Gay Vancouver

Vancouver's Gay Village is a strip of half a mile or so along Davie Street, just west of downtown. Like its counterpart in Chicago it is marked by flags and signs:



The gay village itself has the typical sorts of bars, restaurants, clothing and book stores and so forth, along with middle-of-the-road housing stock (not many of the glassy new towers I've shown you elsewhere, but good solid apartment buildings and a few detached homes).

It's a nice neighborhood, but as in Vancouver as in so many other cities you can be gay pretty much anywhere around town now. Joey and I held hands while walking all over and not only didn't feel out of place, but noticed other same-sex couples doing the same thing.

One thing Vancouver has that most other cities do not is an AIDS memorial, in a waterfront park near an Inuit sculpture that is the city's symbol:



Vaguely reminiscent of the U.S. Vietnam War memorial, it lists the names of Vancouverites who died of AIDS. It's a classy and moving indication of the city's diversity and inclusion. We weren't aware it existed until we stumbled upon it but we are happy we did.