Sleepless in ...not Seattle, but Vancouver

On Wednesday, after a long day, I finally arrived in Vancouver, Canada at 22:00 at the airport. The flight was delayed, so I spent a total of about 4 hours at the gate 🙈 (Air Canada, 1st experience despite the delay but consistently positive, and my first impression of Canada: Ginger Ale is very popular here! Canada Dry 😊) I was very excited to see what Canada had in store for me because I had never been there before 😄
At the gate, I spoke to a local (haha, are they called Vancouvrians?) and he already mentioned that Canada is much more European than America and that they don't have Uber service. At first, I could hardly believe it, but when I landed, there were actually only taxis or the train to the city. But since I was tired, I didn't want to search for a long time and decided to take a taxi. The price was okay with 35 Canadian dollars (oh, another currency to get to know 🙈)
I hadn't eaten anything for dinner until landing and I thought to myself: There will surely be a restaurant at the airport exit or baggage reclaim...but no, we are no longer in America, there was nothing, not even vending machines. So I pinned my hopes on the hotel and the surroundings.
On the way in the taxi, I saw two animals crossing the street - they were not cats, but raccoons! 🙈
The hotel was located in a busy neighborhood and I was able to find restaurants that were still open at 23:00. I was really looking forward to the hotel, my plan was to book a slightly more comfortable room before and after camping (a total of 6 nights!!) to spread out, repack my suitcase, hang up laundry... The hotel was called Tropicana Suite Hotel, so it was quite large, with a living room and kitchen. The pictures on booking.com looked quite appealing. But already when I arrived, the hotel disgusted me, it smelled musty, looked dirty...In the 'lobby' (more like a corner), there was chaos with papers. The room smelled so bad that I suspected that no one had been here for a long time - 8th floor! There were many built-in closets, which I initially searched for pests or hidden murderers (watched too much Criminal Minds!). The kitchen also looked very old-fashioned, how could anyone feel comfortable here? But since I was dead tired, I still tried to sleep. But it was simply impossible, the windows made such a noise with every gust of wind (the word 'tschädere' describes it best - onomatopoeia 😊) and I just couldn't sleep. At 4 o'clock (!!) I thought to myself: Enough! And went to the reception, described the conditions and asked for another room. The night porter said: All rooms are like that. Great! I asked if I would at least have to pay for only one night if I checked out later. He confirmed this and so I started my search - I hoped to find something cheap, maybe a hostel, in the area. But it was hopeless online, everything was booked for the same day. On the Samesun Hostels website, it said that something might be possible by phone. So I called them at 4:30 am and tadaaa, the nice employee said he would move a guest and then I could stay there for 2 nights. Long live the 24-hour reception! So I checked out at 6:30 am and started the about 15-minute walk to the new accommodation. Of course, I couldn't check in yet, but there was free breakfast and I could already leave my luggage. Phew! After that, my city exploration could begin. I will stay here until Saturday and then my two-week camping tour will begin with the following stops:

- Whistler
- Wells Gray Provincial Park
- Jasper National Park
- Banff National Park
- Yoho National Park
- Golden
- Glacier National Park
- Kamloops

--> see http://www.intrepidtravel.com/au/canada/canadian-rockies-101136

That will definitely be a completely different Intrepid experience, as camping is not everyone's thing. The tour description says that we will set up the tents ourselves. It will do me good, I will definitely understand more of it afterwards than before! Until now, I have always somewhat avoided or been passive about it 😄 I am also curious about the temperature, there are many lakes and cable cars in the parks, so I assume it will be more 'Swiss-like'. These will be the last 2 weeks in nature for now, after that I will do some city hopping: Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal - a total of 1 month in Canada. And on September 26th, I will fly back to the USA to Boston.