Full disclosure: maybe half of today's entry, in the interest of time, is copied and pasted directly from captions I put in the requisite photo digest email I sent to select coworkers, friends and family this morning. I only had time to edit and upload photos last night; I wasn't able to get to even tagging, let alone captioning, the photos until today, having returned last night at about 9:30.

This past weekend was my eleventh visit to Vancouver, B.C. – and the first, out of all of them, not to be entirely focused on experiencing the downtown area: I stayed in the Kitsilano neighborhood, where Ivan lives. Or lived: he attempted to leverage his dual citizenship to find a place to live for three months and look for a job so he could settle down there, only to discover the job search too competitive and Canada’s wages far too low. As of next weekend he officially moves back to the U.S. – Bellingham, specifically, for now anyway – to enter into another school program while working as a nurse in a hospital there. But in the meantime, I still wanted to stick to the plan I long had of visiting Ivan in Vancouver B.C., the one time I could visit when a good friend lived there.

However! Any hopes of getting a free place to stay were dashed when Ivan insisted the house he co-rented with two roommates was a "hell hole," as he likes to put it. He hates it so much he literally wouldn’t even let me inside when I first went to meet up with him on Saturday – he says his two roommates are filthy slobs. (He also told me there’s a rat in the walls of his bedroom, which frankly is enough on its own to keep me out.) To be fair to his perspective on the matter, his house was indeed the crappiest one on the block. I actually said to him, "You know how every block has the one house that's a dump? That's your house." Then he acted mock-scandalized.

So, I stayed in my first-ever AirBnB! (That photo's lighting, thanks to the wildfire smoke choking the city, makes it look like a still from a horror movie.) Even this was a mini-adventure, finding a place: I thought I had found a room to stay one night in near Ivan and clicked to book it on AirBnB, only to have the host write back that they would be out of town that weekend and the room was actually unavailable. Then why the hell was it listed as available? Not the greatest first impression of this service.

So, temporarily, I booked a hostel room in Gastown, where there were no private rooms left and I would have to bunk with some stranger. Hardly ideal, but I figured, it’s just one night; it’s cheap; I’ll live. But! Luckily I kept checking back on AirBnB, and this room came up that was only 10 blocks due north from Ivan, three blocks from the water, and came to $104 – about double the hostel room, but then I finally realized the exchange rate, which right now is about 1 : 1.31 between the US and Canadian dollar, meant it would really come to about $80 or so for me. I can live with that, and was certainly worth that much more to get a private bedroom, even if I still had to share the bathroom.

So that house is where I stayed. The guy who rents out four of its six bedrooms as AirBnB rooms has apparently lived there since he was six years old, when his parents bought it in 1986. The house, which has four levels when including both the basement and the attic bedroom, was built in 1914, originally as a boarding house – it used to have even more rooms. He’s been doing the AirBnB thing since October of last year and he says he’s made far more money with this than anything else he’s ever done, especially compared to the day job he has otherwise, working with kids at local schools. When I got back in the evening and he was the only one in the house, we got into a long conversation that got unusually personal for a first-ever conversation with someone, and we got surprisingly deep about relationships, kind of comparing notes. He’s been in a long distance relationship with a woman in Oslo for nine years. I was impressed.

My room had two single beds in it, and the oddest thing about the bathrooms on my floor was that one room had only a toilet and sink; the other had the shower and a bathtub and sink, but no toilet. On the other hand, there was a model outhouse on the mantle in the den. On the whole, it was a very nice house and pleasant stay, with one very odd exception: why would he provide toiletries and towels, but no top sheets on the beds? The beds had only the fitted sheets on the mattresses, and then just a comforter. What the hell? I’m glad I brought pajamas.

So once I got settled in, I met up with Ivan. That was mid-afternoon, even though I’d caught the BoltBus at 6:30 in the morning in downtown Seattle. On the East Coast, BoltBus was long a competitor to MegaBus, which Shobhit and I rode once from New York for a day trip to Philadelphia in 2011. Here in the Pacific Northwest, however, there is no MegaBus for them to compete against, which gives BoltBus little incentive to, you know, be great. Some of the seats are torn here and there; there’s a couple blank TV screens that hang from the ceiling like dead monuments to better days. At least this company, currently owned by Greyhound (which frankly explains a lot), offers a service of convenience: an express ride to Vancouver with stops only in Bellingham and at the border crossing.

