Married to Wilson: Vancouver Edition

Last week we celebrated Canada Day, the Fourth of July, and an epic victory for the USA women's team at the World Cup. 

 We are also celebrating one year of living in our townhouse on Stride avenue. This is the longest we have ever lived in one place together. Crazy isn’t it?

I get asked a lot about what it’s like to live in Canada and how it compares to the other places we’ve lived.

Last year I did a side by side comparison of New York and Tennessee.  There’s things here that remind me of New York and even things that remind me of Tennessee.

All in all, Vancouver is in a league all its own.

Airport

In 2010, the winter Olympics were held in British Columbia. (Side note: My mom actually came on a mission trip here during that time. When Chris was interviewing with a company here it was nice to be able to ask my mom questions about Vancouver )

Back to the olympics, the Canadian government spent seven billion dollars to improve the city including the constructing the Canada line part of the Skytrain (that runs out to the airport)  

One of the best things about the airport is that we can take the ‘Skytrain’ from our house to the airport. In New York, we had to take a taxi (or subway plus bus).

There’s also free wifi and lots of cute shops to buy souvenirs. 

Transportation

We have a car here, you may remember that we drove it across the country. We also buy monthly train tickets to go into work. We probably wouldn’t need a car if we lived downtown.

It’s nice to have our car for trips to the grocery store and Costco. I like having a car for my monthly trips across the border to Target and Trader Joe’s. Chris likes having it for climbing trips to Washington State or up to Squamish.

Skytrain

I called the Skytrain the 'monorail when we first got here, because it reminded me of Disney World. It runs almost all above ground and unlike the MTA it seems to run frequently.

Unfortunately there’s been several instances that have caused major disruptions.

A bird’s nest caught fire and both lines were shut down on Friday morning during rush hour. My usual 40 minute commute took nearly three hours by bus. 

A few weeks later, there was a disruption again during rush hour and it took me over two hours to get home from work. 

Food

People who love to eat are the best people. ~ Julia Child

Chris introduced me to sushi on our second date. Now I like it better than he does.

The fish is so fresh here. I still prefer cooked fish though. 

Fish and chips has become one of my go to meals. 

Our favorite fast food place is called Triple 0s. I would compare it to In-and-Out burger. The food quality is much higher than the average fast food place. We like our burgers and splitting yam fries. 

Day trips

Richmond. If you watch ‘Once Upon A Time’ on ABC, then you’ll know Stevenston, Richmond by another name. Storybrooke. 25 minutes from our place, Storybrooke is a cozy waterfront town, where the show is filmed from July to March. Much of the show is also filmed at the Bridge studios.

Squamish. One of the reasons we moved out west was for their outdoors. Chris is an avid rock climber and has taken advantage of the great opportunities British Columbia has to offer.

                                                  

 

Bellingham. I must say I do a lot to support the U.S. economy with my monthly trips across the border. Chris calls them “my emotional coping device.” I take no offense to his observation. (Moving across the country, into a new country is hard, ya’ll”). 

 There’s too much to say about these trips for one post, so look a new post soon.