826 Valencia did not appear to have any mermaid repellent/bait in stock, but they did have sand to bury treasure under, scurvy begone, rope dust, and drawers full of enlightenment, lack, and oh, many other wondrous things. I ended up buying the giant squid repellent, which I shall daub on myself liberally as it seems there must be a great risk of being attacked by them here in San Francisco.

I also visited the City Lights bookstore, Jack Kerouac Alley, and am now writing this in Caffe Trieste. I also visited Get Lost, a travel bookshop, as it was selling a copy of Mundane Journeys - Field guide to color by Kate Pocrass, which suggests things to do in San Francisco.

Visiting all these literary landmarks is having the desired effect - it's making me want to write.
Wreck Beach
Wednesday, I visited Granville Island, but like many other places I tried to visit in Vancouver, the main gallery at the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design was closed due to the weather. I consoled myself with an apple green bubble milkshake (tapioca pearls!) and concluded it was too cold to be outside, so decided to go to the cinema. Fast Food Nation, directed by Richard Linklater, was the film I chose and then cried while watching.

Thursday, I headed to UBC, to visit the Museum of Anthropology, where stunning totem poles and masks and other articles related to First Nations culture were stored. After that, I climbed down treacherously slushy steps and over a fallen tree to reach a nudist beach. Wreck Beach was beautiful - a deserted beach covered completely in snow, with a forest for a backdrop. Sticking up from the snow were various pieces of wood, which looked quite odd. I walked down to the sea and found a stretch of sand, where the tide had just washed away the snow, and there were purple shells and bright orange and red logs there. As the sun got lower in the sky, I headed back to the UBC for a pint.

That evening, I reached 50,000 words of my NaNoWriMo novel and concluded that what I gained the most from participating in NaNoWriMo this year was a great travelling companion. The novel forced me into coffee bars when it needed words added and up mountains and skyscrapers when it needed me to find inspiration, but the best thing about travelling with my novel was that I rarely felt alone.

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