So, I got into Vancouver at 10:30 am, to maximize my time there. This made little difference to time spent with Ivan, who regularly doesn’t even wake up until 11:00. I killed a couple of hours in Gastown on my own and had a perfectly pleasant time, though. (Full disclosure: I went to the Vancouver Steamworks, and had an okay time, and it only cost me $10 Canadian due to the time of day and the fact that my Seattle membership is also valid there.) Then I took the bus into the Kitsilano neighborhood where I was able to “check in” at the AirBnB – which really just consisted of using a 4-digit code to unlock the front door, walk in and be welcomed before getting shown the room. Then, with access to wifi (I kept my phone on Airplane Mode the entire time I was there), I contacted Ivan and asked if he wanted to go for a walk somewhere. He suggested this place that’s apparently part of the UCB campus, much like the large forested area of Evergreen State College’s campus in Olympia (where I once also visited him, when he was attending that school in 2015), and which I later learned was actually Pacific Spirit Regional Park, though still part of University Endowment Lands.

Anyway, Ivan chose an entry point roughly two miles from his place, a bog area he said he really liked, which includes many wood footpaths. This was a lot more walking than I was expecting – I fully expected to walk a lot on this trip, but this one outing was at least two miles there, and two miles back again, and I would guess a minimum of two miles walking on these paths and other trails. It was fun though, and very pretty.

It certainly killed time for us all afternoon -- and then evening. I must admit to being somewhat surprised by how much time he spent with me on Saturday, presumably because he just hates being at the home he'd been renting the past three months. He had already told me once via Facebook Messenger that he goes to a nearby Starbucks a lot, just to sit and read and not have to be at home. And in fact, after we walked down to Broadway and got a very filling dinner at a delicious Indian place called East is East (where he accused me of not eating very much, only because I didn't finish everything in my Masala Chai Feast, which was massive), and then got some ice cream for dessert, we did wander back to his favorite Starbucks so he could get a latte. We sat at a table for a while, much longer than I expected actually, and we just looked at our phones. It was just comfortably quiet hanging out, though, and I didn't mind it at all.

Ivan asked what else I wanted to do, though, so I suggested we walk down to the waterfront. Once there, he had me walking quite a ways north until we found a beach, on the whole adding another 2 miles or so from Broadway; by the end of the day I must have walked at least 8 or 10 miles total. And along the way, we found the overlook with downtown Vancouver in the distance -- which was where he took the photo of me at the bottom of this entry.

A note on that photo: This was not just some foggy day. It was actually very warm. As anyone in Seattle is also very familiar with, wildfire smoke is choking the entire region. This is becoming the new normal, and I’m thinking that unless I ever finally come back for Vancouver Pride (which I have not done since 2008 and would really like to do again), no more visits in August. I want to travel when the weather is less likely to be absolute shit.

We actually went to three stops on that last walk, once to that overlook; then to the undeveloped beach just below Point Grey Road Park, where we took a few photos of each other; and then he led me a ways further down to the west, to Jericho Beach, where I got a few semi-comical shots of him sitting in the Lifeguard Chair like it was a throne.

He walked with me back to my block, and then gave me a hug as we parted ways and he walked 10 blocks south on that very street, which he lives half a block off of on 10th. That was when I returned to the AirBnB and had that long conversation with Robert before heading to my room to post a few of the day's photos on Facebook -- the one time Ivan would let me post a photo of him, and only after he had sent it back to me edited and color-corrected to his liking. He gets weirdly rigid about some things.

The curious thing about the AirBnB, at least as of yesterday morning, was how much less active it was than I expected, after Robert had told me in AirBnB messaging that I would be one of 7 staying that night, all of us sharing those toilet and shower rooms. When I first arrived on Saturday afternoon, Robert was in the middle of playing a board game with about four other people in his dining room. They were all too engaged though so I never met a single other person staying at the house; as I said, when I returned after spending about six and a half hours straight with Ivan, Robert was the only person to be found in the house -- although someone did come in the door behind me while I stood in his office doorway. I just never saw the person, only heard them go up the stairs.

And when I got up yesterday morning, again, Robert was the only person I ever saw. I did hear one person walking around on my floor at one point. And sharing the bathroom was a concern of mine, which I semi-alleviated by doing some things in the shower room, and some things, particularly my eyeliner, in the toilet room, so I wouldn't tie up just one room for an entire hour. I actually did my mascara with my hand mirror in the bedroom (I couldn't do the eyeliner that way as I need two mirrors to do that, to make sure I've got it right from the sides).

When we had parted on Saturday evening, Ivan had said we would get brunch in the morning. Then, after I messaged him twice with ideas of places to eat, he wrote back asking if he minded if we skipped brunch, as he had food at home to eat that he'd have to throw out otherwise. I was disappointed but had to concede that the request was perfectly reasonable. He did tell me a place on Alma St off W 10th Avenue called Grounds for Coffee was really good, though, so I decided I'd go there -- and we made a plan for him to meet me there at noon.

