Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair (YVR to SFO)

There is a song that used to play on the radio when I had my first radio. That would have been about 1970. I remember always liking the song and its spirit but never expecting to actually  Here is the SONG on YouTube.  The Song is called San Francisco, and it contains the line 'If you're going to San Francisco, make sure to wear some flowers in your hair'.
The feeling embodied by this song is in stark contrast to the one evoked by this SONG . 

Last night I witnessed the heaviest rain I have ever seen in my life. I had the windshield wipers on maximum double speed but could only drive 20-30 km per hour because all I could see was water. The road was fuzzy from all the water bouncing off the asphalt. The wind was blowing waves of water off parked cars and these cars only appeared as vague shapes because the rain washed out their outlines.

It is still raining this morning, so I arrive at the airport wearing a rain jacket.  I had not planned to take one to San Francisco, but the way to and the wait at the bus stop would have soaked me enough to be unpleasantly moist on my journey.  Unpleasantly Moist is one way to describe the journey on the public transit bus. The smells emitted by people on buses are always so much more varied when it is raining.  I catch my nose catching individual scent notes and trying to decypher from which bodily regions those notes originated. When the first tentative results come in, my brain hits the Emergency Off button to not be exposed to the gruesome list.

These pictures are not examples of abstract art (or maybe they are ;-) but pictures out of the front window of the Canada Line Skytrain to the airport.  It is still pouring. The Skytrain cars are equipped with windshield wipers.  These windshield wipers are not operating on any car.  Why?  Maybe for the same reason that the drinking fountain at the airport is Out of Order. Maybe for the same reason that my cell-phone internet does not work properly at the airport.  

I have an early lunch at Koho at the Vancouver Airport.  For the first time ever (and hopefully for the last time) I eat mussels with grated cheese on top.  These ain't no Nachos, idiot. If I wanted soggy cheese, I would have ordered Poutine.  I'm looking forward to the surprisingly (to me) much higher quality of restaurant food in SF.

a bear

the Rain: Now you see it ....

... now you don't ;-)

Timewarp:  It is noon the next day.  In the airplane I came very close to throwing up on my seat neighbour. Good think I didn't, because someone would probably have mistaken rotten food for Eboloa.  I did leave the BART car and took a breather a 16th street Mission station (not recommended) because I did not think I could hold it in.  I dispensed the mussels into the hotel's toilet all night long at half-hour intervals.  No fun.  Most people would blame it on my room on the 13th floor (they actually have one !) but I blame the cheesy chef in Vancouver.  

Not my pic

The hotel is a farce. I'm not sure what I get for the many stars or the high daily room rate for that matter, but they want $14.95 per day for slow internet. Good thing I used the Wind Mobile offer of free calls/texts/Data in the US for CDN$15 per month!     The Omni also hasa 'Drink me' bottle of spring water in the room.  I thought the 3 Pounds 50 'Drink me' bottle at Gatwick was bad, but I think the US$ 7.50 for 1 Liter here at the Omni Hotel in San Francisco beats them all. In particular, since there is a LOVELY little Bistro only 1.5 blocks away ( I forgot the name but plan to go there quite frequently) sells 1.5 liters of spring water for US$ 2.00 !  Such insolence & impudence ! That's the very last time I'm staying in an Omni hotel!