British Columbia!

I’ve been waiting on posting about my vacation since I got back on Sunday night, but it seems like I’m only in the mood to sit down and blog on the weekends, most of the time.

Anyway. I had a week off from school last week, and in order to truly take advantage of this glorious opportunity, I went to Vancouver. I have family out there, so this was a nice opportunity to see them, and to spend a solid six days living a carefree, mostly unscheduled lifestyle. (Spoiler alert: a lot of my week involved playing with yarn and cooking.)

First of all, oh my god, it is spring in Vancouver. For the most part, that meant rain and fog with the occasional cloud breaks, but I didn’t have to wear my parka even once. I could wear regular shoes outdoors. I mean, I ended up coming home to a snowstorm, but for a while it was nice to pretend that spring was coming. They have gorgeous, happy crocuses everywhere.

And for a couple days, it stopped raining long enough for me to take a few photos.

The highlight of my trip, though, was getting to go across the water to Victoria. I’ve been there a few times as a kid, but not for years, and when I took the ferry across it was definitely a shock being reminded of how pretty Vancouver Island can be.

The reason for the trip to Victoria was to visit my friend Ann. I have known Ann since we were very little (our parents are friends), and she is an incredibly creative, talented person. She’s been out there for a few years, being fabulous and running her own pottery studio, and I was lucky enough to get to see where she works and play with some clay.

She taught me how to use the wheel to make cup and bowl shapes, which was surprisingly relaxing. It actually reminded me a lot of working on a spinning wheel – a lot of it involves using your hands slowly to control the shape of something that’s spinning much more quickly – and was an insane amount of fun. By the end, I’d made a few not-too-misshapen pieces that I was pretty proud of.

I also got to stick around and watch her teach a class, and the students was kind enough to let me take a few photos of them working.

There was also a fair bit of knitting – I managed to hit up one yarn store, on the excellent advice of Glenna – but that’s for another entry.

there's not a lotta diamonds in this crowd

fireworks02, originally uploaded by pirateygoodness.

(this looks cooler bigger)

As you may have noticed, I took a bit of a break from blogging – I went to visit family for a bit, didn’t bring my regular computer with me, and keeping up with the blog while I was gone just didn’t seem worth it.

I’m back, though, and I did get some knitting done while I was gone. In the meantime, enjoy these photos – I took them during the Celebration of Light in Vancouver, during my trip.

(bigger)

Song of the Entry: Ashley Tisdale – I’m Back (Listen)