When we were planning our trip to Canada, we figured we'd need somewhere to stay temporarily while we got our life sorted out. We couldn't easily lease an apartment from New Zealand, so we needed a short-term base. A comfortable hotel room was going to be $100+/night, so we turned to Airbnb. We found Walter's amazingly well-reviewed house for a reasonable rate, and booked two weeks!
Staying with us were Walter's two pets; Mollie the dog and Oscar the cat. Both lived at home all day while Walter was out working, but were nothing like the two little bundles of extreme excitement we'd lived with a month earlier in St Heliers! Mollie spent most of the day asleep on one of the beds, and Oscar was quite happy curled up on a chair or in front of the fireplace. Mollie used all her energy up each morning and afternoon when she and Walter would go on 5 or 10km runs.
Walter's place is in a suburb called Kitsilano (or Kits, as it's known locally) whose population seems to be relatively young, affluent people. There are lots of low-rise apartment buildings, generally three stories, with almost no garden or yard space.
Five or ten minutes walk down the hill gets you to Kits Beach, which while not very popular mid-winter was easy to imagine packed in summer. Down here is Cafe Zen, where Katie and I ate breakfast every second day or so. The coffee was delicious, the servings cheap, tasty and huge (so we could split one, half price!), and the staff were very friendly. Also down this is a great Italian place called Nook, and a bar with good burgers imaginatively named Local.
In the other direction is West 4th Avenue, which is where all the real shops are. You can catch buses every few minutes from W 4th to the Skytrain station on Broadway, or to Downtown Vancouver. From there you can get pretty much anywhere. It's also an easy walk down to Granville Island, where there's a brewery and bustling food market.
On W 4th is where we found Burgoo. It's Walter's favourite restaurant, and we immediately understood why. I think we ate there 4 times in the two weeks we were staying in Kits. They serve 'comfort food' like cheese toasties, french onion soup, yummy sandwiches, macaroni & cheese, etc. Dangerously yummy stuff with a distinct theme. Walter probably gets away with eating here because of all his running.
We really enjoyed our time with Walter. He's a super nice guy and definitely made my first Airbnb experience a great one. When we left he invited us to come and dine with him at Burgoo if we were ever in the area. Might have to give it a few weeks first...