An exciting (and challenging) weekend
Grandma, you have to follow these blue dots!
As my granddaughter and I waited for a bus in the drizzly dark on a Vancouver street corner, tired and hungry, I reminded myself of the joys of grandparenting. Due to misreading of the bus schedule, we had ended up on the wrong bus and were now waiting for the correct one.
We were spending a grandmother/granddaughter weekend in Vancouver and one of the things she wanted to do was to take buses and sky trains as much as we could. I thought this sounded like a great idea. I forgot about the significant walking this would involve!
At eight years old she had never spent time in Vancouver except for the airport, so everything there was new and exciting. Using transit and feet did mean route finding. I am not the most expert direction finder, so there was a fair amount of backtracking with my granddaughter grabbing my phone to show me the correct route. “Grandma, you have to follow these blue dots!”
New things for her included meeting and staying with relatives she had not met previously, walking through drifts of wet leaves, eating food that she would normally refuse, riding in the front seat of the sky train, and marvelling at the strange tall buildings in downtown Vancouver.
Her great uncle treated us to dinner out at an authentic Italian pizza restaurant. He asked her about her favourite pizza topping in preparation for ordering. She replied “pineapple”. Of course, there was no pineapple in sight, but she gracefully ate toppings that would normally be rejected.
The big highlights of the trip were seeing the Cirque du Soleil and visiting the Vancouver Aquarium. My granddaughter had seen the Cirque on television, as had I, but neither of us could imagine how amazing it was. The contortionist was a hit for her and since then she has been practising twisting her limbs into very strange positions.
That day we expanded our transit adventure to the Aquabus and another walk in the rain.
Remembrance Day was a very busy day at the aquarium, especially with the rainy weather and parents looking for entertainment for their kids. My granddaughter insisted that we see absolutely everything, but especially the octopus and the sloths.
That involved many trips up and down stairs, dodging the most amazing variety of child transportation units (we used to call them strollers, but then strollers in my day didn’t have climate control, numerous compartments and food storage bins, etc.).
We absolutely could not leave until we’d seen both sloths in the rain forest area and at least one octopus. It turns out that the octopuses like to hide in shadowy corners, and one must be very lucky to see one. The tank with the octopus had viewing from both above and below, up and down a curving staircase littered with small humans trying to evade parental control and using “outside voices”. My watch kept dinging to warn me that the noise level was above safe levels!
I’m not sure how many times we went up and down that staircase. (I was terrified that I would lose her in the crowd if I did not keep up or trip and tumble down the stairs.) Then suddenly there it was right in front of where my granddaughter was standing, a huge red octopus with its suction cups plastered to the window.
She commandeered my phone to take numerous photos. After that we stood in a long line for fish (what else?) and chips, and she informed me that halibut was now her favourite fish, and she would tell her mom and dad that was what she wanted from now on. Then it was the gift shop adventure with much deliberation on what to spend her money on, especially what to get for her four-year-old sister back at home.
All in all, we had a wonderful time together. I could not ask for a more cooperative and “helpful” companion, even if I did have to carry the backpacks with the snacks and water bottles most of the time and walk further and faster that was comfortable for grandma.
And be embarrassed by her taking over the route finding and knowing the correct spot to tap to pay for the buses and trains! She’s also a pretty good photographer.
