Vancouver

So, I'm back home in Ottawa, after 6 days in Vancouver.

It's a nice, compact city (where we were, anyway - in the West End, near the water), with good cycle lanes (and more hills than Ottawa), lots of nice restaurants (we had Italian, Kenyan, Japanese and Ukrainian). It's more expensive than here, especially to buy housing.

I was working at the convention centre there, which is plush, modern, and generally a good place to have an exhibition - from my point of view.

The nicest bit, actually, was leaving - taking the skytrain (which is mostly underground) out to the airport I could see rivers, and huge amounts of lumber floating. Then on the aeroplane flying home, the view of the city, the mountains, and then the abrupt end as the mountains became the prairies were all amazing. The mountains - snow capped, as far as the eye could see for a long time - were beautiful. I was listening to and half watching "This Movie is Broken" and really enjoying the music at the time.

Ottawa seems very bland in comparison. Is the concrete somehow more concretey? Or is it just.. the sea, the beautiful sea?