Touristing in Vancouver

One of my favourite things about living in Vancouver is helping tourists out. When I see a person or a gaggle rotating a map every direction possible I like to go up to them and ask, "Can I help you find your way?" Sometimes I get a scared shake of the head but usually it's a gesture to some intersection on the map. I point in one direction and then rattle off the names of the streets while using my fingers to show how many blocks they need to walk. Once I've reached one of the streets I point to whichever direction that's perpendicular and do the same. Then I reiterate the number of blocks and tell them what they can use as a landmark. Sometimes I use funny gestures but those usually don't help me so I try to steer clear.

I don't do it because I'm nice. I do it because I love the feeling of being in a new city where everything - the street lamps, the way the shelves at the pharmacy are organized, the hairdos, the panhandlers, the staples at the grocery store, the sewer grates, the panache for parallel parking, the necklines, the propensity of gays and lesbians holding hands - is completely alien to what I'm used to. The look of tourists when they're browsing in London Drugs always makes me jealous. That feeling of being lost and happily so is so lovely.

Traveling is such a wonderful thing and I love that Vancouver is a city that attracts foreigners. We're so far from other cities that are worthwhile yet people will still make the trek here.

I'm a bit at a loss of how Vancouver became so popular. Expo '86, that meeting between Gorbachev and whatever US president that was, soon the Olympics.... what else?? I think it's because we have the best of both worlds. It's a big city but with a peasant mentality. And I mean that in the best way. I find that when I go to a big city I get on the offensive. I find people aggressive and I become one of them. Only in Berlin and Vancouver have I felt completely at ease and never, ever scared. Since I was 15 I've been going to parties (i.e. Afterhours) in the downtown east side. Sometimes wearing a micro mini, sometimes very, very late, sometimes alone, and never, ever have I ever been harassed. When I worked forTourism BC I'd tell people to go to scope out the DTES. Why not? It's our heritage and although it can be esthetically unpleasing and sad at times you'll be hard-pressed to find yourself in a situation where you feel endangered.

Now is the peak season of tourism here in Vancouver and sometimes I get giddy when I see people walking around with a map of Vancouver, all creased and limp from so much referring to it. If you want to give Vancouver a better name and you think people can count on your geographical knowledge of our city volunteer yourself. It's fun. And you'll get that taste of being a tourist in your own city.

Photo courtesy of Bhlubarber and from theBeyond Robson Flickr Group