Back on Track

Good news! My finances are looking up again (thank You Lord!) so it seems my travelling spirit will be able to roam around this beautiful province after all! Some friends and I were supposed to head down to Seattle this weekend but a last-minute brake problem led us to nix our plans. I will definitely go soon though! My friend Maude and I are planning a five-day hiking trip around Banff, Lake Louise and Calgary from March 5th to 9th. Tourist sites boast about the natural beauty of the area and the views are promised to be no less than inspirational. I can't wait! Five glorious days of discovery and of quality time in nature...it will be a real balm for the soul.

The nice weather has been an open invitation to venture forth into the city and take a stroll through the beautiful streets of Downtown Vancouver. My goal? Find the perfect café ;) I want to find a little quaint café that's quiet, cozy, and serves great coffee (oh, and that has free WiFi too).

Also, on the job front, I have a tutoring job, once a week, helping a 10-yrd-old girl in French immersion. It's a fun job and it pays well. It's a great start!

I've added some pictures from Gastown (I mentioned our visit there in my last post). Enjoy!

Post-Valentine's Day Update

Forgive me, readers. It has been 2 weeks since my last entry. :)
Unlike Guatemala, where my scattered entries were justified (I preferred to live out my adventures rather than write about them), I've just been undisciplined, unruly and generally all over the place. It's been great.
There is a light at the end of the Employment Tunnel: after handing out endless resumes and tacking up ads around campus and putting together kickass cover letters...I have managed to snag a tutoring job. I help a 10-year-old immersion student with her French. It's only once a week for the moment, but I've asked the parents to offer my services to other parents. We'll see how that goes. I had my heart set on a job on campus but I didn't get called back for an interview. Keep that in your prayers please...without money it's difficult to travel around BC and that's definitely why I'm here (studying is just an excuse).
There is a silver lining to this cloud: not being able to travel far has allowed me to slowly discover Vancouver and all its wonders. So far I have visited Granville Island, a quaint harbour area that reminds me of Maine, with its Local Market stalls and the long docks you can walk along and the smell of fish and Montreal bagels in the air. I'll definitely go back soon. I also took a brief jaunt around Gastown, an area of downtown that boasts a grandfather clock that functions only with steam! The inner cogs are unbelievable, with a chain that slowly descends, second by second, to finally deposit a brass ball onto a lever, activating a switch that makes the hands advance by a minute. Fascinating.
I also got my first look at the Downtown East Side (DTES), an area populated by addicts, homeless people and prostitutes. The statistics are grim: the DTES population has a Hepatitis C infection rate of 70% and 30% of the people have AIDS (rivalling some African countries). 52% of DTES residents are hard-drug users. And the scariest part is, with the Olympics coming, these 'messy' people will be swept under the rug, either evicted or given a bus ticket elsewhere. I still have a lot to learn and discover about this underbelly of the city (from a distance, for those who are reading this and are worried...).
This is older news, but a couple of weeks ago, I got to head to Chinatown and celebrate the Chinese New Year (Year of the Ox!). Gung Hei Fat Choy!! There was a beautiful parade with dragons, lions, martial arts demonstrations, women with fans and...bagpipes. Hey, why not, it's 2009!! Despite the rain, my friends and I were able to enjoy the tradition and beauty of Chinese culture. A great trip all-round!
Well, that's enough for today. More soon, I promise!

I'm baaaaaack!

Sorry for the delay in postings, but between the five trips to Future Shop (in vain attempts to convince the guy behind the computer counter to please please please loan me a computer while mine's MIA) and the chaotic state of Internet in residences for the past few days (turns out it was a virus)...well, you all understand. So where do I begin?
Ah yes. Victoria. We headed out on the 6-hour trip to Victoria a couple of weeks ago and had ourselves a blast! We got an impromptu tour of the city and surrounding beaches and mountains by a few cool guys who made our stay a lot of fun. Who knew that a car, a ukelele, some breakfast poker and a fire on the beach were all it took to make one feel at home? The views were breathtaking: the mountain ranges on Uncle Sam's side of the ocean reaching high into the sky, waterfalls concealed behind the branches of a wayside forest, winding streams licking at the edges of rocky embankments, bald eagles soaring beyond treetops, a blazing, smoldering sunset beyond the mountains (best watched from Breakwater, a walkway jutting out into the sea). I met some memorable people on that trip that I hope to travel with and get to know more in the coming months. It was the first time I felt like I was really, truly, getting a taste of what BC has to offer.
Since then, I have been appreciating my academic situation: I'm pass/fail, meaning that no actual marks show up on my transcript, only a 'V' if I pass. In other words, were I to get 60% as my final grade or 99%, it makes no whip of difference. On top of that, my classes are CEGEP level 101 classes or else classes I have had before, so I won't be sweating over midterms this semester! I swear, people, it's an overachiever's Cayo Coco vacation! :) This is awesome because it means I can travel more and miss classes without worrying about my grades. A real blessing since my time here is relatively short (unless I move here, which is not in the cards for me as far as I can see).
In the coming weeks I have two trips planned: a day-trip to gorgeous, world-renowned Whistler, and a 4-day camping/tourist trip to Banff (ok, not BC per se, but close!). More details on that later.
On a final note, some nifty fact of the day: bowling is different in BC than in Quebec! In QC, bowling involves 10 pins and a small bowling ball; in BC, either you have 5 pins and a small ball or 10 pins and one of those massive American-style bowling balls. Who'd've guessed that something so trivial as bowling would be so different between East and West? More soon.