It's Begun!

 Hello all you wonderful readers! Wow, what a week. Alannah and I left early Monday morning to the Ottawa airport. From the very start of this adventure I realized that I am going to need a lot of patience this summer. Our first flight was delayed four and a half hours so the two of us were 'trapped' in the Ottawa airport. We then had a less-than-pleasant encounter with a waitress. Nonetheless, the long wait was totally worth it when the time came for us to take off. Flying over the mountains was such an amazing experience - they were so beautiful; I had never seen anything like it before.

We then spent the rest of Monday, Tuesday, and most of Wednesday at Lucy's house. It was a great time spent with her family as well as Ben's. On Wednesday, we were picked up by Martha (our supervisor) at the ferry and from there we traveled to our very first host home. We all had dinner together and spent several hours  getting to know each other.

We've gone to Mass everyday together so far and it has been such a great way to start our days. A really neat thing that we realized is that the church in Coquitlam where we have been staying is called St. Clare of Assisi, and our walk ends August 11 which is the feast day of St. Clare! We all think that she is looking over us this summer.

There are nine walkers going for the full 12 weeks. It's been really great spending time with each other. Thursday we had a training day where we were informed about what to expect day-to-day. Friday we hit up Vancouver city and spend most of the day site seeing and hiking. And let me tell you something: Vancouver is such a cool place! There are trees everywhere. And the coolest thing is seeing tall buildings downtown with snowy mountains in the background. So beautiful!  

So today (Saturday) we went to the Vancouver hospital and we prayed for a little over an hour. We got a few stares from drivers-by, but no crazy people which was good. Today was also our first time speaking at Churches. We all had a great success! The priests and parishioners were all so very supportive. Alannah and I were paired to speak at a bilingual church. The Mass today was in English but tomorrow will be French - I haven't spoken in French in front of people in two years so it should be interested. Tomorrow we will be speaking again at the parishes and hopefully relax a bit before we begin walking on Monday!

(A funny side note: there are nine walkers. There were nine members of the Fellowship. One of the walkers plans to carry his plastic Lord of the Rings ring to Ottawa and drop it in the eternal flame.)