It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The most unexpected has happened. Winter (as I know it) came to greet Greater Vancouver area and Lower Mainland. This apparently has "never" happened in November and it doesn't happen even every winter. What we have now is something that tends to occur here every four or five years in January. We have 8-10 inches of snow and the temperature is well below zero, last night -15 degrees Celsius.
I was in Vancouver when this sudden snowfall began, and I got to see my favourite city covered in snow, something that everyone told me I'd never get to see.
Now you get to see it as well.
Here's the view from Eva's apartment on the first winter morning.

This one's from our winter wonderland -walk.And these are from English Bay on Tuesday morning.

Last night I took the SkyTrain from Downtown Vancouver to the terminus in Surrey to have family dinner at my uncle's house. It went nicely and I'm glad we all got together. Now I'm supposed to do some packing, but first we'll go out for breakfast.. I'm going to miss my eggs over medium with extra hashbrowns. Sigh.

Time is running out of hands!

I'm swimming in a sea of mixed emotions. I'm shaking, sobbing, breathing heavily and at the same time happy as can be! Right now I'm getting ready for my second to last shift at work and it feels weird. On Monday I went to work after a couple of drinks and that pretty much helped me through it. I don't know how tomorrow will go. I do assume, that today will be ok, though. But I'm still very nervous.
So here is how the rest of my time in Canada will go:
Thu 23rd, last day at work - closing the store
Fri 24th, Katherine's birthday extravaganza!
Sat 25th, I'll head to Vancouver in the evening...
Tue 28th, ...and stay there 'till Tuesday and on my way back I'll go pay a visit to my uncles in Surrey.
Thu 30th, must finish packing, because -
Fri 1st, leaving Abbotsford to stay in the Hyatt Regency in Vancouver with all my friends and partying it up.
Sat 2nd, last goodbyes.
Sun 3rd, Heathrow and Emilie (yes/no? let me know, sweetie), then Helsinki and big sister ♥

What I have accomplished.

I'm very tired right now, but I feel the need to update. So please forgive me for the incomplete sentences that might follow:

-I had a fine 8-day trip with Carissa to Montreal and Toronto. No Niagara Falls, as I didn't want to spend a whole day just to go admire the falls for half an hour.
-Montreal ****
-Toronto**** and a half
-I purchased a pair of lovely boots but as B.C. is all about rain nowadays, they'll probably get ruined in no-time.
-Experienced my first real Halloween, gave candy to trick-or-treaters and dressed up as an elf to work.
-Spent a long weekend in Vancouver at darling Eva's place. Wonderful times. Wine, cheese, Friends, movies, pumpkin carving and a new tattoo.
-I'll have approx.10 shifts left at Staples, I'm quitting on the 24th.
-25 days left in Canada
-I bought too much stuff on our trip. I need to buy a bigger suitcase.
-We were just watching LoTR and we realized that B.C. is pretty much like New Zealand.

Slide Show of our fall trip.

Lazybug.

Oh, look at that. I never continued my last entry. I haven't been able to add any pictures here, which has made me so annoyed I didn't feel like writing anything.

However, my next trip will begin in only five days, which is incredibly hard to imagine. I'm working every day until we go, even Tuesday (which is the day we fly - 7.30 pm, I'll get of at 5 :) .
I haven't really done anything interesting after we came back from California. I testpacked yesterday, and before I had all of my 9 pairs of shoes packed, my suitcases were as full as they can be. So I guess I'm going to buy a nice big carry-on, as big as possible. I've gone through my clothes, and there were only two tops and a jacket I was willing to get rid off... But I believe Montreal will be quite a nice place to shop, so I'll most likely be in trouble when I seriously need to pack. Luckily I don't really have to worry about the weight of my baggage since I'm allowed to bring 2x32kg with me. But yes, everything must fit in two suitcases. I will not pay any extra for my baggage.
See, how I'm rambling on about packing and leaving!?! This is what goes on in my head day and night nowadays. I feel like it's so soon, that I have to start getting ready. Perhaps, on some level I believe it will make leaving easier, if I'll get used to the idea well in advance. It's really stressing me out, though. And I know it'll only be worse after we get back from our trip.

Now (again) I must go to get ready for work. Everyone there is talking about me leaving, too! It's not making me feel any better!

