Vancouver

They started disembarking the boat at 7:30, so we were up bright and early. We did not actually disembark until after 10. One fantastic thing about Canada (and the Bahamas, in fact) is that U.S. customs is actually located on the Canadian side. This is just one of the reasons I love Canada.

So, once we'd gotten our bags and were leaving the cruise terminal, we saw that the taxi line was like 2 hours long, so we walked over to the tourism desk and signed up for a city tour. These people know what they're doing - they loaded our bags into a van along with another couple, drove us around the city for about three hours, then dropped us off at our hotel. It was great! Unfortunately, our guide Raphael was not that great. He was from Argentina, and he said he had been living in Vancouver for 18 years, but his accent was so strong he was very difficult to understand, and he didn't seem to know all that much about the city.

In any case, he drove us through Chinatown where we saw the Guiness Book of World Records holder for "Narrowest Office Building" at a little more than three feet deep. He took us to Gastown which is the old downtown Vancouver where there is a large clock that runs on steam. It wasn't working the day we were there - Raphael said they have to send someone to fix it all the time because the steam works are not very efficient.

Next, he took us to Stanley Park which was really nice and named after Lord Stanley, the guy the Stanley Cup is named after.

Next we went to Granville Island which is kind of a boardwalk on the pier with a huge market and tons of artisan's workshops. He drove us through the main shopping district and also the really fancy part of town with all the 5 million dollar homes, then dropped us off at our hotel.

All in all I have a great impression of Vancouver. It was pretty and clean and seemed like there was tons of stuff to do. I'd love to go back! We tried to get a tour of the Battlestar Galactica set - Jon called the Vancouver Film Studio, and asked if they filmed the show there, and the girl on the other line said something like, "I'm not at liberty to disclose that information." So Jon said, "Well, I'm not trying to expose any big secrets; I'd just like a tour of the set." The girl said the studio did not offer public tours. So, I'm guess that is where the show is filmed since she acted like that. Too bad!

That night, as is our tradition when we visit Canada, we went to the movies. We saw "Sex and the City." I liked it more than I thought I would. It was funny! Although I thought they either needed to integrate Jennifer Hudson's character more into the movie or they needed to cut her out. I couldn't figure out why she was even in it, and she never interacted with anyone but Carrie which made her plotline kind of stick out instead of being part of the main plotline. Maybe it was written differently, and they had to edit a bunch out. I don't know. But that was my biggest problem with the movie. 3 out of 5 stars - no need to see on the big screen, but worth watching if you're a fan of the show.