So, here I am again. Haven’t written for a while, which is unfortunate since 2012 has been rife with travel – cross-country skiing in OR in February, Miami in April, Palm Desert in May, LA in June, Vancouver BC in August… And there is more to come! So, I should probably get caught up.
Let’s start with the most recent: British Columbia. I grew up near the Canadian border in NE Washington state, so it was pretty common to run up there for periodic Chinese food, and we went to Fairmont Hot Springs every year with a group of families. But that was 25+ years ago now (god, I’m old), and I’d only been to Vancouver once before, as a kid, so since I live so close (Seattle) it was high time I visited. Plus, I have a friend who lives there now, so I had an extra excuse and I would not be exploring the city alone, which was a huge bonus.
So, I bought my Amtrak ticket, and started getting excited! I looked on hotels.com to make my initial lodging plan – that has become my go-to website to start my search, since it is the only one I’ve found that lets you search for specific accessibility features. Score. I ended up going with the Holiday Inn Centre (sounded like it would be downtown, which it wasn’t, but it was close to the train station and bus lines). They warned me when I booked that they only had one truly accessible room, which was already reserved, but my room would have a cut-out under the sink and a grab-bar by the toilet. It did, so although the room was challenging overall and not the best choice, I knew what I was getting into.
After booking the room, it occurred to me that I had not stayed alone in a hotel room since 1999, when I took a solo road trip across the southeastern US. That was before I used a wheelchair. So it gave me pause to imagine all the things that could go wrong – falling, or… well, mostly falling. So I knew that I would have to be extra-careful, and that I probably wouldn’t be able to shower. Thank you to the inventor of dry shampoo.
Just before the trip, I found out my friend would not be able to get me at the train station or join me until he got off work (I arrived on a Friday). I did some quick planning, ashamed that I had not already made a back-up plan. I usually take pride in being independent, but I had let it slide this time. Silly girl.
And I was ready!
Friday worked like a charm. In the morning, I got up before 5, got ready and rode Access (paratransit) to the the train station. It was so luxurious to be able to listen to my headphones, read my book (The Hangman’s Daughter) and munch on hummus/crackers, and a Pink Lady apple I had brought, all the while watching the beautiful Pacific coastline. It was a gorgeous, sunny day, which made it even better. I exchanged some money at the train station – not a great rate ($47+ CAD for $50 USD) but very much worth it as it reduced my stress level to have the correct currency. I caught an accessible taxi to the hotel, and thankfully my room was ready early (about 12:30), so I checked in.
The hotel room door was really heavy, the bathroom was very narrow and the grab bar by the toilet was short, but I figured out how to make it all work. The bed was excessively high, but fortunately I had spoken with housekeeping when I made the reservation, and they assured me that they could remove the “leg” of the bed to make it lower. So on my way back out, I asked that that be done, and I got a decent (free) city map and some change for the bus.
This is where my last-minute planning was invaluable. I had gone on to the Vancouver transit website (www.translink.ca) and done the “trip planner” to get me from my hotel to a cool food truck downtown called Fresh, Local, Wild. A friend had told me about it, and it seemed like somewhere I should try for a local experience. The transit website was very user-friendly. Fortunately, there was a bus about a block from my hotel (slightly downhill – ideal!) that went to within a few blocks of the food truck (also downhill, because that day Vancouver was smiling upon me) – the #17. The other things I learned from the website were that the bus was $2.50 CAD, good for a ticket which is valid for 90 minutes of travel, and that they only take coins – which made me worry a bit at first (10 quarters!), until I remembered that Canada has $1 and $2 coins, not bills.
So, I wheeled across the street, waited less than five minutes for a bus, and zipped on board. The buses are the kind where the ramp folds out, so they are super easy, and I think they kneel lower than the Seattle buses that do that, because the ramp didn’t seem as steep. But the real timesaver was that you don’t have to strap in! You just wheel on, go to the designated wheelchair space, lock your brakes and go! Keen, as my grandfather would say. Is that because Canadians are less litigious if there is an accident? Do they have better-maintained wheelchairs with more reliable brakes due to public healthcare? Or have they just figured out that even if your brake fails, the chance that you would slide all the way to the entrance and get injured is miniscule. I mean, the light rail in Seattle and the train at the airport do not require that you strap in… I don’t know the reasoning, but it was nice.
