Off the Couch and On the Road

And so it was that after seven months of travelling - of packing and repacking, waiting in airports and taxis, haggling and deciphering maps, laying on beaches and gazing in museums - I had found a place to settle, for a little while, at least.

It was luxurious, a studio within a heritage house in the suburbs, where I could enjoy a real bed and a bath, central heating, free phone calls and internet (the pinnacle of a travellers wish list). The sister and I slept in, watched TV, went shopping, read books and enjoyed the changing colours from fall into winter, like a rainy weekend that never ended.

We half-heartedly looked for work, turning up for some interviews and not for others - started work in a fashion retail store one day and quit the next. Once we both happily secured jobs in a coffee shop and were planning the weekly shopping list, it hit me. I needed to leave, to go somewhere, to see something. Man, I needed to travel.

“Let’s go somewhere,” I casually mentioned to the sister, who had endured flight delays, typhoons in Taiwan and a night in a dodgy hostel with a buddist monk to finally arrive in Vancouver less than a week before.

“Sure,” she said dryly. “Whatever.”

Visions of trekking Maccu Pichu, shopping in New York and horse riding in the Grand Canyon immediately sprung to mind. I was just about to whip out the credit card when she made her point.

“But we can’t afford to go now. We’ll work and then we’ll travel,” she said.

Right. Good point. For now, we were settled, back on the couch. For a little while, at least.

-Sarah

The 15-hour bus ride from Calgary to Vancouver seemed to pass three times as fast as a 5-hour flight ever could. I spent most of that time trying to find an adjective appropriate in describing the colour of the water at the base of the snow-capped mountains in Banff National Park. It was clearly cold, frozen at some points, rushing at others, sometimes so still as to perfectly reflect the leaves from the tree branches above.

Tinffany blue, I decided, and then immediately regretted my choice. Tiffany’s didn’t exactly conjure up images of stunning mountains surrounded by low clouds, snowflakes melting in the blinding sun. But it was Tiffany blue, I thought. Perfectly.

The scenery made the trip somewhat enjoyable, though by the time I had arrived at 9.30pm in Vancouver, British Columbia, I was so tired I couldn’t muster up any excitement of being in a new city. And this could be the city - the house and job and real life city, for a few months at least - so the pressure was on for it to be palatable. A new day would tell.

I woke the next morning to clear blue skies, not-so-cold temperatures and a boundless energy usually reserved for end-of-season sales. And Vancouver was beautiful. I walked from one side of the harbour, across the city, to the other, and window-shopped, explored and sat in the sun admiring the yachts, thinking that instead of a choice of which neighbourhood I did want to live in, I would be hard pressed to find a neighbourhood I didn’t.

Palatable? Definitely. The sister was arriving in two days, joining me for the last leg of my adventure, and I couldn’t wait to have someone to discover the city with. And slightly expand my wardrobe options too, of course.

-Sarah

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