May 1, 2016
Six days in Vancouver: Getting things done
Sunday the 1st of May and I woke up for the last time on board the MS Noordam. It was five in the morning, and under normal circumstances I'd have rolled over and gone back to sleep, but knowing where we were I climbed out from under the sheets and grabbed some warm clothes. I hurried up to the top deck at the front of the boat. Usually I'd avoided the front, because there were big perspex screens, presumably to block out the wind, that rather spoiled the view. But this time I got around that by pulling over a pile of deck chairs and standing on them so that my head poked over the top of the screens and I had a clear view. And, my, what a view. The sky ahead was a deep, dark orange, with the black, silhouetted shape of mountains all around. As the light grew gradually and we closed in on land I spied the outline of the tower-blocks and skyscrapers of a major city, though they looked tiny in comparison to those grand mountains. With twilight increasing I picked out the heavily forested area that I remembered as Stanley Park and as we manoeuvred around it the huge Lion's Gate Bridge stretched out across the water, linking city with mountains. To my delight and awe the ship continued straight under the mighty bridge and I arched my head up to watch. As I brought it back to face the front again I could now clearly see the city. The sun was just rising over the mountains to my left, and the skyscrapers glistened, shining turquoise in this grand light as we made our final approach. We had finally arrived, and sailing into Vancouver was as magnificent an ending as leaving Sydney had been a beginning - fantastical bookends to an otherwise painful experience.
Getting off the ship was easy (and certainly welcome) enough, but departing from the terminal building proved a more tricky task. All of my luggage had made it, but unfortunately I next had to try and find a way to get out of the terminal building and into the city with two bicycles and a load of bags. My friend Gabi was supposed to be waiting outside for me, which was fine, but the question was how to get to her. I was standing amid a chaotic melee of old people who had forgotten how to walk on land, and a hundred pieces of randomly strewn luggage. I located the man who was in charge, and asked if I could push one out and come back for the other. I could not. Instead, he told me to wait for one of the porters, who would be able to push the second bike out for me. Alas there seemed to only be a very small number of these porters and as soon as they returned to the room they were accosted to help someone else, and loaded up the trolleys they were pushing around with more baggage. I waited some considerable time until most of the other passengers were out before I eventually got hold of one of these porters. Seeing my bike he froze. “Will it go on here?” he asked, pointing at his trolley. “No.” I replied, stating the obvious. “Then I'm busy” he said, and quickly hurried away to assist someone with a more regular-shaped item of luggage. I found this frustrating to say the least, and returned to the man in charge who, in fairness to him, did then leave his post to personally push Dea's bike out of the building for me, although I think in truth he was as pleased to get out of there as I was.
Gabi was waiting for me outside. I met Gabi five years earlier, in the spring of 2011, when we'd both been tree-planting for the same company out in the Canadian woodland. She'd been a good friend, and it was wonderful to see her again, not least because she could now relieve the poor man of the duty of pushing Dea's bike. After a quick and considerable seat adjustment Gabi was able to cycle across town to her apartment, with me in tow of course. And it was in this apartment, where Gabi lives with her Mexican boyfriend Alejandro, that I would spend the majority of the next six days. The three of us spent my first afternoon in Vancouver cycling around Stanley Park and some of the rest of this bicycle-friendly city. Unlike Victoria, I remembered Vancouver very well, and it was a real pleasure to spend some time being reminded that it was a place I liked very much, before returning to the apartment and getting down to business.
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Gabi and Alejandro had rather a nice pull-out sofa-bed in their living room, and a coffee table next to it, and foot-rests, and this cosy set up, which also included a view out the window of distant snow-topped mountains, became my office. I had many things to arrange while I was in Vancouver of course, the most pressing of which was trying to book that “ferry” back to England. Like so many things recently, this was not easily achieved.
I first tried calling Cunard, the cruise line that operated the “ferry” service, and got through to a very posh and pompous lady with a tone of voice that suggested that she seemed to consider herself very important. I only really wanted to ask whether I could board the New York to Southampton “ferry” in Halifax, but she peppered me with questions as if I was certain to make a booking. She asked me silly questions, like:
“What is your nearest airport?”
“Well, I really just want to...”
