Arrival of the Fittest

Part 1: August 16th

I have officially arrived in Vancouver! Luckily, my altitude headache was taken care of as well as my boredom, so the flight was quite lovely. Customs was very nice and let me in more easily than I expected and issued me my study permit with no difficulties. The hardest part was the luggage, I have two full sized hockey bags and a backpack filled with anything I could fit…which probably won’t be a good idea, but I figured, “We’re paying for the extra weight/size so I might as well make good use out of it!” With the pneumonia, it was so exhausting (even with my dad helping) to get all of our bags through the California airport then through the Vancouver airport and finally through our hotel. And I’m going to have to do it again on Tuesday. (When I say full sized I mean that they’re about 40″x15″x18″ and 50 pounds each (I have no idea what that is in cm and kg, I’m still getting used to Celsius XD))

The most awesome part of the day was when we got our rental car. A black Mustang convertible with a white tape stripe <3 For anyone that knows me well, they know that my favourite car is a dark blue Mustang with white racing and tape stripes. So being able to be in one and ride in it in the most amazing place in the world was just beautiful.

After freaking out about the Mustang, we got to our room, went to go eat dinner at Red Robin (it’s a tradition that we go there every time we’re here), and then looked out of our huge windows and stood on the balcony to admire the sunset. It’s really amazing how beautiful it is (if you don’t believe me, look at the picture I took) and I can’t wait to see more. And now Monday awaits my visit to the bank, the Rogers store, and campus :D

Part 2: August 17th

Today was my dad’s let’s-get-everything-done-at-once day, while it was my I-should-be-at-Jump-Start-and-I’m-feeling-totally-guilty-even-though-I-can-check-in-tomorrow day. So we started out by looking at the pet-friendly hotel next to ours since my mom wanted to bring my dog Charlie someday, which made me miss my dog even more (I’ve been gone for about a day and I miss him!), so I insisted on petting any friendly dog I saw (which happened to be all of one – his name was Henry and he was so well behaved. He sat on a chair outside while his owner went inside the store to get coffee and he didn’t move.)

We also attempted to go to the bank (that will end up happening tomorrow), we went to Rogers to get my iPhone (and my dad insisted on figuring out every possible combination of plans we could get before getting one that’s best suited for him XD), and we went to UBC (originally for the bank and other little things) to shoot the video in which I am probably out of breath, disheveled, and entirely red in the face. That’s what pneumonia does to you >.> I just hope at Jump Start I’ll be able to make it to all the classes and such without panting.

While on our way to campus, we were driving on a two lane street that turned into one lane, I glanced over and saw a blond woman in a convertible and then when I looked back I saw a similar one in the passenger seat, so I turned to my dad and said “Hey, don’t look behind you, there’s two hot chicks.” So he looks in the rear view mirror and says “You mean in the car behind us? I think you’re mistaken. One of them, if not both are quite old and look like John McCain.” It’s really quite hard to look at people without them noticing, but I managed to look and he was quite right…your mind fills in the blanks with what it wants to see, not what is actually there.

But after that, we went to a gelato place (which is where we saw the dog) and the guy there was so nice, he offered us many free samples, most of which we didn’t even ask for, which could seem kind of pushy to some people, but coming from a place where you’re told to limit samples to one per customer, I found it very generous and it reminded me why I’m here :)

Part 3: Cupcakes

I literally just ran across this place about an hour ago and I fell in love with it. We were walking home from the Japanese restaurant that we had dinner at (and took my dad a long roundabout way to find, which ended up going through an ally, even though I was fairly sure of where it ended up being) and I saw from the street a cute little store with “Cupcakes” as what would be the store name and I thought, “Is it possible? Really? That a store could be called what it sells? As simple as that?!” I really thought it was so amazing. I’m really not a fan of cupcakes too much, since I don’t like frosting, but I insisted on going in and alas, they sell cupcakes and basically nothing else (some merchandise and that’s it really). They were so incredibly cute that I need to bring someone back who likes sweets just so I can have an excuse to go in there again. I’ve wanted to be a pastry chef for some time now and this seems quite similar to the store I would love to open one day. Here’s their website if you want to check it out: http://www.cupcakesonline.com/