I LEFT MY CAMERA ON A BUS and I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT

Ok, so. No photos today.

I have had a couple of quiet days recently, which I have actually really enjoyed, but today I went to Grouse Mountain with Rob and some other UBC people who've just arrived. I caught a different bus to them and we met at the entrance to the mountain. Rob introduced me to everyone, I said hi and immediately forgot all of their names, and then Rob said '...I probably should have mentioned that we're hiking up there.'

Then I noticed that everyone else was wearing shorts and I was the only one in jeans. I thought briefly I could go and buy a water bottle and just deal with it, but then I remembered that day in year ten when I walked up Rangitoto in jeans, and almost died, and took another look at the mountain and thought 'get fucked.' I decided I'd take the skylift up and fill in an hour and a half or whatever while they all killed themselves walking up. That meant I spent a lot more money than everyone else, but I don't want to talk about that either okay. It's alright. I've saved heaps of money living with my relatives and this is the first actually expensive thing I've done so it's fine.

I watched a couple of cheesey videos about the history of Grouse Mountain and the life of the two orphan grizzly bears who live up there, and by the time I was done with that most of the others had made it up. Rob is a man of few words, and when I asked him how it was he just said 'it was hard.' His face said it all really. When I was going up on the skylift and I saw how it was almost vertical towards the top I knew I'd made the right choice. It was one of those things where you think 'sweet, I can totes do that' and then you think about it for two seconds and realise that after all the working out you haven't been doing in the last month it would probably literally kill you. You guys would understand if you'd been there.

So next we did a chir lift, which was at once fun and a bit terrifying (I always spend half of those things having fun and the other half convinced I'm about to face my death), looked at the grizzly bears and watched the last half of a bird show. We also went to a lumberjack show, which was as my uncle promised 'a hoot'. It involved these two incredibly talented and good-looking guys climbing poles and incredible speeds, chopping wood, throwing axes and finished with a log-running competition (that's when you have to try and stay on the log while it's spinning round and not fall in the water). Both of them got totally soaked, but the guy representing my half of the audience won, and he ran past the front row and gave us all high-fives. I was right at the end so he gave me a hug, and I felt very special and then a bit damp.

That was pretty much it for Grouse Mountain, so we took the skylift back down and caught a bus back. I transferred to another bus before going home, so I'm not sure which one I left my camera on. I tried calling lost property but they're not answering their phone, so I sent an email and now I'm just putting it out of my mind. It does kind of suck of course, but stuff like this happens. I only had a few photos on there that I don't have on my laptop, and I'll be going back to Grouse (hopefully on a day that has a better view) so it's not the end of the world. Electronics are cheap here, so if it doesn't show up (and I'm optimistic that it will, Vancouverites are very good people after all) I can probably replace it for $40 or maybe less. It won't be as good, but honestly my camera has like a million functions and I only understand about two of them. I never use it to do anything except take photos, so I just need a basic model.

I know I could have the reaction of getting upset and angry at myself and whatever but I'm really trying to avoid negative thoughts like that here. It doesn't achieve anything. And anyway I knew and I keep reminding myself that things WILL go wrong. It happens. You get stopped at the border going back into Canada. You leave your camera on a bus. Life goes on.

So sorry if there aren't any photos for a couple of days people :( I'll get it sorted out soon.

Claire