“What is your nearest airport? I need to know for the booking.”
“Okay. Well let's say Halifax.”
“And what is your home address?”
“Actually I don't have a home.”
(Silence on her end)
“I just want to know if I can board the boat in Halifax?”
“We have to make the booking first. Then after you have paid in full, we can request that route sector change.”
“Can't you request it first?”
“No. We have to make the booking first. Then after you have paid we can request that route sector change.”
“Erm okay. Well is the money refundable if the route sector change is denied?”
“No.”
This was a slightly unfortunate circumstance. I had to pay for the “ferry” in full, and I'll be honest, it wasn't as cheap as the cross-channel ones, and it was entirely non-refundable. Then they'd make the request for me to board in Halifax. If it was denied, I'd be in the unenviable position of having a ticket for a very expensive boat ride that I couldn't get on.
This was not an ideal situation by any means, and while I tried to think of a solution I headed out to a local bike shop to try and get my bicycle fit for a cross-Canada ride. It certainly was in no state to even consider undertaking such a task as it looked when I arrived in town, with two broken spokes, a derailleur all bent out of shape, two gear cables that weren't even attached and a headset that was as wobbly as a jelly on a bouncy castle. But perhaps my fortunes were changing, because I happened to stumble into Atomic Bikes (in Kitsilano) and meet Steve, who I thought perhaps the nicest and friendliest bike mechanic I'd ever met (and I've met a few.) He fixed up the headset for me with a new piece, then let me rummage around in a box of spares for a new old derailleur. As well as spokes and cables the charge was only thirty bucks, an absolute bargain.
For several days I looked for a solution to the “ferry” crises, and contacted several travel agents that made cruise bookings for help. Luck was finally on my side here too, when I found an angel of a travel agent by the name of Deanna working out of an office in West Vancouver. After spending quite a bit of time on the phone to Cunard herself, she finally managed to organise it so that I could make the booking but not have to pay immediately, which would give them a chance to make a decision on the Halifax boarding before I'd have to part with any money. I was so happy there are helpful people like Deanna in this world.
There were other things to organise too, like packing Dea's bike into a box and having it shipped to Copenhagen. This was, like everything else, not simple, and I was fretting at one point because the shipping labels were being sent to me by courier and the box was scheduled to be picked up by another courier, and the labels still had not arrived on the morning that the box was to be collected. But finally the labels arrived, and I just had time to stick them on before the second courier rang the bell, and Dea's bike disappeared in the back of a DHL van, hopefully to soon emerge on the other side of the world.
Of course in between all of these chores I was enjoying the company of Gabi and Alejandro. Although both worked hard most of the week as course directors at the nearby university I did manage to spend a day with Gabi on the Wednesday. We chose to cycle over the Lion's Gate Bridge to North Vancouver and out of the city to do some hiking in the forest. It was great to spend time with my friend, and also great to be amongst the fresh air and conifers of Canada again. Another plus was that I had an excuse to try out my new camera that I'd purchased the day before. I was really glad I didn't buy one from Walmart, because I'd got this for $35 second-hand off craig's list and it had really great reviews online. Most of them were from 2009, but that didn't matter. I was very happy with the photos, and especially so because it did a brilliant job of capturing the colour green, something my previous camera had been woefully inadequate at.
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On the Thursday night we all went to dinner at the house of a friend of Gabi's and it was a very enjoyable occasion. The next night we met with the same group again, this time for a game of tennis, where, with me not having played in over a decade, a rather embarrassing result ensued. But it was a nice setting, and after the game we all walked along by the beach at sunset and watched the city across the bay. With its parks and beaches, and with the mountains and forests being so close, Vancouver is a very picturesque city. It is also a young, hip city, with a lot of millennials riding bicycles around. It has a good vibe, and is probably my second favourite city in the world (after Barcelona), and in this instance was absolutely the best place for me to detox from the cruise. But on Friday I got the email I'd been waiting for from Deanna, and fist pumped the air They had approved the route sector change. I was going to be permitted to board the Queen Mary II in Halifax. Now, after six days of getting things done, I had just one thing left to do: cycle there.
Today's ride: 4 km (2 miles)
Total: 48,644 km (30,208 miles)
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