Take it........ and go

Banff National Park, polar bears in their natural habitat and Aurora Borealis will have to wait for some other time. In the few days, we had for such a beautiful and enormous country, we saw a lot, and did a lot more. As Vishnu put it, "Canada was more of an experience" than just a visit or short stay. An extremely enjoyable and memorable experience indeed.

It became very hot towards the end, - a humid 35 degrees without fans and sufficient ventilation, made me sleep downstairs for a couple of days. In James' words, it was that time of the year when Canadians reach the tipping point, and start craving for some less of the sun.
After Keerthi and Rohit left, we were left at the mercy of Supriya for dinner.With the fall in the number of inmates of 65,67 and 69, card games like Prableen (6) had to be abandoned. We took to watching movies and Russell Peters shows during the nights, after spending some time on TT/fussball/billiards. Bob came over at times to give us company.
One night at 3 am we went out for a walk to have pizza from the University Plaza. We recounted the early days and our initial impressions based on names.

The project was wound up with hopes of success in the coming days as my code would be run on about a thousand images. James took us (Ryan and Uzair included) to the grad house, where we chatted for some time, before it was time to leave and I "keep in touch"-ed everyone.

I went through some of the lasts that I would miss... sitting out on the rolling lawns, walking to Sobeys over the meadows and back, speeding down the slope on my bike near the Ron Eydt village while returning from university. After putting up ads on Kijiji, I finally sold it for $75. Five hundred kms of cycling and fun for 20 dollars, - a very good deal, though it would have been great if I could bring The Stealth back home.

The final night was chosen for (not 'by') me to get drunk over Canada. 4 shots of Tequila, with lemon and salt as prescribed by Vishnu, followed by Jack Daniel's was more than enough. It brought out an unforeseen side in Sundaram. He spoke of how much he hated missing out on adventure stuff. Only later did we realize that he can lie when drunk. He went on to give character analyses of everyone in the group, and apparently was pretty accurate at it. Of course, I wasn't in the right state to register what all he was saying, and was half asleep. These details were re-narrated to me the next morning.
The parting was kind of emotional. It always is. Without elaborating on that, I would just wish that our lives meet once again.
Yan accompanied me back to the airport, where it wasn't absolutely uneventful. The travel bags crossed the weight limits. I had to open them up and transfer stuff intelligently taking care of weight and volume constraints, as the bags were not just packed, they were jam-packed.

I had about a couple of dollars in my pocket and about one more in my card just before boarding. I couldn't resist one more Iced Capp Supreme from Tim Horton's before I left the country.