Fellas, it's all over I'm afraid - my heart's been stolen…by a city. I am officially in love with Vancouver. Haha No really. It's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in a park in Coal Harbour and through some incredible stroke of luck there's not a cloud on the sky. The colour in the leaves is just starting to turn so all the trees are a beautiful mix of greens and golds and deep red. I have exams and assignments and readings and…it would be a total injustice to stay inside on a day like today! So I jumped on the bus and hauled all my books and my laptop down town!

Last night I went out with my Euro-crew again - more super happy awesome fun times! We met in Jessie's room in the evening for a few drinks and then jumped on the bus down town while Jessie and Helle tried to discretely drink their "cat beer" without the bus driver seeing =P (cat beer = some type of cheap beer that has a picture of a cougar on it that we have come to nickname cat beer! Lol). We went to an apartment where a couple of German guys that Jessie knows are living. Sebastian and Dennis are uni students living in a high rise apartment in down town Vancouver…not far from Coal Harbour. Like, NICE apartment (TV in the elevator!?). So we hung out there for a while with lots of Europeans and a couple of lovely Canadian girls. It was Sebastian's birthday so after a while we decided to head to Gas Town to a club called Modern.

At some point along the way Monica and Veronique decided to head to Granville Street instead but we soldiered on with the original plan, which nearly fell to pieces when we arrived to find an hour long line and $18 cover charge (as an Aussie, used to paying no cover charge at all, I always feel quite indignant about having to pay just to get in to a club!). But then (and I really don't know the finer details of how exactly we managed to pull this off!) Sebastian made some deal with the club owner because there was such a big group of us and we got in for half price, were given VIP access and a round of free drinks! Lol Like I said, no idea how that actually happened…but I wasn't gonna question it! =D

Jessie and I ran (literally) to the dance floor and didn't leave for the rest of the night. It was awesome music - like, Daft Punk, other electro, a bit of old school pop (Kylie Minogue Love at First Sight - hello, best play list EVER!). I couldn't get the grin off my face all night. And Jessie and Helle are like my d-floor soul mates! We love all the same music and are all crazy dance floor fiends haha I can't wait to part with them in Scandanavia…

So we left around 3ish and got a slice of pizza (I can't tell you how much better pizza tastes A) by the slice, and B) at 3 in the morning!). Helle and I were hobbling in our heels, but Jessie brought a giant bag and changed into a pair of sneakers haha I was laughing at her at the start of the night but when you're trekking round the city in the wee hours of the morning in search of a pizza place it doesn't seem like such a crazy idea any more…So it was a huge relief to finally make it onto the bus and we walked barefoot across campus to the towers, cause once the shoes come off there's just no way in hell you can put them back on!

I've spent a lot of time wandering around down town the past few days, because sometimes it gets a little claustrophobic being stuck on the mountain. On Friday Jessie and I were just about going mad so eventually we just put the books aside, jumped on a bus and wandered around for about 5 hours down town. Then I went back down on Saturday to Granville Island with my study notes and sat in a cute little organic coffee café that looks out across the lake with a Chai latte. There's something about that that makes studying seem so much more bearable!

I've also been getting to the gym a little more lately cause I've realised that it could be rather painful otherwise when I get up to Whistler and start skiing. It's great because we only have to pay $15 for a whole semester and we can do as many group fitness classes as we like on the lunch breaks around midday. So I've been trying out all sorts of combat and interval and circuit classes with some of the other exchangers and although for the first few I was pretty sure I was gonna die it's gotten a lot easier now haha So I'm getting pretty geared up for the whole skiing thing now, and I'm going up to the "turkey sale" over the thanksgiving long weekend around October 10th because that's when all of last season's gear gets sold super cheap - like up to 70% off! I've also spoken to the guy who owns the place where I'll be staying and he's said he's happy for me to drop by and take a look at the place while I'm there and leave all my ski gear up there so I don't have to lug it all down to Vancouver and back up again a month later which is awesome. Jesse came over earlier this week too to give me Ski Gear 101 and tell me what kind of stuff I should be looking for - I spent a whole evening on the net researching twin tips and mid fats and women's specifics etc etc haha getting right into it!

Well, I'm just about to meet Helle for coffee in the park so I'll finish up here…lots of love and hugs to all of you all around the world (the world the world the world - aaaah I heart Daft Punk, check out the video I posted of us going nuts on the d-floor to this song last night, every time I watch it my heart swells with happiness hehe)!

LIVxo