Canada

Week 5 was really about two things. On Tuesday we held our Exchange Fair at the SUB. Basically this was about selling the whole ‘exchange’ thing and telling people to come to Australia. Seriously – our country sells itself! All we had to do was mention Australia and people were so positive! Made me kinda proud even – which is unusual! We were given lots of magnets and brochures etc. from the Consulate so that was awesome – and people loved the plush koalas etc.! Always a winner! In fact, we were voted as the third best stall there!

The other thing (and far more important really) was my family coming to visit! It’s been AGES since I’d seen ‘em (July 2 to be exact) and I really wanted to show them Vancity! We had dinner together every night and with them I met Norman and Anne (my 2nd uncle and aunt I believe), Mel (my 2nd cousin), Rena (my grandmother’s sister) and saw Susan again. Being Canadian Thanksgiving weekend too we had a proper family reunion dinner (as one is meant to be) at Mel’s place.

It was great being a tourist in my own city – we did so much too because the weather was perfect. We visited (and eat at) Granville Island, Gastown, Chinatown, Downtown Eastside, Yaletown and along the Seawall to Stanley Park (seeing the Push for a Cure skateboarders reach Vancouver too). Most of that was spent cycling – the ultimate Van pastime! Flis even came with us to watch some Canadian Football – the Shrum Bowl XXIX – which UBC won convincingly! Although neither of us really got into the game, the atmosphere was great (despite it being so one-sided). UBC beat SFU (the other college in Greater Vancouver) 41-6.

They even found the best places for coffee and cheesecake in the city – Trees on Granville and Caffe Artigiano at Hornby & Robson. With Norman and Anne we also went to an awesome seafood restaurant near Stanley Park called The Boat House, where I had my first-ever fresh salmon steak (i.e. not farmed). Wow, was it amazing! I never expected there to be such a difference!

All too soon it was over and they flew off to their next destination – Los Angeles – to see my cousins. Bye guys!

Week 4 began as I think all weeks here at UBC will – with laundry on a Monday. As I (essentially) have the day off (except for a 2hr class in the evening) I tend to use it to finish off all the stuff I should have done on the weekend. So very similar to back home then! Tuesday saw my first assignment due, ‘cept it wasn’t a real assignment. It was just a POLI321 reflection piece. At least it went well!

On Wed the fun really began, as a group of us (Chris, Maybelle, Lauren, Dheera, Claire and I) decided to do the Grouse Grind. The Grind is essentially a 1.5km hike up Grouse Mountain. I think, if memory serves me correctly, it’s a 700m rise down in 1.5km. So basically straight up. And god it’s tiring. It took us over 2hrs to do, although it really was worth it. The weather was perfect and the view was wicked. Once we had got up there though all we really wanted to do was sit for hours and not move! We were even tempted to stay for the cheesy woodchopping show just to avoid moving again! I did have excellent sushi and crap bubble tea though, so there was some consolation! Oh, and we rode the SeaBus across to North Van. The SeaBus is a fancy name for a ferry, but unlike our wonderful Sydney ones, this one has one route, does it every 15mins all day and doesn’t crash! Sounds good, doesn’t it?!

Alas that was not to be, as Wednesday was also the day The Presets were in town. Again, in my quest to not hang with the Aussies, what am I doing? Going to see a Melbournian band with a bunch of Aussies!!! They did put on an excellent show, however, and the DJ set afterwards was wicked too. I miss Aus music!

Thursday was mainly spent in class and doing random stuff. Not much to report.

Friday was awesome – it’s another of my days off and the weather was great. In the morning I met with a bunch of Aussies to work out our plan of attack for the Exchange Fair and the Australia booth. We exchanged tacky souvenirs that we’d all brought and designed an awesome poster. Looks like it’s going to be fun!

That afternoon, Amanda, Daniel, Hanneke and I headed down to Wreck Beach for one last time before summer-like weather ends and went trekking around campus looking for things to do. We ended up at the bouncy bushes (behind Henry Angus) which are so thick that you can stand on them and not sink or break the branches. Also did the echo rock again. Great fun!

That night, however, was less successful as Claire and I attempted to enter the Frog & Firkin to see the AFL final. It was full and so we ended up at the IGA bumming around. Had an awesome time rescuing a very drunk Natasha from the depths of Fairview . Remember that, Tash??!

Saturday continued the fun with the actual Day of the Longboat competition. We capsized in the first race (at a very chilly 9am), earning us our official team name: Team Capsize! We managed to score McDonalds vouchers and some hard-earned time in the Jacuzzi though, so there was some consolation. We came back in the afternoon to come 3rd in our 2nd race, however, so go Team Capsize!

Saturday night was the first (of hopefully many) Gage E13B Party. It had an Aussie theme (which was only adhered to by some of the attendees – although seeing Clayton in hot pants more than made up for it!), and was SO much fun. We had emptied out our common area and crammed about 40-50 people in the space. The music was wicked and everyone (as far as we know) had a great time! Our wall got a lot of attention too, which was great! Personally, I got very very intoxicated and ended up at Mahoneys with Chris and others before crashing at 1am! AWESOME night!

