A Breath of Fresh Air

The nice thing about having a week back home in the middle of my trip is that it refreshes me for the second half. I was feeling quite homesick before I came back, but now all I can think about is how excited I am for Italy and Greece. Today was just what I needed to be fully charged for the upcoming four weeks.

Today is Mom's only day off while I'm here so we made sure to take full advantage of it. We woke up early and went for a run to Princess Park and back. It was so beautiful - the sunlight was peaking through the branches and glittering in the morning mist. Unfortunately I forgot the bring my camera to capture all these humble moments - next time! When we got back home, Mom showed Mark and I how to make parsnip carrot apple soup (we were video chatting with Mark at the time).

We then put our shoes back on and headed up Grouse Mountain to check out all the snow bunnies having fun up there. Being such a beautiful day in the city, I was quite surprised to see how much snow there was up there. Not only that, the surrounding clouds had hidden the sun and it was truly like we entered into Winter Wonderland. We got home and had a hot bowl of our homemade soup and salad together. A wonderful start to our day :)

I spent the afternoon with my cousin Sonja and her boyfriend Leo. We met up downtown and walked along the False Creek Seawall while I told them about my travels and they updated me on their lives. There really isn't anywhere else in the world that can compare to Vancouver's beauty on a sunny day. There also aren't many places in the world where you can be up on the snowy slopes of a mountain at noon and then basking in the sun by the ocean at 1PM.

Tonight Mom and I made a traditional chinese dinner of mahbo tofu and steaming hot rice like she always used to make for us when we were kids. It's great to be home!

xox

Alexis