I Went There: Vancouver

(One in an occasional series.)

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging is that I have been on the road. First there was a lot of domestic travel (covered that in a previous post), and then I was visiting The Northern United States Provinces of Socialized Medicine Canadia and then a couple cities in Central America (more on that in a bit). 

Vancouver is a lovely city any time of year, but particularly so in the summer. I had to go out there for work (poor me), and one afternoon I had lunch down at the seawall. The great thing about Van City is that it is pedestrian friendly, the people are mostly nice, and there's a lot of cool neighborhoods to visit. If you like to shop while you do your sightseeing then you will be in heaven. (I'm not a big fan of shopping when I travel because there's nothing in other cities you can't buy in Costa Mesa, but if that's your thing, cool.) If good food and walkable areas and the occasional beer is your thing then you will enjoy Van City quite a lot. It is a very popular vacation destination for a reason.

A downside to Van City is the large drug addicted and able bodied homeless population. I had not seen anyone shooting up or nodded out in the streets in a while but all of that was a part of some minor sightseeing in Gastown. It's pretty sketchy down there in spots! Liberal cities are great until you see so many people completely uninterested in any kind of work. Again: there's no shortage of drug addicted and mentally ill homeless in my neighborhood but Vancouver had hundreds of young, able people sleeping in the streets. It's a fine line between lazy and addicted, and Van City seems to encourage the former while enabling the latter. Overall a fun visit. Recommended.