Vancouverites are terrible drivers. This, I believe, is not necessarily due to the fact that they are actually bad at driving, but have become bad drivers because of the city in which they drive. The traffic here is insane. And it should be. There are millions of people living here. But in some cases there’s really no need for it. Here are a few things I’ve learned from the little driving I’ve done in Vancouver. You will get honked at. It doesn’t matter how well you drive, it will happen. People here are very fond of their horns, and like to use them often. My hotel was downtown and had very thin windows, and I don’t think an hour went by, at any time of the day, that I didn’t hear a car horn. I myself even used it once. But only once, and only because the guy wanted to turn left in front of me as I was going straight through an intersection. But many like to use their horns if you sit too long at a light that has just turned green. True enough, most people will honk if you sit too long at a green light after it has changed. But in Vancouver, the waiting period before the honk has significantly decreased. Normally you might get 5 seconds or so. If you’re ever in Vancouver, wait 3. I can almost guarantee you’ll get a honk from behind you. Because that guy behind you is very important and has important places to go, and if you don’t immediately mash your accelerator to the floor, clearly you aren’t paying attention and need to be reminded that a green light means you can go. And you must go. Now. Or they’ll honk. It is also impossible, mostly in downtown Vancouver, to make a left turn. There are no left turn signals, but rather many, many no left turn signs. Which generally means you have to make several right turns and go farther than needed to get where you’re going. Which is not as easy as it sounds, considering that some streets just like to end before you get to the spot where you can turn right to get around the block because you couldn’t turn left before. At one point I got so lost because of this particular problem I ended up going down a back alley and making a 20 block detour. Mostly because at one intersection I wasn’t allowed to turn left. After this I quickly decided that instead of driving to the big mall I wanted to go to, I would trek down 4 blocks and take the Skytrain. Best decision ever. It costs $3.25 to take the Skytrain from downtown to Metrotown mall, and it was $3.25 well spent. That’s $6.50 I probably would’ve spent on gas just sitting in traffic getting there anyway. And it saved me the headache of driving in downtown again. So if you’re visiting Vancouver, park your car and take transit. You won’t be sorry. (And it’s a little better for the environment, too.)
Being a pedestrian in Vancouver isn’t easy either. There seem to be certain things people downtown like to do that make little sense and are sometimes even dangerous. Like even though the walk-man signal has stopped, they figure they can start crossing the street anyway. And they then get a bewildered look on their face when the light turns green and some guy honks at them. When I was in Vegas, if the walk sign had changed, you don’t go. ‘Cause the cabbies will run you over. At least in Vancouver all they do is honk. They might swear at you, but you can’t hear that part because they won’t roll down their windows because they’re afraid of fresh air. And it might let a little more of that new car smell out of their fancy BMW. The other thing I noticed pedestrians do is line up right at the edge of the sidewalk and wait to cross. With their toes either on the road or very close. I even saw a few guys stand directly on the road and wait for the light to change. I don’t know about anyone else, but I value my toes too much to do that.
And Vancouverites love their cell phones. If you walk down the street, any street, just pick one, you’ll see someone talking on a cell phone. Or text messaging. Or just idly flipping their phone open and closed so everyone around them notices they have one. If I get brain cancer later in life, I’m pretty sure it’ll be because of those 3 days I spent in Vancouver and all the cellular waves that passed through my skull.
The ladies, and even some of the men, also clearly love their shoes. Stilettos, fancy work shoes for the guys, even shiny sparkly flats, all of them very expensive and very impractical. Stilettos, for instance, boggle my mind in that city. None of the sidewalks are flat. They’re all bumpy and uneven. How do these women not break their ankles just getting from one boutique to the next? And how do they manage to even walk at all? Well, that second one has nothing to do with Vancouver, just my own puzzlement over stiletto heels. I’m pretty sure my feet would fall off if I tried to do all the walking I did in stilettos. Even in my pink runners, which I wore because they looked slightly better than the Mizuno’s that have several hundred kilometres and a marathon on them, after a day my dogs were more than barking. They were howling like coyotes on the Alberta prairies. If you’re planning on going to Vancouver and walking anywhere, wear comfortable shoes. You’ll thank me later. Oh, and as a side note, apparently skinny jeans are still cool. I thought this craze had passed last season, but I may have mis-read that particular memo. It’s a shame, really, since no one looks good in skinny jeans. Even if they are a size 0.
There are a lot of “meterosexuals” in Vancouver as well, so there are quite a few guys walking around in fancy shoes. And it’s not just the shoes with the guys. They also dress pretty good. Given, there are the ones wearing fancy suits that likely cost more than my entire university education, but they have a reason for that: work. It’s the ones in the fancy jeans, wool coats and scarves that get me. If it was 1830, I’d probably call them dandies. But it does make for some delightful people watching. Especially if you’re a lady. There’s just somethin’ about a well-dressed man. And it’s constant eye candy in the downtown area. Just park yourself on a chair outside one of the cafes, position a drool cup under your chin and enjoy. In fact, I think April, Becky, Kristi and I need to plan a random trip to Vancouver just so we can ogle the men on Robson Street. Trust me ladies, it’d be worth the money.
The service in some stores can be confusing, too. I’m used to walking into a store and having someone ask me if I need help finding anything. Usually I just say I’m only looking and they leave me alone. But it’s nice to be asked, because sometimes you do actually need a hand finding something. But in most places in Vancouver, I didn’t get asked at all. And then when I really would have asked for help, there was no one to be found. Anywhere. I did find, however, that in some of the smaller, less expensive stores, the staff was much more friendly and actually did ask if I needed help finding anything. And I give mad props to all the little stores in Chinatown, where I think the service might be the best in the city. You might not be able to understand it all, but I found the storeowners so eager to please, one guy even offered to carry a couple pictures I bought several blocks away to my car, even though they weren’t very big or heavy, and I hadn’t paid very much for them.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I’d move to Vancouver for Stanley Park. Acres and acres of forest and trails. And kilometres of paved running trails uninterrupted by roads and stop lights. Sheer running bliss. And the Seawall’s flat, too. So there’re no hills to contend with. I used to wonder why anyone would move to Vancouver and now I know. Stanley Park.
So that, in a nutshell, was my little trip to the giant metropolis known as Vancouver. It’s really not a bad city. That is, if you can chill out, don’t need to get anywhere too fast, and have a lot of patience for hearing car horns.
