THERE IS MORE TO STEVESTON THAN FISH

At times, life on top of our rock is too much fun and we need to get away for a change of scenery. We live near the mountains and the luscious green of the Golden Ears Provincial Park.

 Sometimes, our heart desires the fresh breeze of the ocean,

This is actually a very sad representation of a beach!

  the smell of freshly caught fish,

listening to seagulls  and eating fish 'n chips wrapped in old newspaper!

All this can be found in Steveston / Richmond,

a one hour drive west from our residence!

Right from the moment we parked our car, our spontaneous trip was sprinkled with wonderful, extraordinary moments:

The bi-monthly Farmers Market was on and imagine my surprise when I met my buddy Karen.

She is my all time favourite market lady with an incredible talent and recipe for making and selling her own lemonade. Check out her Kics site here!

We explored the many different shops

and ended up chatting with three,
 sweet, young female students, sharing our philosophies on life (no, no, don't get married yet, go and travel first!)

We found our fish and chips,

we ate, we walked to the tip of the inland (Garry Point Park) and were geographically challenged.

 We couldn't figure out where downtown Vancouver is;  in short, we needed someone to point us in the right direction.  

When it comes to talking to strangers I am no stranger in making first contact. Whom better to ask than the first couple you see sitting on a bench?

We approached, politely interrupted and posed the question!
The couple answered with their perfect Dutch accent- which really got us going! Yes, we still speak the lingo- we lived there for 12 years!
After 10 minutes Tilde and echtgenot (husband) Philip  invited us to their home for Koffie en gebak (coffee and cookies).

Is it the sea breeze, is it Steveston, is it Canada?
In Holland it took SIX  (!!!!!!) years to get invited into a Dutch home ( and no, we don't smell), here we were laughing and drinking the evening away after 10 minutes only!
Thank you Tilde and Philip for making our trip extraordinary!