Farewell to Thee Burnaby

(The Chilliwack Rafting camp grounds)

Well, it is my last night here in the Burnaby Katimahouse on Georgia St. Through all the craziness that happened here, I am very sad to leave. The thought of going back so close to home is a tad scary. Yesterday, amidst the sun and warm weather, we went to the Anthropology Museum and hung out at Rec Beach after. From the beach you can see the mountains on Vancouver Island, and more mountains to the north across the inlet. We watched the tugs pulling huge loads of what looked like pulp across the bay. There is a huge amount of boat activity around Vancouver. We were running around in T-shirts on the beach in March. A few old men were enjoying the sun, laying naked on beds of ferns. A crew of University kids were trying out the water with their skim-boards. A friendly woman with a backpack and a cooler strolled the beach selling hash cookies. We set up a slackline between two dried posts in the sand. At that time I couldn't think of anywhere more beautiful that I would rather be.
I will miss the mountains and all the sites around here. I am not a city person and don't see myself living in a city, but I think I may have to visit every once-in-a-while. Tonight we went out for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. There's nothing like digging into various spicy tidbits with fingers and steamed sourdough flatbread. I also got to go to dim sum with some people from my work. You pick and choose different morsals from carts that come by your table. These dishes are placed on a large rotating lazy-susan in the center of the table. The chinese restaurants I've seen in our area have nothing on this experience.
We have been so terrible at taking pictures this trismester, I've grown to hate wasting time trying to get a good picture instead of just chilling and going with the flow of what's going on. So my apologies, but not too many pictures this time. We went rafting on the Chilliwack river last week. This was the best brithday time I could have wished for. We went with another Katimavik group in Vancouver. We volunteered for a day in order to get a discount and went rafting the next day. We did alot of hard work and the weather was chilly, rainy and snowy, but it was a huge amount of fun. We went into the moss covered forest to split and stack firewould. I have never split such huge pieces of cedar. Once quartered, each piece was barely possible to carry. The river conditions were relatively low, so the rafting was not as intense as it could have been, but it was alot of fun anyhow. The mist was covering most of the mountain view, but we could still see the eagles flying overhead, and the little abandoned cottages hanging halfway over the steep eroding banks. I need to come back out west! Anyhow, there have been alot of nights up until the wee hours of the morning getting stuff done, and I should get some sleep before we begin the stint of tiresome travelling in the next few days. So farewell to you all, and I always love hearing from you. Perhaps I will see some of you soon. Untill then, ta.


(Katimacrew atop Burnaby Mountain, and still looking up).