Our Greatest Ally

DSC03321moderncity.JPG


DAY 495: In a stirring post-Nine Eleven speech that was obviously written for him because I sure as hell know he didn’t write it himself, U.S. President George W. Bush once ended a sentence with the words, “...our greatest ally, Great Britain.” While historically speaking that may be true (except for that whole little American Revolution thing), I beg to differ (yet again) with the American President.  Based on my experience on my trip around the world, “our greatest ally” is not the UK but Canada, the U.S.A.’s friendly neighbor to the north.

In my experience, I have met nothing but the nicest, friendliest, funniest, and most hospitable people when it comes to Canadians, from Angie and Denise in Egypt, Sebastian in Morocco, the pub-crawling Torontonians in Berlin, Liz in Japan, and “The Other Erik” in Boracay.  Of course I mustn’t forget that many hardcore and enthusiastic fans of this Blog post their comments from Canada, including Td0t, Janice, Lisa, and Rose.

And so, in true Amazing Race style, I decided to make my last destination before re-entering the States a cold one, one offering outdoorsy snowy challenges—and there was none better in Canada than Vancouver, British Columbia.

“WHOA, IT’S REALLY COLD HERE,” were my first words as soon as I stepped off the plane and onto the catwalk linking to the terminal gate in Vancouver International Airport.  Having traversed the north and south hemispheres in accordance with spring or summer for sixteen months, I hadn’t felt cold temperatures like that at sea level in a long time, and it was a good thing I had kept some warmer clothes in my baggage after all.  Despite the cold temperatures, I was happy to be back in North America and was ready to be greeted by the ever-so-friendly Canadians.  However, what I was greeted with felt a bit more “American.”

“Passports.”

Up ahead the Royal Mounted Canadian Police (Canada’s federal police, a.k.a. “The Mounties") were sternly checking individual passports of everyone getting off the plane, right at the gate even before the customs lines, just to weed out suspected terrorists.  Not surprisingly, the two innocent Arab-looking guys on the pre-dominantly Asian-faced China Airlines flight were flagged and delayed for questioning.  Later on, randomly selected people were selected for a hand search of baggage, right at the luggage carousel.  That’s pretty fucked up, I thought.  I thought The Mounties wore red uniforms, not blue. Has Dudley Do Right been deceiving me all this time?

Canadian hospitality was back on track when I finished entry formalities and pushed my stroller into the arrivals hall.  “Erik!” called an unfamiliar voice.  It was Vancouver Blogreader-turned-"Trinidad Show” character anthony (real name Anthony) who had e-mailed me saying that he’d be willing to pick me up at the airport so that he could meet me, and more importantly, to see the famous blue clamp I have to attach to my iBook laptop computer to keep the screen lit up.  “What do you want to see?” he asked as we drove away.  “[What do you usually see first when you enter a new city?]”

“I usually go around and get an overview.”

In his luxurious Mercedes-Benz, the 34-year-old Canadian entrepreneur drove me around town, from the downtown sights of downtown Vancouver—the coliseum-like public library, the art museum, the Euro-styled Fairmont Hotel Vancouver; to Stanley Park, “Vancouver’s version of Central Park,” as Anthony told me; around Northern Vancouver; and to the hippie-turned-yuppie neighborhood of Kitsilano in the south. 

“Everyone raves about Vancouver,” I told him from my experience.  “They always say you can go snowboarding in the morning and then to the beach in the afternoon.” While that was possible—Anthony proved it by bringing me to a beach where you could see the snow of a local ski resort in mountains just behind—it wouldn’t have been at a world-class ski resort (Whistler is still 2-3 hours away), nor at a world-class beach. 

“It’s not really sand,” Anthony told me.  “It’s sort of a sand-like substance.”

While driving in and around central Vancouver (picture above), Anthony pointed out that Vancouver boasted a huge Chinese population, with most of the downtown city land bought and developed by Hong Kong companies.  “[They call it] Hong Couver,” he told me.  Vancouver differed from Hong Kong in one immediately recognizable respect; it wasn’t nearly as crowded.  My initial impression of Vancouver, a city of just two million people, was that it was very uncluttered with moving bodies and had a lack of “hustle and bustle”—very unlike a city in my opinion.  Where is everybody? I thought.  “It seems empty around here,” I told my host at the wheel.

“You think this is empty?  I think this is crowded,” Anthony said. 

“Well, I was just in Jakarta.”

He was starting to get concerned with whether or not he’d be able to get used to the heavier-populated cities in his upcoming trip around the world—a trip he’d been postponing and postponing until he could find a reliable person to manage his company.  Anthony was quite an industrious entrepreneurial type, the kind of guy with Donald Trump books on the shelf and a playlist in his iTunes software labeled “Tony Robbins,” who had built up a lucrative and profitable business in auto detailing, which was way more than a mere “car wash;” he serviced mostly luxury cars for Vancouver’s business elite, guys who paid $15-$20 as a tip for professional services costing much more. 

Anthony went back to work, but extended his Canadian hospitality by giving me the keys to his nearby downtown apartment, which was a much-appreciated gesture.  I mean, I’m always wary if I’m being invited by potential ax murderers, even if they are from the country of “our greatest ally,” but it turned out he had similar qualms.  “[I left this new girl at work] to pick up a stranger at the airport whom I’ve never met before and hope is not an ax murderer,” he told me. 

