A week in which I met at leat a 100 new peopl

I swear you, the title isn't lying, I litterly had a week in which I met over a 100 new people.

It all started when I went to Victoria for New Years. To get there, I had to take a (sky) train, a bus and a ferry which in total took me around 4 hours, something we would never do in the Netherlands, just to get to go to another city. Going with the ferry was beautiful, blue water, blue sky and many tiny islands covered with trees. On Vancouver Island, I was welcomed by Annie, Laura and Naz, we went downtown to go for a coffee and some lunch. Annie and Laura's appartment was huge, more like a family house then a students place. More and more people gathered at their appartment, and we all started dressing up and preparing for NYE.
The night started with a dinner at a friends place, the house was a bit of a fairytale to me, a wooden house, in the middle of a small forest with a view on the beach. The parents of a friends of Annie and Cassie cooked dinner for everyone (which were about 30 people). I really felt part of this lovely friendgroup.
After some time we went over to the house party. There were again another 30 people, of closer and not much closer friends of C&A. I had so much fun there, felt like a party which could be in Amsterdam:) The only downpart was that there was no fireworks at the countdown, but luckily I was supported with some videos of fireworks in Amsterdam by my dutch friends.
The days after NYE I spend in Victoria, eventough I didnt see much of the city, it was fun to eat burgers on the couch and watch movies together.
Comming back in Vancouver, I went back to the Batcave and I got a bit sick, I spend the day after looking for houses. Cassie invited me to stay at her place for a bit so I went over to her place. She had some lovely roommates who invited me for drinks the same night.
We went over to a bar and had some beers, played pool and eat some lovely nacho's. After that, we spend 45 minutes paying, since they split the check for every round you're getting and made a miscalculation (OMG maths!)
On Sunday I went househunting again but the results were kinda dissapointing, luckily a got an email from Luke saying I could stay in the house on campus! Yay, lucky me :D
On Monday I already moved one backpack to my new house, I will be living in a small room with a balcony which only contains a matrass so far (but really folks, this is all I need). The room is really high and has some dimlights (is this an english word?) which makes it all very gezellig; I will be sharing the house with 4 other grad students who are going to move in this weekend (exciting!)
I joined an international student welcome organized by UBC which consisted of a campus tour in which I met sooo many new people. I already found 4 other Dutch students so I feel at home again. In the evening we all went for pizza together, had drinks (no alcohol! :o) and went to a bar (go alcohol).
On Tuesday I started my day at the lab, it was a hazzle to find the building, took me almost 45 min to find (not because I am an idiot, well not compeltely, but mainly because the campus is so big and I have no internet on my phone to google map things). The people in the lab seem fun, I almost took every opportunity to get to know the people by joining all their coffee breaks and lunch gatherings (Alan probalby thinks Im a slacker). I had a nice brain storming session with Alan Kingstone and basically spend the whole day googleing ideas. In 2 weeks we have a lab retreet in which we all go "camping" in a house on Vancouver Island, I am already looking forward to that!

Time to go to bed for me now!

Here's some stuff I learned about Canedians:
- they are friendly, and happy., always, even at times when they're hangover, drunk or heared the same story over and over again, they stay happy and friendly.
- They love talking about food, where to get the best sushi and which place has the best burritos to go to.
- They also spend a lot of money on good food
- Canadians like to think about other peoples intentions. Instead of just asking whether something is okay, they put themselves into the other persons perspective and consider whether he or she wants to do something or not (while in Holland, we just ask, and if he/she doesnt like it, we expect the other person to tell us (while here, because they are so nice, they will always say yes)
- Being vegetarian or eating healthy is hot