Day 1 Vancouver

Day 1 of the Great Alaska Adventure. Horrible day today. I hate traveling. I like being there once I get there but the getting there is a pain. Got up at 4:00 a.m. this morning. Stumbled around for awhile because I was all discombobulated and out of sync. Finally got everything together and made it to the airport just in time. The flight took off at promptly at 6:30. Switched planes in Atlanta and flew on to Vancouver. Decent flight but a full 5 1/2 hours flying time. Arrived in Vancouver about 11 o'clock their time which would be 2 o'clock Columbia time. There is a 3 hour time difference. Took a cab from the airport to the Pan Pacific hotel and we are all safe and sound and snug as a bug in a rug in out room surrounded by luggage. Had a small heart attack when I found out there was no toilet in the hotel room. There is a place with a vanity top, sink and shower but no toilet. I was just about to call room service when Mary found it. They have a neat feature in this hotel that I have never seen before. When you open the door to the toilet it swings around and latches. If you unlatch the door it opens up to a toilet. Standing inside the bathroom with the door latched you would never guess there was toilet behind the door. One door closes in two seperate casings. Kind of neat actually. Vancouver is a very cosmopolitan looking city. Our cab driver from the airport to the hotel was a Sikh complete with Turban and all. The downtown area is littered with restaurants with sidewalk seating. People were eating all bundled up with sweaters and jackets. You never see that in Columbia. Vancouver has a huge Chinatown section. We drove for what seemed like miles through the Chinatown district. I see lots of Chinese and Muslims but no Afro Americans. At least not in the parts we have seen. Tomorrow the heavy lifiting is over. The hotel will take our luggage to the ship so we will get up in the morning, call the front desk to have our luggage picked up, go to church and then on to the Statendam. As usual when one enters Canada you are struck by the cleanliness and how modern everything is. The City buses here run on electric. They have overhead power cables like the old streetcars did years ago. The cab driver said they did that to reduce pollution in the city. In Columbia we can't even keep the buses running. Oh WOW! We just watched the Zuiderdam pull away from the dock and head for Alaska. The Zuiderdam is one big ship. We talked to some people that had just left the ship and they said it had 2000 passengers. I'll enclose some photos of the Zuiderdam with this commentary. As usual I am shocked by the prices in Canada. Everything seems to be 50% higher than in Columbia. A hamburger at the bar dining room is $18.00.