Category Archives: British Columbia

snow is falling

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Whistler

Lower Olympic run, Whistler

So I can ski, now.

I skied once before, when I was eleven, and I was truly awful, so when, over reading week, me and a couple of friends decided to head up to Whistler, I assumed I’d be awful again. I actually assumed that I would have forgotten everything, and that I’d fall over ten thousand times over the three days me and my friend Chris got.

Turns out skiing is a bit like riding a bike, and I, though I have never in my life been good at a sport, was pretty good at skiing. I was sort of top of the class. Which is insane. Turned out that I was really good at the parts of skiing that involved being on skies and hurtling down hills (at a very slow speed; I am still learning), but still really really bad at the parts of skiing that didn’t involve being on skies. Like walking in ski boots (which are the worst inventions ever) and not falling over when I was supposed to be standing still.

It was a trade I was willing to take, though. Whistler is such an expensive but wonderful place, and unlike anywhere else I’ve visited so far in North America.

 

32 things i did at ubc that you can totally do too : thing #4

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THING #4: SAW THE SUN RISE FROM THE WRONG SIDE OF NIGHT

Sunrise from my window.

Let me preface this by saying that all-nighters are evil. Sometimes they’re a necessary evil, but evil. All-nighters leave you feeling awful the next day. They are not worth being able to say you’ve pulled one. It’s really not that great.

However, this was not an all-nighter. Not a studying so hard you don’t sleep all-nighter, anyway, and it was pretty brilliant. It being a Sunday when I went to sleep helped.

The night started with drinks in the floor lounge with floormates. I was supposed to be going out, but we made a large sort-of bed with all the couches in the room and I was way too comfy, so I got left behind and ended up crashing a movie night instead! Best decision I think I’ve ever made? Why trek across Vancouver to stand in a line, and then pay $20 to then wait half an hour, to spend another $7 on a drink, when you can laze around with friends and watch a really great movie? (I did say this’d show how lame I can be, didn’t I? I have definitely said that before.)

“I saved Latin, what did you ever do?” – Jason Schwartzman in Wes Anderson’s ‘Rushmore’, 1998.

We watched Rushmore, which is a fantastic movie. Would recommend. Then – and it was about 1am at this point – we heard a rumour of a movie marathon in one of the other Totem houses. We crashed it. It was a Harry Potter marathon. Another best decision ever.

After watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, we headed back to the floor lounge and hung out with the guys who had just got back from Downtown Van. There was pizza and weirdly philosophical meandering talk, and three of us stayed up until five. None of us were tired, and we just talked a load of rubbish (sorry: trash – but, wait, does that even have the same meaning here? Still working on my Canadianisms…) and it was really great.

Then watched the sun rise from my bedroom window before finally sleeping. Sometimes all-nighters are worth it all.

32 things i did at ubc that you can totally do too : thing #2

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THING #2: DAY OF THE LONGBOAT

A longboat on Jericho Beach, on the clinic day the Sunday before Day of the Longboat.

There are things I foresaw myself doing while in Canada. Skiing; seeing a bear; going whale watching; eating a whole lot of pancakes. I didn’t foresee myself taking part in a longboat race. It just… it wasn’t something that it occurred to me to imagine. Longboats, I thought, were a Viking thing, maybe. Me, I love How To Train Your Dragon, but I ain’t no Viking.

I signed up anyway. I thought, hey, it’s nice weather we’re having. It could be pretty cool. I hoped I would, at least, manage to not be a dead weight in the boat.

It was the best. thing. ever.

Learning how to Longboat on clinic day.

I’m not lying now. It was so much fun. It was hard, and it was competitive, and my team screamed probably more than we paddled, but wow was it a good day. And my team came third, which was not only respectable but also a total shock to all of us.

My back, my arms, and my right hand still ache, two days later, but it was so much more than worth it. We did good, we paddled hard, and we definitely felt just a little bit like Vikings. It was an epic day. If you didn’t get to do it this year and you’re going to be at UBC again next year, I cannot recommend taking part in Day of the Longboat enough. It’s the best day I’ve had since getting here, and I’ve had some pretty freaking fantastic days.

(Should you come across yourself in one of my pictures and want it taken down, please just say so and I’ll do it ASAP. Cheers.)

32 things i did at ubc that you can totally do too : thing #1

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Here marks the beginning of a thing I’m trying, in that I’m going to try to pick out something I’ve done each week (and I have 32 left before the end of exam period in April) and talk about how brilliant it was. Very probably this will showcase how lame I am, but that’s okay. I live for other people to laugh at. I have come to terms with that.

