Victoria Bound!

Happy Friday! And first of May! I couldn't be happier right now as today was my last day on pathology and my next block is vacation! I'm typing this from the airport, awaiting my flight home to Victoria.

I've got to say, leaving town is a really good motivator for getting stuff done. I've spent the past couple of days running errands and cleaning my apartment (properly!). This morning I headed to Staples as soon as it opened to pick up a little ASUS laptop for my mom (5% sales tax in Alberta compared to 12% in BC does make a difference!). I made it into the pathology lab by 9 am, wrote my final pathology quiz, and met with my preceptor for my end-of-block evaluation. Then I headed down to the morgue for a few hours to watch an autopsy, before hurrying home for lunch and last-minute packing.

A train and a bus ride later I was at the airport and figured I might as well just ask at the Westjet counter to see if I could switch from my Edmonton - Calgary - Victoria flight to a direct Edmonton - Victoria flight that would depart just five minutes later. The Westjet lady at the counter was so helpful and switched me to the direct flight without even charging me the $50 change fee -- so very kind of her and definitely made my day!

So grateful!

[Had to put my computer away! Continued...]
Trading my window seat for a middle one was only a small price to pay for getting home a full three hours ahead of schedule. The flight was only 90 minutes long and seemed even shorter with satellite TV (hockey was the only thing I could watch without headphones -- last-minute packing fail) and Westjet's coffee and Biscoff cookies (which are actually the best ever).

Always nice when a flight's shorter than a hockey game.

The plane took an interesting route, skirting around the lower mainland and ending up over the Island, quite a ways north of Victoria. It then flew south, passing fairly low over the Island, affording the most gorgeous, sunny views I've ever seen of the Cowichan Valley farmland and coastal islands. For those five or ten minutes all I could think was how foolish I was to have ever left the coast.

Since I arrived in Victoria around 5:30 pm, I got to take advantage of the beautiful sunny evening with a nice long walk around the neighbourhood. With the trees in Edmonton still looking pretty skeletal, it's incredible to see so much green (and tons of flowers!) all over the place here.

I had a great dinner with my family (my dad's home-grown kale soup and my mom's shepherd's pie, yum) then sat down to set up my mom's new laptop.

Looks like my four weeks in BC are off to a good start! It's such a joy to be back :)