Day 15 - From Whistler to Vancouver

April 22, 2023

Today I can keep it relatively short. 

After Brigitte kindly prepared breakfast for us in the room, where we finished off our leftovers, we loaded our car in the underground garage and off we went on HWY 99 South towards Vancouver. 

Shortly after Squamish, we made a stop at the "Shannon Falls", a large waterfall that plunges down a steep cliff wall. 

Arriving in Vancouver, we circled around the wonderful Stanley Park, which we had already partially explored on foot. 

Finally, we made our way to our hotel near the airport to check in briefly and then set off again to Yaletown, a trendy district of Vancouver, where we had arranged to meet an old friend at the very popular "The Cactus Club Café". 

Namely, my buddy and musician colleague Al Petrone, who lived, worked and occasionally made music with me in Kaiserslautern from 1986 to 1991. 

And what a joy it was to see the very nice and still good German-speaking Al again. And even though more than 30 years have passed since our last personal meeting, it was as if we had just seen each other yesterday. Especially since he remembered things that I honestly didn't quite remember. We were all the more happy that he happened to be in Vancouver, because compared to Al's travel activities, ours are downright ridiculous. He was recently in Nepal, he came back from the Seychelles last week, and on Monday he flies to Germany and from there to Lithuania and Latvia. And he was only at home because his planned trip to Bolivia fell through. Unbelievable!

In any case, we had a very nice time with him, also because he took care of the bill 😅. 

Afterwards, "Raincouver" once again lived up to its name and poured down during a final walk towards the harbor.

Tomorrow morning we will return the car and in the afternoon we will take the flight to Frankfurt. I will get in touch one last time then.