I met up with my friend Benno from Germany at the bus terminal, which was pretty easy because my bus was the only one incoming at that time and there were no other buses around. He had arrived to Calgary, spent one there before coming to Vancouver Monday morning. We were visiting Ashley, one of my friends from my high-school year in Canada, and his girlfriend Maggie. She is originally from Colorado and came to Canada for studying. She just moved into her new apartment without furniture, so she had plenty of room and was willing to host us for the next three nights.
On our first day in Vancouver we met up with Andi, another German who will be traveling with us to Edmonton. The Granville Island Market was a perfect spot to meet and to have some breakfast. We bought strawberries and some other stuff and sat outside at the water. I was just trying to have another bite of my bagel as I was attacked by a seagull, which flew right by my head and snatched half of it away – too bad, because it was quite delicious. Afterwards I always kept my food close to my body.
Benno and I continued to have a look at Vancouver, while Andi was trying to buy a tent. We took the water taxi to Yaletown and continued to Stanley Park from there, after looking at the stream train engine 374, which took the first trans-Canada passenger train into Vancouver in 1887. Instead of renting a bike at the park, like many people do, we just walked all around it.
We spend the whole next day organizing our road trip – getting the rental car from the airport, going shopping, picking up Andi’s stuff and getting his tent.
On Thursday we left off for Whistler. Right after crossing the Lion’s Gate Bridge we made our first stop at the Lighthouse Park, where you have a nice view of the city. However, as you can see from the pictures it was quite cloudy. Those are not any clouds, but they are smoke from the many forest fires in British Columbia. There were almost 200 across the province and every day there are more starting, because it has been unusually dry and sunny for a long time.
