Hello From Vancouver Part 1 Arrival In Vancouver

I left beautiful Victoria         the local university bicycle       early yesterday morning at      co-op to explore the area on 2     8 am and took the Pacific       wheels. I rented a mountainbike    Coachlines bus/ferry combination      and started heading west to North  back to the mainland. It was          West Marine Drive which is the     another gorgeous day and I spent      road that is parallel to the       the entire ferry ride on the top      coastline, but the view to the     deck soaking in the scenery and       ocean is obscured by dense         the sunshine. At about 11:30 I        forest. In various areas trails    exited at Broadway and Cambie as      and steps lead down to to Spanish  the bus driver had advised me and     Bay.                               caught the 99B bus to the                                                University of British Columbia        I then cycled eastwards and found  campus and arrived about a half       a beautiful lookout spot from      an hour later. First I found the      where I could see the mouth of     student union building where I        the Burrard Inlet and the          picked up a bus map and a campus      mountains of North Vancouver. The  guide. Then I asked my way to the     university grounds in this area    student residence where I was         have several mansions that are     staying and checked myself into a     surrounded by gorgeous flowers     comfortable reasonably priced         and this is a just a superbly      student room that is part of a        scenic area. From there I took NW  6-unit apartment at a very            Marine Drive down towards Spanish  affordable C$38.00 a night.           Banks and kept cycling eastwards                                         past Locarno Beach and Jericho     After dumping my luggage and          Beach which is a recreational      getting changed I had a few hours     paradise. The water level was      until check-in for the Servas         quite low, however, and people     conference and I decided to use       had to walk out quite a while      the time by renting a bicycle at      over the sand to reach deeper      water. After a couple of hectic       students and features sculpted     days I figured I deserved about       log poles and various pieces of    an hour of downtime and bought        First Nations art. UBC also        myself an icecream which I            houses the largest university      savoured sitting at a bench while     bookstore in Canada as well as     observing the action on the           the Astronomical Observatory,      beach.                                located beside the UBC                                                   Geophysical Observatory which      Of course after this little           monitors earthquake activity.      respite I had to cycle all the                                           way back up, which ended up not       My first outing on the bike gave   being as bad as expected. The         me the lay of the land and a       campus of the University of           first glimpse at the Vancouver     British Columbia (UBC) is a           skyline which certainly has one    beautiful facility. It is very        of the most stunning locations of  expansive with a large number of      any large city I have ever seen.   mordern buildings interspersed by     I am glad I had a bit of a chance  green zones and parkland. UBC is      to explore it before I return      home to about 45,000 students and     back to the student residence to   it is the 3rd largest university      get ready for the Servas           in Canada. The UBC Campus is also     Conference.                        the home of the world-renowned                                           UBC Museum of Anthropology, the       For the entire article including   Nitobe Memorial Gardens, the UBC      photos please visit                Botanical Garden as well as the       Rose Garden & Chan Centre. The        size="-2">http://www.travelandtra  First Nations Longhouse serves as     nsitions.com/stories_photos/hello  a gathering place for native          _vancouver_1.htm            About the Author: Susanne Pacher is the publisher of Travel and Transitions (http://www.travelandtransitions.com), a popular web portal for unconventional travel & cross-cultural connections. Check out our brand new section featuring FREE ebooks about travel. Read more articles by: Susanne Pacher Article Source: www.iSnare.com