Summer in the city

It is a bit odd to think that one year ago today, I was in Bermuda, interviewing for my current job. Seems like a lifetime ago. I guess a lot has happened since then, like my trip to Europe for my convocation and my subsequent move to and from Bermuda and my relocation to Vancouver. And it certainly doesn’t really feel like the first of summer either, with the weather that we’ve been experiencing thus far in Vancouver, I would still say mid spring perhaps. Recently it has been trying though – last weekend was quite nice – nice enough in fact to get a nasty sunburn on my head and arms. A week later I now have a completely new layer of skin exposed on both. Fantastic.

And while there is a chance of rain today (welcome to Vancouver) the temperature is a respectable 17°C with a high of 25 forecast. And to be quite honest, despite what some of my friends and colleagues might be hoping for, I’m not looking for really hot. Around 20 is fine, I can go out without a jacket, perhaps even wear shorts from time to time. Anything more and you are back into the realm of uncomfortable. And I’ve done hot – 47°C in Spain. For the time being I’ll take whatever Vancouver has to offer.

And it had some bizarre things to offer. Much like any city I suppose, there are things you will see that make you wonder. I’m not even talking about the things to see people do – that is another whole category of weird sometimes. No it is the occasional oddity, like the random pile of VHS cassette tapes that I saw just piled up at the side of someone’s house. Not under a window or in conjunction with anything else, just a pile of tapes. Perhaps they were in the process of being discarded, who knows. Or even last night on the bus home, there was a bag of something sitting on one of the seats. It looked a lot like olives, but I’m not certain – they had a bit more of a texture than olives normally do, but they were that colour green and the right size. It was amusing because no one was willing to move them off the seat, or even sit near them, and I when I got on the bus they had been given a fairly wide berth, like people expected them to start walking about. Bus occupancy eventually forced someone to sit beside the bag, but at least as of the point I disembarked, they were still monopolizing a seat of their own. I’m not sure if it is weirder that it happened or that I decided that I should write about it. I’ll leave that one up to you. Maybe the non-heat is getting to me. ;)