I spent a little bit of time in the morning just reading my book (My Life as a Goddess by Guy Branum, which is very good) in the den. Robert was out at one point when I came down, and he even offered me some eggs. At that point I still thought I was having brunch with Ivan, and so I declined. Damn it! He changed into some shorts and told me he was going to be gone for an hour at a tennis match. I said, "I may be gone when you get back then, I'm not sure." He said it was nice to meet me and went on his way.

But, then I got a hankering for at least a snack. The handout in my bedroom said I could help myself to anything on the top two shelves of the refrigerator, which was quite the hodgepodge of stuff. And I even thought I might get a bowl of cereal when I first woke up, well before 7 a.m. (and figured I'd better get ready before the barrage of people that never really happened) -- the AirBnB listing said "breakfast provided," and indeed there were oatmeal packets and cereal boxes left out on the counter. But, only a quart container of milk with hardly any left in it, in the door of the refrigerator and not on said shelves. I figured it best to leave that alone -- but, I found a tin container with one last slice of apple pie left in it, so I decided, fuck it, I would eat that.

Mind you, I ate comparatively very little on Saturday. I'd had a bowl of cereal very early in the morning, and then a blandly pleasant but still rather small caprese sandwich from a Starbucks for lunch in Vancouver -- otherwise consuming nothing until that huge dinner probably being why I got so full as quickly as I did at East is East. I got a little worried about my food consumption yesterday, though: it was when I was eating that pie that Ivan messaged me that he would not like to get brunch after all. I said, "I guess I'll go find a place to eat then," and he suggested Grounds for Coffee: "They make the most heavenly sticky buns." Damn it! Had I known that was coming, I would not have had the pie.

I still went to Grounds for Coffee and had a small breakfast sandwich (which I just now decided should be re-branded an "egglish muffin"); a cinnamon roll with icing; and a chai tea latte. Along with all that, I killed about an hour charging my phone and reading Guy Branum's book.

Oh! This was also when I discovered how much I truly wasted on Vancouver public transit costs. On Saturday, I bought two day passes, totaling $10.50 Canadian, when I really should have purchased nothing more than one bus fare of $2.95. How would I know I'd take only a single bus ride that day, though? And the thing about the second day pass: when I bought the first one, I read on the card, Once tapped, it activates, and then is valid until midnight. I figured that meant I could get a second one and just not tap it until the next day, thereby giving myself a day pass for Sunday. But then I read further while sitting there at Grounds for Coffee, which I obviously should have done on Saturday, and discovered that day passes purchased at SkyTrain station kiosks (where I bought them) were only valid on the day of purchase. Fuck!

So, I looked up online to find retailers that sell the passes. They sold them at the 7-eleven right across the street! Hooray! Except, god damn it all to hell, they were out of regular day passes and had them only for seniors. My only option then was to get a Compass card, which has a $6 surcharge, with $10 fare value on it. So there went another $16. Or about $12.26 USD, I suppose. I did get four bus rides out of that, at least.

Because once Ivan finally arrived -- after messaging me that it would be 12:15 -- we caught two buses due east and then due south, to Queen Elizabeth Park. That was our Primary Outing for Sunday.

As an aside: on Flickr, as always with Vancouver trips, they are separated into sets by day. The Saturday set consists primarily of photos of Pacific Spirit Regional Park and the bog there; a few shots at dinner and dessert; and the walk along the waterfront in Kitsilano. The Sunday set consists primarily -- 40 of the day's 56 total shots -- of photos of Queen Elizabeth Park.

It was a beautiful park that I would happily go back to -- especially on a day not glutted with wildfire smoke. The whole reason I wanted to go there was because I had Googled "best free views of Vancouver" and thereby learned that the park is the highest point within city limits, and has great panoramic views of downtown. What we got yesterday, instead, were views more reminiscent of smoggy Los Angeles.

The gardens there were beautiful, though, and I got lots of great pictures, some of which even had Ivan in them -- as over and over when I went to get a picture, he would walk into my frame and ask me to take a picture of him. He would often take off his white baseball cap and set it temporarily on my head so he'd be hatless in his photos. The great shot of him in the middle of this post is one of those shots. (Both the shots at the top and the bottom of this post are from the walk along the waterfront on Saturday night.)

