We wandered hand in hand through the streets of Vancouver, it was the perfect day for a downtown stroll, punctuated by street cafes and art installations, markets filled with wildly tempting coloured scarves and tarnished silver rings.
We passed an art piece titled “Coffee Culture on Robson Street”, a collage of a dozen or so garbage cans filled to the brim and then some, with takeout coffee cups. We read the artist statement where she observes that in Vancouver’s coffee culture one is expected to get their order in a takeout cup, even if they’re staying to drink it at the cafe.
The sociologist in me wanted to see for myself. We walked into a nearby Starbucks and, indeed, everyone was settled in at tables and booths with their netbooks and iPads and disposable cups. I ordered two iced drinks and asked for them to be served glasses, rather than plastic to-go cups. The barista looked momentarily confused but after glancing around she spied a shelf, way up that held tall glasses.
Look how classy! Can we start doing this guys? I’ve long been the crazy lady who brings her own tupperware to pick up takeout food because I feel like I’m personally clubbing a baby seal or drowning a polar bear if I throw out styrofoam (I live in BC, remember?) and now I will be the crazy lady placing my order and yelling loudly to all in line behind me, “I would like that venti soy coffee frappucino in a GLASS…because I am STAYING HERE to drink this iced coffee and it would be STUPID to get a throwaway cup since I will be SITTING HERE TO DRINK IT…hear that? It would be STUPID, people!!”
Anyway. We took our drinks (In glasses!) and walked outside to an impromptu seating area set up by Viva Vancouver, a movement designed to encourage interaction on the street. We people watched as tall twins with crimped blonde hair induced neck-breaking double takes as they sashayed down the sidewalk in cleavage baring “work-out” outfits.
We saw an old man using a discman. A discman! We took took about five minutes to remember what it was called and then another ten reminiscing about walkmans and how they held 16 songs and had to be rewound and turned over and fast-forwarded through quick snatches of song until you found the track you wanted, and how mix tapes invariably had a few seconds of DJ chatter as the song wound down, from where you recorded it off of the radio.
We saw two teenaged girls who were giving out Free Hugs, but no one was taking them up on the offer. They sat dejectedly on a retaining wall so we headed over and hugged them, then briefly debated the merits of setting up a “Deluxe Hugs, $2” station next to them.
In H&M Adam tried to become a hipster (see below). It was adorable, but I couldn’t stop myself from repeating “Adam, You are thirty-one. You’re THIRTY-ONE ADAM!”.
It was a fantastic day, we drove home and Adam took Gus fishing and I made a vegetable strudel. I don’t know what all of you people do with two days off each week, what do you DO with all that time?
p.s. I still can’t wake up early.