After having waited what seemed like forever, I was finally on my way home this year. Ever since the ninth grade, I wished to go on the Vancouver band trip, the Seattle nor the California trip excited me as much as this one. The reason I call Vancouver home, is a reason that deserves its own piece, a story for another day. Speaking of which, I will be doing a short series this week about my trip to Vancouver and a few other aspects about it.
Tuesday, April 18th
Since the ninth grade, (when I first moved to Calgary) I had been looking forward to going with my band to Vancouver to celebrate my last year in high school. About a month back, I was finally able to do so. I could barely sleep the night of Easter Monday, I was so excited. There was nothing that could ruin this trip. Tuesday morning, I was up at 5 in the morning after just three hours of sleep. I got myself ready, had chocolate cereal from India (my favorite thing for breakfast all my life) and was all packed and ready to go to school. I bought some last minute snacks to eat during the six hour journey. I was thankful that no one was sitting with me on the bus, because that meant that I could stretch my legs and sleep however I wished to, and I got the window seat without having to fight for it.
Most of the way to Salmon Arm I slept, and when I woke up, I was genuinely content, I was finally in B.C.. I can’t speak for others, but when I’m in B.C., my mood, my mindset, it all changes. I’m more optimistic, more out there (if thats even possible) and I just feel better as a whole. We performed in the Centenoka Mall, and though it was for a small crowd, it was in a big hall, where the sound rang nicely and loud. Afterwards we headed to the hotel to get changed, and go bowling and eat at a Chinese buffet. All I remember is that we couldn’t stop laughing over one of my friends fortune that he got. “Valuable information will be supplied by a child.” I don’t know why, but at the time this was good enough to make me and half the table fall from our chairs because we were laughing so hard!
Wednesday, April 19th
The next day, we finally were headed home, to the highlight of our trip, Vancouver — the best part in my opinion. We were up at 7 a.m. and ready to go to Abbostford for a short lunch break at 8:15 a.m.. Most of us either went to McDonald’s or Tim Hortons, but we didn’t end up staying long. I used to live in Mission, the next town over from Abbostford, so I knew the area well. It was a whole new level of comfort to see something I hadn’t seen in so long.
When I saw just the signs for Burnaby and Coquitlam, I was over joyed. As we crossed the bridge and saw the skyscrapers of Vancouver, I was finally at peace — at my centre. We drove through downtown and all of its workings, a wonderful journey for me. When we got to our perfect hotel in downtown on Broadway Ave, we had basically 30 minutes to get ready, which was a massive time crunch. Half of our rooms weren’t ready, so there were basically eight girls to each room, with two mirrors. Although it was chaotic beyond measure, we all made it, and were headed to Frankie’s Jazz club. This was an experience for all of us to cherish, with an amazing pianist, drums, bass and saxophone player, we heard live jazz music. An experience none of us had done before. With 50+ kids walking in, all the adults in the room just stared at this band of youth walking into this sophisticated club, wondering what on earth we were doing there. We ended the night by going to a pool on the edge of Vancouver for a few hours. We cheered on our band mates who dove off the three and ten meter boards, we chanted each and everyone’s names who dove. It was just a day for us to take a break and enjoy ourselves.
Thursday, April 20th
We were up at it again at 7 a.m. and today was our big performance and adventure day. But before we began having our own adventures, we visited the Emily Carr University. There were some truly stunning pieces made by students as well as short films. Then we walked over to Granville Island, and no, it’s not a literal island, but its a whole separate part of Vancouver in itself. We had a few hours to look around the island and eat, before and after our performance.
This was actually a part of Vancouver I never had a chance to explore. So my friend and I sought out every shop, every ally, and every corner of this place. The toy wonderland, all the chocolate stores, the farmers markets inside the building, the docks, and everywhere in between. Between eating and exploring the island during our performance, we attracted a lot of tourists and locals, we even had this adorable little two-year-old girl dance to the performance by our jazz group. Our conductor’s baton ended up falling out of his hands, rolling on the wood, and slipping though the cracks of the dock, it forever is now gone into the ocean. In the middle of one our last songs he was just very dramatically waving it around to put emphasis on our notes and help us crescendo even more.
Our final destination before bed, was the Museum of Anthropology in UBC. Vancouver was the first place I came to and lived, in Canada. We drove though the cherry blossom lane, and they were just starting to bloom, nothing says spring like flowering cherry blossoms. I was able to see my god parents, as well as my childhood best friend and her little brother. This was the first of our two days in Vancouver, and I couldn’t have been happier. Though I was not able to see much of the museum it didn’t frankly matter too much, because I was where I needed to be, and who I needed to be with.
This trip was already heaven for me, and this was just the start.
