One Month

Since arriving back into Canada on April 11th, I spent a week up in my home town of Powell River enjoying the company of family and old friends. The weather was amazing and as always the adventure to get to Powell River was beautiful. Two ferries along the coast and a long winding drive down the peninsula with my mother and sister. We spent a week there, eating mostly Thai food and enjoying ice creams and before we knew it it was time to drive back to Vancouver.

Back in Vancouver I was reunited with my cat Ricky, Mexican food and my very good friend Chris moved to Vancouver to work at SFU.

I'm happy to say that I was able to find work a week after searching. I decided to see if I would be able to go back to my old job and they were able to hire me in the same position I left but on a different shift. I was able to keep my old wage so I was very happy not to have to start at the bottom and have to work my way up. I was hired on May 4th and started work May 5th. I work Monday to Fridays which is great and allows me to have the weekends off. 

My mother worked up North of Fort McMurray and there has been a terrible forest fire that destroyed the city. She was able to get out and fly to Vancouver on the 6th. We were very worried about her being up there so were very happy to have her be able to get out of there. We enjoyed a nice breakfast at Angelina's in New Westminster before sending her off on Pacific Coastal to fly up to Powell River.

I attended a Vancouver Whitecaps FC match against Portland Timbers at BC Place with Shawn, Jordan and Carol. The Whitecaps won and it was a really good match. It was nice to sing and clap along with the rest of the fans.

I spent yesterday with Chris and Shawn wandering Main Street. We walked down to Cartems Donuterie and enjoyed the rootbeer and watermelon doughnuts. They were very delicious and we shared them between me and Shawn. We walked up to Welk's and did a bit of shopping. I picked up a journal and a few lip balms. I am going to try hard to keep up a diary/journal/written account of what I get up to. We stopped at Bob Likes Thai Food for lunch and I had a Thai iced tea and the Red Duck Curry which was delicious and very filling. We were stuffed so I am looking forward to having those for left overs.

Valencia: Falles Day 2

After waking up after my long night enjoying the Valencian nightlife with the hostels falles "tour" which was actually a pub crawl. I had missed the walking tour which I had hoped to take.  Heading back to Plaza de Reina, I was happy that the sun was out and the skies were blue compared to how grey it was yesterday.

Valencia: Falles Day 1 Afternoon/Night

As I mentioned in my last post, I took a lot of photos and would love to share the beauty of the Falles festival with any that happen across my blog. This post is a continuation of my first one. I felt I had so many photos that it would be better if I split my first day of Falles into two parts. This second part is what I got up to in the afternoon and night of March 15.

As with the other post I will place it below a break.

Getting back home.

Sorry for the absence of posts. It has been an eventful time. I left Liverpool April 5 and flew to Iceland where I stayed for 6 nights. On April 11, I flew home and managed to surprise my sister. Since arriving I've been catching up with friends and family. I have a lot of adventures to catch up on in my blog and will be focusing on the next chapter of my life in Canada. I will try and keep active and post more often about my daily adventures.

Valencia: Falles Day 1.

Arriving in Valencia, I hurried from the train station to my hostel, the Purple Nest. I dropped my bags off and hurried out to explore Valencia and the Falles festival.

For those who do not know Falles is a traditional celebration for Saint Joseph in Valencia. Falles refers to the celebration and the monuments that are built. Each monument is burnt on the last night of the celebration. Each day at 2 pm there are audio fireworks in and at night there are fireworks.

As I walked towards Plaza de la Reina, I saw lots of graffiti, if you have been reading my blog you may have noted that I do take an interest in street art. I really enjoyed finding the art in Valencia.

I really enjoyed this Egyptian themed one.  I did not get good lighting right away on it as the sky was very grey but it was beautifully detailed. It was the first one I came across and I was very excited to see it.

I had been wanting to attend the Falles festival since I came to Valencia with my mother in 2009 a week or so after the festival and realised we had missed something really big and special. We had even known about the festival and not many people do. I made it my main bucket list goal of my going to Europe was to attend falles. As my family came to visit me in March of 2015, I made sure that in 2016 I would go to Valencia and see the festival with my own eyes.

(Warning lots of photos of falles because I took all the photos )