Vangroovy has lived up to its name

Vancouver. I love this place. I love, love, love this place.

I loved it from the moment I smelled the air. It smells like the ocean, but sweeter and so fresh, even in the heart of downtown.

There are trees and flowers everywhere and the colours are so bright and vivid that they look photoshopped. Cherry blossoms line the downtown streets and you can see the rockies through the skyscrapers and there is always water somewhere nearby. Stanley Park has these big trees that are 20 feet around and 200 feet tall and there are beaches and gardens and all the nature you could want. It's beautiful, all of it.

We're staying with my mom's college roommate and her husband. They never had children, just two dogs. They are two of the coolest 50-year-olds I've ever met. I hope I'm like them one day.

Glenda is a librarian who admits that her favourite books are British murder mysteries and Harry Potter. She has never cooked a meal in her life because she doesn't want to know how her food begins; she just wants it to appear in front of her, ready to eat. She uses the oven to store wine. She is charmingly self-depricating, refreshingly frank and really, quite funny.

Allistair is a crazy Irishman with a booming laugh that he uses a lot who only recently gave up his dream of being a famous and got a real job. When he sings he sounds like Neil Young and when he speaks he has an Irish brogue that makes me laugh ("Are ye no' gooin' doontoon taday, ya lazy bastards?"). When he uses my name he pronounces it "Airn" but usually he just calls me "kid".

Adam and I spent our first night here with him in his recording studio, playing and discussing music (he's uncannily up on the new stuff; current favourites are Elliott Smith and Kings of Leon), and he announced that he was officially adopting both of us and we HAVE to move to Vancouver and live with them ("I'm no' kiddin'!"). Today he'd burned me around 16 new CDs that I HAVE to listen to, ranging from Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisted to Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins' newest album to a compliation of female blues singers, because he hears potential for me to be one.

They suit this city perfectly.

Anyway, back to it. I like everything about Vancouver - even the lower east side where all the homeless people and heroin addicts live. I've never seen so many shabby people just walking around, some having spirited conversations (with others or themselves), some fighting with the cops, some hawking clearly stolen crystal vases or electronics, some oblivious to the world around them. It was an eye-opener.

My favourite place, so far, is called Ganville Island. I'm convinced I was meant to live there. It's on a wharf and it's all cobblestone and winding markets and bistros and artists' studios with big windows where you can watch them work, if you want. And there is a tiny ferry that hold ten people max, and shuttles across the water to downtown every fifteen minutes.

I've only been here for a day. I just can't get over how great the city smells and how much greenery and flowers there are and how much I want to live here forever.

Aand I don't even mind the rain.