7 700 miles

THURSDAY

I didn't think I would actually cry at the airport.  But there we were - my family, Billy, Kelly and Eedie, and Pat (a sister who studied with mum and dad).  The emotional gravity hit me and everyone else hard just before I went through customs.  It was not an easy farewell, and after a brief goodbye to everyone I just had to go on through; I would have been too much of a mess otherwise.

The time went past quick enough wondering around the terminal.  I bought some whisky, then I talked to this pretty, well spoken British girl who worked in the Lonely Planet shop for maybe ten minutes.  Her name was Camille, and she agrees that ponchos are in fact the best form of clothing invented.  She told me about Buenos Aires and why I should go there.  I think I'm going to go to Buenos Aires at some point now.  I bought a couple of books for the flight, and of course I didn't read anything; you can of course never have too much useless luggage apparently.

The flight was ridiculously long, at 14 hours.  I was sitting next to this nice older couple who are going on a Canadian tour.  Wife spent the time reading a Tom Clancy novel, while Husband smashed through his sudoku book.  I was trying to figure out what sport it looked like they'd turned up in uniform for, then Husband's jacket with croquet insignia gave it away.

It's an awful flight, and I only slept for about two hours (after getting three and a half hours sleep the night before the flight).

The plane touched down on time, at 7:30am.  My plan was to go straight to Vancouver Island, so I went straight to the skytrain, then caught the bus to the ferry.  At the bus stop I'd asked a younger woman for the time, and it turned out she'd been on the same flight and was heading on the same ferry as me back home to Victoria.  It's super handy to be talking with a local.  I didn't see her during the one and a half hour ferry ride, but I did see her as we were getting ready to depart and I got some tips as to which buses go where and which one I should get into downtown.

The downtown bus was late, so myself and a few others spent about fifteen minutes standing there with our luggage in the rain, waiting.  It was about forty minutes on the bus to get where I wanted to go.  A chipper Texan woman sat next to me and we had a really good conversation that had to get cut short by my stop.  She has an interesting view of things and it turns out a couple studied with her while she lived in North Carolina.

A girl who was on the bus pointed me in the right direction to where I was supposed to be walking when we got off, and it's a good thing I asked her because I would have walked the complete wrong way.

I was headed to my friends Ben and Jade's apartment (they're getting married in July, it's just Jade living there right now), and I didn't actually get there until almost 1 - nearly five long hours on public transport later than I arrived.

A friend from Seattle, Courtney Dias, happened to be in Victoria that week too, and was up with her friend Tracy.  When I got to the apartment, it actually took me a while to get over the fact that I was actually sitting there with Jade and Courtney - two friends I'd mainly just spoken to over Facebook in the year since meeting and spending a lot of time with them here in the Northwest.

Ben met us quickly during his lunch break for pizza.  We spent the rest of the day walking through the city (it's such a nice city), and I bought a 99c tie pin from Value Village.

Jade in Value Village

Tracy, Courtney and I outside Chinatown

We picked up Ben when he finished work and went back to their apartment, where another good friend Derek met us.  We went out for dinner, and then Derek and I stayed back at Ben and Jade's while they drove the girls to Schwartz Bay to catch the last ferry of the day back to Vancouver (their car was there).

FRIDAY TO SUNDAY

Friday was the first day of the three day convention.  It's really nice there on Victoria - it's pretty small (Friday and Saturday had 1 800 people there, Sunday afternoon had the peak of 2 100) and held at a hockey arena.

I happened to meet so many amazing people at the convention, a lot of whom had even been to Ecuador and surrounds themselves, so it was really beneficial to get their opinions on things and hear from their experiences.  It's funny how you can meet new people that you never even imagined would exist.  It's easy to get into this kind of thinking where you feel that you've met everyone that could possibly be important to you, kind of a relevance paradox situation.  But just as we're always learning, so we're always creating new relationships with people.  I was really fortunate to meet ones that I might not see again or at least for a while, but I felt a little boost after talking to them.

One thing about the convention is that there's a lot of demonstrations this year - on Friday especially, it seemed like almost all of the talks had demonstrations; and they were really good, too.

There were two smaller releases on Friday during the last talk, and the first two parts on Saturday morning were actually just demonstrations on how we should use them.  One of them is actually going to change the way that bible studies are conducted, so that will be interesting.

On Saturday night I went to this fantastic Italian restaurant with Ben and Jade, Pagliacci's.  It has a fantastic style about it, but the food was amazing.

After dinner we went to a local Irish pub, Irish Times.  It's very Irish.  Another couple, Lael and Kara met us there.

Victoria from the hip, basically outside Pagliacci's.  You can't tell from this photo, but the architecture in this city is amazing.

Irish Times

 

From the second floor

Sunday was another really good day, and in the afternoon we had the peak attendance at the convention as I mentioned.  Kara, it turned out, lives in North Vancouver and was visiting Lael for the weekend.  She was looking at getting a similar ferry to me, so we spent the day synchronising our plans to get the same one.

The main road leading out of the hockey arena was ridiculously backed up by traffic, so Ben decided we'd leave via the back road, which passes the university, a castle, and winds through an incredible forest.  We didn't really have the time, but we stopped over for a quick photoshoot anyway - and of course had a lot of fun with it.

Grande Americanos

With Ben and Jade

With Derek

The woods we stopped at

Kara and I caught the seven pm ferry back to Vancouver, and I was so glad to have a companion - I much prefer traveling with someone to doing things like ferry rides by myself.  Just like when I went to Victoria last Thursday, it was really helpful to have a local there with me to offer information.  The bus and then skytrain combination after the ferry is really straightforward, but then she was there to give me helpful advice on which bus I should take when I get downtown to best arrive at Leah and Simon's.

I didn't end up taking the bus, my fear of public transport led me instead to make the (long when you have luggage) walk down to where they are, not far from Stanley Park.  I got there about ten thirty, and it felt good to finally settle there after the four hours of solid moving I'd been doing.  The three of us sat there in the dim light talking until late while we drank gin and tonic (Simon the duty free Chivas Regal I'd bought them).  It was pretty perfect.

MONDAY TO WEDNESDAY

Monday to Wednesday was very typical holiday fare - there was eating, sleeping, and exploring the city.  I've also been getting some things that I'm going to be needing for Ecuador.  Simon wasn't working these three days, so we spent a lot of time walking around (especially on Monday, when the weather was eighteen degrees and sunny all day).

One thing that I had been wanting to do was to go to Meat & Bread again.  I went there a few times last time I was here, and ever since I've had a hankering for one of their phenomenal sandwiches.  Simon didn't require much persuasion to come too.

Monday morning.  Simon and the view from the living room

Meat & Bread

I don't know why I photographed the box and not the sandwich

Throughout the last week that I've been here, things have all been coming together for the first leg of the Ecuador trip, so that's been making me more and more excited about it.

I'm hoping that these blog posts will be more regular soon, that I'll have interesting things to say and share.

Until then, this is all I've got.