June 9, 2013

• Report # 1010

  Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all been having a super long weekend. The last few days have gone by extremely quickly as I’ve done so much, but they’ve all been enjoyable days. I worked on Thursday from 8:30 am until 5:00 pm, and I headed home, stopping at Tim Hortons on the way. After heading home and eating, I vacuumed the entire house as I wanted to get everything cleaned up for the arrival of Rocío my Argentinian friend. I was up way too late on Thursday night, and I didn’t get into bed until 12:30 am. I had planned to get up around 5:00 am on Friday morning, but Shelby was meowing at 4:00 am, so I just ended up getting up and having a shower at that time.

  I took off my sheets on my bed, though I didn’t get around to putting new ones on yet as it was so early in the morning and my parents were still sleeping and I didn’t want to wake them up. I got out of the house after 5:00 am, and I caught the bus on the street corner and headed down to catch the Skytrain to get to downtown Vancouver to get to my Greyhound bus. I stopped at Tim Hortons and grabbed a bagel and some hashbrowns and a small iced cappuichino and walked over to the Pacific Central station and waited for the Greyhound bus to arrive. I boarded the bus at around 7:00 am and shortly after we had headed off.

  It’s unfortunate I had to get up super early to go all the way downtown to catch the bus because it comes all the way back through my neighbourhood to pass the border, and it would be so much easier if they had a stop much closer, but nothing I can do to change that. The bus arrived at the border around 8:30 am and I was just asked a few basic questions and that was it. We had to wait on the bus for a while after as one person was really taking a long time to get through. The border guards must have been suspicious about something, though he did eventually get through and the bus was able to take off.

  Since a bridge had collapsed on the main highway in Washington State near Mount Vernon, we had to take a detour, and there was a lot of traffic, so the bus ended up being about 40 minutes late. This wasn’t a problem though as I was able to send Rocío a text and let her know that I would be arriving late. The bus got into Seattle at 12:15 pm and I ran inside and saw Rocío right away. We gave each other a big hug and then we headed outside and started walking around Seattle. Like I always do when I’m in cities, I started taking tons of pictures; I took around 150 I belief by the time we had finished exploring the city for the day.

  We had lunch at Red Robin and we walked at a park by the water, through a bunch of downtown streets, by a music museum, and a cool place with a giant fountain in the middle where a lot of people were playing in the water. It was a super cloudy day, but it didn’t feel that cool as it was probably around 20 C (68 F). We went into a building downtown that had a food court and we ended up having some ice cream and fudge. Afterwards we walked for a few more hours before making our way back to the Greyhound station.

  We still had over two hours before the bus was to leave, so we tried to leave Rocío’s bags in a locker, but we couldn’t figure out how it worked. Apparently we had locked her bags in a locker that had been paid for by someone else, though had been empty and not closed. We finally were able to find a guy who could open it for us, and wow was he grumpy. We both were not impressed with his rudeness, though we spent the next day joking about him a lot. We ended up just keeping the bags and when we tried to get out of the Greyhound station, the door wouldn’t open, so I joked that the man didn’t want us to leave, though when someone from the outside came in, we headed outside.

  We walked a couple of blocks and then we just had something to eat at a sandwich shop. I was telling Rocío how I didn’t think the type of music they were playing would attract all that many clients as it was some hardcore metal music… the sandwiches were good though. We both had some problems with our sandwiches though as I ate too much bread and all the meat fell out, and Rocío put mayonnaise on her sandwich even though it already had so much; she didn’t know there was any on it ! These kind of things are so silly, but little fun things that I think we’ll both remember for a while, so nice little memories that we have been creating.

  We have certainly ate a lot of food in two days, but we have walked for hours and hours both days, so we’ve certainly been getting a lot of exercise. We got on the bus to go to Canada at 9:50 pm on Friday night and as we were both super tired we tried sleeping during the trip, and it ended up going by pretty fast. I was worried how things would go at the Canadian border, and just as I imagined, it was a bit of a challenge, as after talking to one guy, we had to go to the back for further questioning. I told Rocío that I wanted to go to Seattle so I could come back with her to Canada and make things easier at the border, but I think I ended up making things harder.

