click your heels together three times...

...and say to yourself, "There's no place like..." Home? After two and a half years away, with some air miles to burn, I hopped a plane to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, aka my hometown--I guess. Since I was last here my parents sold our house, we're semi-based in a different province, and many of my friends have relocated, but my mom and two sisters still sort-of live here. Vancouver, which goes by the nicknames "Raincouver," "City of Glass," and "The Best Place on Earth" (if you're a douchebag), is a sparkling jewel of a city nestled between the mountains and the ocean, full of glass towers that glitter at night, enormous house-sized stumps that recall a...