I arrived downtown, asked the bus driver to point me toward my destination, and headed toward lunch. On the way there, I stopped at the Currency Exchange and exchanged the rest of my money for a good rate – 99.3 cents on the dollar. Better than using my credit card and paying the conversion fee, or paying an ATM fee. I found Fresh, Local, Wild quite easily – it is a pretty little food truck and the small menu changes daily (I took a picture with my phone to send it to my friend back home, but my phone later broke and my friend never got the pic, so the best I can do is: http://www.freshlocalwild.com/). I got the most local thing I could – a fried oyster sandwich, which is not the sort of thing I would order normally, but what the heck. I wheeled down to a patch of green on my map, which appeared to be a waterfront park, to eat my lunch. It turned out to be Canada Place, a large paved area on the waterfront with benches and great views, including the Olympic Flame from the 2010 Winter Olympics:
Where the Olympic Flame was lit in 2010 by the Olympic Torch
View from Canada Place. Looking at North Vancouver across the water.
There, I soaked up rays and people-watched while I ate my sandwich. And the oysters were amazing. They were generously piled on to a soft hamburger bun, and tasted as fresh as you can get. Mmmmm…
I texted my friend so he could meet me when he left work (in downtown Vancouver, so that worked well) – be aware, texting from outside of the US is pricey, as is calling, depending on your plan. I hung out sola for a few hours, and then we met up and strolled to the Gaslight District for dinner. I hadn’t seen him for about five years, and it was so nice to catch up! He was able to give me the inside scoop on a lot of things Canadian. 🙂 For one thing, I know it sounds ridiculous at first to notice/care about this, but BC bars/restaurants are not allowed to “free pour” drinks or to offer discounted alcohol at happy hour. In Seattle, I’ve had a lot of fun exploring cheap happy hours and some of the fun is finding out which places serve stiffer drinks! Knowing that my gin and tonic would always contain exactly one ounce of gin, and that it would always cost the same (no $3 well drinks!) is a little deflating. There seems to be a lot more regulation in Canada, re: food/restaurants, healthcare, etc. Although, before you decry the lack of “freedom,” I must remind you that I didn’t have to strap my wheelchair in on the bus, and also you don’t have to take your shoes off when you fly (except, I think, to the US), the drug laws are a lot looser, and attitudes seem to be more accepting overall. So, in some ways Canada offers more freedom. Another bonus: there was an accessible restroom in every restaurant I went to. That certainly allowed me more freedom, although a restaurant owner may see it as infringing upon his/her rights. (On a side note, if you haven’t explored Seattle in a wheelchair or with someone who is, let me tell you that many restaurants/bars in Seattle do not have accessible restrooms, and some don’t even have accessible entrances (Tilth and Pink Door to name two).)
After dinner, we walked down Granville Street, which is full of clubs and late-night activity. The street was full of young, thin, scantly-clad women (girls, actually), heels, perfume and smoke. My friend says that in some ways Vancouver compares to L.A. more than Seattle, and I could see that. It was great to be able to wheel myself around so much – there are hills in Vancouver, but the areas we went to “on foot” were pretty flat. And the curb cuts around most of the city are awesome. I wish I had gotten a picture, but the entire corner of most sidewalks is gently sloped and meets the street – it makes crossing the streets easy and safe.
Saturday, I went to an early lunch at a Canadian chain called the Cactus Club Cafe, a branch of which was close to my hotel (Friday night was not very noteworthy except to say that the hotel lowered my bed as asked and it was the perfect height). I had an albacore tuna sandwich with pickled ginger – yum! I also tried Canadian iced tea, which is pre-sweetened but not like sweet tea from the southern US. It actually tasted like Lipton instant iced tea.
Then, I met up with my friend and we went on a nice drive through downtown and over the Lion’s Gate Bridge to North Vancouver. There are some really beautiful (and expensive) houses there! We went to Stanley Park, and walked/wheeled along the seawall while we talked nonstop. I am in decent shape after all!
One of many picturesque views from Stanley Park
The seawall is 22 km long (13.67 miles) and we went for about a mile – another gorgeous day!
Seawall in the foreground, Stanley Park Causeway in the background.
We went to Granville Island for dinner, and then to a neighborhood street to watch the annual Celebration of Light International Fireworks Competition over English Bay – this was the final show of a three-night production, and Italy was performing (Vietnam and Brazil were the other competitors). The accompanying soundtrack was being blasted from a car stereo, and the show was beautiful (I later found out that Italy won).
