stanley park

handed in my feminist theory essay thismorning (bumped into a couple of the women from my class. we stood in the hallway and giggled for about five minutes before dropping the essays into the mailbox. i love this class) and randomly decided to celebrate by going for a bikeride around stanley park. i've been meaning to do this ever since i got here. stanley park is a vancouver icon, and The Book (ie. the lonely planet guide) was very enthusiastic about the cycling. also i miss my bike something chronic. have i mentioned that?

i hired a bike, stuffed my pants into my socks and headed off along the seawall. the path follows the beach, nice flat path, stunning views out to the mountains, lots of people mucking round on rollarblades. beautiful sunny day. then there was a detour through the centre of the park, which turned out to be a really steep gravel path, but through the most amazing forest. it's huge! look at these trees! and it smelt so good, all green, with occasional whiffs of the sea.



i realised the reason there was a detour was because stanley park got really beaten up in all those big storms we had late last year, and lots and lots of trees came down. so lots of the paths were closed, and there were fallen trees everywhere. you could even smell sawdust (which always reminds me of my childhood).

one hell of a storm, cos they're not small trees:

i got back on the seawall towards the end, and look, VTA's future home! (the building shaped like a hut):

oh and there were raccoons (not in a cage, just behind the little fence on the edge of the path). and while i'm blathering about size, i always thought raccoons were cat-sized, y'know, but really they're more like small-to-medium dogs:

it took about an hour, i probably went 10k, rental was only $10 cos a student (yay!) and i feel like a better human. huzzah for random cycling!

and now back to the study. one paper down, one to go. plus marking and whatever. i have been reading stuff about charlemagne, the european king from the 8th century. it's *fascinating*, all this religion and imperialism and politics. i have decided that it is a very bad thing to be a young royal. you tend to get disappeared.

me in downtown cafe w/ _Charlemagne: Empire and Society_.