I’m the first off the Clipper, and first through Customs. Love at the passport counter was in no mood to dilly-dally, so after a terse Q&A he waved me through, and I wandered onto Canadian soil unwittingly packing a knife. (Forgot to take it out of my bag back home; came across it later at the hotel. It’s small anyway.)

Victoria seems nice, and reminds me of Nice. Or Cannes, or one of those towns in the south of France that’s beautiful and sunny with hotels on the water and that requires buckets of money to appreciate properly.

Unfortunately I don’t have the time to see if my assessment is correct--I suspect it isn’t, since Canada’s pretty affordable--because I’m trying to make the six o’clock bus.

The Clipper woman said I’d never make it, but since I couldn’t bring myself to believe her I ran through Victoria like fucking Carl Lewis. J’ever try running while pulling a carry-on? Don’t ever do this in front of attractive women; your spaz factor goes way up.

I was the last one onto the bus, collapsed in my seat gasping. Soon as I was in the driver pulled the door shut and hit the gas, like he was B.A. Baracus and I was Hannibal.

Inside of thirty minutes I’m inside a bus that’s inside a boat. Me and the other passengers de-bus to find ourselves in what looks like a large, packed parking garage. A staircase inside an enormous iron pillar leads upwards. Three flights up I find the ferry’s deck.

It’s sunny out, the wind is blowing like Dizzy Gillespie and the water’s pretty. The deck is dotted with these large metal boxes, I think they hold the lifeboats. I laid down on top of one, enjoying the entirely foreign sensation of feeling unobstructed sunrays on me in the complete absence of exhaust fumes and that smell Chinatown starts producing around June. Headphones, where are my headphones, there we go.

I suppose I ought to go be social and strike up some jawboning with fellow ferrygoers, but after three days of taking meals with strangers I’ve got maybe one good conversation left in the tank. Better to save it and hope there’s a filling station in Vancouver. The only person I’m listening to right now is Ray Charles dispensing marital advice.

Later I open my eyes to see the kind of sunset that makes you forget your problems. Pictures won’t do it justice--it’s a 360-degree experience with more senses than sight, after all--but I snap a flick anyway, hoping that later when I’m back in the middle of some shit I can look at the pixels and try to remember this feeling. This feeling of being far, far away from home, and what the hell is home anyway, when out here I have no name and no jobs and there’s no beginning or end, just Now. And This.

For the second time on the trip I found myself happier than I could remember being, happier even than I was falling asleep on the train, which I didn’t think possible. I stared at the sunset like I was gonna die tomorrow, like this was the last one I’d ever see.

All the donors and readers, I have you to thank for this.

The ferry excretes the bus onto the mainland, and forty minutes later I’m getting my first look at Vancouver. The sun has long since gone down. Through the windshield of the bus I can see a bridge and city lights, the glorious and obscenely excessive clusters of lightbulbs that say Urban.

What’s better than a city at night?

Don’t get me wrong, the nature/water/sunset combo was fantastic. It’s like the sunset was the orgasm and the sight of city lights, the post-coital cigarette.

“Hotel Vancouver,” says the driver, signalling my stop. “This is as close as I can get you to the West End.”

“Do you know where the Sylvia Hotel is?” I ask. “And how far of a walk?”

“Whoa--you can’t walk there. The Sylvia Hotel is really out there. That’s really out there in the West End. You’d better take a cab, Chief.”

The Seattle-to-Vancouver leg of this trip has already run me $90, so there’ll be no cabs for me, even though I am apparently a Chief. “Which way is west?” I ask.

“That way,” he says in a well-you-asked-for-it tone, and in a minute I’m on the sidewalk, breathing in fresh bus exhaust. I call the Sylvia to get directions.

The woman said to take Alberni, but Robson Street looks more interesting so I head that way, trying not to hit people’s legs with the carry-on. I’m happy to see the sidewalks are crowded at 10:20pm on a Tuesday. Means there’s some life in this city. Around me I hear Japanese, then English, then Vietnamese, then the familiar, staccato nattering of Cantonese, which most non-Chinese find jarring but which I find soothing.

While the high-rises I saw on the way in were nice, the architecture in this part of town isn’t much to look at, it’s mostly strip-mall style. Low-rise structures apparently erected with little consideration for the impression they’d give.

The storefronts are lively though, and the sidewalks are thick with people. Lots of cafes, restaurants, shops. More than a few places selling postcards, and more than a grip of Japanese hipsters slouching in front of signs that say Currency Exchange.

The bus driver must have been out of his mind, because I make it to the Sylvia in less time than it takes to do a load of laundry. What is it with people being afraid to walk? I’m amazed evolution has allowed them to retain their legs. People’s legs should turn black and fall off if they don’t use them a certain amount. Fifty blocks a day minimum. S’good for you.

The Sylvia Hotel is “quaint,” meaning my room smells funky. There’s only one power outlet and my room has more funk than James Brown. The lobby and hallway smelled fine though.

Well, what the hell do I care. All I want is a clean place to sleep, and at ninety bucks a night (Canadian) this was the cheapest deal in town outside of a hostel. I can only charge one item and I choose the camera.

I smell the sheets, they seem clean, and more importantly they lack forensic evidence of previous guests. Unable to locate the source of the smell, I throw the windows wide and take a shower hotter than that cup of coffee the lady sued McDonald’s for.

Post-shower, I find a knife in my bag and wonder how the hell I’ll get this onto the flight out of Calgary. (I never check luggage, only carry-on.)

Then I turn the TV on to check out Canadian News. The ‘casters have regional accents, which I like because it reminds me I’m out-of-town. They’re going on and on about the rising rate of car theft in Canada. Surprisingly, they recommend using The Club. (You know those things are useless, right?)

Lying down, I start scribbling some in the notebook but am surprised at how heavy my eyes suddenly become. The one thing I haven’t been getting on this trip is sleep. Only one way to fix that.

-Click.-

"Oh, come on. If he was alive, would he be
floating face-down like that? Honey that
guy has been dead for at least a week."

Investment Thanker.