Vancouver, Siberia

Hello, everyone. This post comes to you from Vancouver, Canada, where the temperature is currently 5 degrees Celsius. It is a beautiful place; I've always thought so from the first day I set foot here, 15 years ago. But having been more familiar with the American pace of life and its bustling, cosmopolitan cities, my succeeding reaction after the first few hours of reveling in the clean air and antiseptic surroundingds, the overwhelming natural beauty of Vancouver (terrain, vegetation, land and water formations) was: and thennnnnn? Nightlife here would consist of a movie and frozen yogurt. Zzzzzz... There isn't not much for the culture vulture who has to have a museum, art, history, or Broadway show fix. There is no shopping to speak of, either. Prices of American and European goods (if they even get across the border) are double the cost here and the 14% tax on top of the overpricing is crippling.

You see, Canada is a socialist state so that everything is state-run or state-controlled: insurance, school system, health system, and all businesses. There are no private capitalists; imagine that! Here's how it works: even if you were dying of some grave disease you may not ask to see a specialist. You are only allowed to see a general practitioner. And only after he deems it necessary for you to be assessed by a specialist does it actually happen. The upside is, all medical bills are free. Sure you give 30% of your income to the state, which goes to your beautiful parks, clean surroundings, first class and well-maintained roads, first world utility services, and retirement benefits, you'll just have the government breathing down your neck--a George Orwell-esque existence. The government has the right to look at all your private records at any given time. It is spooky how sales clerks ask for your phone number every time you make a purchase at the store. All it takes is a push of the button for the government to know what your consumer habits are.

Life here unfolds in slow motion and every woman over the age of 25 is either shepherding a minimum of 3 1/2 children or pushing those double seater mega prams filled with little bodies too close in age to to be walking yet. This is a child-friendly place--the antithesis of New York. This would be a New Yorker's nightmare. Don't you ever notice how you never spot children anywhere around Manhattan. In fact bets have been made on this (a Where's Waldo kind of game) and good money has been made on the part of the nays.

But slowly, I have gotten used to the quiet and when's-the-next-potluck kind of life. It is safe, aside from petty theft. The children are very safe walking the streets but the problem is they can only do so when when the sun is out. It rains here 11 months of the year--no fail! In fact, it is officially spring but I woke up this morning to dense fog, obstructing the view of the parks and the bay. Visibility must have been only 10 meters. But it cleared up as the sun ascended to its highest spot--around 4 pm each day. I'm posting photos of the during and after the fog shots. Ski season stays open until May so we are fortunate to catch the tail end of it. A mere twenty-minute drive is Cypress mountain, where the kids go skiing and snow tubing. So I probably should stop complaining about the cold since the snow brings us so much joy.

The cherry blossom trees and tulips that line all the roads and border the parks are in full bloom--they are breathtaking. Still, I somehow can't get past the coldness of this place. It is referred to as Beautiful British Columbia but I think there should be another B in there for Beautiful Butt-freezing British Columbia.

Really, I do know why I bitch so much about this place, in spite of the wrap-around Ang Lee movie type sceneries of nature: Cruella de Ville is always here every time we come--in the same house! And this time around, we will be together be for two months. I don't know how I got to be wrangled into agreeing but here I am, walking on egg shells every single day. Maybe two months didn't sound so bad in the beginning but now that I'm actually here, everyday feels like 10 years. I'll need your prayers.

If I start sounding crazier with each succeeding post, please don't hesitate to give a holler. I might need a good slapping to be reminded that I hadn't died and gone to hell just yet and that this is a temporary situation, which I shall, hopefully, overcome in two months. May the force be with me, with all of us, as we try to spend the summer in the best possible way.