Christmas shopping, new friends

I think I pulled it off and did most of my Christmas shopping in one day. Granville Island is a great place to find all kinds of treats, especially when the day is so beautiful. OK, this is probably not very kind, considering the recent dump of snow on Montreal, but when it's been raining for 10 days non-stop out here, you can brag about the clear winter days back East.

I started ripping some of my CDs, so I can listen to them on the iPod. I walked the Granville Island with some energetic music, to kick off the day. It was wonderful. I quickly ran out of fingers to hold the bags, so I had to return home with my findings and then walk back to Granville Island to meet with Libby, Dan, and Jonas. Libby and Dan are friends of Dina and Steve, they used to live in San Francisco, but moved to Vancouver in July. I had a great time meeting with them, chatting about life on the West Coast and running. Libby and Dan signed up for the half-marathon in May (part of the Vancouver marathon) and were curious about the Running Room clinics and my own training.

I had to leave them around 4 to prepare for my evening shift at the food bank society. I made it to the warehouse at 5, unfortunately, nobody was there. I banged on a few doors, ran the doorbell, it looked empty. I saw a few delivery trucks parked outside but no cars. Maybe the shift was cancelled, they should have let us know... I left a message when I returned home and asked them to contact me about tomorrow's shift. The food bank is a 40-minute bus ride away from home, I don't really want to return if nobody is going to be there.

Tomorrow is my 16 km run, I'm looking forward to yet another milestone. Then, I'll be going in to work for a few hours, to make up for taking Friday afternoon off to fly to Montreal.


Blue sky, a bit on the cold side, in Vancouver