kiwi-kathi in maple land: Really? A long overdue update.

It's been almost a year since I last updated this blog. Whoops. I was convinced there were some updates in between.

So maybe we need a little summary of what happened over the last 10 months...

James came over for 6 weeks in July/August. We spent some nice summery days at the beach, Kits pool, Darby's patio, and various other pubs/restaurants/summery locations. We also did a little hike on Bowen Island, went for some kayaking and paddle boarding at Deep Cove, and did the summit hike at Mount St. Helens with a stint to Seattle for a day. All of the above were fun in many different ways. The volcano hike in particular was awesome, after we managed to get permits at the last minute we enjoyed stunning views from the top into the crater and onto the dome, and onto the surrounding Cascade volcanoes on a cloudless day.

In September Susi and Beni visited for a few weeks. They toured for about a week or so by themselves first. I booked a flight to Kelowna about half way through their trip, and we did some hiking along the Kettle Valley Railway line. We spent two nights in a beautiful B&B: EcoLodge near Hope. They have a few little wood cabins, an outdoor jacuzzi in the woods, a beautiful veggie/flower garden, a nice deck with sofas/chairs and some hammocks right by the river. Great place to hang out for a couple of days, relax, and detach from city life. On the way back to Vancouver we stopped for some miniature golf at Castle Fun Park. I hadn't played in ages, but it was total fun!

After they left I only had a few weeks before the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, which happened to be in Vancouver. It was quite different to have a conference at home. They had some very good workshops on various topics, and I volunteered at the registration desk for a couple of days, so it definitely didn't get boring.

In November James came back for a few days, and we flew to Ecuador for a workshop. The workshop was good, especially the field trips, and we spent some time afterwards exploring the country a bit more. Our trip included a failed attempt at climbing one of the country's highest volcanoes (Cotopaxi, almost 5,900 m; and because it's close to the equator it's one of the furthest points from the centre of the Earth), a trip to zero latitude, and a couple of days in the jungle.

December was dominated by conferencing and Xmas, as usual. San Fran was quite rainy, whereas in Germany we got a winter wonderland on Boxing Day. I did a little Europe hopping while I was there, stayed in Plymouth and Bristol for a few days over NYE, spent an afternoon in London at Sandra's new pad, and then went back to Germany for a week.

The spring term (January-April) has been quite busy. I spent some weeks in Vancouver before relocating to Bristol for all of March and early April. I am currently trying to write up my second publication from my PhD, and preparing for my summer: In two weeks tomorrow I will be starting a 4 month internship in Houston! Going to the US of course requires some prep regarding visa, housing, insurance, etc., so with all this plus the paper at least it never got dull... On the upside, we managed to sneak in a week of vacation in Tunisia, which provided a much-needed rest from everything. We spent the entire week migrating back and forth between the bed, the beach, the pool, the restaurant, and the bar, and I disconnected my phone from my email for the first time in years. What a liberation! I highly recommend it!

I only got back to Vancouver a couple of weeks ago. It's been nice to be back home, but I'm already busy packing to leave for the US. My friend Elisa is subletting my room for a while, and it's been nice to have someone around the house.

I'll put some photos from the last few months below, and I will hopefully have updates from sunny and warm (hot??) Houston soon!