One night in January I was laying in my dorm room trying to fall asleep but I couldn’t because so I started thinking of cool ideas for spring break. I texted my mom and she was on board with the whole idea, then when spring break came around we went on our trip.

On Friday March 6th, 2015 we flew into the Seattle airport, rented a car then got lunch at Ballard Bridge Cafe. We had no idea where we were going because our GPS was being weird so we asked them for directions and off we were to Canada.

It was about a 2 hour drive to the boarder, for some reason I was most excited for this part of the trip. For some reason I’ve always wanted to go to Canada and finally it was happening. After we cross the boarder we drive for a little and we start noticing that the signs are in kilometers and not miles which was pretty foreign to us but we got through it. We were trying to find our hotel using the GPS but it wasn’t working at all. We ended up at a Tim Hortons and got coffee and doughnuts. We were reluctant to use our cell phones because of the high out of country data charge to them but we had to because we were so lost.

We finally got to the hotel and it was in this awesome complex with a movie theater, Indoor trampoline place, ice skating rink, and a pizza place. It was like an 8 year olds dream area. We checked in a went up to our room and got onto our beds and just kinda laid there after the crazy day we had. I turned on the tv and curling (throwing a stone with a handle and sweeping the ice) was on and I sat there and thought, wow this is so Canadian.

After resting for a bit we went to the store and bough some stuff. I head that chocolate for Canadians was sweeter so I got some of that, some kinder eggs (these things are a chocolate shell with a yellow capsule thing in the center with a toy, they’re illegal in America.) I also got Kraft Dinner, known as Craft Mac and Cheese in the states.

On Saturday March 7th, 2015 we woke up and went downstairs for breakfast and they have a pancake machine! A machine that you push a button and pancakes come out! How awesome is that? We asked the manager what we should do and he gave us some ideas and off to the city of Vancouver we went off to.

Our GPS still wasn’t working and we couldn’t use our phones so we had to go old school, maps. This was the first time I actually had to use a map for directions so it took me a while to figure it out, I also have trouble with my right and lefts so that added into the fun of this experience. I can’t tell you how many times we missed out turns or went the wrong way.

We got to Vancouver and we drove around for a little bit. We went and saw where the Vancouver Canucks play, I got a few things from there. We then went to this place called Canadian Place, and boy was it Canadian. They even had a ride called Fly Over Canada (rip off of soaring over California at Disneyland) and they did it so you flew over Canada and then a separate one where you flew over America and it was pretty cool! My mom and I got off the ride and walked around the complex and we found a gift shop and I got a Canadian flag, which I hung on my wall at home.

Vancouver has a lot of one way streets and that makes getting somewhere extremely hard. I wanted to go to Stanley Park, which is Vancouver’s Central Park in New York. We had to go clear across town to get to it. We’re getting close to it and we start seeing signs, I’m using the map (which I was still awful at) and there is an overhead sign that said Stanley Park, my mom asked, “Is that is?” and I was looking at the map and it said that street was a one way street so I said so then I looked up and thought, crap that’s it. I then told my mom just to go over the bridge and we’ll loop around and come back. The said, “I CAN MAKE IT.” She then steers the car to the exit but in the process hits a cement curb really hard, we made it over it and she said, “See, we’re fine.” Then the low tire pressure light came on and there was a collective oh crap given. We go a little ways down the road and pull over. We had a flat tire.

We had no idea what to do, we were in a foreign country, in the middle of a park, in a rental car, and it was getting dark. We tried to call someone for help but it wasn’t working. I went to the back of the car and pulled out the jack and was trying to figure it out because it was really weird. I eventually figured it out so I grabbed the spare tire and went to go change the tire. My mom was still on the phone trying to get help and I was just out there on the ground raising the car and changing the tire. In high school I had taken an auto shop class but I always had an electric jack and power tools to help me change the tire so this was somewhat new to me. I ended up changing the tire and then we went to some seafood restaurant that was in the park.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and started thinking about how we were going to get a replacement tire so we could drive to Seattle the next day. We then just put off finding a place till tomorrow.

On Sunday March 8th, 2015 we went downstairs and got breakfast and then we went back up to our room and loaded up the car with our stuff. Our goal today was to find a replacement tire for our car. There was this place called Canadian Tire by the store we went to on our first night and we decided to check there. We got there and they said they didn’t have the right size and that no Canadian tire carried them.

We went to lunch at a place called Boston Pizza and we were trying to find options. We called Costco and they did’t have the size and since it was Sunday most places were closed. After about 45 minutes of calling and searching I come across this place called Alpi’s Tire Depot which was 30 miles away. I called them asking for the tire and they said they have one left but they closed in an hour. We rushed to the car and rushed and we got there just in time. They had the exact tire that was on the rental car that was only about 80% used, they put it on and then we got gas from a gas station down the road. In the gas station they had Lays potato chips that were KETCHUP flavored. Naturally, I got some and ate them.

After that pit stop we headed to the boarder and drove to Seattle. We got to our hotel, unloaded all of our stuff then we drove around the town and got dinner from this Irish pub and it was a cool place. After dinner we went back to the hotel and crashed hard.