You’ll have to forgive me if over the next while I start leaning more towards diary-style entries than whatever other style I might have had before. I thought I should open the summer with that disclaimer.

Vancouver has been nothing but sunshine for the last week, despite its rainy reputation. I’m very appreciative of the fact that my lab has windows in it, unlike last summer. The UBC campus itself is huge and green, unlike McGill which I’d have to describe in comparison as small and cement. The big difference is that UBC is isolated as a community in its own right, whereas McGill leaks out into the city and doesn’t have to worry about building residential areas and restaurants and recreational things on campus.

The point which is getting me conflicted right now is that I’m very tired from a lot of hiking around over the last few days but very reluctant to be lazy and stay in when it’s so nice out. Sure, it’s 10 o’clock now, and I just got in from a long day, but it’s barely even dark yet. I think I need to get down off this sunshine high.

I would be tempted to claim that there was not a single cloud in all of Canada yesterday afternoon or evening.

I started, as always, in that little propeller plane at a modest 15 000 feet over the late-winter woods and lakes of New Brunswick. I feel I can say late-winter since, even though we’re well into May at this point, the branches are still bare are some snow and ice still persists on the water’s surface. I didn’t take a picture this time, though.

Flying into Montreal I noticed that among the checkboard farmer fields there was an occasional rectangle of houses. I can imagine the family, after generations of bringing in the harvest, deciding for one reason or another to leave it behind for greener pastures—figurative ones this time—and letting the developers come in with their subdivision.

After a meal of St Hubert’s chicken in the airport I was airborne again, this time for the long haul to Vancouver. Quebec and Ontario continued with standard east coast scenery before giving way to the Prairies, where the checkerboard squares are larger and reach, literally, to the horizon in every direction, only occasionally giving way to a winding river valley. Brown wheat faded to white, blue, and navy, exactly like being in the shuttle watching moonrise, except with a less pronounced curvature and no celestial orbs. Still, it was a nice view.

I guess I must admit that, though I did see a lot of the Rocky Mountains, closer to Vancouver they seemed to be holding back some cloud layer, so I didn’t get to see the city from above. The city knows how to make a first impression regardless—that much was clear as I was walking by the stone walls, native artwork, and waterfalls in the airport. Yes, waterfalls. And today, after a beautifully sunny afternoon just after sunset, I walked from my house to the beach and put my feet in the Pacific ocean. Not bad for my first day at a new job.