Oct 06

This week was the big gig week – actually more the big event week. It coincided with most people’s end of midterms so there was lots on – Cat Empire, J5, Fright Night and Halloween!

On Tuesday Chris and I went to the International Relations Grad School info session with Columbia and John Hopkins etc. It was really interesting because Masters programs aren’t big at all in Aus, but they are big business here. Without one you just can’t get a job in Government, which is important to me as I don’t expect to be working in Australia all my life. Most of the big East Coast schools were represented, which was great for a newbie like myself. Made me all pro-US for once.

On Wed a group of us went to Fright Night despite the pouring rain. It was an awesome awesome night – and we practically had the whole place to ourselves. We got to go on all the rides at least twice and got soaked!!! I even braved my fear and went on the rickety old rollercoasters and the spinning pirate ship thing. Ooh yeah!

Thursday meant salsa and The Cat Empire! It was a fucking brilliant gig with an excellent support band. They played for hours and rocked out. I was so surprised that so many Vancouverites showed up in support of a band that hasn’t really gained any airplay here. Salsa was the great precursor too – got me really in the mood. The venue that they performed in – the Commodore Ballroom – is renowned as one of the best on the West Coast. It comes complete with a bouncy dancefloor and no security barrier to separate the fans from the stage. How I wish venues in Sydney were this good!

Friday meant one thing – Halloween!! Firstly, let me categorically state that this holiday should be part of the Australian calendar. It has all the prerequisites – no real reason, candy, alcohol and dressing up. It is as Mean Girls tells it – an excuse for girls to dress like sluts without other girls telling them off. It’s so much fun too – my favourite costumes were the human iPods, the Hershey’s Kisses, and the obligatory Air Force Pilots. Our plan of attack went as follows: Amanda’s apartment for pre-drinks, the SUB for pizza, the AgSci Bzzr Garden for beers and laughing at semi-sober people riding the mechanical bull. From there we stopped at the Engineering Bzzr Garden – which answered all my questions of how Engo parties were. Let’s just say we felt very dressed up (see the photos and make up your own minds) and the house lights were on the whole time! Boooo!

After the Engo Garden we went to Vanier and partied a bit in Steph’s room before heading over (the long way) to Fairview and the Halloween party everyone was talking about. It was there that I went over the happy drunk  just plain drunk phase and decided I didn’t like their wallpaper. Luckily Tamlyn et al saved me and I got the hiccups and left. After a long walk home (by myself for some strange reason) I met up with the others in the lift of East Tower. AWESOME night, although remembering that I licked a street sign and a traffic cone wasn’t the greatest

The rest of the weekend we played soccer (and won by default as most of the other team didn’t show up!), carved pumpkins (SO much fun), saw Snakes On A Plane (again) and Jurassic 5. J5 were fantastic – they even stayed around at the end to sign stuff! Great guys and an awesome concert!

After the mammoth Rockies weekend, we had a fairly quiet week. Tuesday was my first in-class test (for POLI365) and it went fairly well. Actually, scrap that, it went really well given I had to combine studying with being in a bus! I’m still not entirely sure why I let myself get into that situation again (after Cambodia’s fantastic food poisoning  missing the midterm  writing a 3000 word paper), but it went really well this time. See Mum – I’ve grown up!

Wednesday was a particularly sad night for us exchangies as it was Emily’s farewell. Emily is a friend from Alaska who’s decided to go home to pursue her studies there. So we decided to do the ultimate UBC night – the Gallery and the Pit for Em’s first Pit Night. As always, trashy but fun!

Thursday we had our first soccer training. Although most of us haven’t played before, the afternoon was awesome fun and I’m really looking forward to Saturday morning’s game! (Betcha never thought you’d hear that from me, eh?)