So, without further ado:

THING #1: WATCHING THE SUNSET AT WRECK BEACH

Wreck Beach at sunset.

If you don’t know, Wreck Beach is right at the west edge of campus. Follow University Boulevard all the way down (if at any point you hit the Village, you’re going the wrong way; turn around and start again) until you hit Marine Drive. Then turn right and you should see the top of the stairs down to the beach. You’re there! And we have just discovered that I should never give directions! Hooray for learning new things!

So, yes, it is a nudist beach. Yes, that meant there were bits out in the open that, regressing to school kid age, I kind of wanted to laugh at. But, whatever, you know why it’s a nudist beach? Probably it’s got something to do with the cliff you have to climb down (via stairs, but that’s not as much help as you’d hope) that keeps the naughty nude people away from the innocent eyes of the students who live up top. But, also, more importantly, Wreck Beach is genuinely a place of beauty in that actually breathtaking way that seems to happen a lot more often around Vancouver than I, deprived traveler that I am, am used to. It’s inspiring. It inspired the group of friends I was with to whip out a ukulele and sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Likewise, it inspires a lot of other people to take their clothes off. Each to his own.

Wreck Beach, post-sunset.

Wreck Beach is a beautiful place to be, and, if you can handle the stairs back up, watching the sunset down there, maybe singing a little, and, maybe, if you’re really brave or stupid, going for a quick swim, is the loveliest way to chill out after a packed day of classes. It was warm, the sky was clear, and the sun took its sweet time setting. It totally cured me of homesickness for that day, too. Go try it.

(A note on the stairs: I thought I was going to die. It was so horrible, and there is a reason the UBC Fun Run Club holds a Wreck Beach stairs challenge. Don’t think you are better than the stairs. You aren’t, and they will beat you. Bring water and someone to collapse on who you can dramatically grip by the collar and make promise to carry your body and last words back to civilisation. When you get to the top, have a sit down. Grab an ice cream. Celebrate having survived.)

i’ll be spelling realize with an s

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UBC Campus.

Let’s skip the introductions and go straight into talking about how absolutely beautiful British Columbia is, shall we? Because it is beautiful. I’ve been here for a week, and so far not a day has passed where I haven’t been knocked breathless and stunned by beauty. You Canadians ain’t so bad, either. *cheezy wink*. (I mean that in a spiritual sense. Mostly.)

You may have gathered that I am not from around these parts. Perhaps, for some of you, the stunning beauty of Vancouver is something you barely notice anymore, but I know some of you’ll be like me; new to this area and feeling a little overwhelmed by the picture-perfect-ness of it all. I come from a very picturesque part of the world, as it happens, but dang, Canada. Woah.

View from Comox, Vancouver Island, across to the mainland.

I’ve moved here for just the year on exchange from the UK and being here for just the year is already feeling like not enough time. How do I go back to Norwich (famous for precisely nothing, though maybe you’ll know who Stephen Fry is – he’s a national treasure to us Brits) after a year at UBC? Amongst the most beautiful sights you could wish for, in one of the most exciting and interesting universities in the world?

Fountain opposite Irving K Barber Learning Centre, UBC Campus.

I am a worrier, and this is a genuine worry for me. But, okay, I’m going to try to do the grown up thing and ignore that for now. I’m going to try to do all those things you get in annoying motivational emails like live for the moment and seize the day. I will endeavour to suspend my British cynicism and leap before I look a little. Not too much. I’ll be the one flailing in mid-air and screaming. It will not be graceful.

I come from a tiny little place in the north of England and I go to uni in a city that is, when compared to Vancouver, minuscule. Suddenly, I’m half way across the world. Time zones are the worst thing – when I wake up it’s already evening meal time at home, and my friends are waking up for class or work as I’m heading for bed. But I’m in Vancouver. I’m at UBC. I’m mid-way into spending my first night in res and this exchange thing is something I’ve been talking about doing since 2010.

I’m finally here. That feels amazing. You can throw anything you like at me, UBC. I’m in it for the experience – for the free-fall after opening out my parachute. And I promise to wave to you all – Queen-style – on the way down. Because this is going to be a fantastic year.

Sunset from Canada Place, downtown Vancouver.

(Note: Incidentally, I have no plans to parachute off of a very high thing this year. Partly because I’m terrified of heights.  Also because metaphors are awful and deplorable things and I am not going to encourage myself to use more by realising any of them. Everything I actually do, I’ll blog about.)