Tourist Sites

Kerensa and I didn’t wait any time to go on holiday after our finals. I finished my final at 11am, and by 3 I was on a bus to Whistler. Kerensa had an even more crazy plan. She finished at 7 and by 9 she was on a bus!

This was my first experience in a ski resort and it was SO much fun. We had booked into the UBC lodge (which is really social and nice, just a fair way away from the Village), and booked three days worth of lessons as well. The lessons started on Tuesday, so that left me with the rest of Monday to sort out what was where and meet up with Daniel (and Michele). We ended up wandering around the Village, which is a great little purpose-built town, complete with supermarkets and cinemas, as well as loads of restaurants and clubs. We had dinner at the always good Old Spaghetti Factory and met up with Kerensa before heading back to the hostel.

Tuesday was our first day of lessons, and my first ever day on the slopes. Kerensa has skied once before, but that was many years ago, so I guess for all intents and purposes we are both absolute beginners. The day started slowly, as we were just finding out feet and our instructor was also new, but soon progressed to the point where we could ski down the learning area slopes, turning as we went.

That night, Kerensa and I were so buggered that we didn’t go out at all. We had bought some food to cook and just ate that. It was something we repeated throughout the week as the skiing just took too much out of us! Ryan and his friend Diane also arrived and taught us how to play Settlers of Catan. As you can see we were definite party animals!!

Day two brought with it its own challenges. Kerensa had progressed to Level 2B, whilst I was on 2A. This meant we had different coaches, but covered predominantly the same material. Our 2A coach was very intent on having us ski down the mountain by the morning of Day 3, so it was pretty fast-paced. To be honest I’m fairly thankful for that, because otherwise I would’ve felt that I didn’t get a lot out of the whole trip.

Our final day of lessons was amazing. With the same teacher as I had had on day two, both Kerensa and I managed to ski down Whistler Mountain from the mid-station. Twice. It was awesome and I’m SO glad we did it. Despite the weather and everything (which was both good and bad – good because we got so much fresh snow every day, but bad because it meant poor visibility and high winds), I really enjoyed it and now I can cross ‘learn to ski’ off my ‘must-do’ list. Check out the photos!

Our original plans for Friday morning involved snow-shoeing around the area, but as it turned out we were completely tired after 3 solid days of non-stop skiing (in those stupid boots!), that we just bummed around with Diane and Ryan. We had a leisurely breakfast (sooo good) and bought some souvenirs. Then it was time for our bus home with Michele and her Mexican friend. Good times indeed!

Given the partying of the last few weeks, you’d be forgiven for thinking that I had finished term already. Hah! No such luck. This week was finals, and I had one on Tuesday, one Thursday, a paper due on Friday and one more to go – next Monday.

Tuesday’s exam was always destined to be the hardest. POLI370A – International Law and Politics of Military Force – with Michael Byers was always an interesting class. Full of personalities and an egotistical Prof, the course content was really interesting and engaging, but it should never have been taught with 260 people. Byers always raves on about how it ‘worked’ but realistically it never did. A few people dominated the talking and serious debates could not take place. It NEEDS tutorials! The final was half MC, half essay. Both were worth equal amounts, which was ridiculous. The MC tested most aspects of the course and were fairly rigorous. Actually, scrap that, they were really specific! The essay was nice and broad.

Thursday’s final was POLI365 – Asian IR. Like the course it was fairly descriptive, and fairly derivative of the midterm. I got to talk about the whole course though, which is surprising for a final. Went out for a great debate and beer with some mates from that class afterwards though – that was fun!

Friday’s paper was mammoth. 3500 words for HIST402 on the effect of the media on violence and trauma in Bosnia, Rwanda and East Timor. REALLY interesting to research and write, but I didn’t start early enough and the result will show that I fear. I mean, it’s done and all, but it wasn’t my best work

Friday night I took a break and went to Bright Nights at Stanley Park. This place is a winter wonderland – loads of lights, a petting zoo, a miniature train and fake snow! So much fun – what Christmas should be! We went to Tim Hortons afterwards (obviously!) saw the Gingerbread House competition at the hotel next door (Marriot?).

On Saturday a small group of us went to Richmond for Yum Cha and shopping. The Yum Cha place had awesome food, but no trolleys. And really, that’s half the fun. So we ordered all these Dim Sum dishes from a menu! That’s not right!! And I ended up being the only one who bought anything shopping. I got 2 sets of thermals, 2 gloves, 2 scarves and a hoodie! Such a good day! Oh, and all of it was on sale!

Monday was the last final (the final final if you will), for POLI321A – Chinese Government and Politics. This class was a lot of fun, and I met many cool people in it! The content was always interesting and I learned a lot. The final was a bit so-so. I think I answered everything correctly (although in the short answer I had to bullshit a bit), but the main problem was we had too much time, so I waffled in the essay. Hope they don’t notice!

Well, what did I say?! Monday was officially declared a Snow Day here in Van. That means school is cancelled (it ACTUALLY happens!), our power went out [meaning no drinking water for us, as we couldn’t heat water to boil – the water advisory that has been in place for a week now is still in effect!], and we froze in our rooms (the heating also died). It was certainly an interesting experience – waiting ages for the bus, which has been rerouted to avoid falling trees – watching everyone just wander around aimlessly, and all the poor kiddies who’d come to school not realising it had been cancelled.