Friday evening meant one thing – hockey! About three weeks ago we decided to get tickets to tonight’s game and it was awesome! We had front row seats for the Vancouver Giants (Vancity’s ‘B’ team) against Spokane Chiefs and it kicked arse! The game itself was so fast-paced and although the team wasn’t the greatest ever (most of them are under-20!), I had so much fun. And we won too - 3-0! Light years ahead of CFL! Our outing at Café Crepe afterwards was wicked too – they didn’t have a seat for us straight away, so they gave us a free jug of beer! That would never happen in Sydney!!

Our big soccer game was on Saturday, and even though we lost, I had so much fun. I realised how unfit I was on Thursday, but I was so happy that I actually went through with this and joined the team. It’s something I’d never do back home, and that to me is what going on exchange is all about, right? Saturday afternoon I met up with Natasha and we got our fix of prata at the Singapore Raffles Club afternoon tea. Mmmm… prata! Made me a bit homesick for Singapore though, but what’s new!?

On Sunday I had a day shopping by myself in Metrotown. Metrotown is the second biggest shopping mall in Canada (second only to West Edmonton) and it’s a bit of a labyrinth. I managed to get two pairs of shoes and an awesome winter jacket though – Old Navy is officially my favourite shop in the world! And I finished an awesome week with Pirates of The Caribbean 2 at the SUB.

After spending the past week hearing all about this trip from the group that went over Thanksgiving, we definitely had high expectations. We weren’t disappointed – Rino and our various drivers were excellent and I still find it hard to believe we managed to fit so much into such a short timeframe. Insane!

Friday
Aside from being Friday 13 and ridiculously early in the morning, the start of the trip bode well. We all arrived downtown on time and quickly settled into being the ‘back seat rebels’. There were 10 UBCers in total: Hanneke, Kerensa, Daniel, Chris, Claire, Amanda, Jack, Lem, Kate and myself. In hindsight I don’t think I could have picked a better group to go travelling with – we all just connected. This turned out to be particularly important given the enormous amount of time we’d be spending on the bus and together, in one form or another.

Today was mostly spent on the aforementioned bus, travelling from Vancouver to Hope. The highlight was possibly the coffee at a small café in Hope (!) and the Spahats Falls, which were very impressive – and they were apparently smaller than usual! The route from Van to Hope traverses the Coquihalla Highway – one of the most famous in Western Canada, and home to the animal crossing program. Basically, in addition to building road overpasses, the government has constructed forest ‘connectors’ from one side of the highway to the other, at traditional animal crossings. These allow the deer, moose etc. to cross safely at any time without fear of cars (and vice-versa). Awesome idea, eh? Gotta love that Canadian ingenuity.

We spent the night in Valemount at a dodgy hotel with one redeeming feature. The water slide! It was amazing how one small thing like that could unite the group, but it did throughout the trip. Last weeks’ group apparently spent a fair amount of time at various bars, and we similarly spent an equal amount of time at the hotel pools. Each to their own, I guess!

Around the pool we met Perla, Rens, Corinne, Danny (our roommate) and Pedro. Most, in fact all others on the trip I think, were language students from South America or Europe. We were pretty much the only native English speakers, which was an interesting position to be in, but one that I love. Good times!

Saturday
After a very early start for sunrise, we progressed to visit Mt Robson, Jasper, Maligne Canyon, Athabasca Falls, the Columbia Icefields and Bow Lake.

The Rockies are quite difficult to explain to those who haven’t been there. They are as beautiful as people make them out to be, and the scenery is epic and jaw-dropping. Seeing all these places that people had long spoken of, both in Vancouver and around the world, was amazing, and I repeatedly had to pinch myself that I was actually there.

Jasper is one of the main towns in the Canadian Rockies, but was clearly closing up shop for the winter when we arrived. Apparently the last main weekend of the year is Thanksgiving – the week before we left – which meant some shops had already closed, and the others were all holding end-of-season sales. Had we had more time and money, this would have been fantastic, but as it stood it just made the time we spent there feel partly wasted. It was almost as if Jasper becomes a ghost town off-season, or at least until the ski season picks up pace in November-December.

