Where has the time gone?


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Published: June 4th 2011
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I am currently enjoying the wonderful sun on the balcony in Vancouver. Somehow I have ended up in an amazing house with some of the nicest people I’ve met. The last few weeks flew by and I really have to start writing about it. Otherwise I’ll have a book left to write at the end (There is a small time delay in my entry cause this was already two weeks ago, there is another one coming after this one).

I will tell you more about my time in Seattle. You know that I had ‘planned’ to stay there for a weekend. Well, I left Seattle on Sunday night so that means that I have been there for about two and a half weeks. Which is absurd, it went by so quickly! Really strange if I think about it..

I must say, life here is definitely good. I’ve already done so much in a few weeks. In Seattle we went camping in the temperate rainforest, what was incredibly beautiful. At that moment I realized I would need a better camera to be able to take pictures of how it actually looks. It was so awesome!

About 60 couchsurfers went on the trip and I have met a lot of new faces when we were there. I felt already part of the big group of friends that the CS community has become here. They have several activities planned every other day like Tuesday morning coffee, Thursday happy hour and optional art walk once in a while. There I met most of the close friends already, or others that we met up with like Victoria, or randomly met on the street like Erin. The first week I stayed with Carlos in the U-district of Seattle, close to the University. He showed me around the campus and it was really big, filled with cherry blossom trees and buildings. He was the perfect tour guide, showed me around the town to different touristy destinations. Some of the places we visited were: EMP museum, Pike Place market, REI (the most amazing store ever), the Underground tour, the famous troll, and several parks around Seattle. There is so much more but it’s hard to remember everything! As long as you know that it was all pretty sweet and I can’t believe how fast time is going.

I also have never seen so many animals everywhere. It’s like animals and people life together here. I have seen a lot of squirrels, geese, walking birds (no idea how they are called, but they walk really fast), I have also seen chipmunks, humming birds, eagles, raccoons, ground hogs, deer, seals, killer whales, seagulls, and a lot more when I went to the aquarium in Stanley park on Tuesday. I was staying at Daniele’s place and he had a bike I could borrow. He had to work so I took my backpack and went for a ride. It was definitely the best thing I could have done that day. The sun was shining and there was only some rain expected in the afternoon. I had my map and was on my way. It was pretty strange not to have bike paths everywhere and I looked for less busy roads once arrived in downtown Vancouver. It is very easy to find your way around Vancouver because there is water everywhere. And you can also see Stanley Park from different points in Vancouver. I had not imagined the park being so big. I felt like I could have spent hours there. They had a great biking trail all along the outside of the park. You could see the beautiful ancient trees, the beach, the mountains and the sea, all from one spot. There is also an aquarium, totem pole park, lighthouses, parks within the park, lakes, and lots of other cool stuff. I spent a few hours in the park biking, buying souvenirs at the totempole park and taking pictures of almost everything.

The first day I spent in Vancouver was nice and sunny. We had a barbeque on the beach, watched the sunset with good wine and a bunch of Frenchies. I have had several bonfires already and met so many different people. If I would count how many I have met throughout these months, it would probably be around two or three people a day on average! Most of the time I got to meet several on one day. It's pretty crazy when I think about it. I have met Canadians and Americans but also people from Belgium, Holland, a lot of Germans, French, Libanese, Turkish, Italian, Mexican, British, Irish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and probably a lot more. The population here is definitely a lot more diverse than ours. It is so nice to have so much different influences in a culture. The most influential one, in my eyes, is the British influence. There is a lot of British food around here. Pulled pork, english muffins, bagels, eggs, bacon and beans. They eat beans and potatos for breakfast! Thats just insane. I ordered eggs benedict in some breakfast place and I got mostly potatos with some egg on a english muffin, burried under a pile of hollandaise sauce. Don't know what was 'Hollandaise' about it, but thats what they call it.

I have so much more to write about, I could write a book full. At least you know the most important info that I'm happy, healty and never alone. The time has flown and I must say I am definitely not ready to go home yet. And I will have to do an old fashioned slideshow once I get home, I have so much pictures! I hope you aren't missing me too much because for me, the time is flying really fast. It has never gone by so fast! At home it does sometimes too, but here its stuck at super speed.


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