I only just realised that it's been a long time since I wrote anything. You might be glad to know that I've just been a bit forgetful, and this absence hasn't been caused by me being eaten by a bear, getting lost in the Yukon, or just having watched the entire extended version of of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy with all the DVD extras. I'm still here. Unlike travelling around Australia, spending a year in one city is a bit strrange as after a while it just becomes somewhere you live, which means you don't always have amazing stuff to write about. So apologies for the delay. I just forget I'm in Canada sometimes.
So I guess the first thing to say is that it's now autumn (or fall, as they say here). This isn't a great time of year in Vancouver. It started off amazingly when all the trees in the city turned a million different shades of red, yellow and brown and everything looked lovely. Then all the leaves fell off the trees and covered the paths and streets, making a big old mess. The temperature has dropped from warm to freezing, and it rains. A lot. Basically, it's a lot like England in November. The positive side of this is that unlike in England when you've generally only got Christmas and New Year to look forward to, winter is one of the best times to be here. The ski resorts start to open their slopes at the end of this month and soon everyone will be skiing, boarding, skating, snowshoeing, and other various ways to move yourself up/down/along big bits of frozen water. I'm looking forward to doing a bit more snowboarding so that I can get to the stage where I don't fall on my face so often, and it doesn't leave my body an aching wreck for the rest of the week. The mountains around Vancouver had the first covering of snow the other day, which I was strangely excited about. Mountains without snow are a bit like sausages without mash.
So what's been going on here recently? Well I guess I should start with my birthday in October. I had a pretty good night out with everyone here, and although it wasn't an official Essex Night Out ©, I still think that I brought a little bit of Essex to Vancouver, which is not the easiest place to have a good night out and requires a fair bit of planning. The following weekend me and Lucy went off to the Okanagan Valley which is a wine region based around a big lake, and is a bit like the wine region of California. We spent a few days there driving round the wineries, enjoying the lovely views of the vineyards and the lake, and generally pretending that I know anything about wine other than the $10 boxes of Coolabah I used to drink in Australia. We rented a car, and we showed up at the rental place they'd run out and had to upgrade us. In fact they'd run out of everything (bank holiday) so we ended up with a top-of-the-range Chrysler which looked a bit like a Bentley. So cruising round the vineyards in our poncey car pretending to be rich English snobs was a lot of fun. It was a really nice trip though.
Halloween was a bit crazy here. We went to the spookily-named 'Parade of the the Lost Souls' which turned out to be a few thousand people wandering around in crazy Halloween costumes, most of which were very cool. There was also a ton of cute kids trick or treating with their parents in the residential areas which was nice to see. Much nicer than a group of 15-year-olds in cheap masks asking for money or they'll egg your house, which is what tends to happen back home (maybe that's just another Essex thing). We also managed to blag an invite to a random huge student house party down the road, which probably had around a hundred people all dressed up. We didn't know anyone, but did the Brits proud by chatting to lots of people and being the last to leave. In fact I think 'kicked out' is the term they use in Canada.
Other than that, it's all been about the work. I've been doing this job since July, and it's not a bad gig. Working for the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of British Columbia (UBC) wasn't what I'd planned to do over here but it pays well and the people (and students) are all very nice. It also means I get to be back at uni without really being back at uni. I don't get free cheeseburgers at McDonalds like I did back home, but I do get some good perks. Even better, I get to be at a North American university which includes frat houses, cheerleaders, (American) football games, and all kinds of other cool stuff. I confess that I was pretty disappointed when we went to the party that I couldn't find:a) a bitchy cheerleader
b) an arrogant football jock
c) a fat, loud frat guy drinking from a keg
d) a couple of band geeks
and most importantly:
e) a plain nerdy girl who has her hair cut and puts on a bit of make-up and some new clothes and becomes super-hot much to everyone's shock (especially the arrogant football jock).
Not that I didn't enjoy my time at the University of Derby, but when you grow up watching American movies and TV you always feel like you're missing out on something. Nobody wants to see a cheerleader from Derby.
The next big thing (other than snowboarding) is Christmas. A bunch of us a rented a stereotypical massive Canadian cabin by the side of a lake in (almost) the middle of nowhere. Check it out:http://www.cottagelink.com
We'll have snow, we'll have a log fire, we'll have a big Christmas dinner, and if Lucy gets her way we'll have stupid Christmas reindeer jumpers on. If being at UBC is like living in American Pie, Christmas should be like living in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I can be Clark Griswald. After the new year it all gets a bit sad. Most people will have left by then, and I'll still be here until the end of January. What I'll do when left to my own devices for a month in winter is anyone's guess. And then home, which I also don't have any definite plans for yet. But let's not think about that yet.
Anyway, hope you're all well. I'd love to hear from you if you get the chance! I'm off to get some dinner. All that talk of sausage and mash has made me hungry.
Take care!
Jamie
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