Then it was my last day, Sunday. I had found out on Saturday that in planning for my trip, I had managed to miscommunicate with my friend, and he had plans for Sunday so I would be exploring the city on my own. I decided to keep it simple, and hit one destination only – I did not want to end up trying to find multiple places in an unfamiliar city on public transit. (I could have taken taxis, but where’s the fun in that? Besides, I’m cheap.) So I looked at my map, and chose Granville Island. It is a popular tourist destination and happened to be fairly near my hotel. Also, a friend in Seattle had recommended it to me and when we had gone there for dinner the night before, we didn’t have a chance to explore.
The day started out stressy because I was nervous about getting around alone and I promptly dropped my phone in the toilet. So I would be working without a net – off the grid for the day. I used the hotel computer (it was expensive, so I just had a few minutes – my iTouch WiFi wasn’t working either for some reason) to find out which bus route went to the Island and to alert my friend in Seattle, who was going to pick me up at the train station, that I couldn’t call him as we had planned. I left the hotel and put my suitcase in storage there. I went to catch the bus, and when I told the driver where I was going he told me an easier way to get there – awesome! So I wheeled to a different bus and was off to Granville Island.
I was starving by the time I got there, and overwhelmed with the restaurant options, so I pulled a trick lifted from Rachael Ray’s $40-a-Day on the Food Network… I asked a local for advice! I wheeled into the first store I saw – a huge kids’ toy store – and asked a couple of young girls who worked there for their recommendations. That way, I hoped to avoid tourist traps. They suggested a fried seafood place on the waterfront, or the Granville Market itself, where they said there was lots of good, reasonably-priced food. I didn’t really want fried seafood, however fresh, given my oyster sandwich on Friday, but market food (especially crepes, which they mentioned) sounded right up my alley.
I ended up starting with a grilled sandwich from a little French bakery right outside the market. This was a serendipitous choice, as when I settled in to eat it, a street performer started up his stunt/comedy show right there! He was hilarious and talented – juggled flaming torches, juggled sharp weapons, balanced on a rolling board:
and while balancing, fit his whole body through a squash racket. Telling jokes non-stop the whole time! What an unexpected treat.
While he was setting up to start the show, a woman came up to me and said that she had noticed me struggling when I got off the bus, and she wanted to ask why I didn’t have a motorized wheelchair. I know my actions are not always smooth, and perhaps it is difficult for others to watch me try to coordinate holding money and a bus ticket, wheeling uphill, wheeling across the horizontal boards on the bridge to the Island, or juggling wallet, food, napkins, coins, and managing my chair, but obviously I had managed to figure it out without injuring myself or anyone else. And there are lots of reasons to not get a motorized chair, none of which were her business. But I swallowed my initial response (f*ck you lady) and just shrugged/smiled and told her that a manual chair allows for greater independence. She smiled back and said “Okay, good for you. I mean, I’m not being nosy” – I begged to differ – “but I thought maybe if it was financial I could help somehow.” So, maybe it turns out she was a millionaire and she would have written me a huge check, or maybe she just would have given me $20 to add to my “motorized wheelchair fund,” prayed for me or referred me to some social services. Either way, if my reason had been financial did she expect me to tell that to a complete stranger? Whatever.
Anyway, after the show I headed into the market and found my crepes, then found a spot out back to sit in the sun until it was time to go.
The market is pretty small, with about equal numbers of fresh food vendors (fruit, veggies, seafood, cheese) and food stalls. Maybe more food stalls. It was very accessible, and a great place to spend my last day.
I rode the bus back to my hotel, picked up my suitcase, and took a taxi to the train station. I had bought some fruit salad and couscous/spinach salad at the market for dinner on the train, so I was set! The train ride home was lovely and relaxing (although I must say, Dept of Homeland Security is all business). And I arrived home with only $10.31 Canadian, which I think is pretty good planning!
In summary, I had a fantastic weekend and hope to get up there again. Although I really got lucky on the weather, which may not happen a second time! Exploring on my own was scary but empowering, and ultimately turned out great. In comparison with Seattle, Vancouver seems more cosmopolitan and polished, while Seattle seems more laid back and grittier. More real. Vancouver is more expensive but more accessible.
Happy travels!
Have Chair, Will Travel 