Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Surviving the Wet Coast

My first week in Vancouver was relatively uneventful and mild in terms of the weather – a few hot days at the beginning, followed by cooler days in the high teens (not exactly beach weather, but still nice enough to go for a walk along the Fraser River). After dealing with over 40 degrees of humidity back in Ontario, I was surprised to hear that most people don’t use air conditioning here. This bodes well for summers to come on the west coast.

I have never been one who dealt well with gloomy weather, but every time my hands were on the verge of frostbite this year, even with gloves on in the car, I figured any rainy day would be better than suffering through the double digit negatives out east.

Time will tell whether or not that is the truth, but for today, there is rain. And more rain. And more rain. I’m no weather girl, but you can often sense that the rain will end in reasonable time in Toronto, whereas my powers of prediction are lost out here. So when I embarked for the day in flip flops, I was on a mission for one thing: rain boots.

I went to Winners, hoping for a deal, as rain boots are unexpectedly expensive. Maybe because my only experience with them is “duckies”, the most popular shoe in my elementary school. To my dismay, Winners only had one style, a gold and blue flashy boot, which at $80 wasn’t really what I was going for. Instead, I went to The Bay, which just happens to be where I used to get my duckies, and after trying on the less comfortable no-name brand, saw some rain boots out of the corner of my eye. I recognized them as the rain boots from my dreams; the kind with a little white square at the front that says “Hunter”. Ever since I spied them on a friend in Montreal, I hoped for my own.

Everything inside me was telling me not to do it, but I took off my flip flops, put on my socks, and slipped one on. It fit like a glove. I walked around a little, debated a lot, wondered about the fact that I am unemployed, and brought them up to the cash. If I am going to survive the Vancouver rain, it is worth investing in the right footwear.

Ironically, the sales woman told me that I was the second girl from Ontario that she had sold boots to that day. Looks like I wasn’t the only one who was ill-prepared.

True to form (I used to wear new shoes to bed when I was younger just so I could wear them right away), I put the boots on in the store, and walked out confidently into the rainy weather. I have no fear.

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