And now... Vancouver!

I arrived in Vancouver about 12:15 this afternoon and took a cab to the Granville Island Hotel, which is located in an area that's been reclaimed from run-down warehouses and is now quite a lively place with markets (a famous farmer's market, for example) and restaurants. My room faces the water and I spotted this kayaker a little while ago in an area to the east of the "island" called False Creek. I don't know how much time I'll have for exploring as the agenda for the meeting is quite full. This is a gathering of the Society for Arts in Dementia Care and there are people here from Canada, the US (some of you may have heard of Elinor Fuchs, Professor of Dramaturgy in the School of Drama at Yale), and Australia. My roommate (whom I just met) is a medical anthropologist at the school of medicine at Dalhousie University, Halifax. She and I were both surprised to learn when we got here that Pfizer is partially sponsoring the conference. She was especially surprised since apparently the talk she's giving on Saturday is quite critical of the way drug trials are conducted. This should be interesting...

I wished I had thought to take my camera out as I walked through the Vancouver airport. It's such an enormous contrast to O'Hare's international terminal. This airport actually makes a visitor feel welcome, as you walk along a carpeted path, past lovely, large displays about Northwest nature and native peoples. About every 50 feet is a sign that says "welcome" which is really a way finding device presented in a friendly fashion. At O'Hare there were a bunch of threatening signs about how people are not to take pictures, use cellphones, etc. One definitely does not get the feeling of being welcomed to the US.

I just heard from Klas, the man who organized my stay in Sweden, that Condoleeza Rice is in Sweden to talk with people about Iraq. I'm curious about whether that will be covered in the US press. Everywhere I went in Europe, people wanted to talk about the US political situation and I'm sure the same will be true here in Canada, too.