We've Moved!

Well now we’ve gone and done it.  We moved from Mexico City.  Well, that didn’t seem to take us very long.  We wanted to head to some cold country before spring was gone.  After researching several cities in Canada we landed on Vancouver.  At first, we looked because it was close to a lot of cities in the US that we wanted to be able to explore on weekend trips.  You know, like Seattle and Portland.  Places I had never been.  But also, Vancouver looked great on paper.  Minutes from a beach and minutes from skiing, parks, hiking, snow, sunshine, bar culture, good food.  I mean, what was Vancouver missing?  It sure looked good on paper.  So sight never seen, we book three months Airbnb in Chinatown, downtown Vancouver.  We booked a penthouse overlooking the mountains.  And we were excited for months leading up to our trip!

The trip itself was a forever day.  We awoke at 2:30 am to catch a 5:30 flight out of the City.  I detest early flights but we landed on that departure for a very good reason.  Our connecting flight in San Francisco gave us a seven hour layover.  San Fran, yet another Pacific coast city I’ve never visited, so we decided to make a day out of it.  We departed and landed in San Fran on time so we Ubered (yes it’s word)  to the Vertroe where we checked our carry ons and continued over to Fisherman’s Wharf area.  The day was cool and brisk and the sea air was refreshing.  We chose a restaurant on the water and I tried a dish of Cioppino, a supposedly iconic dish of the City.  Filled with various seafood, it was a bit outside of my comfort zone, but I wanted it and I’m so glad I didn’t pass it up.  It was delicious. Spicy, rich, and comforting, it reminded me so much of the seafood gumbos I ate so often as a child.  After lunch we walked in the misty cold on the wharf a bit more, picked up our bags and headed back to the airport.  It was an afternoon well spent and the highlight of the day.

After the long travel day we arrived in Vancouver around 8 pm.  Immigration was a breeze and our taxi ride to the apartment was about 30 minutes.  There, the driver dumped us and our five suitcases on the sidewalk in the middle of downtown.  Our contact waited for us in the lighted lobby of the building and let us right in even helping with our mounds of luggage.  I say mounds, but you would actually not believe the amount of belongs we shed before leaving Mexico City.  We had gotten in the habit of accumulating all manners of niceties and creature comforts.  But now we arrived with our necessities which consist mostly of tech and cold weather gear.

So we are here in Vancouver and trust me, it’s glorious.  Even better than we imagined.  The air is so clean and crisp, the people are so very friendly, the food is off the charts fresh and tasty, the scenery is beautiful, and the city is so very walkable with shops, restaurants, and pubs in every direction.   I can’t believe it took us our whole lives to get here.  We have fallen in love with this City.  Now don’t get me wrong.  We still have our plans to back to Mexico City in the summer and in Playa Del Carmen in the fall.  But I must say, this Vancouver trip may just become a yearly spring visit.  Who could blame us?