Still in California

Sun, Sept 24
8 am, drew myself a nice hot bath which helped me to get rid of the sore muscles.. Packed our bags and checked out from our hostel, then went driving around the city on a streetcar (not cable car, streetcar is more like a tram) and tried the buses, too. Destination, Golden Gate Park. Oh, how pretty it was. So green! And lively! With lots of things to see: The conservatory of flowers, lots of palm trees (1), De Young museum, Japanese tea garden (2), botanical gardens... Millions of squirrels (3) in the latter one! One of them, I believe, tried to attack us! He kept coming really close and getting on his two feet and I think if a squirrel could roar, he of all squirrels would have.

After walking around the park for quite some time, we decided it was time to do some shopping. I found a nice horse patterned shirt and two cd's. Not too much money spent, so phew!

Somehow the day went by really fast as we walked around the downtown area a lot and before we knew it, we were walking to the Greyhound station again.. Luckily, there was an earlier bus to Los Angeles, and it was an express one (better sleep guaranteed, less stops..)! I took a happy pill to ensure I would sleep well enough to be ready for our Disney adventure and it worked, yet again :) ! (if I didn't explain earlier, my happy pills are really strong muscle relaxants which make traveling on a bus a lot nicer for a person like me who suffers from serious back pain).

Mon, Sept 25

4.30 am, Greyhound station in LA. Somehow this station is the most uncomfortable and unsafe where we've been to. And actually, the only place with bag checks (which is nice cause everyone looks scary enough to carry a gun) as you step on the bus. Again, we were lucky to catch an earlier bus to Anaheim so we didn't have to stay at the station for too long. So 6 am, back on the road and 1,5 hrs later in the city of Magic Kingdom, Anaheim, Orange County, California. ORANGE COUNTY. I was so hyper! We saw city buses going to Newport Beach! Amazing!

We got to our hotel around 8.30. The receptionist couldn't find our reservation, but was able to get us a room. The check-in time would have been at 2 pm, but as the girl saw how tired and well-traveled we looked, she wanted to find us a room that we could have straight away. As there were none of the cheapest rooms available, she gave us an upgrade (because of the miscommunication and all :D ) and we got a really nice and big room. Took a quick shower and got ready as fast as possible (Disney opened at 10) and got to the park at 10.45. We bought 2-day park hopper passes which allowed us to go to both Disneyland park and Disney's California Adventure Park. And they were both the best parks! Oh, boy! I was so happy I could have cried. But I didn't! Cause it was happy times!

(Disney stories in the next entry, I need a break!)

Previous entry contd.

Sat, Sept 23
Got up fairly early (considering the level of exhaustion) to enjoy another great and outdoors-y day. Started off by taking the famous cable car to Fisherman's Warf and the piers and the ride turned out to be quite pleasant. We stood at the back of the car where we met the Puerto Rican cable car driver Oscar. He was a very nice man, telling us things about the vehicle and posing with us :) (1)
At the piers, we located the ferries to Alcatraz and were able to get stand-by tickets which, luckily enough, enabled us to board on the first ferry. Ferryride was windy but amazing. Amazing views of everything! Alcatraz (2) was surprisingly non-scary, but it was very interesting to visit the infamous prison. It's funny, the first thought I had when we reached the island was well at least they had a nice view from here and then later on I realized how terrible it actually was. That they saw the city and the bridges and the water but it was all out of reach.Back in the city we started looking for some tandems. We were determined to rent a tandem to bike across the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito and we thought we had what it takes to ride that thing. Well, it turned out, tandems are not so easy to ride. We tried it out but had to take single bikes instead as taking the tandem would have meant biking off the bridge... As we were getting our bikes, the weather started to turn less and less sunny, and before we knew it, there was fog everywhere (I have now learned, that this is actually very characterisctic of San Francisco) (3). We biked in the wind and the increasing fog by the water, and a couple of miles later we were there. By Golden Gate. And this is how it looked like (4). We couldn't see a thing! Red steel bars, yes, but a bridge? Not to mention Sausalito.

Halfway through the bridge (you know, after a mile or so..) everything was clear again! The first half was still surrounded by fog but the other half was nearly clear. We could see where we were heading, we could see the bridge and the water! Amazing! It was so beautiful.
We continued a few more miles after the bridge, until we reached Sausalito, from where we took a ferry back. Sausalito was a beautifully peaceful town. I loved it (5).


8.30 pm back in the city, biked fast to the bike rental place before they closed and then took a cab to our hostel. Couldn't do much else than get to bed. Couple of hours later I woke up in serious pain, muscles aching so bad I couldn't sleep. Not without my happy pill that knocked me out in just some 20 minutes :)

(I have to stop again, cause I need to sleep. I'm working two shifts tomorrow...)