This trip was with a few former work colleagues! Most of them were also in Toronto and one had moved back to Calgary. She was meeting us there! We flew in on a Thursday and I left on a Tuesday. It was not enough time to get to Whistler or Victoria Island (i.e., places just outside the city), but I got to see a lot of Vancouver... and EAT a lot. In fact, it is safe to say we ate our way through Vancouver. One of our friends who was a bit more familiar with Vancouver had a restaurant list and was our food sherpa.

On the Thursday night, I landed around 7 pm PST, which was only a couple of hours after we took off from Toronto due to the time difference. We stayed near the Stadium-Chinatown station. We got a cute little Airbnb and given Vancouver real estate, it is safe to say we were paying for the location rather than the square feet.

One of our friends’ flights was delayed so by the time they met up at the airport and made their way over to the Airbnb, it was around midnight. I woke up to a call from them as I was exhausted and had passed out – they called a couple times because I was out COLD 🙏. It was about 3 am Toronto time, so please forgive me. We got the last slices of pizza from Uncle Fatih’s across the street and I had bought a few drinks earlier that evening and so when they arrived, we just spent time together at the Airbnb and caught up. By the time we went to bed, it was about 3 am PST!

For some reason, I was up at 6 am the next day while my friends were still sleeping. It was due to a mix of excitement and the fact that this was actually 9 am EST (in other words, a mini-jet lag). I had brought my running shoes and since I could not fall back asleep, I decided to go for a morning run! The run was so nice – the weather was not too hot, and I mapped a route that passed by the water:

It was amazing to turn a corner and then be hit with the sight of the mountains. It made the run that much more exciting! However, it was a bit hilly, so I struggled at the halfway point, but the run back was awesome.

By this point, a couple of my friends were up and so I stopped by TnT to get milk and sugar for morning coffee. We started the morning by just catching up and planning our day.

This is sometimes my favourite part of these trips: just hanging out in our PJs with everyone totally relaxed, sipping on tea/coffee.

Two of our friends decided to do morning yoga while the other three of us went down to the pool as one of our friends was training for a triathlon. Yes, this was an active morning. You would think we were Olympians, but this was the most healthy/active part of the trip as the food tour soon began.

We went to Jam Café for brunch after this and the plan was to then go bike riding around Stanley Park! Jam Café was great <3 We ate and ordered spiked coffees and cocktails. I got some sort of Irish Coffee and Chicken & Waffles. We then shared a giant Cinnabon.

We headed back to our Airbnb to drop off a few things but as we got in our Uber to Stanley Park, it started raining ☹ However, the travel gods were on our side, and this lasted only 30 minutes. By the time we got to the bike shop, it was sunny again. #Blessed

We rented bikes – they were super cheap! We paid $125 for five of us for the afternoon. It was such a nice ride! We saw geese along the way and a bachelor party that kept making jokes about “Love Handles” on the ride. It was funny.

That night (it was a Friday), we met up with a few other former and current coworkers for dinner. We then went out to Smiths.