This July 1^st was the most active I’ve been in my seven years of Canada Day celebrations.

In the past I used the day-off as an opportunity to catch up on my sleep, I’d watch the Ottawa celebrations on TV and maybe go see the fireworks later on at night (when fireworks was brought back)

Having the energy to spend this year, I decided to do things differently. I wore my obligatory patriotic t-shirt and made a day out of it.

First stop was the festivities on Robson Street

There was a lively showcase of Brazilian music and dancing at the make shift stage on Bute Street.

We made our way to the Art Gallery where the alternate Cannabis Day Celebrations was ongoing – every Canada Day, marijuana activists and smokers gather at the Vancouver Art Gallery to celebrate “marijuana freedoms”.

It’s one of those “only in Vancouver” things, but all in good fun, everyone’s respectful and you don’t necessarily have to be a pot smoker to be there although you’ll probably catch some second hand buzz.

The big Canada Day celebrations at Canada Place was our next stop, We spent the most time here.

From Canada place, we made a quick dash to Granville Island, there were some great many performers and throngs and throngs of people.

There was a line to get off the Island by boat… that’s how packed the the place was!

We made our way back downtown tired, hungry and hot. We had a quick lunch at the new Urban Fare on Alberni, they had Canada Day cake!

We crossed over to Georgia for the first-ever Canada Day Parade. I’m not very big on parades, the only parades I’d been to constantly in the past couple of years is Pride, so I figured this wasn’t going to be exciting.

It started slow but picked up; it was all in wholesome family fun.

I came back home for a little relaxation and headed back out one final time around 10PM for the fireworks.

It was such a tiring and awesome experience that it took me two whole weeks to write about it.