Saturday 3 May Vancouver

After lots and lots of sleep last night, I finally surfaced about 9.30. I am hopefully now adjusted to BC time. For the uninitiated, that British Columbia, not Before Christ! Duh... Breakfast in the hotel, and then we head out to get on the Great Canadian Trolley hop on hop off tour. there is a stop right out front of our hotel. No sooner did we get there and a trolley car arrived. our driver was Chris and our guide was Blake, who it transpires is from Brisbane and has been here for 5 months. I paid for both of us via credit card, but Blake was unable to print out our tickets as there was no paper in the machine. He spparently contacted the ticket office at Canada Place where if we stayed onboard for the full 90 minute journey, we would get our tickets then. I asked him what would happen if we got off at one of the stops before then, how would we get back on another trolley car. He assured us that he had let the office know and had sent the info as a grouo chat to all the other guides. Had no ide how this was going to work as he never got our names.... However, we were on the trolley car and on our way. One of the first stops was at English Bay beach and the laughing men statues.

We then head to Stanley Park. There is some big marathon being run in the city tomoroow, while the Kid's marathon is being run in the park today. It is 8km and there are plenty of participants at the line up to start.

The roses arent out yet, but the rhododendrons are in full bloom as are the tulips.

We dont stop to get off near the totem poles as Im hoping that our tour will take us to them tomorrow. This is my 5th trip to BC so I have certainly had the chance to see them previously. They are really good and have lovely histories about each of them. Once we head out of Stanley Park, we are now heading to Granville Island. we pass the lovely Persian restaurant I had lunch in yesterday, Cazbah, and opposite the restaurant is a cannabis shop. There are plenty of those around as it is legal here, Jo and I remain untempted to try it. Lots of buildings development and unusual architecture.

Driving through Davie Street we are told that it is called Davietown and is very LGBTQI friendly. Lots of rainbow flags in evidence.

We get off at Grenville Island and have a wander around. None of the shops really take our fancy so we head to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. My fried haloumi, cauliflower and corn starter with 5 tortillas (I only managed one) was lovely. The coffee was pretty good too.

A bit more of a wander but still no purchases. We then head back to the trolley stop and have a half hour wait for the trolley car. The guide knew nothing about our missing tickets, but did recognise both Chris and Blake's names so let us on. Just as well, coz you know I was getting on that trolley car with or without a ticket! This guide is much more informed and informative than Blake, although she never told us her name. Anyway, this is when we find out that the marathon is on in the city tomorrow, hence a number if road closures today which titally threw out their timetable. There are so many closures tomorrow, that they arent running the trollies! Too bad if you bought a 48 hour ticket today! Not sure how this is going to impact our APT tour tomorrow which promises a half day highlights of Vancouver tour! However, we arrive back at Canada Place and it appears that everyone is getting off, but we want to go around again another 4 stops to our hotel. Jeff, one of the supervisors, gets on and says that the last car from there left at 3.30 today so this is actually the last stop for this trolley! After a lengthy conversation with the driver and guide, the guide got off and Jeff stayed on the trolley car and asked the driver to drop us off at our hotel stop, which he duly did. It was now about 4.30 and as happyour is 3-5 at out hotel, we duly ducked into the bar and had a glass of wine. It was pretty average, so one was enough. Our server was a delightful young man, originally from Sicily. We had a good chat to him about his life here... he's doing his Masters in Finance and earned his tip! Back to our room for a short rest and then off to one of the private dining rooms for dinner with our fellow travellers and to meet our tour guide, Dale. She seems okay, but took 45 minutes to give a very general briefing on how to put luggage tags on our cases and what times liggage needs to be out if our rooms in 2 days time. Oh dear... Having a quick look around the room, it is mainly older than us couples. We were seated at the all women table where there were 8 of us. I ended up having a lovely chat with Bron who was sitting next to me and in fact we were the last to leave. It turned out to be a pleasant evening and at this early stage I'm not nominating anyone in particular to be voted off the island, but it is very early days! Back to the room, catch up on the blog and time for bed.