Vancouver BC CA here I am!

Because someone has to earn the money in our household, I am at a philosophy conference in Vancouver for five days. (I am set to give my talk in about an hour and after that I will have nothing but time on my hands. I would have liked to come home earlier--no really!--but since I am here on the university's dime, they informed me that I would be staying over the Saturday as that changed a $2400 round trip flight to a $750 round trip flight. So there you go.) So sit back and get ready for the first walking tour of my time here. First stop, this is the bay outside the hotel I am staying in.

Same bay, looking slightly to the right.

Here I a at the bay, looking back at the southern end of the hotel I am staying in. For some reason, probably because this is Canada, everything seems turned around. The bay, which is part of the Pacific Ocean, and which SHOULD BE ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE HOTEL is actually on the east side. How is that possible? Notice small waterfall there? That thing kept me awake all night last night.

In this part of the world, Spring has sprung. In Flint, we got nothing.

Now I am in my room, looking out my sliding door window. I don't have balcony, but since this is not the U.S. I could easily leap out my 7' tall and 10' wide window/door if I so chose.

Yeah, yeah. More window views.

Here is my room. If all I had to go by was this room, I would have no idea where I was--except at some APA conference somewhere.

This really chaps my hide. I first saw these plants in England and Thomas and I desperately wanted to get some for our yard. But there is no way in hell they will survive in MI--plant growers won't even allow MI residents to buy them. But here they are, growing wild out of some crack in the cement in front of our hotel. Why is life so unfair?

This is looking out my window to the right, to the business center. There are mountains of hotels here and more are being built. Clearly this is the place to come if you want to do business.