Vancouver

So since the last time I posted I went to University of Puget Sound and then went to Vancouver, Canada for a couple days and up to Whistler to ski for two days. Now I am in NYC. I will try to recap as best I can of the past week.

I met up with Matt prior to going to University of Puget Sound for Easter. We went to a UCC church in Seattle and it was really nice. We got up on stage and sang the Hallelujah chorus with the entire church at the end. I was kind of hesitant to do it (since it wasn't South Congo) but Matt knew how much I had missed doing that at home and made me get up and do it. He did it with me so we both sounded like idiots together on stage. We accidently ended up in the soprano section so we sounded even worse than we would've but it was really fun. After that we went to a restaurant in Pike's Place for brunch (he tried to find an egg's benedict place because he knows that I always eat that on Easter) so we had a mix assortment of food (salmon eggs benedict and pouteen?... very random).

Then we walked around Pike's Place and went to the Seattle Aquarium. It was really fun and we got to see the sea otters playing with each other. They ended up beating each other up and it was really funny to see.

Then I went to the University of Puget Sound. It was my second visit there so it was nice to see familiar faces and people (just like Whitman). It made it more relaxed. After my couple days there Matt and I went to Vancouver. He had a visit at UBC so while he worked I was able to get some of my work done. We stayed right near the Olympic torch and I was able to explore the city more. It was very fun.

After two days there we went up to Whistler to go skiing. Matt has a former consultant friend who is from Vancouver and had a place up in Whistler, so we went up with him and his girlfriend. It was really fun!! I didn't know what to expect and with Matt only having skiied once in his life before this (in KANSAS!) I didn't know how he would do. It ended up being a great time.

We both rented skies and started by going to the middle of the mountain. He was really funny at first and fell down the mountain with style. Eventually he got the hang of it and learned how to do the pie with his skies and stopped falling everywhere. Of course I love when people fall, so I was no help when he would fall down because I would just start laughing and fall over. He ended up stopping after that run for a little bit (it took about an hour and a half to get down that one run because the mountain was so huge!). So then the other Matt (his friend), myself and Matt's girlfriend (Lori) all went to the TOP of the mountain, to the glacier. Now I was terrified. I didn't know what to expect but it was like giant bowl (Tuckerman's Ravine) and you had to ski down it. It took us a LONG time to get up it. It involved three chair lifts, a t-bar and then some hiking to get to the top. We were above tree level, it was crazy. Also, there were signs to be aware of possible explosives that could be on the mountain (due to avalanches), let's just say I wasn't very settled by this at all.

Once we got to the top I looked over the edge and was terrified. Matt and Lori were really good skiers/snowboarders so I was a little scared I was going to die, to say the least. People were just jumping over the edge and skiing straight down this thing it was so scary. So I took the easy route and went slowly around the edge of it, back and forth. I probably looked like a total idiot but I was so scared, it took me forever. The wind was so crazy and was blowing the snow over me (like sand in a desert or sand dune) and the snow at some points were up to my knee because it was such fresh snow. It was crazy! We made it down and I didn't fall once!! I was so proud of myself and I can say that I skied where olympians have skied now!!

After the glacier I was totally exhausted and we all ate lunch. After lunch Matt and I decided to do one more big run down the mountain. We took the gondola all the way to the top and he was going to take it half way down (since it was too steep) and I was going to ski that half and we were going to meet and ski the rest of the way down. Well I am very bad at following directions and ended up skiing in the wrong direction on the mountain. We had decided to meet halfway and not have him leave halfway until we met up (my decision, which was an awful one). Well I ended up skiing all the way to the bottom on accident. It was a horrible run... I was exhausted, there were people everywhere, the mountain was now icy and I ended up falling and twisting my knee. I just wanted this to all be over and meet up with Matt. Well when I got to the bottom I was very upset because I had missed him and it was exactly 4:00 pm when the ski lifts closed. So I had no way of getting back up to him and we didn't have our cell phones because we were in Canada. All I could envision now was Matt standing there with skis, ready to go and waiting for me...

I waited and waited hoping he would come down on the gondola or ski down (which I was scared for him to do on his own but I knew he could do it). After 45 minutes went by I started to get really nervous that he had died on the mountain and I was never going to see him again. I ended up meeting up with our friends and we were all getting worried about Matt. They went to get in their car and drive to a half-way driving point to see if he was there while I waited for him. At this point they gave me one of their cell phones so we could communicate, smart idea. Finally, an hour later he ended up taking the gondola down. I was so relieved to see him with all of his limbs still intact and alive. He thought the same thing and thought I had died on the mountain since I never appeared. It was a horrible feeling that we thought the other person had been in an accident but we were safe and all was well.

The next day we drove back to Washington and I flew out the following morning (Monday) and am now in NYC at Columbia. I have been rather busy and have not had time to explore the campus/city but I have a couple of hours tomorrow where I plan to do so. I think I am going to walk around campus and then explore Central Park. It should be pretty since everything is blooming.

Well that is all for now. More updates to come...


***Picture Key***

1. Matt and I on the mountain
2. The glacier bowl that I went back and forth in
3. The drop off into the glacier on the right
4. The second-to-last chair lift up the mountain to the glacier