Don't Worry Nate...: Day 2: Vancouver in the Rain

So here's the thing about airlines in general, and lost luggage in specific. If something goes wrong, everyone tells you to call someone else.

It's bad enough the way airlines run these days. I forget where I read it, but there is a very real economic incentive for airlines to give you crappy service for free if they can (and they will) charge you for services that used to be free. What are you going to do, bike across the country?

But once they have your money, and there is something wrong, and there is no chance they can wring more money out of you on this trip, it's a whole lot of pass the buck.

United uses a service, called Where's My Suitcase? to track lost luggage. WMS? doesn't actually deliver lost luggage, it merely tracks it while other companies do the delivering. Only they don't track luggage out of the country. But United still gives them the contract to track luggage. So if United screwed up your phone number, and gave the delivery service the wrong number so it can't actually deliver your luggage, they'll tell you to contact WMS? to find out where it is. WMS? will tell you that they don't track luggage in Canada, and even though their website will tell you it can track your luggage, they'll just tell you to call United back. Who will tell you to...you get the idea.

Eventually, you yell at someone in a call center in India long enough, they call the airport, who contacts the delivery service, and you get you bag back in an hour. Thankfully.

So, having wasted a morning doing this, we finally set out into downtown Vancouver. In the rain.

There is a reason why Vancouver is used as "generic North American city" in movie sets. It's because that's exactly what it looks like. Just across the way you have mountains and forests and mist and all the natural beauty you can shake a stick at, but the downtown looks like every other downtown. Which is both cool and weird, and a little boring, too.

But about that rain. Evidently, the average amount of rain in Vancouver varies widely depending on where you are in the city. The airport, right on the water, gets ~45 inches a year, roughly similar to Boston. Downtown gets ~60 inches a year, a bit more than Houston. North Vancouver, across the Vancouver Harbor gets more than 80 inches a year. Which is crazy. Today it just rained all day, contributing to all of these totals quite well.

After walking around for an hour, we stopped in a great used bookstore to dry out. After that, a small cafe for espresso (you will learn that I love my afternoon espresso) and to check google maps. We have no data in Canada, at least we don't want to pay $3 per MB on data, so the kindness of cafe's with wifi is what keeps us going. We were looking for the Vancouver Gallery of Inuit art (inuit.com) which was very very cool, if very very pricy. All modern pieces, which showed both traditional aspects of what most of us would think of as First Nation's art, but with some very contemporary bits as well (screen printing, slightly more abstract/modern ideas slipped in).

The previous day, we had seen a sign for $12.99 all you can eat sushi. Typically, Molly is not one for buffets or all-you-can-eat deals, but something like this requires checking out. Plus, we are on a budget of sorts, still being funemployed for the time being. We decided to make this a two-meal day. Light breakfast, and then early dinner (3PM) and not eat the rest of the day. This was a very very good idea. The Sushi wasn't the best ever, but it was fresh, tasty, and while not technically all-you-can-eat (they cut you off after 3 orders) it was very filling.

What do you do after stuffing your face like that? You put on dry socks, since it is hasn't really stopped raining yet, and if you are Molly and me, you go for a long walk. We walked back around Stanley Park (which is, hands down, our favorite place in a long time).