So, I got back from my first visit to Vancouver, British Columbia yesterday and I have to say I had a stellar 3 ish days. Below is the account of what as happened to me, and I will spare as few of the details as possible :D.
Background
I had found a deal about a month ago for cheap Air Canada domestic flights. Also, I had wanted to visit some professors at the University of British Columbia regarding potentially working for them for my masters. I had been talking to Dr. Haukaas, Dr. Vaziri and Dr. Ventura about meeting up if I was able to make it in on a weekday. Originally I thought of doing this in August before the GRE, but I simply ran out of time. Having success with the first two, I schedule them for the Friday. Now, I had asked Chris and Jill, former Waterloo denizens now living in Vancouver, if I could stay a weekend. Even better, I found out that this particular weekend as the Rhythm City Mess Around, a swing workshop weekend in Vancouver. The 4 instructors were Thomas Blacharz, Alice Mei, Peter Strom and Naomi Uyama. This is very awesome, I thought, because Thomas and Alice are part of the Ninjammers and started the 'I Charleston the World' videos. I had to return to KW early Sunday because it was my dad's 50th birthday and that was not to be missed :).
Thursday
Leaving after work on Thursday, my parents were kind enough to drive me to Pearson. I had kinda overestimated the required time, so spend two ish hours even after a minimal security queue. As a side note, apparently large packs of alkaline batteries for a camera are of concern to newbie security guys.
I start reading the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a great used edition from the 1970's that I found earlier that week. I was simultaneously on my iPod facebook app talking to at least 3 people (John, Anna and Turlough), which made me happy to have their company before I left. The flight itself wasn't anything crazy, it was nice to have the seat next to me free. I tried reading more Sherlock Holmes with mild success, at this point I was getting rather tired and hungry so I kept nodding off. The trip was also interspersed with some 'Big Bang Theory' episodes.
Landing in YVR, I met up with Chris and Jill who were nice enough to come get me at the airport at 10:30 at night. Taking the skytrain home we met a rather chatty homeless man who wanted to talk about the city and was trying to sell a bicycle. It reminded me how I miss my bike. It was then straight off to bed because I had plans at UBC in the morning and Chris had work.
Friday
The morning began great with a nice rest on Chris and Jill's futon after the flight. A quick breakfast, a pop over to the dépanneur for a day pass, and I'm off to UBC. First of all, I noticed the buses in the day time. I really think it's neat how they're on suspended cables like the streetcars in Toronto. There's no rails and it's a cleaner solution than the natural gas in Waterloo. Apparently these have been around for a while, just that the cities I've lived in have not implemented this.
Oh my goodness the UBC campus is so awesome! The mall roads (large walking boulevards) are lined with everything green. The buildings have ivy growing on them, and of course, the Civil and Mechanical engineering building (CEME), is a concrete bombshelter. Their labs are in an adjacent building clad in rusted corrugated steel appropriately called the 'Rusty Hut'. It’s kinda not fair considering that the computer science/computer engineering, chemical engineering, and every other building on campus are absolutely gorgeous. Touring the campus prior to meetings, I was very impressed at the size of the walkways, the plazas, the rose garden, and the view of the mountains in the distance to the north. I wandered off of campus to the coast where there was a magical rainforest. I descended the massive set of wooden stairs to the pebbly beach, and reached the Pacific Ocean. I sat around and admired the rainbow over the ocean while I was sitting on a pile of rocks next to a seagull.
Afterwards were the meetings with profs. I first met Dr. Haukaas, specialty in structural dynamics. He was very energetic and impressed that I set up meetings with profs at UBC. His specific fields included timber design, risk analysis on structures, and statistical minimization of construction costs due to earthquakes. The last point he was the most energetic about and is something completely new that I haven’t been exposed to. What drew me in was that it is very heavily math focused rather than experiments. I then met Dr. Vaziri who specializes in computational mechanics. He deals with modelling of composite structures like for aircraft fuselage, military vehicles, or armour. Working with him would be very programming intensive and it would be working in a large network of researchers in this field all drawn together by a side project company that was founded by his graduates at UBC. Both of these meetings were positive in the sense that they are willing to take me on as a graduate student, which is insanely awesome. I believe I would lean towards the topics that Dr. Haukaas presented based on my preference of non-industry driven projects.
I wandered back over to Chris and Jill’s where I stopped off at 49th Parallel for some Ethiopian coffee beans and then met up with Jill to go downtown. As per John’s brother’s recommendations, we stop over at Milano Coffee for an espresso on their very lovely cedar deck. It had a very cottage-y feeling and the coffee was fantastic (took a bag of the la Futura home which has a cocoa note to it). Then we were off touring the downtown. We went to Gastown to see the street and the steam clock, to the harbour for the Olympic torch and lego whale. I tried to find Murchie’s Tea but was unsuccessfully looking in the wrong spot less than a kilometer away. Jill and I take the ferry to the Maritime Museum which lead us back to her place. Chris, Jill, and I got our stuff together and headed over to the dance at the Russian hall. We drove past East Hastings, which is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada, and it showed. It was quite amazing really, and it’s so close to tourist areas.
