Verbalized: Life + Food + Travel

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Snippets from a weekend in Vancouver

1. It’s raining in Vancouver. Pouring, actually. I drag my suitcase through a series of puddles to a coffee shop, where I drop my waterlogged umbrella on a chair and immediately order a cappuccino while I wait for Diana. I’m halfway through the cappuccino when she bursts through the door wearing bright red boots, her hair dotted with raindrops and a miniature cupcake in each hand. It’s only been a couple of weeks since she moved to Vancouver, but it feels like much longer – there’s already so much to catch up on, and I could swear she looks just a little bit different, like this new city is starting to leave its impression.

2. Suede high-heeled ankle boots are a poor choice for a twenty-minute walk in a torrential downpour, but I’ve never been one to choose practicality over style. By the time we arrive at L’Abattoir (earlier that day I read that its name means “slaughterhouse”, which gave it a sort of sinister allure) there are pools of water sloshing back and forth in the toe of each shoe. My umbrella has also developed a leak somewhere between downtown and Gastown, and I can feel a few cold droplets creeping their way down my scalp. But inside the restaurant – a high-ceilinged, dimly-lit space full of exposed brick and intricate tile floors – we’re soon enveloped in the warm buzz of the place, drinks in our hands and a parade of plates in front of us while we talk and talk and talk.

3.  The day begins with brunch at Medina Café: An egg, pita chips, tabbouleh salad, baba ghanoush, followed by a tiny waffle – edges crisp, centre almost custardy – slathered with orange fig marmalade and washed down with a lavender-spiked latte. It’s an unconventional combination, but it’s delicious, and it fuels us for the rest of the morning, which we spend wandering through Gastown’s shops. The rest of the day plays out in one continuous string of food-related moments: We buy exotic meats (elk sausage, venison prosciutto), cook up a lunch worthy of a restaurant, go out on a walk to work off the lunch, then return to the apartment to bake cookies. A few hours later we’re eating yet again: Plates of raw fish, Japanese-fusion style. By the end of the night, we never want to look at food again.

4. The attack is swift and unexpected, and neither of us see it coming: We’re at the Granville Island market, sitting on a bench overlooking the ocean and eating doughnuts out of brown paper bags. I take a bite of maple-glazed doughnut, and Diana pulls a chocolate doughnut out of the bag and begins to raise it to her mouth when suddenly there’s a whooshing sound and something firm and airborne smacks the back of my head. At the same time, Diana is yelling, jumping to her feet and shouting a string of obscenities at the sky: A seagull has just swooped in, stealing her doughnut directly out of her hand before soaring off over the water.

All photos taken on an iPhone 4S and processed with ShakeItPhoto.