The Canyon and Falls were both very impressive, and the photos only partly do them justice. Again, they are places you just have to visit for yourself. The Columbia Icefields were a bit of a let down, especially after all we had heard about them. The actual time spent on the ice is limited and you aren’t permitted to walk all around the glacier, so you are left with walking over slippery, compacted, dirty ice. Definitely a fun experience, and one that produced some of my favourite photos of the entire trip so far, but I have the feeling it could have been so much better.

Once again, our evening was spent by the pool, but this time with a FAR better slide (3 storeys) and a much nicer hotel. This is really not backpacking!

Sunday
Today was the day of the lakes, visiting Minnewanka (that name still makes me smile), Louise and Emerald, as well as Banff. If anything encapsulates the Rockies in one go, it’s Lake Louise. Reportedly one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, it did not disappoint. The lake, owing I believe to the minerals within, is a light blue colour and looks amazing reflecting off the surrounding mountains and snow. Yes – it’s that lake from all the postcards! All other lakes pale in comparison once you’ve seen this one, so I was partly glad we left it till near the end of the trip.

After our visit to Lake Louise, Claire, Amanda and Lem misread the time we were meant to be back and as such had to sing for the entire bus. Luckily many of us have it on video, so it’s recorded for eternity. Suffice to say, Koom Bi Ah will never mean the same again!

Banff was a great town, and one that I would have liked to have spent more time in, exploring the various sidestreets. It’s clearly designed for the influx of tourists visiting the Rockies, and so a lot of shops sell ski-gear, souvenirs and food, but that suited us perfectly, so I was prepared to ignore how annoying it must be for the locals for the sake of convenience! Plus Kate and I were able to have a proper conversation about life, the universe and budgeting which was great. I haven’t spent nearly enough time with some people yet, so it was good to have some time to do that here.

Monday
After a bloody long weekend, it was time to start making our way home. We were SO tired that most of us slept for the majority of the day, waking only to watch part of Legally Blonde II, study for our various midterms or eat. Oh, and to see Revelstoke – the historic town near Vancouver where the two ends of the Great Pacific Railroad met. Bit one-sided if you ask me! Shouldn’t it be near Manitoba or somewhere?? Apparently that has something to do with the mountains out west, but I think it’s just laziness!

So there you have it … after four days of non-stop action, we had reached the end of our Rockies adventure. I’m sorry this blog post might not seem to do it justice – really it’s one of those places where you NEED photos, so please check them out here (Day 1 & 4), here (Day 2 & 3), and here (Day 2)!

After my family left, the rest of the week went by fairly quietly. I had booked a trip to the Rockies for this coming weekend, and after seeing everyone’s photos of Jasper and Banff I was really looking forward to going!

Tuesday night was Nick’s Birthday and we had drinks for him at the Gallery, which was great fun. On Wednesday I saw Uganda Rising with Julian and Jainita. It’s a really great film and definitely worth seeing – it’s about the plight of Ugandan refugees in their war-torn part of the world. What kinda spoilt it for us, however, was the interview with the filmmakers afterwards. Instead of being the noble activists that we were expecting, they were just normal filmmakers, with very little personal interest in their topic. Ah well, one can’t have everything I guess.

Thursday meant UBC Rec’s Urban Challenge competition. Essentially a combination of the Amazing Race and Survivor, each team of 2 or 6 had to go through and complete as many challenges as possible in the allocated time. The challenges included finding tags in a small wood on campus, cross dressing and swimming for ducks (that one was combined!), blind frisbee-ing, and boot camp. I even managed a bit of pole dancing, although that wasn’t really part of the game!

The goal was 9 challenges, however most teams only got between 6-8 done. We managed to get 8 done, but we went over the time limit, so we were the last ones back, which sucked because had we come back earlier we would’ve been able to slide down the soap-sud slide! Ah well, our team (Claire, Lauren, Maybelle, Carl, Daniel and I) kicked arse, and it was SO much fun! The best part was it really isn’t something I’d too back home!