Travel Diary

The next morning, we tried out the hotel’s free breakfast. It was just juice, coffee, and an English muffin, but better than nothing.  

We checked out around 9am and put the luggage in the car. We’d be going by foot for a while, so we left the car there and explored the city.

One big difference: it was nearly a ghost town on that early Sunday morning. There just weren’t many people up and about. The weather was a little drizzly at times, but mostly just cloudy. The downtown is easy to explore with the sidewalks being quite large. It’s also a very clean city too.

We passed a hip coffee/bistro called Medina’s. It was about 9:30 am, but already a line was starting to get in. They did serve waffles, with the aroma wafting out into the street. It was tempting, so we elected to return later.

The waterfront was pretty empty, but still, it was nice having no real rain falling down. We got lucky in that respect. One place had little seaplane tours. It looked like the place where you rent paddleboats, only seaplanes were docked instead. And you uh, probably would need to have a pilot fly the plane too.

Another place had helicopter rides. I guess the skies fill up a wee bit on regular days.

The Chinatown District offered the usual places to get fish and other items that one would normally expect. I bought a sticky pork bun from a local shop. It was pretty good. I think it was under $2. Notably, we never actually got any Canadian money. Everything was paid form mainly by credit card. However, a few times, we just used American money and most places accepted that--well, for a price. There was the exchange rate, which (I can remember) used to be nearly $1.30 in our favor. Now it was under a dollar. I think the vendor was offering $.90 on the dollar. Fair enough, since they had to deal with exchanging it back later.

After the transaction, I then had Canadian money. I had to figure out how to spend that before returning. No need to carry around a lot of change that can’t be spent.

In time, we made a full loop and returned to Medina’s. It was about 12pm and now very packed. There was a long wait outside. People just couldn’t seem to get enough of that place. I was highly curious what their secret was? Terry went in and got some coffees and a waffle.

The coffee was pretty good; although I’m not sure it was worth a half-hour wait. I guess some places are just the place to be for some people.

Next, we fetched the car and drove south.

About forty minutes later, we reached the border check. The line didn’t look long, but still moved very slowly. We detoured into the duty free shop to browse. I noticed that Canadian whisky was pretty cheap, but I’m cutting back on that. They also had some maple syrup. I picked up a tiny bottle of that and some candy for the girls.

At the checkpoint, there were many less questions than for getting into Canada. Odd, I know.

Soon, we were back in the US of A.

There was a lot more rain driving back, but in due time, we were back again.

Back at the Mohr’s, there was time for a quick walk around the neighborhood. The sun was even shining at that point. Everything looked quite green and seemed to get plenty of water year round. I imaged it to be pretty nice during the summer.

We drove by Seattle in returning to the airport. I got a couple of poor shots of the downtown buildings, and even one of the football stadium. My friends are lucky to live so close to the airport and the downtown areas of both cites.

The Virgin America flight back was uneventful, and I noticed that one movie was free: “The Rum Diary.” I wasn’t sure if it was leftover from the previous passenger, or they just gave people one free one, but either way, I watched it. Well, I watched most of it. We landed before it ended.

So Virgin America is okay. There’s nothing wrong with the airline (the staff was friendly), but nothing remarkably special either. I think I’ve just gotten spoiled on all the niceties of the international flights (United notwithstanding). I suppose it’s now just going with the best price again.

Back in SFO, I took the air shuffle back to BART and then took BART back to Pleasanton. It seemed like a very long ride this time.

So if the parking is cheap enough, I may just drive next time. In that case, I’d also try to fly out of Oakland or San Jose. Sure, I want to do my part to be green, but I can always just recycle more aluminum cans at work.

Er, I’m not saying I don’t already.

Okay, fine! Sometimes the recycling area is full! Move on to the next article.

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