Our condo in Vancouver is in arguably the most iconic building in Gastown and we’ve a lovely view of the eastern end of Burrard Inet and North Vancouver.  As I sit and type, this is the view I am forced to take in. Tough I know. It can be enormously distracting.

– never attempt to cross a street when the red pedestrian hand is flashing … city traffic gurus have provided nanoseconds when this happens before the traffic light changes to yellow;

– the city is awash with caucasians and asians and I’ve yet to see a black or latino or east asian when wandering the streets;

– while Gastown is great and we have everything we need within a stone’s throw, we are plagued by tourists as everyday one and sometimes two cruise ships dock at Canada Place and dump 1000s of bermuda short clad Americans and backpack toting Europeans in our neighbourhood;

– Vancouverites are a wholly indifferent group of people. They are certainly not overtly friendly and are a mix of post-modern hippies, health obsessed ‘granolas’, various clans of skater, skier and wilderness loving yuppies and – sadly – a significant population of heroin addicts and radical homeless who do not shy from aggressive panhandling. Regrettably, Vancouver certainly has Canada’s worst drug and homeless situation.

– the city is a coffee-addict’s nirvana and surely there must be more unique, excellent and independent coffee shops here than anywhere outside of Seattle;

– it does rain; interestingly, it even rains when it is sunny. North Vancouver seems endlessly shrouded in grey and I wonder if the sun ever touches its shores. But the rain is kind here – more a mist than much else and while the forecasters predict showers most days we’ve found it may mist or shower for an hour and then by noon, the sun is out peeking through the patchy clouds…I suspect as we spend more time here this will change. I can only hope it may become similar to the rain I used to have when living in the Barbados. There, it would rain torrentially for 10 minutes every night shortly after 5pm;

– despite its moniker as a city of glass which in my mind conjures an image of modernity, there is a real sense of frontierism here … this is a young place considering all (just 125 years old this year) and attitudes toward work and play are very different than Toronto or London;

– the food scene is very developed and clearly focussed on three over-riding principles: local, seasonal and sustainable.

– the city has THE best food carts of any city I’ve visited – with Tokyo taking a close second spot.

On other notes, I was in Toronto June 25-30 and then dashed to London to see the family (though I missed my nephew E’s graduation) over the long weekend. Upon my return we got right into cooking and served up a seafood linguini with a bocconcini salad (I wanted to use burrata cheese but that is exceedingly difficult to find so far from Italy).