The 4 piece band, Careless Lovers, was playing lots of Tuba Skinny and Meschiya Lake covers, which made me think of my upcoming trip to New Orleans for the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown. It was a lot of fun but ridiculously hot and humid. We met up with Jill’s friend, Darcy (who was such a Turlough clone!! :P I even jokingly teased him in the same manner), who convinced the group to go to the blues night after the dance. I was so incredibly tired at this point (my eyes were really slow at blinking), but the blues was in an air conditioned sword fighting studio. Katanas, rapiers, and swords in massive buckets and lots of suits of armour. It was very very awesome. I even ran into a guy named Kevin that knows Mel from Waterloo. People know people. Due to people being slow and sluggish, we miss a few buses and tumble through the door at 4:30 am.
Saturday
On Saturday I roll out of bed at 7:30 and people are starting to get ready for the RCMA workshop. Jill and I had originally intended to go to Stanley Park but due to the super late night, that totally didn’t happen. Actually, all of us decided to try out for the auditions to get into the advanced track so we had to be at the locale at 11:00. Very cool, we all got in.
The first lesson was with Thomas and Alice. The basic pattern was a simple eight-count linear move but it played with the type of movement. The really fun part was mixing them up and reading how they change halfway through. The second half of their lesson was on weight and power followed by tension releasing stomp offs. After the lesson I got to talk to Thomas about the 'I Charleston the World' videos and told him about the KW one that's being made (by Turlough, almost done), and he said he'd totally be interested in putting up on their site. :)
The second lesson was with Peter and Naomi which used choreography to string a few solids moves together. Again, the quality of movement was the focus, which was very awesome and totally helped. When it comes to which was better, I really don’t know. I like the energy of the delivery from Thomas and Alice, but what was learned with Peter and Naomi may be more readily applicable to social dancing.
Chris, Jill and I all rushed back to their place as best as we could for being so darn sticky and gross. Darcy went to go visit a friend in far off Surrey, so we didn’t see him until later. We all showered, Chris napped, Jill and I ate chili chocolate, salt chocolate with coffee. Coffee is totally more effective than sleep. We got all fancily dressed up and headed to the dance at the legion, a little late because we got distracted by a YouTube Video of a giant centipede fighting a snake and a mother spider covered in spider babies. This time it was a 10-piece big band, Hoppin’ Mad Orchestra, and they sounded pretty great. I got to dance with Thomas again and Peter. I have to say, I’m still so impressed with the dance I had with Peter, just fun and just everything worked. Apparently he was Caitlin’s partner for a while so we chatted about things going on in Toronto. The Jack and Jill was pretty darn epic, so it was fun to watch. Having danced with all of those leads that competed, I guess I could have tried, I just wasn’t up for it in a scene I didn’t know. The funniest thing is that I found so many parallel personalities in Vancouver to people in Waterloo and Toronto. Very interesting, so I guess there’s only x number of personalities, and they repeat? Even though there was no late night, we still got in at 2:00 am and basically fell right asleep.
Sunday
A brisk 4:30 am wake up call to leave Jill’s house at 5:15 for my bus to the train to the plane. I tried to wake Jill up like she asked so that she could accompany me to the bus stop, but no knocking on her door woke her. Getting close to 5:15, I guess I woke Darcy up and he actually got up to escort me…which was super sweet! He was totally bleary eyed, in his pjs, walking in the rain with me. I get to the stop just in time to catch the bus, and hug him goodbye. Once I get to the skytrain station, I find it’s closed, so apparently Google maps didn’t give me the right directions and thought the train was operational. I start to panic, so I see a cab with someone getting out. I hop in, but then I see the guy who has just gotten out trying the station doors, I offer to split a cab with him to the airport. Turns out he’s a cool guy who sells snowboards, skateboards and such from manufacturers to retailers and he was headed to Hawaii. Also it turned out that the cab driver was a civil engineer and studied in the UK which is awesome.
The rest of the trip was pretty normal, got a coffee, went on Facebook on my iPod in the terminal, read on the plane. I was happy to see my mom waiting for me at the arrivals gate and to celebrate my dad’s 50th birthday.
As for now, it’s 1:17 am on the Thursday morning of my departure to New Orleans for the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown. I get driven by my dad at 6:00 am with John Ladan in tow to Hamilton where we meet Dean. From Hamilton we cross the border to fly out of Buffalo airport. The flight there stops off in Chicago and Atlanta on the way back. Three days of insanely good dancing, jazz music, food, and culture. I can’t wait. We’re meeting Anna there so the four of us plus the Toronto crew will make for a very fun weekend with a mix of friends and new people. I think John said it well that it won’t sink in until we’re actually there. So true. Plus, the benefit of two dance weekends in a row, I learned I need more shirts, so I’m armed and ready like there’s no tomorrow…but there is a tomorrow. Anyways. Allons-y!
