Canadian Adventures Part II

I got off the bus in Vancouver and took their above-ground rail system toward my temporary digs. On my way, I stumbled upon a Costco and I grabbed a hot dog because having been out of the States for almost 45 minutes had caused me to grow rather homesick.

Then I got to my Airbnb apartment and it was just as amazing as it looked in the pictures. I departed to hit Gas Town, which is a touristy part of town and was disappointed with how lame it was, but I was able to buy my friend a Vancouver White Caps tee, so there was some success.

And aside from terribly kitschy Canada tourist junk, I stumbled upon a rack of this:

and a rack of this:

Both of which made me very happy.

Then after walking around in the pouring rain for a few hours I went back to my apartment and talked to Jennifer, who was my Airbnb hostess. She was insanely nice and answered my many questions on her Airbnb career and about Canada. She told me she'd hosted about 40 travelers and they were all great except for one Middle Eastern guy who tried to treat her like a slave because she was a woman. One of her favorite guests was a single 50-year-old woman who stayed with her for two weeks during the Olympics.

Jennifer said she could tell why the woman was single because she had five cats. Which is only two more cats than Jennifer kept in her apartment, but apparently the difference between three and five is a lot to cat people.

As you'd expect from anyone who continuously lets random strangers stay in their home, Jennifer was slightly off. She told me she was dating a 35-year-old Aussie who she would move in with, except that he lives with his mom in Victoria. To which I responded, "Isn't that were Steve Nash is from?" because I was unsure of what else I might have to say about her relationship. She loved her three cats to death. Their names were Bean, Bertha and Buddy, who as she told me, despite his name, he won't be your buddy. I was OK with this as I was mainly looking for a nice place to stay and I did not need too much cat companionship.

Jennifer was kind enough to let me use her netbook. "Just log in under Bean Industries, it's Bean's fictional company," she told me. Of course it was.

She recalled the time Bertha was Facebook, but she had to delete Bertha's account because it maxed at the capacity of 5,000 friends and was constantly receiving "lewd messages" from other cats on Facebook. I never knew Facebook had a cat cybering underbelly, but it sounded about right.

Jennifer also told me that she had a brother who was 11 years younger than her and did not hesitate to let me know he was the accident child. He worked at McDonald's and she was now studying public health at the local community college after she quit her job at the train station. All of which did not explain how she was living in the nicest apartment of the 25th floor of a brand new apartment building in downtown Vancouver. Maybe she ran a paysite for Bertha.

When I wasn't eating delicious teriyaki udon noodles and watching hockey with Jennifer, I was exploring the city and being continually underwhelmed. I visited a thrift shop with hopes of finding any piece of Vancouver Grizzlies gear, but I came up with nothing, which made me feel like the whole trip was for not. The coolest thing I did was visit the campus of the University of British Columbia, where I walked around listening to weird Moby songs on a dark cloud-covered day as I reflected upon my own college experience and let shit get real. There is heavy sarcasm in that last sentence, I just needed to clarify that.

I went in as many buildings as I could. Their rec center is shit compared to Arizona's, but then again Arizona's is rather insane, and the UBC rec did have an actual dojo, so maybe they win.

Their campus was directly next to Wreck Beach, which apparently is a popular nude beach in the summer, but during the winter it was just a spooky, log covered beach that was entirely empty except for a bum and a skim boarder.

The proudest point of the trip was when Jennifer taught me the names of all the provinces and I felt like a better American for actually knowing something about our neighbors up north. Then the next day I realized there were northern territories that I was completely oblivious to, and I again felt retarded.

Overall Canada was nice and Jennifer left me the following feedback on my Airbnb account, which I am now considering adding to my resume:

"Justin was a terrific guest - I can't really say enough great things about him! It was more like having family over for a visit and he's welcome back anytime.

Canadian Adventures Part I

This blog has been many things. From the ultimate go-to site for dramatically exaggerated/partially-fictional Nic Wise game recaps to a place where I could dump throw-away posts to make myself kinda feel like a writer and perhaps convince potential employers I was a legitimate writer (which that run-on sentence disproves), but I think in its prime WPM was a travel blog. So now I am gonna temporarily throw the blog back into a travel blog to recount my memories from a trip I took to the great Pacific Northwest, because the end of April seems as good a time as any to publish stories from my late January travels.

I spent the majority of the time in Seattle, and maybe just one day I'll write about that, but let's get to Vancouver.

I had never been to Canada, but its awesomely harmless reputation as a country that puts out hockey players, dope basketball podcasts and Steve Nash has intrigued me my whole life and by whole life I mean the portion of my life that occurred after I was exposed to Nash and The Basketball Jones.

And this life goal was achieved because I had a week off between transitioning jobs, I got a cheap ticket from NYC to Seattle and decided Monday, January 24 would be the day I got on a shitty Greyhound bus and left a dreary Seattle for an even more dreary Vancouver. The day before I booked a ridiculously-nice-looking apartment at on airbnb.com, I had used this site often at my former job, where I would waste countless hours of my life planning trips I did not have the time or money for.

But now it was finally go time, I actually needed a place and a kind woman on airbnb was offering her apartment in downtown Vancouver for only $50 a night, which was a bit more than I was looking to spend, but the apartment had floor-to-ceiling windows in every room that overlooked the entire city, my bedroom had a balcony from which you could see the BC Place Stadium, which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics, the apartment building also featured a jacuzzi, gym, sauna and steam room, so I figured I'd get my $50 worth.

Airbnb itself is an awesome, but weird site that works on the premise that human beings are good people. Creating a profile was as simples as providing a name and valid e-mail address. Then I wrote a short message to the woman hosting the lavish apartment with some vague generalities about myself and my travel plans. She accepted and just like that I had a place to stay and a host in Vancouver, even though all she knew about me was that my name was Justin, I lived in NYC, and this would be my first time in Canada. She said she would be in class when I was scheduled to arrive so she would leave a key to her place with the doorman of her building.

I was very impressed with her faith in humanity as I could have been a killer, thief, sexual predator or the kind of sick fuck who would delete unwatched episodes of House Hunters off her DVR.

Backing up to international voyage, I had an interesting encounter at the Canadian customs. Having lived most my life in a state where border issues involve an all-out drug war on top of a million other issues, I figured the Canadian border would much more relaxed, and as a result I got in a very weird mood and decided to lie with every word I said to the Canadian border patrol agent. I really don't know what provoked this as I don't lie much and I tend not to enjoy people who lie, but the following conversation was had:

Border Patrol Agent Woman: Where do you live now?

Me: Arizona.

Her: What do you do there?

Me: I work for a magazine.

Her: Who are you visting in Canada?

Me: A friend from college.

Her: What does she do in Vancouver.

Me: She works for a bank.

This banter continued for a little bit as I kept fabricating a simple story as I assumed the issue of me living in a different place than my passport indicated would blow her mind and cause more confusion then if I made up a simple story. Although every other person on our bus was able to quickly get back on the bus, the agent must have seen my eyes darting in many directions, so she put me aside. Then she went in a back room with my passport to analyze my information further or maybe update her Twitter on what a dumbass I was. I really don't know what she did back there, but the whole time I was sitting there thinking that this is going to be awkward as I have to fess up to why I lied about everything.

Finally she returned, handed me my passport and told me I was good to go. Little did she know I was leading a double life as a job-transitioning New Yorker. Got her.

Part II will come tomorrow...maybe.