itself offered standard climbing fare, but we picked up an excellent tip from one of the staff: Vancouver is home to Mountain Equipment Co-op, the Costco of climbing gear retailers. We've been doing so much climbing that constantly renting gear was getting silly. At MEC we got shoes, a belay device, and a harness for Roger for less than we would have paid for the shoes alone anywhere else.
Tuesday night Brielle brought us to a Teen Angst poetry reading. A bunch of 20 and 30-somethings get together at a bar a couple times a month to read poetry and pages from their high school diaries. They bare the souls of their teenaged selves, and then make merciless fun of each other. It was hysterical, and kind of touching in it's familiarity. But mostly really, really funny.
Like any good angst-fest, we needed ice cream afterward. And so Brielle took us to the ice cream mecha - it's a huge place hidden among industrial warehouses. Their hook is that every flavor is made from what it says it's made from -- the cranberry sorbet is flavored with cranberry juice, the saffron is bright yellow, the lavender has pieces of flower in it. But that also means that the wasabi flavor is, in fact, made with wasabi:
...and that the pear-gorgonzola-bleu-cheese has actual chunks of blue mold in it. Roger was brave (read: dumb), and sampled this most horrifying of ice cream concoctions:
Satiated and a little scared, we went home, watched an angsty movie, and slept.
On Wednesday we hit up a yoga class in the Kitsilano yoga district before meeting up with Juan Carlos, Ellen's high school prom date who also happens to be living in Vancouver. We caught up on the past eight years, compared notes about people back home, and ate awesome vegetarian food.
After lunch, tour guide extraordinaire Brielle took us to visit the sprawling and beautiful Stanley Park. The park is set right on the coast, with beaches that back up onto lush forests. We went to the water's edge and stuck our toes in, tagging the Pacific to make our cross country journey official.
In conclusion: we wish we could move to Canada, but immigration is nearly impossible, unless you're a Mexican stripper. Apparently there's a shortage.
No, we're not kidding.
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