click for more pictures.jpg)
We took a 4 day long weekend to leave the country! Venturing up to British Columbia with no plan in mind—we just wanted to see how different Canada is from the States. Romka swears it is totally different and almost like his home---but Jen thinks that the beautiful, gorgeous and amazing weather and the breathtaking geography made Roma think of paradise, and that is always how he thinks of his own home. (It’s ok, everyone should think of their home as a beautiful place—even if they have to wear candy coated glasses)
Anyway, we crossed the border and headed straight for Vancouver, BC. Jen didn’t like the city very much. It is a huge and busy city—there is nothing too terrible about it, but it feels like a big city. I am already used to Portland, which is a big city, but doesn’t feel like it when you walk downtown. The strange thing about Vancouver is that we saw very few people who were Canadian by second generation or more. They all—I mean all—seem like they were fresh immigrants. Attending the Islamic cultural festival might have added to the first impression, but even as we were driving down the road a man yelled out a remark about our Estonian bumper sticker. He said he was also from Estonia, Tallinn, in fact, and had been in Canada for 17 years now. I think that Vancouver is the place for fresh immigrants to the American continent to go.
We left the city to head East, and finally North. According to the maps, there are mountains all over the place—and Romka was worried that Jen would get to stressed if we went to the mountains (I usually do get terribly tense when we are going 90 miles an hour down the mountain passes) But, this particular road was built pretty much along the river, so there were no sharp rises and falls while going through the mountains. But there are a lot of mountains—you just have to imagine the people who built this road and the tunnels that gave us access to see the area.
Here is a site that has pictures of the 7 tunnels that we went through in only 25 miles….
We stopped at various swimming holes, and ate at only the local restaurants. I think by the end of the third day, Aleks just decided that we were going to be living in our car from now on, and in the mornings was asking for his ‘aplesin’ (orange) and where we were going to go swimming next.
The weather was warm and it was a perfect four day summer paradise.
PS. Thank you Cheryl for coming by and watering the plants!! They survived this trip!
a.jpg)
b.jpg)
a.jpg)
.jpg)