Monday with Rachael

Monday was beautiful.  I met up with Rachael for Lunch at Meat and Bread.  Delicious sandwiches!  This was followed by a long walk through Gastown and shopping. Later I met up with Elanor again and we walked over to Forth Ave.  We met Aaron for supper at Fable.  Delicious again!  What a great visit to a great city!

Vancouver at its best.

Lunch!

Rachael looks excited.

More coffee and cupcakes at Revolver.

Walking through Gastown.

At False Creek

More from Sunday

At the Market.

Aaron with his rosemary plant.

Near Wildlife Island in False Creek.

Looking out through the trees in Lynn Valley

Action shots of Elanor hopping across the logs.

Sunday in Lynn Headwaters

Sunday we headed along the seawall to Granville Island for brunch at Edible Canada.  Overall the food was quite good although the group consensus was that it was a bit heavy and salty.  The walk was amazing, though!  We had sun and cherry blossoms.

On the seawall.

 

False Creek with cool clouds and light.

Brunch!

Sharing with Shoo; French toast and eggs benny.

Walking back home through the cherry blossoms

The afternoon plan was a hike to Norvan Falls in Lynn Headwaters Provincial Park.

Old Growth Stump.

The trail was a bit muddy.

Norvan Falls.

We made it!

Yeah!

Suspension bridge at the falls.

Saturday in Vancouver

We started off the day with some coffee at Revolver!  Followed by lunch at the Farmer's Market.  Then a walk down Main Street and Skype chat with Liz.  Dinner was sushi!

coffee is brewed individually in these glass jugs.

I enjoyed the world map on the wall, constructed out of nails.  Gold ones for coffee growing countries.

A happy Aaron after our coffee and cake.

Delicious!  

At the Farmer's Market about to try a crepe full of quince, brie and greeens. 

Bangladesh

Some of you may have heard that I am moving to Bangladesh in August this year.  This will be for 3 years.  The good news is that there are lots of children in Bangladesh and a lot of them are probably sick, so I shouldn't have trouble finding work.

Even better is that I have now found some excellent contacts and am starting to talk with some physicians who are associated with World Child Cancer.  They run a project in Bangladesh, treating children with cancer and providing palliative care!  This is perfect for me!  I have emailed with them a few times and will hopefully join some aspect of the project once I arrive in Bangladesh.  

This is their website if you are interested and this is a recent video which they have produced.  

http://www.worldchildcancer.org

http://vimeo.com/63095550

The move to Bangladesh is starting to look much more interesting and tangible for me now!

Interesting Ideas.

I am going to post some links to articles which I have been reading lately and find to be quite interesting.

The first is an interview with a Palliative Care physician from Montreal.  He is really the father of palliative care in Canada.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/die-softer-how-we-can-give-life-a-better-ending/article11173497/

The second is from the New Yorker and deals with the issue of rising costs in the health care system and some innovative ways to contain the costs.  The piece talks about health care "hot spotting", which is the idea of controlling costs by looking at the patients who end up costing the system the most.  In the article, the author gives the example that 1% of the patients in a particular city accounted for 1/3 of the total health care costs to the system!  This is astounding.  The article is dealing with the American health care system, but I think has some very good ideas which would also apply in the Canadian context.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/01/seeing-spots.html


Enjoy!

Another week, and slightly less snow

I have to say that not much of anything has happened in the past week.  Unless making major progress on upcoming presentations and research projects counts.  I have come to the conclusion, that there is no reason to ever come to Edmonton unless you know someone who lives here and you like them a lot and they have a intense fear over ever leaving this city.  There are a thousand places in which you could meet this friend all of which would be better than coming here to visit them.

As an outsider, I find it fascinating to discover the myths which locals will invent to explain why the negative aspects of their city aren't actually that bad. To further explain my theory, I must first describe in the detail the weather in Edmonton:

It is terrible; freezing cold and extremely snowy for 4-5 months continuously each winter, followed by a pathetic spring.  "Spring" consists of days where the weather is barely above the freezing mark, and there are gale force winds and dirty puddles of melting snow (really lakes, given the amount of snow there is to melt).  Since the city of Edmonton uses sand to provide traction on ice in the winter, as the ice melts, the city is left covered in a layer of dirt.  The unpleasantness of this is further compounded by winds which blow the leftover sand directly into the eyes of any hapless tourists who were foolish enough to come here!  The visitor is further insulted by fleetingly brief moments of blue sky when she may start to believe that spring is coming, but which are quickly replaced by swirling snow flurries, ice-cold sleet or rain and another 5 cm of snow.  

Going back to my original thought, the myth which Edmontonians have developed, is that although their weather is comparable to that of the Arctic, they have beautiful sun.  Well, I have news for them, sun doesn't count unless it is accompanied by warmth.  And it is also not that sunny here, if in doubt, see Southern California for details. 

Well, that is all I have to say for now.  I am so glad that I am going to Vancouver for a couple days next weekend.  

This is such a typically Canadian post; all about the weather.  In most countries they don't spend nearly so much time talking about the weather, mostly because it the same every day: warm and sunny.  Bring on the Bangladesh.

Muffins that Judy was making one morning when I came downstairs.  Delicious!

There is a significant reduction in snow, but still way too much is still there.