Final Thoughts on Canada

Hey everyone!

After a LONG day of travel, I am now back home in the United States. It is good to be back, but I want to throw out my final thoughts on this BRT. This BRT was perfect. I planned it to the minute and it went flawlessly. It was the most fun I've had in a long time.

Bringing my bike along was an excellent idea. After North Carolina, I expressed some displeasure with driving everywhere and not being able to experience the cities. By biking, I was neck deep in the Canadian experience in both Vancouver and Victoria. It was so much fun riding around in those cities. You had to keep your wits about you at all times, but it made the adrenaline flow like no other. From here on out, I'm going to be looking for opportunities to take a bike on BRTs.

Things are a lot different in Canada than they are in the United States. I'm not talking about kilometers and universal health care, I'm talking about how they simply go about doing things. Especially in Vancouver, they have designed their downtown to be high density residential. As a person who is going to probably make a living doing city planning, this is an absolute brilliant case study. Because of the high density of people living downtown, they amount of walking and biking was extraordinary. Seeing all those people going about using green forms of transportation was truly awe-inspiring.

Both Vancouver and Victoria are very clean and livable places. In all my travels, I never once ran into a beggar or transient on the sidewalks. The streets were impeccably clean and well-maintained with no potholes or patches of tar. But, most importantly, the people were extremely friendly and courteous. From the other fans at the games to the bus drivers, everyone seemed to have a smile on their face and was willing to help out without any hesitation.

Nat Bailey Stadium is a very neat place to see a game. The setting in the park and the old-time feel of the park is unmatched anywhere in the country. It is a shame to see that Canada has done a much better job of preserving the pristine nature of the game than many places here in America.

Royal Athletic Park is an interesting facility in it's own right. I would have preferred that it be made into a baseball-only facility, but I am willing to let some things slide with Victoria having an expansion team this year. The Seals are doing the right things to become a very successful franchise, but they're not there yet.

I have only one complaint from this BRT. Canada is very expensive. From the game tickets and concessions to the ferry and bus passes, it seemed that it was a lot more expensive to operate there. But that is it for complaints.

This was my third big BRT of this year. There has been one common theme from the previous two that some of you may have picked up on: I never would want to live in the cities that I visited. This BRT breaks the mold. I fell in love with Canada and everything about it. If I had the means, I would move there in a heartbeat. Things just seemed to make sense there. I return to Eugene with a bittersweet feeling...almost.

I am getting a little tired, though, of always going by myself. You don't realize just how much you miss talking to someone at the games, or while your traveling. I just wish that people would realize how much fun these trips are.

This will be the last big BRT for me in 2009. I will, however, be taking a short trip down to San Francisco for a Giants game at the end of this month and then a couple more trips up to Portland. I may, depending on availability of funds, take a season ending trip up to Seattle, but that is still up in the air. Whatever happens, I will update this blog accordingly.

Always take on a 3-0 pitch ;)