expanding my world

There was a time when the thought of wandering around a decent-sized city all on my lonesome would have been absurd to me. But becoming an adult means that the terror of exploring someplace new on my own has faded quite a bit.

Yesterday, I went on one of my trips down to UBC to borrow books. It's close to a two-hour bus and train ride just to get there, but it's always interesting. This time, I went out of my way, first going to Gastown and stopping off at Dressew. I'd been told numerous times that I needed to go there, so I did. While I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about their fabric selection (having grown up in the same town as Mill End, I'm a little spoiled and therefore picky when it comes to fabric stores), I was highly impressed with what they had in notions. I've never seen so many zippers in my life. I ended up buying a 28 cent package of measuring tapes, since I'm always managing to misplace mine. Now I have one of those retractable ones, and another non-retractable one.

Then I wandered around the corner to Button Button. I've been there before, but it's the sort of place in which I could probably spend a couple hours, given the chance. I emerged with these:

I'm very fond of buttons. I think I know which sweater the greeny-brown ones may go with, but I'm not sure about the coin ones yet (they're casts of ancient coins--they say "Elfred" on them).

Anyway, after the button shop, I went to UBC and to the fantastic library. I love the libraries there. I emerged with a few books, and made my way over to a friend's place, following her directions to take the bus. After lunch, my next adventure was to hop on a bus and hope that it would get me to skytrain.

Well, it did. I had to take the Canada Line over to the Expo Line, so while I started my journey out to Vancouver at the beginning of the Expo line, I started my journey home at the end of it.

And I made it home all in one piece, though with my poor ankle (which I'd twisted the day before) slightly the worse for wear. And, as I reflected on the way home, there's more of Vancouver that I connais (know).