Vancouver again - this time, in the winter

I apologize for the delay in posting this .. a lot of stuff has happened between the last post and today. Mainly, I was busy studying hard to take the PTCB exam for my pharmacy technician certification. I am happy to say that I did pass my exam and am now officially a CPhT! Bad news is, because of the ridiculousness of different state laws, Washington state will not grant me a license because I didn't 1) go specifically to a community college/vocational pharm tech program, or 2) work as a tech somewhere else for more than 2 years (in Hawaii I only worked a year).

So, needless to say that with Harborview Medical Center here in Seattle turning me down on three of my applications (don't even get me started about how their job posting was requiring licenses that don't exist according to the WA state board of pharmacy), I must turn my eyes elsewhere. Considering that I am graduating this May, it would be nice to have a full time job in my field lined up. So, since Ian and I are both flexible, we're looking at San Francisco as an option ... a lot more opportunities since I can be fully registered/licensed in California since I passed the PTCB exam (Washington won't grant an exception even though I demonstrated sufficient knowledge of mixing/compounding/drug classes/pharmacy law/controlled substances, etc). I saw a job posting that closed recently for San Francisco General Hospital which offered a salary of $50,000/yr ... not bad at all.

I'm keeping UW and UCSF pharmacy schools open as an option in the future, but I'm really looking at studying in Scotland as a serious option. Something is wrong with the U.S. when it's cheaper for me to pay international student tuition (mind you, Scottish residents like other Europeans don't pay any tuition at all) than in-state resident tuition in CA or WA. Give me the option to live in a much more socially progressive society where education and healthcare are looked at as fundamental rights rather than privileges, where the field I'm interested in (clinical pharmacology) is in a much more advanced practice level, add in the fact that I don't have to finish pharmacy school with $100,000 in debt and the ease with which one can just hop on the bullet train and be in Amsterdam or Paris in a couple of hours and I'll take that option any day. So I guess my plan for now is to just get a pharmacy technician job at a San Francisco hospital, save up a bunch of money, and hopefully apply to some UK pharm schools in the future. I'm in absolutely no rush however...  enjoying my journey the whole way.

These pics were taken January 2nd, I just forgot to post them ...

The waterfall and wading pond in Cal Andersen Park totally froze over (well, not totally .. just the surface) so I was walking on water! :-p

Ian took this pic one evening... just outside the bedroom window looking south at Mt. Rainier

Anyhow, after studying nonstop for that exam, Ian and I took a little three day trip up to Vancouver again to just relax. Hotel was paid for by airplane mileage and transportation (Amtrak cascades train ... this time, business class!) was paid for using my credit card points so it was basically a "freebie" trip :)

This time we stayed in the West End (in my last Vancouver post in the summer, we stayed in the Gastown area)

This was pretty cool ... in the UBC Robson Square just in front of the Vancouver Art Museum (the building with the pointy green roof), in the winter, the city makes a little ice skating rink in the sunken plaza ... only $3 to rent skates and you can stay as long as you like!

Downtown ... caramel shop

Getting through the cold, wet winter by chowing down on Poutine! (for those that don't know, poutine is a french-canadian creation consisting of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy .. mmmmmm)

Hot air balloon in my matcha latte at Melriches' coffee house in Vancouver's gay village

Crème glacée ... en français!

Walking around town all morning the second day ... here I'm on the Burrard Bridge

False Creek from the Burrard Bridge

Spent the second evening at the top floor of our hotel having dessert in the rotating restaurant .... took about an hour to rotate 360 degrees. We shared a dessert sampler (the little orange balls with leaves are gooseberries!), sipped cappuccinos, and just relaxed

The following morning and afternoon before the train back home, we wandered on foot through Stanley Park. Last time we were here in the summer, we biked the entire seawall surrounding the massive park and the city, but we never ventured into the the densely-forested middle...

Beaver Lake in the center of Stanley Park ... is that a blue heron?

It seems as if the nature gods thought that this trip would have been too relaxing if we had returned, as planned, via cozy business class on the Amtrak Cascades train. When we arrived at the station to pick up our tickets, the agent told us that our train had been cancelled due to a mudslide across the tracks. I figured we were going to be stuck in Vancouver, but we were able to get put onto the coach buses leaving for Seattle (you bet I got my extra points refunded for business class!). It wasn't all that bad and actually arrived in the city faster than the train would have, but at one point about two hours north of the city it began to snow so hard that everybody on the freeway was driving at 20mph in a single file since the lane lines were not visible.

All in all the trip was just what I wanted it to be ... not running around trying to see everything (we did that in the summer), but instead just wandering around Granville Island public market, taking naps each afternoon, and getting a lot of reading done.

Anyhow, glad to be back home ... now just waiting for my PTCB certificate to arrive so I can start filing for a CA pharm tech license. Final semester of college begins next week ... 3 years went by so fast. From Ahwatukee to downtown Phoenix, to Hawaii, to Seattle ... and soon to come ... San Francisco?

Haha. We'll see ;-)