VANCOUVER // FIVE-MONTH CHRONICLE

:: SUB-ARCHIVE / PERSONAL_LOG_2020 // CANADA_EXCHANGE ::

Have you ever tried asking yourself: "why I am the way that I am? What has made me the person that I am today?". It is a very difficult question to answer but I think that one way to do so might be to say: "I am the sum of all my experiences, good and bad, and the people I have met in those, nice and assholes."

Of course this cannot be a definitive answer as we should understand how exactly each experience changes us and that's much much harder to do. However, in my life, if there has ever been one such expierence that I can point to and say "ah, so much of who I am today I owe it to that" it must be for sure my 5 months in Vancouver, Canada.

See, I don't remember much of who I was before going to Canada. It is not because I thought I was no one or I was unhappy with who I was. I think it was because I simply did not know who I was and that did not seem to bother me.

That changed in Canada. In school I was asked to choose my own educational path and I decided to go to unexplored territories such as "genocide studies" or "social justice" or "creative writing" (btw, I am sure Ms. Courmier would be happy about this blog). Then let's face it: in Canada high school is not as difficult as in Italy. This meant that I had far more time to do whatever I liked.

Great! But... what is that I like? At the time it was mostly videogaming and so I would play online with my brother. Even then though, you can only play so much: what to do with the rest of the time?

I figured that since I was not to stay in Canada forever, it would be nice to explore the region a little bit before leaving and so I did. That's when I made (unconsciously) the first step towards change.

As you probably know, Canada is world-known because of its nature and so that's where I started going and... boy did I like it. I started doing what I later would know was called "hiking" and if I look at pictures of me back then you could see I was inexperienced. Skinny jeans, super warm Woolrich coat, and a pair of white Nike AF1: not exactly the ideal hiking outfit.

But of course back then I did not know all that and nonetheless I had so much fun. Walking across those massive woods and plains, bathing on alpine lakes, and the first summits... of course all while looking at the Ocean!

As the days passed, I began to understand that I liked all this stuff because of its common denominator: nature. Even when I was not doing crazy stuff with friends, I would always be in the nature. Walking along the ocean, reading in front of it or just looking at it. Nature began a companion to spend time with.

Now, this entry is already too long so I will not indulge on further saying anything else on the experience. If you are interested in knowing more, I had to realize a video on the expierence for my Italian high school. I will link it below.

What I want you to know is that in Canada I learnt that I liked nature and since then, I never stopped looking for it. I always like to say that, without Canada there would be no day hikes, or no long trails: No Santiago, no Francigena, no biking and therefore none of the thoughts and reflections that came out of those trips and contributed to make me who I am.

Possibly, without Canada there would not be this website... Who knows... Anyway, as always enjoy the photos (at the time I still was not using cameras, so I just used my phone and I liked to edit a lot some pictures, so that's why some of them look weird).