Vancouver Is Just a (beautiful) Place

If there is anything Christmas has been this year, it's snowy. Inconveniently snowy. Snow everywhere! Snow always! Snow snow snow!

After a cold 2 days stopping over in Toronto, I was looking forward to balmy Vancouver, but I arrived home to record low temperatures and historically high accumulations of snow. Shit - it was crazy! It's finally starting to melt, leaving pools of slush and brown water on the streets of Vancouver. Not romantic, but at least I can leave the driveway now.

I'm sitting in a cafe on Commercial Drive right now, sipping tea and thinking about things. I love travel because I feel like it offers a chance for me to objectively see my world; the distance allows me to gain perspective on my own life. Being in Vancouver has given me a bit of that perspective. Which scares me, I suppose, as that makes it feel all the more like I'm a visitor here. It doesn't feel so much like coming home, as it does like I'm a guest in a place I used to live.

After living in Singapore, returning to Vancouver was a real homecoming. I still had another year of University left after my return, and all my friends were still here. Even though Singapore became my home while I was away, Vancouver still embraced me as home when I came back. Now I'm visiting for the holidays, with no intention to move back anytime soon. I suppose that's the reason I feel like a guest: it doesn't seem like home because I don't see myself here anymore. Or because I don't want to see myself here.

I'm meeting a former love interest for tea at this cafe in a few minutes. How does one greet someone that one used to love (ish), and then didn't, and now doesn't? And how do you greet them for the first time after not seeing them since the time when things were very, very different? With a hug? A kiss on the cheek? ... A handshake?

Life is so awkward. Blurg.

Halloween Magic

As the weather got colder and the days got shorter and the icy winds blew autumn leaves past my feet as I strolled the dark grey streets of London, it was more than apparent than Halloween was just around the corner.  But alas, I am no longer in Halloween territory.

I tried to round up some friends for an evening outing to an atmospheric english cemetery, telling scary stories by candlelight.  No takers.  I know I'm ridiculous, and I recognize that most people are not.

Luckily Jelena and I were able to go to a candlelit screening of Nosferatu (1922) in the old Union Chapel in Islington.  It was very cool, very gothic, very halloweeny.  But as we walked out of the church at the end of the film, our jaws dropped as big white snow flakes fell gently upon our faces.  It was pure magic!  A snowstorm in October!  

We found out the next day that it was the first October snow to hit London in over 70 years.  So while it was not the Halloween magic I was searching for, it was a great big slice of halloween magic nonetheless.

Snow!

The First Snow of the Year!