Hi everyone,
I’m writing this in San Francisco airport ready to board a plane to…NZ!!!!!!! Gosh, it does one good to see ‘Auckland’ as the destination in lights on the wee board in front of the gate, and to see an Air NZ plane outside the window waiting for us…which will be our ‘home’ for the next 14 hours!
The rest of the week in Vancouver was really good. On Wednesday there were no conference sessions in the afternoon, so I headed into the centre of town from the UBC campus with a group of newly-found friends. The centre city is on an island and you get a great view going over the bridge on the bus to get there. I was ASTONISHED at just how many Starbucks places there are – as in, literally every 50m or so! Incredible. What I found the strangest though, was seeing the huge mountains next to the sea (that bit was normal and very like NZ), but then heaps and heaps of highrises all the way down to the sea too! Vancouver is apparently a very rapidly-expanding city. It’s a great place for outdoors activities though, and I can see why so many people want to live there.
I even managed to meet up with Aleisha who joined our group for dinner – she’s a friend I went to high school with in Wellington, who I haven’t seen in all the 7 years since we left school! And I found out the day before I left France that she was in Vancouver, having only just arrived there herself! It was soooooooo awesome to see her, and have a good catch-up. The six of us; (myself, Aleisha (NZ), Vanina (Reunion Is/NZ), Kim (Texas), Matthieu (France/Arizona) and Matthew (England)) went to a Malaysian restaurant downtown for a really nice dinner. All the time we were eating there was a continuous stream of people going past heading for the beach (English bay) where we were also headed eventually, in order to watch the fireworks. Three countries compete in this fireworks competition, “Festival of Light”, and Wed night was Spain’s turn. It’s apparently the biggest off-shore fireworks display in the world, and it sure was amazing! We had to get to the beach 1.5hrs before the show to find any space to sit on the grass/beach as there were THOUSANDS of people, but being that close to the barges and with the speakers for the music, along with the crowds, made for an incredible atmosphere. And as for negotiating the crowds afterwards back to the buses – it was almost as much of an experience as the fireworks! It was really great.
Thursday and Friday held more really interesting conference stuff, with Vanina and Kyle from my lab in NZ presenting their posters on Thursday. The session on insect cognition was on Thursday as well, which was probably the most relevant to my field from the whole conference, and contained some really good stuff. A group of 11 of us went out on Thursday night to a fish restaurant instead of going to the conferences’ official banquet.
Conference sessions finished on Friday morning, and I had an exceptional chance offered to me to ago for a ‘hike’ in the mountains North of Vancouver, up towards Whistler with Matthew, his father (Tom from the UK) and one of Tom’s friends (Nicholas) who was originally from Sussex, but had been living in Vancouver for the last 14 years. It was the thing I most wanted to do while in Vancouver, so I was thrilled! However, we had a few difficulties getting there…Nicholas’ car’s radiator all-but-blew-up just as we were leaving the city (a blessing it happened then before we were any further away!!) and it had to be towed. We decided to still go hiking by hiring a rental car, but nowhere in the centre city had any left, and we had to find a taxi to a rental place over on the opposite side. By the time we eventually really hit the road it was 4 hours later than planned, so we had to do a shorter walk than intended. We went to the “Chief” – a huge rock mountain/formation (VERY popular with climbers – see why from the pics), which is above a town called Squamish, very close to Whistler. There are 3 ‘peaks’ on the track, all of which are interlinked. We climbed the third and second, and then went to the Shannon waterfalls on the way out – a good 4.5hr hike in all, which was absolutely stunning scenery. Back in Vancouver, Nicholas, his wife Olivia and 4-year old son Thomas had us round for dinner (it was getting late – we finished eating at midnight!!). Nicholas is an amazing cook. I got to try really well-prepared Vancouver Salmon (barbecued), and also got my last taste of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream with the strawberry and blueberry dessert. Thomas is an absolute ball of energy, and Olivia was very welcoming. They have a harpsichord that Nicholas built and another ancient piano which we had a wee play on. I really appreciated being welcomed into the home of ‘locals’.
This morning was mostly taken up with packing and getting to the airport, although Vanina, Kim, Matthew and I did manage to meet up for breakfast at the Coffee brewing company on campus for breakfast (GOOD coffee, and a lovely change from the perpetual MASSIVE muffins we’ve been having every morning of the conference). Then it was goodbyes all round. Vanina, Edith and I were all flying out at similar times this afternoon, so got a taxi together. Vanina is going to Dunedin via L.A. and arrives both in Akld and Dunedin slightly later than me. Alison left for NZ yesterday, and Kyle is staying in Vancouver for another week’s tramping. It was sad to say goodbye to Edith at the airport as she heads back to Toulouse.
It’s been lovely and sunny both in Vancouver and here in San Francisco today, making for lovely flying weather. I have my woolies with me though, in preparation for the NZ winter. I’ve already met someone I know from Dunedin too – a lady who’s partner works in the Zoology Dept and who came to Ceroc classes a bit last year. Small world!
I’ll let you know when I’ve arrived safely in beautiful Aotearoa. Bye for now!
Love and God bless,
Lisa
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