A weekend jaunt before classes began -or- A Place from Another Time

Today is the second day of classes, and it’s been a happy whirl of a gray-skied morning, running about and finalizing costs and textbook-acquiring, along with a Social Insurance Number so that I can work my small cleaning job on campus this summer…

I can’t wait to tell you more about these classes and how they’ll prepare me for work in PNG, but I thought today, that in honor of “the calm before the storm” of coursework, I would take a moment to celebrate the slow-paced lovely weekend I had, getting to know some of the women in the home I’m living in and re-acquainted with the little town the school is situated in...

On Saturday, I walked myself into Fort Langley, which is a little village in the already little township of Langley, and it’s the cutest! The walk was beautiful, and very good for clearing my travel-head and unpacking-hands. Here are some highlights for those that want to “visualize” my first few days back here:

This woman and her amazingly calm sidekick-pup were volunteering at the old rail station. They show guests around a lonely caboose that sits in a grassy yard, and she unlocked a lovely, tiny, whitewashed room for me in the back of the old station that held some local artists' paintings. 

Another volunteer was waiting in the caboose to show me some relics of the Canadian National (CN) rail. She pointed a long, serious finger at the white cloth suitcase in the center, and said “Do you know what that suitcase’s name is?”... And then answered herself with a cheeky grin and “Its name is ‘Please-Don’t-Rain’!”  

I KNOW some of my family and friends (ahem!..Paul A. and my cousie’s Joyce and Mike!) who watch “Once Upon a Time” might recognize this… They’ve filmed some of the show’s early scenes here, as Storybrooke’s town hall! It is actually the Fort Langley Community Hall.

And then back again…