Today we sailed south on the inside passage under blue skies and sunshine. Tomorrow we will disembark in Vancouver the last stop of our tour. But today there are no port of calls, no special tours just a quiet day on the ship. Thank God, our tour has only four days on the ship. More of this loafing around could have been rather boring for me. But we managed to pass the day with trips to the deck, packing our suitcases, getting our papers ready etc.. As Colette said this was a day for “ this goes here, that goes there, and I can’t find a dam thing”. After the evening meal we said our goodbyes to our tablemates and exchanged emails and phone numbers. Later we enjoyed a pleasant Broadway musical medley which I am happy to report was quite a bit better than what we saw a few nights ago. The crew of the ship was also introduced and sang us their good byes. Afterward we put out our packed suitcases in the hallway and slept for the last time in our very comfortable cabin. Oops! I meant to say “state room”.

Disembarkation Day! I got out on deck early and saw the gorgeous sunrise as we were approaching Vancouver. I took quite a few photos as we passed by Stanley Park and its early morning bike riders, and under the Lions Gate Bridge and of the full panorama of the city. This was a day of early to rise, early to breakfast and then wait and wait until our number for disembarkation was called. It was rather well organized, I must say. We bid our farewells to Suzie and promised to keep in touch. She was catching a plane for Florida around noon so her number was up way before ours. Then we too got called and left our boat. Colette and I planned our trip to stay in Vancouver and see the sights for another couple of days before we returned home. So, we got a cab to take us to our “English Country Garden” B&B. Once again our taxi driver was quite exotic. He had a turban of a Sikh, and sure enough he was from the Punjab. After settling in our lovely “Panoramic View” room Colette was frantically demanding the appearance of the cats, Basil, Sybil, and Manuel, that Carol the owner mentioned were living here. But no cats! “I want my money back” she demanded, “I want to see cats!!!” Well, she does go on a bit, but I can understand there were no cats, and for that no owner either. She must have been suffering from withdrawal after all it’s been almost two weeks since she left Minouche in New York. We were a bit late to go to Victoria that day as our substitute hostess Brook pointed out. So, we took a walk down to Broadway and boarded the local buss for the tourist center near the Canada Place Cruise terminal. Here we signed up for the afternoon trolley tour of the city and a whole day tour of Victoria and the Buchard Gardens the next morning.
Before we embarked on our tour we met with one of the city tour operators whose English was bit shaky and found out that she just arrived from Bulgaria. We did not even blink an eye. Hey, why not from Bulgaria? We just added her to our menagerie of Albanian, Rumanian and the Hungarian Gypsy band!

As our trolley took us through town I saw that Vancouver has grown by leaps and bounds, probably tripled in size since I saw it last time in 1979. There are still lots of lovely tree lined streets, beautiful flowers and lush gardens everywhere, but the high-rises the icons of modern big cities, have overtaken downtown and I can’t say I like it. Our guide confirmed my observations by telling us that Vancouver is growing faster than it can keep up. We got off the trolley in Stanley Park and paid homage to the Totem Polls and the great vistas of the city across the bay. Click, click, click! my camera went nuts!

We ended our tour in Gas Town, which got its name from????? . We opted for a dinner ala fresco and plopped down at a Greek-Middle Eastern restaurant. Once again we were treated to an international staff of Punjabi, Mexican and Nepalese waiters and enjoyed our Greek horse devours and French Wine. Not a bad combination I must say. When we got back to our B&B we were exhausted, hot and sweaty. No wonder! It’s been a real long day with the temperature in the 90s Fahrenheit that is, which has turned out to be a record-breaking temperature for Vancouver.