Crystal and I spent almost twenty minutes prowling the middle of freaking nowhere Nanaimo looking for The Nest Bistro, a highly recommended chef-owned joint which we had made dinner reservations for. We’d already passed a Phillipino mother smoking and breastfeeding in her doorway, a drunken soon-to-be domestic call two doors down and an elderly man with no shirt and one shoe chasing a cat back and forth across the road. It felt, magically, like we were back in our old neighbourhood in East Van – At first glance kind of ghetto, but the Tibetan prayer flags over everyone’s door made it okay. Read More