Saturday, Nov. 2

Day 23 
was a nice and easy morning. We slept in and checked out of the hotel around 10 then headed back into Seattle to find a parking garage that we could leave Nisen for a few days. We found a parking garage that in-between the Seahawks stadium and the King Metro Station. Our bus was not to depart for another hour so we got some coffee at a cool little spot near the station. The bus stop was right across from Chinatown so it was pretty cool to see that and look at all the dragons on every lamppost.
The BoltBus is a Public Transportation service that goes up and down coastal regions of the continental US. A ticket was somewhere around $35 from Seattle to Vancouver. Although it was raining most of the ride, it was interesting to see North Seattle and the rest of Washington.
We thought that the USA/Canada border was going to be was going to be fairly friendly and easy to pass through. We were wrong. Evidently little cousin Miranda and I looked like some the biggest drug doing, cocaine muling, gun toting, switch blade switching, destructive people on the border that day because these damn Mounties questioned us for every bit of 25 minutes. They searched our persons, every nook and cranny of our backpack, purse and duffle, then questioned us about every detail of our past, present and future, including exact details of our trip (we had none). The Mounties searched through our cameras and even took our cell phones into another room to test them for traces of illegal drugs then to rummage through every past text, call and picture on our phones. How rude!
Once they realized I only had pictures of my cute nice and that Miranda only had girly text messages they deemed us not a threat to their natural security and we were released. So we repacked our bags and got back on the bus, where people had been waiting for over twenty minutes to leave.
Once we got into Canada we turned our phones to plane mode to avoid any roaming bills. In doing so we no longer had the ability to call or look up anything on the Internet so we did the old school thing and just walked around and talked to people.
The bus came to a stop in Vancouver around 6 o’clock Canada time, rain was coming down and the sun had already done so.
Miranda, not being of legal drinking age in the US, was in Canada so we headed to the closest bar to the metro station. We ordered Bloody Marys, but tomato juice is a delicacy in Canada so they made us a couple Caesars that have clamato juice instead of tomato juice.
Our cultured dinner at McDonalds doubled as a wifi hot spot so we were able to make some plans. We hopped the sky rail and set off to the downtown area where more of the nightlife lived.  Up and down the sidewalks we walked in downtown where thousands of others were doing the same. We went up and down the main strip a couple times, heading in and out of cool looking bars to get drinks along the way. The last bar that we went into was a place called SameSun.
SameSun Backpackers was its full name; it was a big building located downtown. It was a restaurant/bar in the basement and a hostel on the top four floors. For the both of us it was a first for staying in a hostel, and it was a pretty cool experience. There was a big common room on the second floor with TVs, computers, couches, a kitchen, and there were many people hanging out in there. Each floor had two big bathrooms and about twenty rooms. Each room’s door had a different nation’s flag painted on it. There was an overwhelming ‘college dorm’ feel to it all. Everyone there seemed like nice people and treated us well.
Our room was to the left of the stairs on the third floor. It had three bunk beds, six lockers and one huge window that over looked downtown. Two of the six beds were already occupied by the time that we got there.
I thought that one of the coolest things about going out on the streets of Vancouver on a Saturday night was that we heard so many different languages. There should have been flames on people’s heads because we heard so many different tongues that I had never heard (bible joke) …