Having mentioned how my old passport chronicles a small part of my life I thought I might be interesting to try and get some of the events down somewhere. So we start with the first ever stamp put into my passport.

I'd used the passport a few times to go to France before this, but with the wonders of the EU it never got stamped on those trips. So this marks the first "proper" use of my passport. My twentieth birthday. Mum and dad dropped me off at Heathrow in the morning and I spent the rest of the day alone. BA flew me direct to Vancouver, the immigration guy seemed a bit freaked that I was travelling alone and asked the questions a bit pointedly. Since everything checked out he flipped my passport open and stamped it. Sideways and on page 22! The man had no respect for a boy's first passport stamp.

This was the first time I'd been outside Europe. Actually the furthest I'd ever been before was probably Yorkshire, I lived closer to France than I to my current address actually. I got a shuttle to downtown Vancouver (it passed through some weird areas on the way) and I trudged a few blocks with my luggage to my bed for the night. Except my body clock was all screwy so I kipped a bit in the afternoon and woke at silly o'clock the next morning. In fact I was up so early on the 9th I headed out to look around. About the only thing open was Canada Place where I saw the most beautiful sunrise. I went back a number of times to try and get a photo but it only happened that one day when my camera was in my room.

The whole trip had a lot of significance to me really. Some of it I expected and some threw me. I remember the first few days the BC accent really bugged me. At times I wondered what I was doing, other times it felt so right. However in the two and a bit weeks I was in Vancouver that time the place grew on me quickly. I walked round Stanley Park, I visited the aquarium, I explored Gastown. I also unwound a lot and made a decision that would affect the next few years of my life. In fact a decision which is still with me in many ways.

I spent a lot of time in the Central Library which was wonderful. Much as I love musty old libraries (and we have one of those a couple of years later) the VPL was modern and refreshing. It made the books filling it up seem wonderful and important rather than relics hidden away in darkness for strange obsessive types like myself to stumble upon. That said, there was a second hand bookshop which was an absolute treasure of musty bookshelves. Well, heaps. That's how musty collections work in my mind. I remember digging around and finding a few treasures.

I remember I kept getting given discounts to eat at a sports bar type place. Their market was young men and I fitted the bill perfectly, I'd walk along and get given my discount and it worked, I'd eat lunch there. I really didn't fit in though. That said my difference caused some amusements. Unlike most of the patrons I didn't stare at the waitresses which seemed to cause a bit of confusion. It probably worried them too since a lot of their tips came from men trying to impress them or apologise.

I actually ended up talking to a waitress called Lee most of the times I went in there. Once she got over my weirdness she seemed friendly enough, telling me about how she got stabbed with a fork in a bar the night before and laughing when another waitress didn't mark my table number on the bill, prefering instead to label it "English guy". Simple things which put a smile on my face. Had I not been so wonderfully shy maybe I'd have even tried to have a dialogue with her one day.

But my time in Vancouver was coming to an end so I wandered over the the bus station ready to head off. Vancouver still had one more suprise to come, but that can wait for the first time I ended the US.