vancouver

It has been brought to my attention that I have been neglectful of my blog. It is true, it has been a month since I have written, and much has happened in that month!

I never wrote that for the last 6 weeks of summer I was working at the Visitor Information Centre in Radium for Parks Canada. Well, I was, and I loved it! It was a lot of fun - I was spending the majority of my days talking to people about hiking and learning new things all the time, about Parks, BC, the Valley, and the people I was working with were amazing. really positive, upbeat, fun people. It was awesome!

My parents spent three weeks in August at their cabin in Newfoundland. It was the big test, Mom's first time seeing it. She was so cute the first time she called home and I asked 'so how is it?' And she said, full of forced optimism, "well... it's got potential." A few sentence later she exclaims, "there's not hot water!" But it is right on the ocean, and by the time she came home they had sorted out the hot water issue and she seems to ahve fallen as much in love with the place and Robin did when he bought it, and they are both all talk of when they will be going back.

So they left us alone, us three kids. Christopher and I, working full time, and me working goofy hours, left responsible for hte garden, the yard, and Dennis, the 14 year monster. But have no fear! Grandma came to rescue! She came and stayed with us for a few days, took Dennis home wiht her for a few more, and just generally took care of us. It was awesome! I mean, of course I was thrilled to have supper warm and waiting for me when I got home (who doesn't like to be spoiled like that?), but it was also just really neat to spend so much time with Grandma, hanging out, staying up late chatting. I was very cool.

And among those chats we talked abotu school, adn the fact that I needed to figure out how I was getting to Vancouver and she said, 'I'll drive you!" So she did! Grandma and I took a roadtrip to Vancouver and she stuck around for a few days helping me move in. She's amazing.

So I'm moved to vancouver! And I love it! I love the city so far. It has about a dozen beaches, and I've been doing my best to visit and swim at them all. It's got gorgeous mountains, which I hope to spend some more time climbing, and it's a city, but not really a big city. I was expecting it to be bigger, scarier, but it's really not that bad. Pretty laid back, as far as cities go, it seems. The UBC campus is, of course beautiful, full of gardens and green. I'm inspired just walking around there. and school, well, school is a challenge. I sometimes wonder if I really belong here, but for the most part its going ok. My teachers are amazing, very smart, very interesting. My classmates are good, too. And my roommate is perfect! So life is good.

This is the first time that I've moved somewhere that I actually know people. It's been amazing to be going over for supper to see family, calling up old friends from high school, or running into them on campus!, hanging out with an old biochem friend from MUN, its' been a pretty smooth transition, all around, and that makes me happy.