It was worse than a hangover. What were we thinking?
I think I may have actually eaten one that morning, but I wasn't happy about it. When I offered some to Richard and Shelly, they just shook their heads.
But there wasn’t much time to linger on bad decisions. We had a train to catch. We were heading to Vancouver by way of Seattle, and our train left the station before the sun did.
Lunch was a quick stopover in Seattle. We had a couple of hours to kill, so we wandered over to Pioneer Square, a quirkily little urban park.
It was great excuse to stretch our legs and soak up some sunshine. And we actually still had our box of donuts with us. I couldn’t bring myself to leave them behind, but I was exactly one half donut away from projectile vomiting cotton candy.
We noticed some college kids passing out flyers across the park, and we offered them our box of donuts. It made their day. And ours.
Back at the train station, I realized that I had actually booked a bus from Seattle to Vancouver. Amtrak runs both, and drunk on donuts the night before, I apparently couldn't tell the difference. But it didn't matter, it would get us there all the same.
The bus ride itself was entirely pleasant. I furiously hammered out emails to get caught up with work before I shut my phone down in gloriously international airspace. Aimee slept.
When we pulled up to the border, Aimee and I both noticed how clean it was. And the border agents were some of the friendliest that we had ever encountered. I think their uniform insignia said something like, "To serve and live up to our stereotype."
A mother and daughter got held up a bit because they didn't have all of the paperwork to take a child across international borders, but even that didn't take too long. We were all back on the bus in no time.
Vancouver is just over the border, so it didn't take too long to reach the city. We cruised through some residential neighborhoods on our way in, since there wasn't a direct route into downtown. Vancouver, in all its progressive glory, doesn't allow freeways to pass through the city center. It made our trip a bit slower, but it's one of the reasons that Vancouver is known as one of the prettiest, least polluted big cities in the world.
An hour or so later, we pulled up to the bus station. Our first hour in the country didn't disappoint. Friendly, clean, and easy to get around. Welcome to Canada!
