A Year in BC

I’ve lived in Chapel Hill for over 10 years, encompassing a Ph. D, a marriage, a few jobs, cats, many wonderful friends and a blog that to this day proceeds in fits and starts. But, my time here is finally at an end. I accepted a job offer to move to Victoria, BC. It’s on Vancouver Island and quite breathtakingly beautiful in an almost throwaway fashion!

Photo Courtesy flickr – Allie Wojtaszek’s photo stream.

I am not kidding, the island’s just incredibly beautiful.

Anyways, I will be heading out for a long vacation in Chennai, back for 10 days or so, then leaving end of March to start work. Blogging for the next week or so should be normal (as in, no rhythm, rhyme or reason!). Once I get to Chennai, blogging will be sporadic as my parents don’t have internet and I am too lazy to set up a connection for a month!

Once I get to Victoria, blogging will, of course, resume, though I guess I’ll still remain pseudo anonymous (not that too many people care!). I will be working for a company that works very closely with the EPA and Environment Canada and things get delicate when you work with the government and criticize them! It will be interesting to see where this blog goes, though I will refrain from the usual gee whiz look at that beautiful scenery posting!

If you know people on Vancouver island you can hook me up with, please email /leave a comment. I don’t move that often, and I can’t rely on seeing familiar faces on Franklin Street and the Weaver Street Market any more!

S. is staying in Chapel Hill for a little longer, she loves her work and just started it!

It’s been fun living here, but all good things must pass.

Blogged with Flock

Warning: Personal post ahead, don’t read if you don’t know me!

Well, since life’s changing quite a bit, what with moving from Chapel Hill to Victoria and all, I haven’t been thinking of bloggable issues, which means this blog has been rotting away to almost nothingness. But, what the hell, mostly friends and the occasional person searching for sea turtles and/or India find me out in the far hinterlands of the ‘net. So, I will cater to my friends and post a personal update!

Made it to Victoria safe and sound, though not without all kinds of adventures in the security line at RDU, place was a zoo of unprecedented (for me) proportions. But, a beautiful and sunny day in Victoria greeted me, and if I had not left my camera behind and simultaneously misplaced the SD micro card on my cellphone (its memory is full up), maybe I would have taken some pictures! I am staying at this place that is half hotel half hostel. The room’s tiny and spare, the place has a homely feel to it, the kitchen serves excellent food for four bucks, and has nice beer on tap. The place is alive and has character in a way a hotel would never have.

Apartment hunting starts in earnest tomorrow. My very friendly bartender informs me that finding a place takes time, and that May 1 is a great time because a lot of students (it is a town with a decent sized university) leave then. But can I stay here for a month? hmm, don’t know about that.

Jet lag hits, so I am going to take it easy. Tomorrow’s a crazy busy day with apartment hunting, applying for all kinds of government cards, etc, luckily, I am a few blocks away from city hall (this ho(s)tel’s location is impeccable.

Adios, my brain’s fried and my eyes can’t focus any more, I’ve been up for 20 hours, time to wind down!

Yikes, my last few posts have been, shall we say “bitter”? Enough of that, how about some boring pictures. Not that I take too many! But, it’s all pictures and no thinking/analysis in this post.

It’s been 4 weeks to the day I arrived in Victoria and the weather’s been completely and utterly whacked out. We had snow on Friday…

Of course, it was too warm for the snow to stick, just came down for about half an hour or so and cleared right away, followed by sun an hour later. Up in Nanaimo, they got 25cm of snow. Toronto, on the other hand, was in shorts, poetic justice, my local acquaintances tell me because us islanders usually rub our wonderful weather in every other Canadian’s face. But, it isn’t really that cold, just not warm. And the crazy instability has its pluses. Did I ever mention that 4 days in a row, I saw some spectacular rainbows on the way back from work, to the point that I was getting a little blase about it? This place is all about micro climates. It will be sunny in Victoria, and as I drive towards Sidney to work, passing Elk Lake, the temperature drops significantly and there’s always more cloud and rain. Then Sidney has it’s own thing going on, could be cloudy, never know. So, always pack a raincoat and a layer or two!

Anyway, went to Thetis Lake this Sunday for a leisurely hike around the lake with a few acquaintances. As usual, beautiful. Spring is here, and it was really interesting to see all the blooming flowers interspersed with patches of snow. Yep, snow and flowers, a little unusual (didn’t take any pictures of flowers, unfortunately).

It’s also the greenest time on the year because it’s been raining all winter and also getting warmer in the last few weeks, so everything’s alive and the evergreens are, well, very green. As it warms up more and the rain goes away, it apparently gets a lot browner. Also saw a bald eagle encircling the parking lot, that’s probably the fourth or fifth one I’ve seen here.

Some random pictures of the lake. The upper trail goes uphill immediately and leads to some beautiful vistas overlooking the lake. I don’t think my cellphone camera does it any justice, looks like I might have to invest in a real camera soon.

That’s it, I guess. Enough of the pictures. I am going to be hiking every weekend from now on, there are so many trails, This website actually rates quite a few of them by difficulty, ought to keep me busy for a year or two!

Back to bitter in a bit, and some environmental posts later. Meanwhile, looks like the the ol’ chief finally made it out of Gaul (if you don’t get it, click the link!)