Hardly a European City. But my home away from Europe nonetheless. My home, in fact.

I am irrevocably a city girl, despite having lived half my life in a suburb and having spent all childhood holidays in the country.

The big city intruded into my consciousness slowly. It was the destination of birthday trips, of visits to the theatre and the big bookstores. It developed from there. Always being willing to talk to people on public transport, perhaps with the naïveté of someone who didn’t take it often. Now done with the boredom of someone who takes it all the time. The city emerged. I would go shopping downtown, even though the stores were the same as in the malls in my neighbourhood. I would go to the library downtown. I’m still not convinced it’s any better than the local ones. In time the city fascination led to a rejection of the downtown core–too business-y, too sterile, too much glass, in favour of the surrounding neighbourhood pockets. The preppy neighbourhood, Kitsilano, swiftly rejected–too many pretentious people on the beach, too much yoga, too much designer coffee. It was better to prefer the “edgy” or immigrant neighbourhoods. Although the authentic Italian coffee shops and Vietnamese restaurants of Commercial Drive and Main Street are now so full of studenty twenty-somethings as well that I may have to organize a retreat from them as well. Against all odds, I rather like the touristy neighbourhood these days. And should I devote more time to Chinatown?

But what next, after the government has finished converting the entire downtown core into a glass condominium, and the little neighbourhoods have more completely gentrified, or anyway have been fully invaded by people a bit like me, who I seem to have an endless desire to avoid? I guess it will be time to explore all the suburbs. Maybe that’s the natural progression of life, and I shall eventually raise kids to despise the suburbs and escape to the city as well.

Or maybe it’s time to frustrate that predictable pattern and flee this sparkling 21st century city–again–for a new one. An older one.