Last days in Canada

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On Tuesday (June 13th) I woke up at 7:00AM after sleeping for 10 hours straight. I slept like a baby and felt much better in the morning. I went in the hostel cafe and ordered pancakes with fruits and went on my way to UBC for my first "interviews" for my graduate studies which I am planning to start after this trip. I'm fairly certain I will go to UBC because it is very strong in the field I want to work in (neurobiology of learning and memory, in other words: what happens in the brain when we learn something...) but I wanted to meet the people there before making a real decision.

I won't describe the interviews of course but it took me most of the day and I was pleasantly surprised by how nice everyone was! I had one in the morning then had a bit of time off so I found an internet cafe and did my previous blog update. Just before my second interview in the afternoon something a bit bizarre happened. A girl called Jane that was in my program in McGill just passed by me while I was waiting just before my appointment. What is even more bizarre is that I met her on the street in Kitsilano the day before but it took me a little while to remember where I knew her from so I didn't strike a conversation there. Vancouver might not be on the other side of the world but it's definately on the other side of Canada so I was pretty surprised to see someone from Montreal there so I called her and we talked a little. She lives in Vancouver and came back from the summer and she had to go to the UBC hospital because of an injury. It was a bit akward because we never really talked to each other in Montreal but I thought it was funny to meet someone from home twice on the other side of the continent...

After this I went back to the hostel but I missed my bus stop because I was busy reading so I took the one after. That left my in front of Jericho Park so instead of taking the road to go to the hostel I decided to go right through the forest. After a few minutes of walking in a very small path, I heard a man and a woman chuckling so I tried to see where they were. After a few seconds of looking I realized there was a man and a woman hidden behind a tree in a sleeping bag and I don't remember seeing any clothes on their body parts not in the bag... I don't know what they were doing but they seemed to have quite a lot of fun.

When I came to Vancouver last summer I was hit on a gay guy on the bus which made fun of me when I mentioned that I went to Stanley Park. He told me that he knew what was *really* going on in that park and why I visited it. Well now I can say that this guy clearly didn't know where the fun was. Unless of course Stanley Park is stricly for homosexual and Jericho is for heterosexual couples.

After my encounter in the forest I kept on going and just walked on the beach and Jericho Park for a while and I sat on a bunch near a little creek where there were several ducks and read and ate some stuff I had in my backpack for dinner. The ducks were all really cool, there were several babies and I took a few pictures. At some point a couple came and gave food to the ducks so like all 30 of them came around them and then tragedy struck. One of the mother was busy fighting the other ducks for food and momentarily didnt look over her babies. A nearby crow noticed that, came in and snapped the neck of one of the baby and flew away with it. I tried to get a picture of the crow with the baby but it was too busy flying away to avoid the other crows who all wanted to steal his lunch so I couldn't get a good shot. This was really sad and the couple felt somewhat guilty but hey, it's nature. After that I noticed that most mothers with bigger babies had only one or two whereas mothers with younger babies had 5-6 so I guess it's fairly normal for a high proportions of the ducklings to die.

After that it was getting cold so I went back to the hostel, finished my book and went to bed at 22:30. On the 14th I woke up at 7:00 again because one of the guy was snoring hard, ate the same pancakes (delicious!) while watching Spain-Ukraine game. I was rooting for Spain and they won the game easily. The cafe guy who is German thaught I was Spanish. I didn't know I looked and/or sounded Spanish.

I then left for one more interview and I was again pleasantly surprised by how nice everyone was and I enjoyed myself. After that I walked around UBC campus, going on the beach a little bit and then took the bus to downtown. There I went in little bookshops to try to find a new book and sold the one I had finished ("A bend in the River" VS Naipaul) for 4$ (I bought it for 6$ so it's not too bad). I decided not to get a book here since I still have another one ("Hundred Years of Solitude" Gabriel Garcia Martinez) to read and I don't want to have too much stuff in my backpack. I went for a coffee at Cafe Buonjourno (spelling?) and the owner offered me a special coffee but I just wanted a normal one and he looked slightly insulted. We talked a little and I thought he was really friendly so I told him I'd be back for breakfast the day after and I'd try to chose better things.

I decided to head for Stanley Park because I wanted to visit it again since it is really one of the best city Park I've ever been to. I took some pictures of Vancouver and cool big trees I saw. I also saw a racoon that would approach human without fear and seemed to be begging to be fed. He was cute but it's sorta sad to see how human feeding can change wild animals. This racoon wouldn't last a week in a real forest now. I didn't see any suspicious activity in the Park either.

Anyway I then took the bus again to go in Kitsilano and meet Emilie who is the daughter of a very good friend of my mom. When she heard that I was going to Vancouver she emailed me to invite me to her place for dinner and she looked really friendly so I accepted. She and her boyfriend Ed prepared a good meal: pasta with vegetable/tofu and a modified white sauce (which contains among other, maple syrup!) which was really good in my opinion, despite some initial skepticism.

I had a good time talking with them and I left at around 20:30 because I still had to do my laundry before leaving for Hong Kong. I went back to the hostel and did my laundry and packed all my stuff and went to bed around 23:30. I woke up today (June 15th) around 7:30, finished packing everything, checked-out and took the bus downtown to Cafe Buonjourno where I had a delicious latte and a bagel with cream cheese while watching the England vs Trinidad and Tobago game (don't know the score yet). I then crossed the street to a little cornerstore/internet place to update this blog. My plane is suppose to takeoff in less than 4 hours now and I can't wait to get to Hong Kong.

Books: I'll try to give a little opinion on the books I read on my blog after I finish them. The first book I read is "A bend in the River" by VS Naipaul and it is about an Indian-African from the East Coast of Africa who goes in the middle of Congo to run a shop there just after Independance. You follow all the historical events through the eyes of this shop owner and how he coped with it. It is my first book by Naipaul and I can definately see why he won a Nobel Prize. He has a profound understanding of human which I honestly think is unmatched and he has a beautifully simple writting style. You can also definately tell that even though he is totally European in style, his Indian backgound give him a better ability to understand on a deeper level characters from different cultural backgrounds. In any cases I give this book a 9/10 and I'll definately try to read some of his other books along the way. The book I'm reading now is "A hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Martinez and the next one I'm planning to get is "Wild Swan" by Jung Chang. If you have any suggestions of good books to read you can email it to me! I would prefer to read books that are not solely based in North America/Western Europe and they have to be available internationally because I'll have to buy them in Asia.

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Photos

Ducks
Just before the baby was killed

More ducks
I thought they were cool

A tree in Stanley Park
Big tree

Emilie
Emilie on her couch

Comments

[Emilie]

Thanks again for your appreciation of the meal!!
Je suis vraiment contente de t'avoir rencontré Victor. C'était cool que tu viennes souper hier :) A l'année prochaine! Je vais suivre ton périple d'ici là.

[Adriana]

Book idea!
Hey Vic!! I'm glad to hear about your trip so far-it sure beats working in the lab right now!! If you want a good book to read, get "The Alchemist" it's by a guy named Paolo Cohello (at least I think that's how it's spelt) I hope you like it, it's not a western book, so I think you'll enjoy it. Can't wait to hear about Hong Kong!!