Canada! ** Warning - Long Post! (but with pictures!)

Where, even, to start?

The past 6 weeks have been a bit of a blur, part disjointed, but wholly wonderful! :)

On April 19th I flew out of Tegel Airport in Berlin (nearly wasn’t allowed to as I was travelling on a newly renewed Canadian passport having packed my European one, which then confused the customs officials because the new passport didn’t have any of the right stamps in it...note to self: when having Dual Citizenship and owning two passports, travel with both!  They won’t think you’re Jason Bourne, they will simply reconcile the two...apparently!).  After a remarkably smooth, 17hr journey (including transfers) I arrived in Vancouver!!  I tend to “go on” about the Vancouver Airport a bit, which is probably rather annoying, but there is genuinely (in my opinion) no nicer airport to arrive into!  Even after a 17hr journey, when your watch now reads 7pm but your body is saying it’s 4am, and in all the confusion of arriving into a different country, Vancouver Airport is actually kind of soothing!!?!  I take my hat off to whomever designed it with carpet (comforting to tired feet), a colour palette of grey, green and brown (natural shades), aquariums (!), and water features (soothing sounds and refreshing smells!)!!  I tell you, it makes a difference!! (Those of you who have flown through Gatwick or Heathrow will know what I mean! ;) )

Window shot from Airplane, arriving

Flying into Vancouver 

Vancouver Customs Hall

Anyways, that was far too long an “Intro” so I’ll speed up!  For the first week I was based with my brother John and his family, in Vancouver “proper”.  During this time we celebrated my Dad’s 80th birthday with both a really nice lunch out at a beautiful seaside restaurant, and then a small family dinner on the actual day.  We had bought a large “80th Birthday” balloon and made him wear a sparkly party hat at the restaurant and, after receiving a lot of congratulations and birthday greetings from various passing women, he suggested that perhaps, as a single widower, he should always wear them as he hadn’t had so much “female attention” in ages!!  

Both meals were really nice and it was wonderful to simply have the entire family together!  Although my brother and sister technically both live in Vancouver, they’re still about a 40min drive apart (or more, depending on traffic) and often don’t get together because of the normal busyness of life.  Then you have my Dad who lives a 9hr drive away (he came down for his birthday) and me who lives a 9hr timezone away...it was just lovely to be together! 

That same week I got to go up to Squamish for a picnic with my brother’s family and to watch my 13yr nephew in one of his mountain bike races, was able to “crash” a friend’s birthday party, and also “snag” a sushi-date with my sister-in-law! Surprisingly for Vancouver in April, the weather was gorgeous the entire time and my biggest problem was having packed too warm clothes!

Dad, Marina & Andrea, with "Tilicum 2" birthday cake!

My sister Marina, my sister-in-law Andrea and I

My nieces Amelia & Marissa!  These two are just 3mths apart in age and great friends!

My brother John (who designed and made the cake!) and my Dad, enjoying the occasion! :) 

Family shot at The Boathouse Restaurant, Rocky Pt

Sea-to-Sky Highway, heading to Squamish

Family Picnic at Alice Lake

Alice Lake, BC

Ben's inter-school Mountain Bike Race, Alice Lk

My nephew Ben on his bike

The Paparazzi

Ben in action!

Sea-to-Sky Highway at the end of the day

The following Saturday Dad and I drove up to his home in Creston, BC, which is a beautiful valley on the edge of the Purcell Mts.  There we spent a few days enjoying his property (I can sit and watch the scenery for hours...), chopped up a fallen tree, cleared a few trails of windfall, watched a showing of an Opera at the local library, and met various of his friends for dinners or lunches.  Again, it was just really nice to get to spend some time with my Dad, and get submersed in some of what I consider “real Canada”, or at least “real British Columbia”.  

Full Canadian Breakfast at the roadside diner - enroute to Creston, BC

My Dad's house, West Creston, BC

View from the living room

View from the dining room

View from the bottom of his property

View of Dad's house from across the fields...it's the small beige rectangle in the middle...

