Arrival in Vancouver

Vancouver has been treating me well so far. I arrived a week ago Sunday without issue and hopped in a cab. My decision to bring my bike with me was almost immediately validated because there are trails Everywhere! Plus with the warmer weather coming here a bit earlier a lot of the landscaping has already started to flower, so some of the gardens are rather impressive and work well with the mountains as a backdrop. I really didn't know what to expect, but seeing the mountains right over the city is cool, I must admit. I've also been down to the beach briefly on a bike ride, so its nice to have the water within a km or so.

I'm staying in the alpha-delta-phi frat house, conveniently located on the UBC campus, about a 4min bike ride from my work. The place is only a couple years old, so my single bedroom serves my purposes just fine. The basement is decked out with a big screen TV, wall of sound, pool table, bar and about 6 leather couches...so the hockey games are enjoyable - even though most start at 4pm! The five 'brothers' are rather easy-going so there was little adjustment necessary on my part :P The other ~20 people in the house seem alright too; just general boarders from all around, including France, Australia, and Austria.

Working at Triumf is a new experience. I'm getting to know the place. I think there are a few hundred employees, mostly physicists, plus about 30 co-op/summer students. My supervisor has shown me around a bit and has indicated I'll be working on some database systems, as well as writing some small utility programs and who knows what else. Again the atmosphere is not too tense, he says he stresses output over hours so I guess that could be interpreted in two ways.

As for my plans for the summer, this weekend the co-op students here met up at Granville Island (market, and restaurants) on Saturday. There has been talk of going to Whistler, as well as probably heading over to Victoria Island at some point. For my birthday I will probably check out one of the places downtown Vancouver, but thats still a week or so away. At this point I'm already wondering how I'm going to fit everything into my 4 months.. have to stay busy I suppose.