The next two days it continued to snow, although not as heavily as before. It started to melt on Thurs and now it’s just a big brown slush. Apparently it’s going to stay like that for a while! Yay! Snow still excites me in all it’s form. Did I mention this is the first time I’ve been around in fresh snow? I guess that’s apparent, eh?

Wednesday was the FINAL Pit night for the term. It was really sad to realise that this was the last time I’d see a whole bunch of people, but everyone came and they played awesome music! It’s funny, this term has been encapsulated by three artists: Fergie, Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado. For the first half of term we had London Bridge, Sexyback and Promiscuous Girl on high rotation EVERYWHERE. Now it’s changed to Fergilicous, My Love and Maneater. How things change, eh?

Friday was the first day of December (scary, huh?!) and also the day of the official Exchange Farewell Party. It was awesome fun, although we were fairly intoxicated before we arrived, which made the bus ride fantastic fun, but we didn’t keep it up, so soon into the party itself we were all tired! Old age has set in already, clearly! Thanks Dheera for organising it – it was so much fun!

Saturday was awesome! I got SO much done during the day (study-wise) and celebrated by going to the Panic! At The Disco gig. I really had mixed expectations of it. Originally it was meant to be P!ATD and Bloc Party, which would have been awesome. I’m a P! fan, but I just didn’t know what to expect from their live shows, since they sound so polished on the album. The two support bands: Cobra Starship and Jack’s Mannequin were fairly good. Cobra are known for the Snakes on a Plane song and performed fairly well, and JM are the side-project for Something Corporate. To be honest, they sound exactly like Something Corporate, so I don’t really know why they changed the name and line-up!

So, onto the P! show itself. It was AMAZING! I’m talking contortionists, fire, strippers, cages, stilts and the band themselves. It was the musical equivalent of a trip to Disneyland! SOOO much fun. They re-jigged the order of the songs on the album to form a story of a couple growing up, meeting, (nearly) marrying and dying. All the time, 5 actors were acting out the songs in true Vegas over-the-top style. Definitely one of my favourite gigs ever!

After last weekend’s crazy antics, this week got off to a good start with my HIST402 presentation on Monday evening. I presented on the South African Truth Commission and I think it went surprisingly well. There was a really good discussion afterwards, and although I couldn’t answer all of them, I felt like I did a good job. I don’t know when I’ll get my marks though, so who knows if I’ll ever find out exactly.

On Tuesday I attended the Volunteer Abroad info session put on by the Volunteer Connections department of the AMS (UBC’s student union). It turns out one of my neighbour’s works for that department and coordinated the session! Small world, eh? Anyway, it was really interesting to hear about all the programs available to UBC students. There definitely appear to be more grassroots programs to Africa or even other provinces in Canada than are offered to Sydneysiders. I was so excited by this seminar that I’ve decided to try and establish similar ones back home. Now I have another thing to look forward to back in Sydney – yay!

Wednesday night was one of those spontaneously awesome evenings. I had plans to stay in and just bum around at home, but instead Hanneke invited me to join some others for dinner downtown. It was raining, but I capitulated, and it was fantastic! About 15 of us came and we went to an excellent Greek restaurant called Stephos. There I met Ryan and had an awesome meal – lamb shanks and everything! Clearly as students we’re suffering here! We tried to get tickets to Bond afterwards, but everywhere was sold out. Seems you can’t have everything.

Thursday a HUGE group of us (40 at last count) went out to celebrate Katie’s birthday. It also served as a big farewell for the semester, and was held at the Cellar, which has a Britpop night on Thursdays. Everyone has been raving about it recently, so I thought I’d go and check out what all the fuss was about. It’s a dungeon essentially, but it was great fun – the music was wicked, and some PWC guy bought us all alcohol, mistaking us for Accounting grads! Usually I would be ashamed that someone made that presumption about me, but this time I was grateful!

I didn’t get home till 4am because I took up an offer from Maybelle and Lauren to have tea at their friends’ house. Thus I ended up at St Andrew’s Hall (behind Gage) at Aish’s place with Jen and the others. It’s an awesome apartment, and the same cost as Gage! She has a dishwasher! A dishwasher I tells you! In student accommodation! Grr!!

On Friday Sean headed east to Kelowna to look for work at the ski resorts. It was really sad to see him go, but I have his guitar so he’ll be back! That night Julian, Tamlyn, Zoe, Clare and I went to have dinner at the Noodle Box restaurant on 4th (SO good) and see Kate perform at the Annex in Gastown. It was a great little bar and Kate was excellent. This was the first time I’d see her perform and she was really impressive. Can’t wait to see her back in Sydney – she’s destined for big things.

The weekend meant one thing – SNOW! I can’t believe it, on Friday night when we were coming back from Kate’s it started to get really cold. Freezing cold actually. When I went to bed at 2am it looked like it was going to snow. And snow it did! We’ve had it for 2 days now and it doesn’t look like melting anytime soon. Vancouver usually gets a few inches of snow occasionally, but traditionally it melts almost immediately. This time, however, we received about a foot of snow and then the temperature dropped to -10, so all the snow froze. It’s made an awesome environment for making snow angels and snowmen and what not, but the roads and buses are screwed! Because the city is really not used to this level of snow, there are only a few snow ploughs and all the electricity wires are above ground and have a tendency to fall. So far, so good, but we’ll see!