Top 3 reasons to love Vancouver

This is the crummy view I get to look out on each day from our ConnectionPoint office in Gastown.
I know, how unlucky am I! Since spring arrived there’s been a new cruise ship to gaze out onto daily, and with that brings lots of tourists and a hive of activity to Gastown. When we started leasing office space down here in December it was like a ghost town. The financial crisis had killed many tech companies or forced them out of the area. The homeless were tucked away in alcoves and alleys trying not to freeze, and the rain and snow added to the bleak picture.

Not so now. Spring has also bought the cherry blossoms which I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing before, not with this much magnitude. Arching over streets and raining blossom petals on the ground, paving everything with pink, it was like one long wedding celebration! I’ve been even more appreciative of how beautiful Vancouver becomes when the good weather arrives as I now have a bicycle. My shiny new Brodie (Canadian made) hybrid is built tough and for 6 weeks has been getting my ass in serious shape and transporting me to places I’d never even visited. I love the freedom of cycling, I forgot how much from when I had my bike in London.
It’s less crazy cycling here and the cycle lanes are pretty decent and take you on quieter streets. So it’s allowed me to see some stunning houses and streets that this city has to offer. Thanks to now attending a total of 8 tryouts for 2 women’s ultimate teams I’ve seen far east to far west and beyond and embarked on 5 plus hours of exercise an evening!

So what are the top 3 things to love about Vancouver:

1. The abundance of outdoor activities that exist right on your doorstep and tempt you to partake in each and every one (like 6 of us ladies trying out windsurfing last weekend and rocking at it – even if the mast hit my head and we into the water constantly and collided too)
2. The wonderful friends and networks - this ultimately has been up to me to initiate but there’s more networking events in this city than in the world combined! Plus people have generously invited me into their lives and activities so I now have a wide variety of friends to do anything and everything with
3. The entrepreneurial nature of the city – probably a little bias here as it’s all I’ve immersed myself in since arriving. Taking the route of growing a start up with my fantastic business partner and boss Daryl who I’m too lucky to have in my life, and becoming more entrepreneurial has opened up a new world for me. Work (a dull name for what we do) is a never ending source of fun, stimulation, steep learning curves, excitement, challenges and the thing that keeps me up late and night and the first thing I wake up to in the morning- but in a totally good way!

It also helps that I recently got accepted for the BC Provincial nominee program – essentially a fast track to permanent residency, a big relief as it means I can stay on and continue to enjoy this city and discover Canada.

And one more thing, networking is the best thing in the world, you just never know who you’ll meet, how they’ll effect you and vice versa and what opportunities that may bring. Such as the opportunity I get to embark on tomorrow morning at 5am as I head to Costa Rica. Yes I’ve somehow managed to get an invite to hang out with up to 10 over achieving young entrepreneurs for 10 days and discuss how to change the world for the better. Their bios were outstanding and I paled in comparison but I do get to teach them Ultimate Frisbee!  They won’t know what hit them – literally…..