Adventures in the land of Maple Leaves and Beavers

I spent the month of July back home in Canada visiting family, friends and attending 2 weddings. At final count, I was in 3 different provinces and 2 states, a total of 7 cities. Needless to say, it was crazy and not all that relaxing, but it was great to see people, visit and just travel around. My first stop was a week in Calgary, visiting my sister and brother-in-law. They have just bought a house and it was nice to just relax, sleep in and see some old friends. It was however, a little odd since I was in the town I grew up in, but no where near the house I use to live in. My parents sold their house this spring and have moved to Vancouver Island so it was quite weird to be in a place I am so familiar with, and yet be living somewhere so unfamiliar. It was sort of a family joke that when I came back to Canada there would be nothing familiar (my parents have a new house in a different province, a new car, my sister has a new house, etc...).
The next stop was Saskatchewan for the wedding of my God-sister. Saskatchewan gets such a bad rap because, well, it's flat... and it's farm country. But having spent a week there, I can honestly say it's absolutely beautiful. The people are excellent, the weather was fantastic (although a little too hot at times, 39 degrees for example). We had a great time and the wedding was lovely. Much laughter and fun to be had. It's always fun when my Godparents' family and my family get together.
After a brief stop back in Calgary for a day to recover, we were back on the road, heading for the coast. We had excellent weather all the way although, again, it was slightly too hot at times (39 degrees while stuck in traffic in Vancouver is not pleasant). The heat made the ferry trip from Vancouver fantastic and we spent the entire trip outside on the top deck. Finally after a 16 hour day, we made it to my parents new house. I love the location and look forward to visiting. It's great because you can just sit out on the back deck and watch the eagles and seals while drinking coffee and reading (or working on puzzle books). There's also the cruise ships heading up to Alaska and they live near a ferry dock. You can tell one is retired when the cruise ship horn sounds and everyone looks at their watches and says "oh, the 10:15 is running a little late today". It's a beautiful location but unfortunately there were too many jobs to do so there wasn't a lot of relaxing time. When I moved away from Victoria, I just packed up all my 6 years of stuff and carted it up to the house. I then of course had separate boxes of my childhood stuff in Calgary and my stuff that I took with me to Toronto. So, my job this summer was to go through all my boxes (as they are now all in one place) and organize what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to get rid of, and pack them all up again. It was kind of like Christmas in that I got to find all this stuff I forgot I had. It did take a while but I'm glad that I went through it all and organized everything.
We then headed off to San Diego for another wedding (we flew this time). We only stayed for the weekend so we didn't have that much time to explore. However, since the wedding was an evening wedding we did have most of Saturday to go and see some of the city. When we first got there we learned that the Dead Sea Scrolls were on display at the Natural History museum and so decided to spend our time there. The museum itself was quite amazing but the Dead Sea Scrolls were even more so. I figure that you have to take these opportunities when they arise because who knows when I will actually be in place where they are being displayed again. There were tons of people there but my parents and I had a really enjoyable experience.
After many hours sitting in airports (San Diego and Seattle) reading Harry Potter, I was back in Canada spending some time in Victoria. Having spent 6 years there, I had a number of people I wanted to see and spend time with and very little time to do it. We ended up planning an evening beach party and then headed out to my favorite pub. All in all, it was great to see everyone and find out what everyone has been up to.
I then headed back to my parents house for a couple days then headed from there to Vancouver to catch my plane back to Scotland. I ended up meeting up with another friend there for lunch while I waited for my flight, which was great! If only I would have had some extra time to hang out with people more but alas, it was not meant to be. Hopefully when I head back next summer things will be a little less crazy!
I'm now back in Scotland, trying to get caught up on everything I didn't do while I was away. It's good to be back and I'm now moved into my new flat so things should calm down a bit. I need some time to organize myself so no more big trips for a while. It was really nice to get away for a bit though. I definitely needed the time off. But now I'm refreshed and ready to go. Hopefully this chapter I'm working on right now will come together.

I'm hoping to have more pictures from my trip up on my picture website soon so you can see all the excitement! (picasaweb.google.com/medea.colchis)