January 2009 | Happy New Year Nottingham!
Flying into Vancouver was amazing. I arrived just before sunset on a very clear day so I had a great view of the city. A local sat next to me also pointed out the important bits. Customs and bag collection was very smooth
When I first arrived at Uni I went on a tour of campus (do this, really useful) which is massive, the swimming pool here is the size of the car park at Nottingham. I met some people and we went downtown to a place called Granville Island where there is a large market with lots of good food. Next day or so we went to Stanley Park and swam in an open pool there. The weather was great for the first month.
University started and the first terms over, and it seems to have gone rather well. I’m only doing three courses a term, which is nice, but their forth year modules so quite hard. They also do a lot more coursework during the year here. It’s interesting as they place emphasis on different things here, especially water treatment. Also they have a different background from their last few years, and have done more applied maths and computer stuff. Took a while to get my head around
Early in September I went to a climbing area called Squamish about an hour and a half north of Vancouver for a weekend with some other British climbers. The sun shone again and we got some good routes done. The scenery there is amazing but the town is a dump which kind of spoils it.
The next week some of us went to Victoria on Vancouver Island. We took the ferry over and were lucky to get sunset just as we pulled into the harbour. That night we went to a bar with a sand beach on its roof, and found some beer that actually tasted of something. The next day we went to a provincial park and got some great views of the Island and across to mainland Canada and America from the top. Also had a swim in a river on the way down before catching the bus. I think we unsuccessfully hunted for fish and chips and went to a bar that night. On the Sunday we went whale watching on a zodiac. Great fun and we saw lots of them; swear Orca’s can’t be rare. We finally found some fish and chips which were excellent, and it turned out no one else had had them before (I seem to have made friends with a load of German speakers). We also went to see the castle, which was an amusing disappointment as it’s basically an old house about 150 years old.
Later in October there was a climbing club trip to a place called Skaha, which is about 4 hours East of Vancouver or it should be. When we were half an hour away a rock fall closed the road giving a 5 hour diversion. We teamed up with another vehicle we knew and decided to attempt to take some forestry tracks. Turned out to be quite epic and we eventually rolled into the crag the next morning. We did some really good climbing, again in the sun and had a bonfire that night, only to find everything had frozen by morning. We made it down to a coffee shop for breakfast and water and waited till the air temperature rose, did some more routes and then set off home.
The next trip was again climbing, only this time south to America on a long weekend (plus a day off uni) as all the rocks wet in Canada. 12 hours driving seems to be less of a deal here than it would back home; I guess it’s a big country. We arrived at Smith Rock in Oregon with good weather despite the forecast. I didn’t like the climbing here but the place was stunning. It’s volcanic and rises out of a desert plain. From the top you can see massive volcano’s all around and the rock formations are really impressive. Really worth the trip.
I managed to get out one last time again before work pilled up for exams. I went Backcountry skiing, or ski touring. I’m still not sure which. It was on telemark skis with skins so you can walk up hill. We walked to a hut in the mountains and stayed Saturday night after one short downhill ski just before dark. The telemark skiing didn’t seem too hard and are great fun. On Sunday morning we were skiing by 7 o’clock. Absolutely brilliant, the snow was amazing with powder everywhere.
Exams came and went. If you work when you need to and put in the effort you do well just like at home, but don’t worry about them, they seemed ok to me. A lot of the marks here come from coursework and midterms so as long as you do the work during the year it all goes smoothly.
So the holidays came. Skiing, skiing and more skiing basically.
So, so far I have had a great time in Vancouver and seem to have found a balance between studying and fun, but exam results will tell if this is right.