Feb 25th

Feb 25th

My run this morning was pretty nice. The sun was out more than it has been for a long time, so that was a nice change. On the run today there were so many different kinds of flowers coming up all over the park. It was really cool. There were tulips and daffodils coming up in the middle of these patches of grass and the colours were very vibrant. Anyways, I got back from that and made myself some lunch. One of the girls on the trip, Erin, had her family come out to visit her and do some travelling. When I got back, her and her sister had just shown up from the morning of shopping at one of the markets. I ended up talking to them for awhile after I ate before they went out to do some more sight seeing for the day. I decided that since it was such a nice day, I would go take some pictures of the flowers coming up in the park. I think I spent about an hour and a half walking around taking pictures of the patches of flowers and of trees coming into bloom. It was all very pretty. As I got to the far side of the park, I noticed this huge line of people marching along the street. There was a huge peace rally being held today apparently. There were some people in really ridiculous costumes. There was a group of people dressed in black with bright green skeletons on their clothes playing Caribbean music and singing about something. There was just a huge group of people out marching. It was kind of interesting to see actually. From there, I made my way back over to a lake that is known as the Serpentine. Its just a big long lake that winds it way through the park, somewhat like a snake. I spent a lot of time there taking pictures of all the birds that were there. They have mute swans, tufted ducks, mallards, shovellers, I think I saw a red head in there, Canadian geese, your generic sea gulls and a bunch more that I didn’t recognise. I just sort of walked around that part of the park for awhile before heading home.

By the time I made it back, it was pretty late in the afternoon. I did some reading for a while before I started playing 500 with Drew. We played that for a couple of hours before Erin and her family came back. We talked with them for a while, and then Erin’s boyfriend, Kevin, joined Drew and I in cards. We started playing a game called Uecker, which is a lot like 500 really. The big difference is in the bidding and the deck is a lot smaller. I think we ended up playing for another couple of hours before that group started to head to bed. They had had a long couple of days and were getting up early the next day too. That left me alone in the common room for awhile. I wrote in my journal and finally got around to eating some dinner. I watched some cop type shows and even got to see an episode of Law & Order. The thing is though, they don’t play the same start as in the states, which is rather disappointing. About half way through that, Austin came back from spending the day with his family and we talked for a good couple of hours about the day. He headed to bed and a little while after that, Drew came back so we talked for a bit too. I had a couple of things left to write when he called it a night and when I finished with that I head to sleep.