Vancouver is massive and likes to wear leather

Hello Sailor
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Susan says:

I had forgotten how big Vancouver really is- when I was 19 and just wanted to come up for a weekend of bar hopping my focus was obviously not on the size of the city and how long it takes to drive through it. Luckily our B&B was in the central downtown/west side/beach area so we were able to walk around most of the 4 days we were there. The city is picturesque and easy to take in. Toward the end of our stay we took a nice stroll through Stanley Park, along one of the beaches, and hopped a 10-person ferry to an “island” that hosted a bunch of art studios and several marina restaurants. Debbie made me walk the whole way. Except for the ferry part. We saw the Lions Gate Bridge during that stroll. It links Vancouver proper to North Vancouver across a decent expanse of water. Originally ‘twas owned and built by the Guinness family to the tune of $6 million in the ‘30’s. Apparently they needed an easier way to get to the pub.

View from the leather party patio
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Our strolls always seemed to bring us good things in Vancouver. While trying to get out of the throng of the “Festival of Light” post-firework crowd we ventured up to a nice looking little bar to be greeted by the owner (in a very charming leather jock strap and little vest number) and told they were having a leather party that evening but we were welcome to have a drink on the patio. We did, and Andy (the owner) stayed outside for a while and we had a good chat. From time to time we were treated to very polite and nice leather daddies coming out to get some air.

Vancouver Pride host
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Debbie says:

Crossing the border over to Canada was a lot easier than I thought. No interrogation tactics were used and the Canadian Immigration dude was lovely. For some reason it surprised me that he knew we’d applied to immigrate to Canada but, of course, that stuff came up on his computer after he’d scanned our passports. Sometimes I’m not very smart.

I felt nervous and weird driving into Vancouver. As in, “we’re going to be living here” nervous and weird. I decided to pretend that it was just another adventure on our road-trip to stop myself from freaking out.

A couple of dykes on a bike
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We stayed in the Nelson House B&B, a gorgeous heritage building in the west end of downtown Vancouver. Totally gay. Our room was called “The Sailor’s Room” and it came complete with a sailor (see pic).

Our first night in Vancouver was a Thursday and because it was Gay Pride week we reckoned there must be at least a decent drag show to go to but it turned out that “gay” took a break on the Thursday for the yearly “Celebration of Light” fireworks party. We intended going down to the beach to watch but we weren’t in a rush to leave the restaurant (on the other side of the city) so by the time we got in a taxi, it was over. We did, however, find an altogether different type of party (see Susan’s bit above.)

a float
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The Pride Parade took place on Sunday and the floats weren’t on canals, which was strange, but not as strange and downright rude as finding out you couldn’t take your own booze down to the streets to watch it? Insane. The fantastic drag host nearly made up for it but I definitely prefer Amsterdam Pride. Thought about everyone being on Helen & Irish’s boat and missed being there (and all you bunch) a lot.

Vancouver has quite a lot of crazy people. My favorite was the drunk guy playing the spoons beside the patio of a restaurant we were at. Drunk or not, he has talent.

Roller Derby "lookers"
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