After taking two buses out there, and catching one bus back that took Ivan straight back to his neighborhood, I opted instead to get off on 16th and walk the mile or so east to Main St and catch a bus straight back to Pacific Station, as my card only had one fare's worth left on it, and we couldn't know for sure if we'd have to take one bus or two back from his neighborhood -- otherwise I would have ridden all the way back with him. Instead, I killed another couple of hours just south of downtown on my own until Ivan met up with me again. In that time, I got myself a real caprese sandwich at a high-end grocery/diner in Chinatown, which was so fantastic it makes the Starbucks caprese sandwiches look like little piles of shit.

Ivan had originally intended to take Amtrak back to Bellingham last night, but found their website untenable, because it would not accept him as being over 18 even though he repeatedly said he was. So, instead of having to go all the way downtown to buy the ticket when he wouldn't even be sure there would be available seats, he opted to get a ticket on the same bus I was taking back. Thus, we sat next to each other for the first couple of hours of the trip back: about an hour to the border; close to half an hour -- if that -- at the border; another half hour drive or so to Bellingham. He didn't get to the station until about 4:45, cutting it pretty close to the 5:00 departure, but we still found two seats together. So, with the two hours traveling in the evening, and the three hours or so busing to Queen Elizabeth Park and back, I suppose we totaled another five hours or so together yesterday. It didn't feel like we spent as much time together yesterday but that's probably because more than half the time we spent together was just riding buses to and from places. I had a great time, in any case, and even said so soon after we got on the bus together: "Well, Ivan," I said, "I really had a nice time this weekend." And he told me he was happy to hear it.

Shobhit was so convinced my decision to take this trip would be "a waste," though -- arrogantly, largely just because I was going without him, as though it's impossible for me to have fun without him. To be clear, I love traveling with him, and we nearly always travel well together. But, I can also have fun on my own. Also, I knew Ivan and I would do things that would hold little to no interest to Shobhit -- especially back when I thought Ivan and I would spend this visit taking a bike ride, and maybe ice skating, both things involving balance that Shobhit is incapable of doing. Ivan and I wound up doing neither thing, but that made it easier for me to travel: I did see two people taking bikes on the BoltBuses, but it still appeared awkward as far as getting them into the luggage compartments went. Also, Ivan declared that he would refuse to ride a bike at all as long as he had no health insurance. I decided not to push back with, What the hell -- weren't you the one recently championing Canada's universal health care and your dual citizenship? But, I guess his imminent move back to the U.S. was a factor. I think he was being quite irrationally over-cautious, but whatever.

Either way, we wound up walking the woods of Pacific Spirit Regional Park, and going to Queen Elizabeth Park -- both of which Shobhit could have done, but still wouldn't have been that interested in. Shobhit and I can go back to Vancouver together sometime soon and re-focus on downtown like we have all the other seven times we've gone there together. (I've gone without Shobhit with other friends four times: with Barbara in 1999; Susan in 2011; Other Danielle and Andrea for the Madonna concert in 2015; and, now, Ivan in 2018.) As for future visits with Ivan, he's much happier with the place he's living in Bellingham, and has already said I can stay there sometime, so I can at least expect not to have to pay for lodging again when visiting him.

As for Ivan's future in Bellingham, it's uncertain at best -- as his future always is, really. He started his new job there a week ago and is already complaining about it. The only positive, so far, as the house he's got, with roommates he still likes, at least after one week. He's got the yearlong program to become a hypnotherapist, and we'll see if anything comes of that at all. He's already talking about applying to live in Albania doing volunteer work for a year. When it comes to long-range planning with Ivan, though, it's like trying to rely on Seattle's weather forecasts any more than a few days in advance: once the day actually gets here, the forecast is completely different. In another year, I bet $1000 Ivan's plan will be something completely different.

All I want is to be able to continue visiting him regularly, really. We've already discussed my coming to visit him for my Birth Week in April (where I'll either just hang out with him in Bellingham, or maybe we'll take a day trip to Vancouver -- I'll have a car for that), but considering he's still got stuff in our storage unit, he'll surely be back to Seattle to visit multiple times before then. It is a little bit sad, how he moved to Vancouver in May, saying to me, "It's time for me to settle down," and, well -- so much for that. His inability to settle down looks to go on as indefinitely as ever.

Getting back to Shobhit, he really did go above and beyond for me this weekend: since he was awake when I got ready super-early Saturday morning, he drove me to the bus stop, even though it would have been super easy for me just to walk to Light Rail and take that train to the International District Station and walk just a few blocks from there. And, he came to pick me up last night too. "See how much I do for you?" he loves to say. Yes, yes, fine. Shobhit does a lot for me.

[posted 12:27 pm]