Let's go back to the coast, baby, westward to the ocean...

In true BC spirit, I had Said the Whale on my iPod as I ventured to the Ottawa airport yesterday morning. My destination: Vancouver, with a stopover at Olympic Glory (yes, capitalized).

The last few weeks have been busy but a lot of fun-- my feature article on MPs and social media was published (front page!) in the Ottawa Citizen's Saturday Observer (you can find the piece online here) and I've just finished a promotional video for the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa that was part of their 50th anniversary launch on Thursday. But now I'm back home-- well, a few hours from home-- in Vancouver to intern with a what-will-for-now-remain-unnamed Big Media Group. They're covering some sort of big sporting event going on in town, I think?

While I know I'll probably be out East for awhile (yes, Ontario counts as "out East", though to be fair Alberta is also East by BC standards), parts of my heart still belong to the coast. Vancouver is warm (9 degrees today! 9! While Ottawa was -11, warm by Ottawa standards...) and it's even cleaner and prettier than usual thanks to the Big Olympic Machine that has taken over the city. At the airport, there were more volunteers than travellers-- there were even two volunteers at the luggage carousel who organized the bags as they came off the conveyor belt-- not one, but two!

Today was a lazy settle-in day, and it's never too hard to get back into the BC pace: sleep in, read all of the Olympic news clippings and updates, all-you-can-eat sushi date with friend and roomie Scott (and the ensuing stomachache...) and wandering Granville Island with one of my Vancouver friends. Then a long walk home in the balmy air, enjoying the mountains and my favourite familiar spots in the city. And, of course, grabbing a copy of the Georgia Straight, which I will devour as soon as I've finished this entry.

The internship starts tomorrow, so I'm sure to have more interesting stories then... and, if not, my roomie is volunteering at the Athletes' Village, so I'll just steal all of his ridiculous stories and post them on the interwebs for your entertainment. Deal?

Everyday is the weekend

I've had the last two weeks off of school, with few assignments and responsibilities. As is the end of any semester, it felt really weird.

Then it felt really, really good.

Janelle and Daniel were in town for Easter weekend and, in short, I spent the weekend eating, drinking, and generally being merry with two of my favourite people. Janelle came down a day early so we spent our Good Friday catching up, eating Korean fusion food, wandering the downtown and ending up at Oh So's. Saturday and Sunday was full of food, including an amazingly delicious Orphans' Easter Dinner with my bar coworkers in which everyone seemed to outdo each other on the cooking... impressive considering we work at a place where the kitchen consists of a microwave and an oven. There was lots of rye and Settlers of Catan (Wilcox House Rules) and good times.

I also gave Janelle and Daniel their wedding quilt— only about six months past their wedding!— which was pretty fantastic. It was actually a joint gift, I chose and paid for the fabric and my mother did the quilting. My mom is one of those crazy hardcore quilters, she's actually part of the Quilting Guild back at home, but she really outdid herself with this one, especially since she made it large enough that Daniel, who's well over 6 ft 3, can fit it comfortably.

Actually, as soon as he saw the quilt, Daniel wrapped himself in it and took a nap on my futon. If that isn't the sign of a great gift, I don't know what is.

This weekend, Tiffany came back to Ottawa and we did the "ultimate Ottawa in a weekend" tour-de-force, squeezing in a bit of shopping, ample Market wandering, drinking and socializing and hitting up the downtown's tastiest locales.

But alas, my glorious days of brunching and used book hunting and vintage shop browsing must come to an end as I start my internship tomorrow.

Yes, tomorrow I start at Canada's national broadcaster, radio side, for two weeks.

Which also means that I move to Toronto in two weeks for my next internship.

Am I mildly terrified? Hell yes.