Soon, I Will Actually Understand Celsius. I Hope. Because 9 Sounds Cold, Not Warm, As You Claim.
I am here! Well, I have been here. But my brain is only now sufficiently able to process anything enough to arrange my thoughts into some sort of coherent form. I arrived in Quesnel the second week of February, after a month of criss-crossing between Vancouver, Seattle, Bellingham and Los Angeles. Okay, so I lied, I will use some coherent communication, but mainly, I will utilize photographs, to prove that I am still alive! I'm sorry, I don't know how to LJ-Cut, but there are just a few of you, and I figure you will forgive my invasion of your entire friends page.
This was a crazy snowy mountain top in Vancouver:
And this:
Is a totally different and beachy part of Vancouver. Crazy!
Vancouver was pretty cool. I would say that it doesn't have a really distinct "feel" to it like Chicago or New York or Rome. It was just sort of a city. Hard to explain, really. I liked it, but did not LOVE it. The architecture was very glassy and modern and not very aesthetically pleasing. But, it is a fun place. We went to some great bars and restaurants, played with totem poles, walked on pretty beaches and saw some funny stand up.
We also took the ferry over to Victoria, which is a really pretty, quaint city, with a very old fashioned feel to it. Me liked.
This was an old castle. There's my beetle in front!
And this:
is Miniature World! So many miniature things! It was pretty ridiculous, and actually sort of cool. They had Gulliver's Travels, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Great Expectations,and so much more, made into teeny tiny scenes. Here, we are seen posing in amazement, just as the people in the very 80's brochures for Miniature World were. Unfortunately, we do not have the perms that they were sporting.
I did not take very many pictures in L.A. since I was visiting my family and just trying to relax. But here is a pic of one of my most favoritist places in L.A. It's a view from the Griffith Observatory, which they just reopened after four years of remodeling. The James Dean statue is here because parts of "Rebel Without a Cause" were filmed at the Observatory.
Here's a little Seattle for you, for good measure:
We went to the Pike St. market, tasted the oils and fruits and cookies and jams, listened to the anarchist piano player and walked down by the water.
It was a miraculously sunny day when these pictures were taken. I think that every other day that I was in Washington was super gray.
Then, after a stop in Bellingham to visit my grandfather, it was off to B.C.! I stayed in Hope the first night and made the rest of the trip the next day. It was actually a great day to drive-- sunny and very dry. The canyons I drove through were amazing. I had never seen anything like it before. I wasn't able to take any pictures that really do it justice, so I'll skip that part. After six hours of driving on the second day, I finally made it to Quesnel. I have to tell you, as small as Quesnel is, it seemed HUGE compared to anything else I had passed on my way there.
So, here I am. Things are going pretty well. I stay busy exploring, taking yoga classes, having lunch with Grant's doctor friends, and writing a bit each day. The library has become my little writing office, so I go there like I'm reporting to work each day. The weekends fly by, since we either go skiing or take off for the bigger city of Prince George.
Here I am skiing:
This was the first time I went, before I fell many many times down a much steeper slope and swore that I would never don those hellish skis again. However, I went for a lesson this past weekend and am recovering well from my aversion to the ski slopes. I need to take a camera up to the higher slopes because the view from up there is absolutely ridiculous. Very beautiful. To be honest, nothing here seemed very pretty to me at first. It was trees, trees and more trees. I was anxious about this whole, fly by the seat of my pants, experience. But, as I get my bearings and remind myself that not many people ever see this part of Canada, I am starting to see that it really is beautiful, even if it is VERY different from what I am used to or would traditionally consider appealing. As we were driving back to Quesnel from nearby Prince George Sunday evening, I watched the sun over the mountains for an hour. I was completely mesmerized as it flitted in and out behind trees, reflecting in the melting pools of snow and expanding out like paint over the huge, open sky. I think that it was the first time I'd felt still and content since my arrival.
But I really can't finish this until I share the fact that we went to Prince George for an Evening of Chocolate! That's right, it was a semi-formal night of eating as much CHOCOLATE as you can handle!
Any place that can provide fance and chocolate can't be all bad.
This was a crazy snowy mountain top in Vancouver:
And this:
Is a totally different and beachy part of Vancouver. Crazy!
Vancouver was pretty cool. I would say that it doesn't have a really distinct "feel" to it like Chicago or New York or Rome. It was just sort of a city. Hard to explain, really. I liked it, but did not LOVE it. The architecture was very glassy and modern and not very aesthetically pleasing. But, it is a fun place. We went to some great bars and restaurants, played with totem poles, walked on pretty beaches and saw some funny stand up.
We also took the ferry over to Victoria, which is a really pretty, quaint city, with a very old fashioned feel to it. Me liked.
This was an old castle. There's my beetle in front!
And this:
is Miniature World! So many miniature things! It was pretty ridiculous, and actually sort of cool. They had Gulliver's Travels, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Great Expectations,and so much more, made into teeny tiny scenes. Here, we are seen posing in amazement, just as the people in the very 80's brochures for Miniature World were. Unfortunately, we do not have the perms that they were sporting.
I did not take very many pictures in L.A. since I was visiting my family and just trying to relax. But here is a pic of one of my most favoritist places in L.A. It's a view from the Griffith Observatory, which they just reopened after four years of remodeling. The James Dean statue is here because parts of "Rebel Without a Cause" were filmed at the Observatory.
Here's a little Seattle for you, for good measure:
We went to the Pike St. market, tasted the oils and fruits and cookies and jams, listened to the anarchist piano player and walked down by the water.
It was a miraculously sunny day when these pictures were taken. I think that every other day that I was in Washington was super gray.
Then, after a stop in Bellingham to visit my grandfather, it was off to B.C.! I stayed in Hope the first night and made the rest of the trip the next day. It was actually a great day to drive-- sunny and very dry. The canyons I drove through were amazing. I had never seen anything like it before. I wasn't able to take any pictures that really do it justice, so I'll skip that part. After six hours of driving on the second day, I finally made it to Quesnel. I have to tell you, as small as Quesnel is, it seemed HUGE compared to anything else I had passed on my way there.
So, here I am. Things are going pretty well. I stay busy exploring, taking yoga classes, having lunch with Grant's doctor friends, and writing a bit each day. The library has become my little writing office, so I go there like I'm reporting to work each day. The weekends fly by, since we either go skiing or take off for the bigger city of Prince George.
Here I am skiing:
This was the first time I went, before I fell many many times down a much steeper slope and swore that I would never don those hellish skis again. However, I went for a lesson this past weekend and am recovering well from my aversion to the ski slopes. I need to take a camera up to the higher slopes because the view from up there is absolutely ridiculous. Very beautiful. To be honest, nothing here seemed very pretty to me at first. It was trees, trees and more trees. I was anxious about this whole, fly by the seat of my pants, experience. But, as I get my bearings and remind myself that not many people ever see this part of Canada, I am starting to see that it really is beautiful, even if it is VERY different from what I am used to or would traditionally consider appealing. As we were driving back to Quesnel from nearby Prince George Sunday evening, I watched the sun over the mountains for an hour. I was completely mesmerized as it flitted in and out behind trees, reflecting in the melting pools of snow and expanding out like paint over the huge, open sky. I think that it was the first time I'd felt still and content since my arrival.
But I really can't finish this until I share the fact that we went to Prince George for an Evening of Chocolate! That's right, it was a semi-formal night of eating as much CHOCOLATE as you can handle!
Any place that can provide fance and chocolate can't be all bad.