I'm back in Edmonton!
I flew up to Vancouver early so that I would make sure that I would be there in time to get everything ready for my appointment at the French consulate. I am going to be doing a post-doc in Marseille starting in July, so I wanted to be sure that I wasn't going to mess anything up administratively, which, I must say, is something that I do more often than I would like to admit. When the documents from France didn't show up in time, I emailed my post-doc host to ask him for the tracking number, only to find out that one of the secretaries had sent it out late! After contacting the consulate and finding out that there wasn't much point making my appointment without a complete application, I had to re-book. I will be back in Vancouver on July 9th, so things should still work, but it's frustrating.
What's particularly frustrating is that I cut my trip somewhat short to make my original appointment; had I known that it wasn't going to work out, I could have biked down Big Sur, and made it to Los Angeles. It sounds amazing down there, so I'll definitely have to get there some day.
In the time before I had to be in Vancouver, I made a quick loop of Vancouver island, taking the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria, then biking to Nanaimo before taking the Nanaimo-Vancouver ferry back to the big city. I was staying with my good old friends Tom & Sandy (and their cute kids) in North Van, and visiting friends on the island, so I got to leave about 30lbs of camping gear. A great difference! Getting up the Malahat was a relative breeze compared to some of the hills I encountered along CA 101 north of San Francisco. I stayed with Nancy in Victoria. I stayed with Adrian and Caroline in Nanaimo, and got to see Jen and Ken as well, old friends whom I have not seen for too long.
One of the great things with bike trips is the sense of purpose with which one rises each day; one's job is to bike, eat, and then sleep. It's not always simple, it's not always easy, but it's always a pleasure and it's easy to see what needs to be done. Back in town, I'm still waking up fairly early and with a lot of energy, but deciding what needs to be done each day is a more complicated matter, and the results of one's actions are more far-off and there is less of a sense of urgency. So; I've fixed three bikes, tidied up various room in the house, done laundry, and taken care of a some emails to which I had been meaning to get, among other things. I've also uploaded my pictures from the trip, which can be seen here:
I'll add text and locations now and then, when I have time. Enjoy!
