British Columbia - Day 1
Welcome to the trip. It was an early morning, what with the flight departing at 07:00. We actually left for the airport at a quarter to five, because Markus' sister was catching a plane that left an hour before ours. There was a stop-over in Calgary, and then a short flight to Vancouver, where the cloud ceiling was low, and I saw nothing until 15 seconds before touch-down.

The most remarkable thing about the flight was when we entered US airspace for a short period. The captain came on with the new rules. One of them was that you are not allowed to stand for extended periods of time. I stood up to go to the washroom, and while waiting was asked to sit down. That's effective terrorism-fighting.

Before leaving home, I took screen captures of anything outdoors in Battlestar Galactica. I wanted to to a scavenger hunt looking for the locations they shot in. Continuing along: when we arrived, my godfather ("Joe"), picked us up. He had to go back to work on his particle-accelerator, but he let us out at UBC. To my complete astonishment, within the first 20 minutes of walking around campus, we had discovered all of their locations at UBC. They are the library, rose gardens, and arts theatre. I think I'll make a web page devoted to screen-shot vs. pat-shot. The arts centre was actually being used for another show when we were there. UBC's campus has to be the nicest university setting I have ever encountered.

While on campus, we climbed down the 304 stairs to Wreck Beach. It was kinda rainy, so no one was there. However, it felt fantastic to be by the ocean. Very fresh, salty air. The temperature was a nice 19 degrees, which is a good 20 degrees cooler than Ottawa!

While at UBC's library, we booked an awesome hotel suite downtown. It wasn't cheap, but it was well worth it (cherrywood furniture, anyone?). Joe drove us there when he finished work.

The day was completed by buying a map, going out for dinner, and walking down along the coastline. Of course, there was filming for a movie being done there too.