Sunday was the first day of October and was spent tidying up the place and engaging in some very important R&R. I think I watched some Eddie Izzard and an Enron doco that Clayton kept on recommending. It’s good stuff – I think it’s called The Most Important Guys In The Room (or similar).

So by week 3 usually things have begun to quieten down, work starts for real and one begins to do research for the first batch of papers. Hah! Not for an exchange student! Instead it's a steady diet of 21sts, concerts and dragon boat racing!

Why not?!?!

So, this week, on top of classes and the like, we hit Plush Nightclub on Monday for Ali's 21st. Seedy club, very quiet, but as per usual we brought the fun. On top of that Will joined us! That is not a regular occurrence so it was quite special!

Tuesday was a domestic night in - much needed rest!

Wednesday it rained hard, which is something Vancouver is infamous for, so not totally surprising. It was just the first time this had really happened here since we arrived, so kinda disappointing! The stereotypes are true I guess.

What's most hilarious is the absolute presumption by everyone Canadian that that's it - the end of summer has arrived! In fact, it was the only day to rain all week! Yay!

Thursday was spent ogling clubs during UBC's version of O-Week (well at least the clubs component of it). So many clubs, so little time. I joined two: FICUBC (Foundation for International Cooperation at UBC) and the SRC (Singapore Raffles' Club). You can tell where my allegiances lie! Thursday night was Natasha's 19th (she's legal!) and also the Snow Patrol concert. Very very good concert - but the venue felt like a high school gym. Boo too that!

Friday was another uber-domestic night in, watching movies with my roomies and some girls from Australia.

Saturday Nick (from the UK) and I went to see Confetti. This is the film with almost all of our favourite British comedians. A bit hit and miss, well more miss than hit, but overall very pleasant. Love the camp wedding directors - brilliant! We paid a visit to the Aussie store to grab Chris a big Aussie flag for his birthday (and a boxing kangaroo pen) and then headed to his and Laurents' birthdays. Awesome fun - highly debaucherous, especially after we went to the Pit for the "Crime and Punishment" night. As British Tristan said "a night is never complete without arseless chaps!"

Sunday came around far too fast - another week gone! Already I've been here a month and I'm LOVING it!! We had our Longboat training today which was great fun. Basically Longboat is the old UBC tradition that has grown into over 3000 people competing this obstacle course in dragon boats. Our team is 3x USyd, 3x UNSW, 2x German, 1x Swiss and 1x Japanese. We all get along really well and it turns out Lauren (UNSW) is in my 370 class! Small world! Next Saturday we compete! Eeek!!!

Bye for now!

This past weekend we've been in Victoria - the capital of British Columbia and the biggest city on Vancouver Island. I can see how it might be confusing given all these similar names, so I'll try and give you a brief rundown.

• British Columbia is Canada's south-western province.

• Vancouver is on the mainland, and is the biggest city in BC.

• Vancouver Island is off the west coast, and is an island.

• Victoria is BC's capital and it's on Vancouver Island.
  

So there you have it, BC in a nutshell.

So.... we left for Victoria as one massive group (24 of us, most of whom were Aussie!). The trip took about 6 hours by 4 buses and 1 ferry. We were staying at Ocean Island Backpackers which was fairly plain but served its purpose very well. The staff attempted to be helpful, although it became clear fairly quickly that they didn't know Victoria that well!!

We had dinner at My Thai - my first real Thai meal pretty much since I left home - and then headed out for ice cream. Unfortunately the place that we wanted to go to - one on the main street with 66 flavours - was closed! As a small (!) consolation, Natasha, Steph and I went to see Freq Nasty (the breaks DJ with a bird's nest haircut) DJ for $20! Awesome awesome breaks, and a really cool little club, but we were buggered by 1am!

Saturday morning we all slowly got up and headed out for a massive (in every sense of the word) breakfast at a cafe somewhere in Vic (its name escapes me). After such a huge omelette we decided to burn it off by cycling to Thetis Lake. This took slightly longer than expected, but the weather was awesome and the trip itself was great fun - really inspired me to do more outdoorsy activities before the weather turns sour come November-December.

We returned to Victoria to watch some street hockey before grabbing ice cream at Marble Slab (Cold Rock, anyone?). We went to John's Place (about 10 doors down from our hostel) for dinner - a great rare steak - before heading out to Legends. Legends is the tackiest, most mainstream, sleazy bar in Victoria and we owned it on Saturday! All 24 of us descended on it and brought the fun. To top it off it was the Kokanee Glacier Girl search, which turned the place into a bit of a sausage fest for a while before the dancing took over! What would Canada be without Sexyback!!

On Sunday I woke up fairly early to have breakfast with one of my 2nd Cousins Susan! I'd only been made privy to having relatives in Canada about a year ago, so to actually be here having brekkie with one was awesome! Flis and I are the youngest relatives but that didn't make the slightest difference as we got along famously! Oh, and breakfast was tops too - nothing beats fruit for a hangover!

The weather was nothing on yesterday (all rain and clouds ) so Claire, Amanda and I wandered all around downtown, along the coast and through the park (incl the world's largest Totem Pole) before we hopped on the bus/ferry/bus combo home.

Such an awesome weekend, but so tiring!

For photos, see: My Facebook Photos