UPDATES - a quick summary

I haven’t written a post in a loOoOOng time, so here are some of the highlights of what happened during term 1 of my third year.

I missed Vale a lot while she was having a blast in Turkey learning how to say banana in Turkish. Our beautiful international Fairview house from last year is just a pleasant memory for me now. Rits was cool and quiet, and my roomies were adorable. I felt I was just there for four months and didn’t feel like it was my house or anything, so, for example, not much effort was put in beautifying and decorating the living room. Oh, this year I also had two unofficial roomies! One was Stephanie’s teddy bear and the other was the ant colony living under the kitchen. Exciting stuff :) However, the absolute BEST part of living in Rits was that I was super close to Nichole.

I was lucky enough to have a class with Sam, because otherwise he would still be “random forestry guy I barely talk to” and not most awesome guy ever. Because of him, I spent way more time downtown AND got the chance to visit his hometown Quadra Island. We went on the long week-end and I loved it. The wooden blue house, built by his dad, has a view of the ocean and the forest. And the inside of the house is pretty much a Mexican arts market, except that things are not for sale. His parents love Mexico so I felt even more at home, as if his very-welcoming family, fantastic home-made meals and super-thick room carpets weren’t enough.

Quadra Island

Christmas time came and one of the Christmassy things Nicki and I did was go to Stanley Park to watch the lights. The Van Dusen Botanical Gardens are way better; more professionally done and no incoherent displays sponsored by the Fire Department with moldy toy decorations and creepy mechatronic Santas. Still in the Christmas spirit, we made cookies. I took some home in a Ziploc bag. On the bus I put them on the seat next to me and forgot about them until I was downtown. I looked and they were gone. I searched under the seat, behind it, under my feet. But no, they were gone. There was a guy sitting on the other seat and he was looking at his phone. I touched his shoulder “Excuse me? Hi. Yeah, have you seen a bag with cookies that was here?” He looked at me for a couple seconds, deciding what to do, and then pulled them OUT OF HIS POCKET and said, “Oh yeah… these ones? Yes, sorry, I thought they were someone else’s and I was hungry.” Is that awkward or what.

One of the terrible decorations at Stanley Park. Looks like a sled running over someone, but those are not legs, they are actually two elves (I think?)