British Columbia: Land of Dykes

On our trip to America, after we left California, we got the chance to visit our friends Rob and Kitty, who live in Langley, BC.
We had a great time with them, and they showed us around the Vancouver area.

British Columbia is beautiful, and definitely a place where I would like to spend a lot more time. It was quite foggy while we were there, so we weren't able to really see the mountains, so we are planning that someday we have to go back in the summer time to get the full effect.

If I could sum up my impression of BC in just a few words, they would be: Dutch, Bald Eagles, Skid Row, and Dykes.

• Dutch. In Langley there are a lot of Dutch people. They're cool I guess. I love their stroopwafels.
  
• Bald Eagles. As we were driving down the highway, we drove through a bird sanctuary, where we saw probably at least 20 bald eagles. This was crazy to me, since it is pretty rare to see them - at least for me. I think I had only seen 1 bald eagle in my life before this, and then in just 5 min time I saw 20! It was very cool.
• Skid Row. Rob took me through the city of Vancouver at night, and I was very impressed with how clean and modern it is. And then Rob, who used to be a Vancouver police officer, said, Hey, let me show you Skid Row (not the band!). I was expecting the usual run down stuff, but this was beyond that - like something out of a gangster film. But the weird part was that it was only for a few blocks, and outside of that few-block radius of the skids it was super nice again. For example - the main tourist walking area is only like 2 blocks away from this part of town with abandoned buildings, boarded up windows, and lots of people on the streets.
• Dykes. As we were driving around one day, Kitty tells us - Yea, Rob and I used to live right over here. I used to love going out at night and walking around the dykes. There are a lot of dykes in this area; they are really nice.
  Rosemary and I found this to be very funny!
  Here's why:
  

  dyke (also: dike)

  1. n. an embankment for controlling or holding back the waters of the sea or a river.
     
  2. n. Offensive Slang, Used as a disparaging term for a lesbian.
  3. n. Chiefly Australian Slang. a urinal.
     
  
  We quickly figured out that Kitty, a very godly lady, was not speaking of the same kind of dykes that we were thinking of...
  
  Either way, I will always remember British Columbia as: The Land of Dykes.