Weekend in Vancouver

Last Thursday, I flew out to Vancouver to visit dear sister Lisa!  Rob brought me to the airport after work.  While waiting to board the plane, it started snowing...this is what I walked through to board the plane!

The plane actually left quite late; we had to wait to get more fuel added, I guess the first time they didn't fill the tank enough, and then we also had to be de-iced.  That's only the second time in my life I've been on a plane while it was de-iced; the first time was in Chicago, and the equipment there made it quite a simple and fast procedure.  At our local airport, it was a guy in a cherry-picker with a spray-gun!

I had an uneventful stopover in Calgary; we did arrive late, and I had to change planes, but some of the crew from the first flight were on the second flight, so I wasn't in any danger of missing that plane!

The plane landed safely in Vancouver, and I headed to the baggage claim and there was Lisa!  It was SO GOOD to see my sister again - big hugs!

Once we'd collected my baggage, we headed off to the SkyTrain for the trek back to Lisa's home.  It was close to  11:00pm Vancouver time by then, so for me it, was close to 2:00AM!  It was 3:30AM (Ontario time) before I got to bed that night.

On the Skytrain...(photo courtesy of Lisa)

One of Lisa's housemates moved out recently, so I was able to sleep in that room...which Lisa got all ready for me!  It had been awhile since I slept in a single bed!

We spent a somewhat relaxing weekend.  Relaxing in that we had no fixed plans, no crammed agenda.  But we walked and walked and walked and walked.   In the rain, much of the time.  It did stop raining at times, for which we were thankful, but everytime we left the house, except for the final time on Monday morning, it was raining.  Thankfully, Lisa had recommended that I bring my umbrella.   Which I did.  Unfortunately, it really was not up to such continued use and became more and more dilapidated as the weekend went on.  You will notice, thought, I can still fold it up nicely (with effort :))

Friday morning we awoke to rain.  That morning we ventured out to the SFU campus.  The house where Lisa is living is about a 10 minute walk from the SkyTrain/bus station.  So, anytime we went out, we started and ended with the walk.   SFU is up on a mountain; thankfully a bus took us up there!

SFU is sort of one big building, or perhaps more accurately, a few buildings stuck together.  The nice thing is you don't need to go outside to get from one building to another.  Like any good University, the buildings are unique.  Like another good University I know, SFU has a building that takes room/floor numbering to a whole new level. The 6th floor of UW's math building is a challenge, but I do think that the RBH (or whatever it was called) at SFU takes the cake.

This building in the picture has a few stories underground, and then a big square on stilts, overlooking a common square.  (Complete with a pond in the warmer months).

There's also a memorial to Terry Fox in this common square, as he had been an SFU student.

Since SFU is on a mountain, it can provide some beautiful views of other mountains.  However, due to the weather, this is what we saw:

See Lisa's blog for a picture of me taking that picture :)

However, there were still some trees in colour, and later, from another angle, I did get a slightly better view of the mountain.

Lisa is TA'ing a course, so she has an office for that.

In the office, there are all these filing cabinets containing the data she will use for her Master's thesis.  Other people collected the data and did the data entry for it; now Lisa gets to do the real work - analysing and reporting!

I also couldn't help but notice how prominently the bathrooms were signed in one of the buildings...just as important as any other room in the building!

Our morning ended with a trip to the grocery store, then back to Lisa's for lunch.  In the afternoon, we went to Commercial Drive, a trendy area of Vancouver, where, apparently, one goes "to see and be seen".  :)  Lots of restaurants and various stores.  It stopped raining for awhile while we were out and about, so that was nice.  Friday evening we stretched out on the fabulous couch in the rec room and watched a movie.

Saturday morning we awoke to rain!  Our plans for the morning was a trek to the Farmer's Market.  Much of it was indoors and we got plenty of free samples - apple pieces, cheese, bread, candy, and salsa.  Yummy!

Here I am waiting for Lisa to make a purchase, and remaining mostly dry, under my poor umbrella :)

The grocery list for the farmer's market consisted mostly of soup ingredients...Lisa asked me to share how I made soup, so we went home and cooked up a big pot of soup, and Lisa also made a loaf of bread!

Sunday morning we awoke to rain!  We attended two worship services, and also did quite a bit of walking.  Some of it in the rain.  On the way home, we saw these brightly coloured houses...

I know Lisa has posted a similar picture on her blog, but this house, or rather, the front yard,  is really just unbelievable!

Of course, Sunday lunch was soup and bread!

Monday morning we awoke to...no rain!  That was really nice, since our morning trek included lugging my suitcase along again, to the train station.  Lisa came with to the SkyTrain station, and then we had to bid each other adieu.  Sniff.  My worries about getting lost on my way to the airport were all for naught, and I arrived without incident and in plenty of time.  Flights home were uneventful.  And now, it is so good to be home again.

Thank you Lisa dear, for everything!  It was a wonderful visit!   Now 39 days until you come home for the Christmas break!