My Dad had offered to drive me back down to Vancouver at the end of the week, but instead of choosing to “just” do the 9hr direct route, he suggested that we go via Banff, Jasper and the Icefields Highway, which turned it into a 3 day road trip!  I was SO glad that we did as, although there was a lot of driving (5-7hrs/day), it was glorious to get to drive along the mountain highways and be surrounded by the incredible beauty that is B.C!!  I hadn’t been up in that region since I was a child on family camping trips, and it was so wonderful to re-see just where I’ve come from.  The entire province is simply spectacular with mountains, valleys, rivers, glaciers, forests, wildlife...it’s official coat of arms reads “Beauty without End”, and man, it’s apt!

View from 

the car

Lunchtime Stop!

Semi-successful Selfie... 

Lake Louise, BC, beginning of May

Banff, BC, same day

View from the Hostel room, Banff, BC

Picture of what the Athabasca Glacier used to look like, and a view of it now...who says there's no Global Warming???

Athabasca Falls, BC

Dad at the Athabasca River, BC

So, we had a glorious 3 day road trip back to Vancouver where, unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to my Dad as he had to head back the next day, but I’m so grateful for the time we had together!  For the remainder of my trip I stayed with my sister and her family in Cloverdale, which is a little ways out the valley from Vancouver but from which more of my friends, and my church, were more accessible.  The next two weeks was spent helping my sister with “school runs”, connecting with various friends for coffee, dinner or kid’s softball games, getting back to my home church in Langely, and really enjoying my sister’s hot tub and her husband’s cooking!!

The final weekend was incredibly full but couldn’t have been better as far as allowing me the full “taste” of BC before I left, in getting to briefly go to my sister’s “cabin” (rental property for holidays) in Sechelt, getting taken out for the afternoon on a friend’s speedboat, and even getting a chance to go to the Cloverdale Rodeo!! For a long time it was a “tradition” that my birthday weekend was spent at the rodeo with various “horsey-friends”, but I (obviously!) haven’t been in 10yrs!  It was also lovely to get to experience it with my sister and my two nieces!

Unfortunately all visits must come to an end, and mine did too.  But not before my brother and sister managed to surprise me with a giant Angelfood cake as an early birthday celebration!  

My sister waiting for the ferry at Gibson, Sunshine Coast

Marina (not my sister!) at Gibsons, BC (I loved the houseboats!)

A true sentiment I always feel!

This announces itself...

This is the absolutely best pizza place, in the world.  No argument please!

Getting spoiled by the Bisset's (Logan, Marina & I)

Brad Bisset (driving), Dave (my brother-in-law), and the girls enjoying the spray!

View of Vancouver from the water

Enjoying the Cloverdale Rodeo!

Memories... 

Bull-riding (btw, no serious injuries done that day, but the Bulls definitely won)

Traditional McLaren Angelfood Cake...Surprise! :)

Leaving home for home

It really was an absolutely brilliant time, and I am SO thankful that I was able to go and, in a weird way “reconnect” with my “Canadian-side”.  I’ve be able to get back for visits before, but it’s been a long time since it has “officially” been my home, and somehow this trip managed to display to me, as on a canvas, so much of what I love and consider “Me” about where I come from.  It was definitely hard to leave (it seems that it never does get easier...), and I hate the fact that I “miss” so much of the daily life of my family, nieces, nephew, friends; but it was also lovely to get back to Neubrandenburg, celebrate birthdays and Blessings (Dedication) of friends and their children, sleep in my wonderful bed and enjoy my wonderful balcony, and realise that I would miss so much of THIS if I wasn’t here, too!  I am incredibly grateful for the life I’ve been able to live, and for the innumerable gifts of friends, families, locations and experiences that I’ve been able to experience and receive.  There are always costs involved with our choices and that’s ok.  It doesn’t mean that we don’t value what we’ve “paid”, but rather that we do!  Every step further, or higher, or deeper, comes because of the value of what’s gone before.  Someone once said “We stand on the shoulders of those who’ve gone before us”, I’d like to “tweak” that and would rather think of it as a connection of hearts.  Each step, each reach, each new acheivement is because of a connection with another.  Another person, another place, another experience or possibility.  And as we connect, we can stretch further, wider, higher.

Thank you again for the place your heart has in my journey!