Anthony’s downtown apartment was a great place to crash for the day, with a PowerMac on the desk with really nice speakers and more importantly, a high-speed DSL internet connection—although for him it was too slow and would soon be replaced with a higher-speed fiber optic connection.  I only used it for so long because I was jetlagged like hell, and just spent most of the afternoon sleeping on the couch.  I was soon joined by his curious cat Goofball. 

Goofball climbed off my chest when I woke up later that afternoon, refreshed.  Anthony came home, followed by his girlfriend Kathy, and the two of them took me out to dinner that evening for sushi and conversation about the inner workings of maintaining a Blog on the road.  Anthony’s non-murderous hospitality was only extended even more when he offered to lend me all his snowboarding gear if and when I went snowboarding during my stay in B.C., a stay that would not be with him but with another Canadian, a rather funny and hospitable one that I traveled with through Morocco, who went by the name of Sebastian—or so I thought.

“UH, I SHOULD PROBABLY TELL YOU SOMETHING,” Sebastian said as we moved my bags from Anthony’s car into the house in Kitsilano where I was dropped off.  “I’ve been deceiving you.  People around here sort of know me as David.”

“David?”

Apparently, during Sebastian’s semester abroad in France, he had reinvented himself by going by his middle name “Sebastian” and not what his Canadian friends in and around the University of British Columbia (UBC) called him:  “Dave.” More specifically he was sometimes referred to as “The Dave,” at least in the on-goings of that night; I had arrived just in time for a Friday night college house party he and his roommates were throwing, that was billed as a “Spring Fling” cocktail party so that not only could they dress up in neckties at an age when that still might be fun, but get trashed on mixed hard liquor drinks instead of the regular college beer from a keg.  Mixing the cocktails were the resident hosts of the evening:  the studious but enthusiastic Aviv, the ever-grinning Adam, visiting backpacker passing through Mike, and of course, my liaison to the UBC scene, Sebastian—er, Dave.

It was hard to adjust to the sudden change in monikers, but at least some things didn’t change.  The Dave’s sense of humor remained in tact, and there was Laughing Cow cheese and olives available—staples in our diet in Morocco.  David Sebastian’s hospitality didn’t end with cheese and cocktails; he really rolled out the “red carpet” for me, and by that I really mean a floor mattress with a pillow and pillow case with Spider-Man on it.  Awesome.

“I have a song to play for you,” he said before running over to the PowerBook hooked up to speakers.  With a flick of his fingers in iTunes, out came E.S. Posthumus’ “Pompeii,” the super-charged song that I used in the Day 503 trailer. 

“You downloaded it?”

“Yeah, this song’s awesome!”

And so, with the hard-driving electric guitar, drums, orchestra, and apocalyptic-sounding chorus, the reunion party of my first night in B.C. began.

I HAD ARRIVED FASHIONABLY LATE, just as everyone else, but soon the three-bedroom basement apartment of a big house was filled with college kids not only from UBC, but also from Toronto, Holland, Denmark, and France.  I drank enough not to remember any names or details of the party, but to sum up, it was your usual college party where alcohol flowed as much as the hormones, a night of dancing in the living room and sucking down Jello shots in a bedroom, a time when some guy shoved me because he thought I was hitting on his girlfriend.  For some reason, thirty-year-old me fit right in, probably because I didn’t look my age.

“So are you a UBC student?” someone asked me.

“Actually, I’m a lot older than a student,” I said.

“Twenty four?”

I gave him a thumbs up, and had to explain it meant “higher,” not “correct.”

“Twenty seven?”

“Thirty,” I revealed. 

“Thirty?” He could barely believe his eyes and ears.  “Are you married?”

“No.”

“Do you have kids?  A house?”

“Uh, I’m at a UBC party.” What do you think?

For me, the experience was sort of like being in the movie Old School, where thirty-somethings revert back to their partying college days by opening a community-wide fraternity.  While there was no late night streaking—it’s cold in B.C., remember?—there was the time I chugged from the big bowl of Sangria like Frank the Tank (Will Ferrell).  Once it hits your lips, it’s so good!

It’s too hard for me to reconstruct the happenings of that night—my brain was still too busy trying to process the fact that his name was “Dave”, not “Sebastian”—so here are some pictures I took, along with some that David Sebastian and Aviv took, all in a little series of photos I like to call:

“Random People Having Innocent College Fun”
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

(I’m told the guy in that last picture “chucked some vom,” as they say in Canada.)

In the end, the night was a big success for the boys and their social lives, and a great welcoming for me on my first night in western Canada.  The Canadians, truly my greatest allies, I thought the morning after.  Now if could just get this stain off my shirt...

SAVE THE DATE; DAY 503 IS COMING.  MARCH 5, 2005, NYC.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TRAILER. 
PLEASE R.S.V.P. WITH YOUR HEADCOUNT BY POSTING A COMMENT BELOW.


Next entry: The Canadian Identity

Previous entry: The Day That Never Happened



Comments for "Our Greatest Ally"