  The border guard noticed that I was extremely nervous, which I always am when at those customs places, but he just didn’t know why I looked so nervous. After answering all of his questions though and explaining to him that I’m normally nervous in those situations, he finally let us both come into Canada. I was so relieved as I was the one who wanted Rocío to come and spend some days here with me, and had they not let us in, I would have been extremely disappointed. It was just kind of funny that Rocío was laughing so much yesterday about what happened at the border and how well my “help” worked out; Clearly she would have done better by herself !

  I called my dad and he said that he would come and pick us up. I told the Greyhound driver that we would just get off the bus here as it would be much closer for us to head home that way instead of going all the way to downtown Vancouver and he was ok with that. So we got outside of the customs building and walked a few blocks and waited until my dad came and picked us up. By the time we had arrived home, it was almost 2:00 am and we were both exhausted. I had only slept about 3.5 hours the previous night, and Rocío had only slept two hours, as she had gone to a party in Seattle.

  After making sure everything was comfortable for her, we finally got to bed at around 2:00 am. Rocío told me to wake her up at 10:30 am if she wasn’t awake yet, so after getting up at 10:15 am yesterday morning and having a shower I woke her up, and she got ready for the day. While Rocío was having a shower and getting ready, I was able to get all of my Seattle photos uploaded, so that was nice. Rocío talked to my parents, and met my brother, who interestingly gave her a hug and we left the house a little after 12:00 pm. We stopped for something to eat at Tim Hortons, and after we had headed outside to wait for the bus, which arrived right away.

  I had my iced cappuichino which I had only finished half of, but the bus driver told me I had to throw it out. I know there is a no food rule on the bus, but I was still super surprised as I had taking my drink on the bush soooooooo many times in the last year and a half, and I had never been asked once to throw out my drink before. Luckily I had never seen that bus driver before, and seeing as I don’t normally take the bus on Saturdays, I am hopeful I won’t have to see him on the weekdays while I get on the bus after going to Tim Hortons on the way home from work.

  We took the bus to the Skytrain station and then took the Skytrain to downtown Vancouver and we started another day of tons of walking. We walked around Coal Harbour and all the way through Stanley Park and a number of the main downtown streets in Vancouver. We stopped in a few stores, and even watched some live performances by some musical artists from India performing by the Vancouver Art Gallery, so that was super cool. While we were walking on Robson Street, Rocío saw a suitcase that was originally like 120 dollars selling for 35 dollars. It was larger than the one she had been using, and she really liked it, so she bought it. We then walked to Robson Sushi, a Japanese restaurant and had a nice all you can eat dinner.

  We each ordered like 15 different things, so we were both super full afterwards. We had eaten everything from California rolls to sashimi, chicken teriyaki, spring rolls, and noodles, so it was an amazing meal. I had eaten at that restaurant a number of times before, but not for about two years, so it was nice to go there again. After dinner I picked up a Blizzard from Dairy Queen and we slowly made our way back to the Skytrain station to get back to Surrey and take the bus home. We got home around 11:45 am, so much earlier than the previous night.

  I think we both feel even more tired tonight than we did last night, I know I do anyways, and as soon as I get this posted, I’m going right to bed. Rocío will be here today and all day tomorrow and she’ll be catching a bus to Seattle early on Tuesday morning to spend one more week there before flying back to Argentina. She has been in the west coast of North America for almost a month and she has already seen Washington, Oregon, California, and now British Columbia, so she has done extremely well. I am very happy that I am having the opportunity to spend some days with her as she is a very cool person, and it’s just been great to spend time with someone, since I don’t think I’ve done so in like a month !

  We have talked in English and Spanish, and we’ve helped each other out a lot, so it’s been great for the both of us. And Argentinians have such a nice accent, so I really have enjoyed listening to her talk as well. So I am looking forward for these next two days, and then it will be back to work, and I better be ready, as I’ll be working eleven out of the next twelve days. Anyways I’m exhausted so I’m going to bed now. For the next question:

  Have you met any super cool people lately ? What were they like ?

  I hope that everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Wednesday, bye for now.

  • 4:45 am
  • 4 Comments