My last night in Vancouver has come, tomorrow morning I am hopping on the bus back to Seattle, to cathch my flight to Hawaii.

Vancouver is....ok. I am not very impressed, it is just like any other North American big city, lots of traffic, chain stores, skyscrapers, Starbucks. It is kind of boring really, they all look and feel the same. Vancouver is supposed to be the best city in the world to live in. I am not sure if I believe that. Wherever I go, I am surrounded by homeless people, druggies are sitting on every street corner. It is actually kinda scary. Today I walked onto the wrong street, and after I had walked a block, I went back to where I came from. I was terrified. There were scary looking people everywhere, they came towards me like zombies, all spaced out, looking all scary!

Arriving here on Monday afternoon, I was so jetlagged. I checked into the hostel, and relaxed, before I went out for a walk in the neighbourhood for dinner, and had a look around the shops. I'd been up since 2.30 the night before, so I went to bed early to get rid of the jetlag. It still hasn't worked, I am still jetlagged, but working on it. I slept until I was woken up by one of the girls in my dorm coming home drunk. Oh, the joys of staying in a dorm!

My very first impression of the neighbourhood were pretty bad, so I hoped walking to Stanley park on Tuesday would change that. It did, and that park was my favourite part of Vancouver. I saw a new side to the city, the nice beaches, the wonderful views. I walked around the seawall the whole way around the park, 8.8 km. My feet still hurt, but it was so worth it. It was a beautiful walk with so many photo opportunities. I realized then that Canada is all about the nature and the countryside, not so much the cities. I would come back, but I would explore outside of the cities.

I spent many hours in the park, enjoying the sun, apparently it rains all the time here, so I have been incredibly lucky, as it has been lovely weather all days I have been here! I looked at the totempels, and got lost in a Native American souvenir shop. After the park, I went back to the hostel via Robson street, the main shopping street. I only looked though. I will do my shopping in New York!

All the days I have been here, there have only been 3 girls in the 4 bed dorm I have been in. A german girl has been here the whole time, and different Australian girls the other days. Apparently Canada is where all the Australians go, I have never met so many of them in such a short time anywhere outside of Australia! So even though I have spent the days walking around alone, I have talked a lot to all of the girls in my room. They have all been very nice, and I have spent hours just chatting. All of them were also travelling alone, and it has made me confident that I also could travel alone for a longer period of time if i had to. It is so easy to start talking to people, and we always have so much in common.

Today, I walked down to Granville Island, a lovely little Island with different shops and markets. Spent some hours looking around there, having some lunch. Before I jumped on of the little boats that took me to the other side again, and I walked up into Chinatown. There was not much there, just like any other Chinatown, and it was on the way back form here that I got onto the horrible street with all the weird people! There are seriously so many strange people in this city. They are all talking to themselves or yelling at others! I also went to a mall and had a look around, ended up buying one top, beacuse I had some Canadian dollars left to spend.

My feet are so tired from all the walking I have done the past two days, and my jetlag is still there. It is almost 8 pm now, and I am really tired. I will hold out until 10 pm though, then I can go to bed, and I am hoping to get a proper night's sleep for once. Last night my German roommate brought home a guy, in the bunkbed above me. Not so nice! I got angry and told them to be quiet, hehe, she just apologized before, so it is fine now. But again, many reasons to not stay in dorms, even though it is nice to get to know new people.

I would like to explore Canada more. I think there is a lot of beautiful things to be seen here, but Vancouver as a city is not a place I ever need to go back to. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. For now, I will be going back to a place I have been twice before. Hawaii!!