Limitless World: British Columbia

Exactly four days after returning from South Carolina, I boarded yet another plane. This time, after a flight to Seattle and a three hour bus ride north, I arrived at Vancouver, British Columbia. My friend Bridgid-Anne, who I met while in India, picked me up and took me to her house in Agassiz, about 90 mins from Vancouver (again, it pays to have friends who live all over the world.) I stayed with her and her family for five days in their tiny town sandwiched between mountains. It was breathtakingly beautiful and so refreshing to wake up to a mountain everyday. I got to spend Easter with her incredibly welcoming and kind family and meet a bunch of her friends.

We spent a day biking along the water around Stanley Park in Vancouver, visited a cheese farm, tried poutine (a classic Canadian dish: french fries smothered in cheese curds and gravy), watched several Cannucks hockey games with hardcore Canadian fans, and visited a fantastic used book store in Chilliwack, a neighboring town.

For the second half of the week, Bridgid, her boyfriend and I took a road trip around Vancouver Island. We caught a two hour ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo, our first stop on the island. Other cities we stopped in were Coombs, Parksville, and Victoria, the capital of BC. The three of us had such a great time finding cheap hostels to stay in, exploring the scenic beaches and hillsides, shopping at the kitschy Goats on the Roof market, feeding sea lions at Oak Bay Harbor, playing hacky sack in front of the Parliament building, making friends with old men at a Scottish pub, and hippie dancing at a night club. Everything was entirely relaxed and carefree, and the mountain air mixed with the sea breeze was a rejuvenating medicine. I absolutely intend to return to British Columbia to do some more exploring - my allotted ten days wasn’t nearly enough!