We had to fly in to Calgary, Canada where we had a an hour or so lay-over before flying to Vancouver. We had checked our large bags, so we assumed those bags would be placed onto the second flight as well. We noticed many of the other passengers picking up bags, but assumed this was their final destination. We stood in line and went through customs, blithely thinking all was well.
When the young lady at the counter asked where are bags were, we told her they were on the plane, of course. She told us, politely, that we had to recover our bags and bring them through the customs line to be checked. Who knew?
We followed her instructions and went to the customs office to meet a man who looked like he had been working there for quite some time and was bored with the whole thing. We explained our predicament, and with a huff, he escorted us to the baggage claim, where we recovered our lonely bags, stood in line again and finally were checked through customs.
One other thing we noticed, when you order a burger, they cook the meat well done. They don't even ask if you have a preference. It was explained to us that they want to make sure the meat doesn't make you sick, (Salmonella, Mad Cow, something).
Once in Vancouver, we again go to the carousel to recover our bags, and Andi has to step out for a cigarrette. We had planned to take the new monorail from the airport to the waterfront, then a short taxi ride to the condo.
Once the bags were recovered, Andi announced our problems were solved. She met a woman who wanted to share a taxi with us and did so. She became our unofficial tour guide and explained a few of the local customs and made some suggestions. She was a nice lady and the taxi ride was not expensive, and we got a guided tour with comments from our new friend, Wendy.
The taxi driver dropped Wendy off first, then took us to our condo on the West side. Many of the taxi's in Vancouver are Prius', by the way. Immediately we were impressed by the greenery that permeates the city. Large trees form a green tunnel over the streets, which are narrow with sidewalks bordered by grass or flowers. Very pretty. It was a lot cooler than our hometown of Palm Springs, and when we were able to see the weather we were seeing numbers of 20 degrees, and into the teens. We were only momentarily confused, as it was plain their measurement was in Centigrade (Celsius), while ours is Fahrenheit. The conversion is simple though, double the number given in Celsius, and add 30. Even so, 20 was 70F. We came from near triple digits in Palm Springs.
It was cloudy, drizzly rain, and to us, pretty cool. We were in our sweatshirts and jeans, while the locals were wearing shorts and maybe a light sweater. There were lots of people walking through the neighborhoods. While there wasn't a dedicated downtown, Robison was the main thoroughfare for shopping and restaurants. The scene reminded me a lot of New York City, in the layout, (easily defined blocks), and that people lived in their neighborhoods and could walk to anything they needed. Restaurants, cleaners, corner grocery stores, bakeries, all were within easy walking distances.
(See!! I do take pictures of people!)
After we unpacked and walked around to get our bearings, looking all touristy with our maps, camera and bino's hanging around my neck. Andi was told, but it was something to experience,the sun doesn't go down until around 10:00PM, or later. So the first few days we were very tired trying to stay up until dark.
(These are the views we had from out small balcony outside the condo. Also, a shot of the street with the tree canopy and lush greenery).
There was no television, so we got some very needed peace and quiet, and rest. We also read several books as well as the local newspapers and magazines.
This was our first couple days, and we soon acclimated. I've told you about Stanley Park, but we walked all around the city portion looking for recommended restaurants, entertainment spots and the like. The Vancouver Jazz Festival was in progress while we were there, so we were able to take in a night of good food, jazz and good company. Their Jazz Festival was not set up like a concert like I was expecting. They had several venues such as restaurants that hosted certain bands throughout the city and onto Vancouver Island, as we found out later. They gave out pamphlets that showed dates and times bands would play and where. The bar or restaurant would fill up with Jazz fans and the concert would go on. Very low-key and enjoyable. It went on for several days.
Not much birding information in this blog but I promise their is a lot coming. I will end this one with some observations; my bino's worked extremely well. Like I said, we came from very warm temperatures to very mild temperatures and I pulled them out of the bag and walked outside to use them. There was no fogging or blurring at all, they worked admirably. I have a pair of Brunton 10x32, Lite Tech series. They are rubber coated which makes them waterproof, and have argon gas inside the tubes to help the lenses adjust to the changes in temperatures. I know that they were always there for me when I needed them.
My camera on the other hand...Well, the telephoto lens to be specific. The camera was fine, and the smaller lens was fine. But the telephoto is a Vivitar 70-300mm zoom lens, and I have added a "doubler" which roughly doubles the magnification of the lens it is attached to. This decreases the amount of light that it draws in, and does not allow the lens to work with the camera for auto focus. I could only use the telephoto on manual focus, and when you are trying to take a picture of a small flitting bird, this can be frustrating. I did get a couple of pics of a brown blur leaving the right hand side of the picture, (I won't show you those).
So, that is something I will put on my Christmas list, a 600mm telephoto lens for my Minolta camera. Then I won't suffer from lens envy anymore:)
Next time I will include a lot more birding and some of the pics I was able to get.
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