Vancouver

By Andrew Mortimer, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada

I arrived in Vancouver early and very tired on the 16th of May, having taken a 24-hour train ride from Jasper in the Rocky Mountains. I then took a quick bus ride across the city to my hostel (HI Jericho Beach) and met up with my friend, whom I saw a few days previously in Canmore. After dropping our stuff off, we headed to UBC Vancouver, which I knew had a picturesque campus right on the coast. Unfortunately we couldn’t visit their Museum of Anthropology, which has amazing indigenous displays, due to major renovations, but the Japanese Garden we stumbled across was very tranquil.

We then went to Kitsilano Beach before going to HI Vancouver Downtown, the sister hostel of where we were staying and where I would be staying in a few days. We did the pub quiz and then headed back, with the aim to get up early for a busy day, which began by visiting Stanley Park. The views from there were amazing, and I especially loved the Totem Pole section, which was teeming with tourists. We then headed to Granville Island, which is a great little section of the city.

After a nice lunch there, we boarded a boat which was leaving Granville Island to try and see whales in the wild. It was an amazing, albeit very cold experience because the multiple orca pods we saw swim around the boat kept popping up randomly. The huge grey whale and the bald eagle we saw were great bonuses too, and after dinner in the city centre, we came back to the hostel very tired after a long hot day.

The next morning we got a coach together down to Washington State in the USA; however, I got off slightly earlier, as I wasn’t going into Seattle but was instead being picked up by my great-aunt, whom I had not seen for years. She has lived near Seattle for ages, and my parents went there almost 30 years ago. It was such a beautiful house in such a great location, as only the birds, us, and her own animals (including two horses) were audible the entire time I was there.

Even though I was only there for 24 hours, I really enjoyed that trip down to see her, and getting the bus back to Vancouver on the 19th of May meant that I was also on the final leg of my big trip. When I got to the HI Vancouver Downtown hostel where I would spend my last night, I was encouraged to go to the beach with a bunch of other people staying there. We went to Wreck Beach right next to UBC Vancouver and stayed there until the sunset before going to a great 24-hour bakery near the hostel.

The next morning I set off early for a boat trip to Vancouver Island, where I did a quick circuit of Nanaimo. It was also a stunning, unique place, but before long I had to rush off again to the airport (which was eerily empty) for my brutal flight back to Toronto, which landed in the early hours of the 21st of May. It was nice to be back after such a long time away, and having now been as far east as Quebec City and as far west as Vancouver Island, I really felt that with two weeks before my trip back to England, I could be very satisfied with my entire year abroad.