A bronze statue outside "The VAG"
The entrance to the art gallery
Day 1: Sunday, September 16, 2007
Canadians Are Nice
Posted by Nick on 9/18/2007 at 8:17AM
We left the Austin airport at about 6:25 a.m. and flew into Denver. We waited 2 hours for our connecting flight and arrived in Vancouver at 12:00 p.m. local time. We opted for the public bus to get to our hotel instead of a cab and headed to the nearest bus stop. We waited for about 20 minutes in typical northwest weather — it was overcast and drizzling rain. While waiting, I was forced to break out a sweater to go over my t-shirt.
The bus came and we asked the driver what the best way was to get to City Center, where our hotel was located. He told us that if we just stay on his route until then end, then we could catch a 10 minute train ride to the center of town. It turns out that his route was about 45 minutes long and we were much further away from our hotel than we had been at the beginning. We did catch the train though and eventually made our way to our hotel, the Carmana Plaza on Alberini Street. On our way, we were asked if we needed help finding directions at least three times. We must have looked totally lost and Canadians are really nice.
While our rooms were being readied, we went and got some food at a restaurant called Earl's a couple blocks away. They had the Dallas Cowboys game on so we ate and watched them finish out a beating of the Dolphins.
After lunch we went back to the hotel, showered and headed out to explore the town. We came across the Vancouver Art Gallery ("The VAG") and decided to take advantage of their extended hours on this Sunday. The bottom floor housed an exhibit called "From Monet to Dalì" and it featured works from about 30 artists from the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements. The most intriguing piece had to be the The Dream by Salvador Dalì — it's one of those pices you can get lost in for hours. The second floor of the gallery consisted of pieces by Huang Yong Ping, a Chinese-born artist that specializes in giant works made of paper-maché.
After exploring the next couple floors of The VAG, we emerged and continued to discover Vancouver. We ended up at a place called Amsterdam Café. What happened inside I'll leave to the imagination, but when we emerged we had a serious case of the munchies. It was about 11:00 p.m. and most (I mean all) restaurants seem to close around 10:30. We ended up eating at a local chain (the only place open) and then headed back to our hotel. The lack of sleep from the night before had finally caught up to us and we decided to call it a night.