Travel writing assignment

Tomorrow morning I'm hopping on a plane to Kelowna—I'll be on a 3-day tour of the Thompson Okanagan to write a travel guide for BCLiving.ca. I'll be in the company of four other local writers, none of whom I have met. We'll be drinking beer and wine, going to farmer's markets, museums and restaurants together. The publishing industry is notoriously small, so I'm looking forward to making some new writer friends and discovering the inevitable friends-of-friends connections and colleagues/former colleagues that we have in common. I always find those to be fun conversations.

Luc's already informed me that he's going to eat at Wendy's every night that I'm away—thank the lord it's only two.

The Red Carpet Premiere!

This week marks the official debut of my married name in the publishing world. I wrote a series of articles for Granville Magazine called the Indie Theatre Guide, and the first two (Hollywood Theatre and Pacific Cinémathèque) of eleven articles were published this week. The series covers independent cinema in Vancouver, and I was lucky enough to visit and photograph just shy of a dozen of our local theatres.

The timing is great because the fall is my favourite season for movie-going—given that there's no snow on the mountains yet and it's too chilly to spend time at the beach. After Thanksgiving I intend to visit Fifth Avenue Cinema and catch a mid-week showing of the Social Network.

On some recent accomplishments

It's been a while, yes, but I'm back from wedding mania and home from the honeymoon and I have lots to report. I'm just going to start with some things that I recently knocked off my 101 Things To Do in 1001 Days list.

Let's start from the top...

#13 - Get a job in publishing
Check! I was fortunate enough to be offered a full-time position by the company I did my internship with. I start in a week and I couldn't be more excited. Although working full time means writing my thesis will take a bit longer (pushing graduating to a later date), this is the kind of opportunity I've been hoping for since I went back to school. And bonus, we can finally start looking for our own condo! So maybe that "buy a home" item on the list will be the next thing to be checked off?

#26 - Order room service
A honeymoon is the perfect time to indulge, so I'm happy to say that this item can be checked off several times! Pictured below is a champagne breakfast on our balcony. This is moments before I shot the cork off the champagne bottle into the pool area below. Whoops!

#47 - Read 100 books
I'm getting ever closer to my 100 books. My most recent conquest was "Committed" by Elizabeth Gilbert, the infamous "Eat Pray Love" author. I received it as a birthday gift and thought it would be an appropriate post-wedding read. Maybe not, though. Although Gilbert eventually comes to peace with her second marriage and finds her own nesting spot in legal matrimony, the entire book is basically her squinting skeptically at the strength and longevity of modern marriage. There was a bevy of fascinating historical information on marriage, but it was a little bleak for a beach read.

#54 - Swim at the bottom of a waterfall
We left our resort for one full day, and on our agenda was climbing a waterfall. We took a tour bus down the North coast to Ocho Rios, where we climbed Dunn's River Falls. It's a 700 foot high, unique waterfall that is broken into several shelves. Many spots involve linking hands in a human chain to increase stability when scaling the rocks. The most fun was swimming around at the bottom of the falls and the spot where the rocks had formed a waterslide.

#73 - Watch a sunrise
It's pretty much against the rules of vacationing (let alone, honeymooning) to get up at 5:00am, but after watching several amazing sunsets, we really wanted to take in the sunrise as well. We actually snuck onto the roof of the hotel...and it was worth it.

#80 - Take Luc to the spa for a massage
Not only did Luc get a massage, but we also did the sauna, steamroom, hot tub, water therapy, freezing cold plunging pool, and couples facials. He probably doesn't approve of me telling my blog readers that...but after my lengthy absence, I'm not even sure how many of you there are left!

#98 - Go an entire week without checking the stat counter on my blog
Needless to say, with the wedding and the honeymoon I've been pretty disconnected from everything digital. And it's been a nice break. But make no mistake...it's nice to be back!