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travelogue: vancouver

clockwise from top left: 1. real totem poles in vancouver / credit sarah gregory ... 2 & 3. john's
efforts at totem poles in vancouver ... 4. that's our ship! ... 5. a view of vancouver's beautiful skyline

before we could begin the cruise, there was the gathering in vancouver. thirteen family members flew in from all over the country: three from maryland, five from south carolina, two from florida, and our little threesome from louisiana.

our little traveling toddler did awesome on the flights - an hour to houston and five hours to vancouver - and we arrived tired but excited to begin our journey. we met my grandparents (the generous benefactors of this floating family reunion) in houston and flew to vancouver with them.

the first night, we just gathered. found the hotel, found each other, took it easy, dinner at a brew pub, a walk down to the waterfront before bed. (worth noting, we had our first wildlife sighting as we stood at the pier ... but neither my brother nor his girlfriend nor i could determine exactly what it was. estimates ranged from harbor seal to porpoise to beaver to otter to seal team six member ...)

the next morning we all rose early for breakfast, then took a bus tour of vancouver before being dropped off at the ship. i have to say, vancouver is a pretty amazing city. it's clean and beautiful and the people seem lovely. i would love to revisit one day and spend a little more time.

the bus tour took us through some famous areas of the city, highlighting its history and development. surprisingly, i didn't mind a bus tour - it's not something i thought i would love, or even something i thought john would tolerate. but we both did great and had a wonderful time.

one of the highlights was the time we spent in stanley park - if you're not familiar with vancouver, that's a huge park in the middle of town that actually is about seven acres larger than central park in new york. it's beautiful, with views of the bay and the suburbs on the mountainsides, and some pretty impressive totem poles that we stopped to see.

of course, this day was really just a little appetizer - the main course(s) was soon to come ... so the bus dropped us off at the pier to board the celebrity millennium ...

... to be continued ...






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