I love to sit in the front seat of the taxi. Mostly this is because I haven’t owned or had a car at my disposal for several years. So when I’m paying for one, I want the view!

I used to love the types of cars that are classic taxis: sedans with leather seats, and really springy shocks.
Since coming to Vancouver, I’ve had to trade my love for the types of taxis I’m used to for the taxi car type that is taking over here: the Toyota Prius, a hybrid.

No leather seats, more space age than spacious, and it feels like a go-cart from the back and front seat. But on principle, I’m thrilled, even if taking a taxi feels less swanky and superfluous now.

Tonight I stopped the first available taxi that came by, a Prius, of course. I warned Gurjit, the driver, that I was going to ask him questions. He asked what I’d pay him for his answers. Clever businessmen, these hybrid taxi drivers!

“But, hurry!” I said. “Get that hybrid hybridizing! We’re running late for our movie.”

Gurjit used to work at a Toyota dealership. So he knows the selling features of the Prius.

He likes it better than the Camry that he used when he first started driving a taxi in Vancouver. He rattles off the reasons why: the Prius is more reliable, has a bigger trunk, it’s quieter, and it handles better.

It also saves him some money. Gas costs are cheaper.

Gurjit doesn’t mention anything about climate change or air pollution. Maybe that’s because it’s obvious that the Hybrid is an improvement, or maybe the environmental benefits of hybrid taxis don’t affect him that much personally.

He says New York City paid attention to what was happening in Vancouver with greener taxis and implemented their own plan to hybridize the iconic taxi fleet there.

We arrived. We were five minutes late for the movie.

“Did you get that all of that information written down?” Gurjit asked as I slid out of the taxi. “So what are you going to pay me for it?”

That’s what I was thinking the other day when I headed out to find a good umbrella. I was going to splurge, spend a little more this time. After all, it would be either over my head or in my backpack almost every day of winter.

I visited The Umbrella Shop, a boutique crammed to the ceiling with umbrellas. I met Michelle King there, who has worked at The Umbrella Shop for a few years. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say she got excited to show me around the shop and in-site factory.

We went upstairs where they make the “stick” umbrellas—the non-folding ones that look more classical. There I found a cramped room with piles of fabric, vintage sewing machines, Michelle’s two little girls, and a few of her co-workers. A family shop.

“We’ve been making the same umbrella since 1935, using the same machines. You can see that they’re all really, really [customized] old Singer sewing machines,” Michelle said as we moved around the room.

Michelle walked us through the process of making an umbrella: cloth triangles get sewn together, then a circular thingamabob is sewn onto the top and little cylindrical thingies for the ribs of the umbrella to fit into are affixed to each point. Then, the ribs of the umbrella are sown to the cloth through a quick little stitch halfway down each rib. Then the finishing is done.

“Woosh,” is the sound the umbrella makes as Michelle opens it. “So each of these little pieces is hand-done…And that’s how the umbrella fits together.”

I’ve been noticing how rain fashion is so ‘in vogue’ in Vancouver. Not just raincoats, but funky gumboots and matching umbrellas. Of course, it’s functional in a city with so much rain. But it seems somewhat frivolous too.

Let me explain: gumboots come in all sorts of colours and designs. They’re pricey, many easily costing over $100. They’re worn proudly, pant legs tucked in, to more formal places than you would expect.
When I lived in Montreal, they were somewhat fashionable at my university for a year. I remember the Art History girls slosh-sloshing in them around McGill.

“Oh brother!” I thought at the time. “What a wasteful pair of shoes to have in Montreal.” I was studying environmental studies. I assumed that rain specific fashion items were uncomfortable, cold, and non-functional.

Recently though, after too many days with wet feet from my used and abused leather shoes that have become too permeable for the rain, I’ve been thinking about trying out a pair of galoshes. My friend Rebecca bought some. When I commented on them, she gave me a sales pitch: made in Canada from recycled plastic, cheaper than most fashionable boots, and made to fit like a shoe.

I’m environmentally conscious at The Umbrella Shop too. That’s why I perk up when Michelle says:

“We get women coming in here after twenty years,” Michelle imitates a squeaky old woman voice. “I need a little tip replacement done.”

It’s an old fashioned ideal about durability that The Umbrella Shop seems to have enshrined into their business model.

Michelle shares an umbrella sales pitch she overheard once at the night market:

“Three for five dollars,” she heard the sales woman say.

The shopper said she only needed one. To which the sales lady replied:

“No you need three, they break.”

Michelle thinks that’s silly.

“They’re not disposable items…It’s quality versus quantity.”

I’m still new enough to notice the little differences—things that make Vancouver different. I’m no public transit connoisseur, but I have ridden buses in Buenos Aires, subway-ed to Central Park, and metro-ed between museums in Paris. In all of those places, I’ve asked the drivers and conductors for directions and they’ve been grumpy.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame them. How many times a day would you want to direct someone to the Eiffel Tower who is trying to learn French and fumbling to find the correct amount of local currency? I understand the crankiness. But, bus drivers, sometimes when you’re new to a place, you have no choice. You are our last resorts.

Since I got here, I’ve been asking my fair share of directions from Vancouver bus drivers. Initially, I would meagerly say, sometimes even with a fake accent: “how do I get to Granville?” I was prepared for the wrath of the overtaxed men and women of the transit. Gradually, I ‘ve let my guard down. This city does not have just a few nice bus drivers—it’s full of them, like rush hour in Japan full!

Last night I rode the UBC B-line to Granville. I chatted with Bob the bus driver on the way. I asked him why he and his coworkers are so friendly. He said it’s because they like their jobs. They have a good union that’s fought for flexibility in their hours, and a decent wage (although, Bob says they don’t get paid as much as the public thinks).

Bob says the bus drivers are trained in safety and customer service. During training, they are blindfolded and made to ride the bus to become more sensitive to visually impaired transit-ers.

“Each and every passenger that gets on the bus is as unique as their DNA,” he told me. “I have 115 people behind me that I’m responsible for their lives.”

There are passengers he remembers. A Chinese lady gave him candy as she got on the bus. “Candy! Candy! You take!” she said. There were the lost Spanish tourists that he took to their hotel at Hastings and Renfrew—Vancouver’s “skid row,” Bob called it.

Before applying to drive the bus, Bob says he asked a room full of drivers, “Do you like your job?” Every single one of them said yes.

Bob’s been driving a bus for two years. He was an accountant with a higher paying job for twenty years before he started. I asked him why he changed.

“I wanted people to run to me, not away from me,” he said.

To be fair, it’s not only bus drivers that are overly friendly. Bus riders are quite pleasant in Vancouver too. I have never been in a city where people so frequently thank bus drivers as they get on and off—even from the very back of the bus.

So, last night, as I got off the bus, I somewhat awkwardly shouted out, “Thank you, Bob. You have a good night.”

I’ll get this Vancouver local thing down yet.