23 February, 2008

A Quick Trip to Vancouver

Geese and sunrise over Gulf Islands

In which the heroine demonstrates that she is still a real prairie girl by taking many photos of seagulls and ferries.

I went to Vancouver--just for one day--to apply for a Japanese working holiday visa. Hopefully, in a week I'll be able to go back and pick it up, and I'll be aaaalllll set for summer. I was hoping I would get the visa same-day, so I took the earliest ferry possible. I left home at 5:30, was on the ferry at 7:00, but still didn't get to downtown Vancouver until 10:00. But even though I didn't get the visa today, I'm glad I went so early--it was really fun to watch the sun rise from the ferry in spite of the clouds.

Other travel news: I just got confirmation that my Australian working holiday visa has been granted, one day after applying! (Those upside-down folk are speedy.)

10 February, 2008

Oh, hey, it looks like this is a blog.

Indeed: it is a blog.

I've kind of wanted to have a blog, or blag for a while. It's a fun idea. And now that I'm graduating from university, I feel like I need something to keep me writing, just so I don't forget how to put words on pages on demand. I'm also going to post photos. Hopefully this will encourage me to take photos; I desperately want photography to be a lifetime hobby for me, not a girlish phase (see: Lost in Translation).

What am I going to write about? Well, I'm travelling to Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Australia, and Singapore this year, so that should be a good start. I'll probably write about books, too, since reading pretty much saturates the fabric of my life.

And why "Albatross Tales"? Well, I'm rather fond of fancy-sounding titles. It has connotations of travel and storytelling. Sometimes on the internet I go by Albatross or Tross, and so far it's my favourite username ever. I also intend an oblique and rather snooty-English-major reference to S.T. Coleridge, who is my favourite poet, but that's quite beside the point.

So here's to this beginning. Fingers crossed I'll stay on task and keep it up.