Not To Be Trusted With Knives

#37 – Going West

June 25, 2009 by Beth

Sarah wrote a piece on her blog about the expanding world in which she lives, starting with her earliest memories in which the street she lived on was her entire universe to being a world traveller with friends all over the globe.   Although I’m not nearly as travelled as Sarah is¹, I thought I’d give this a try myself. But rather than an expansion, my life has been more of the proverbial³ “Go West”.

For the first 18 years of my life, I lived in the same place – in the town of Milton, Ontario, in a little house on the corner of a street and a crescent⁴. My best friend lived on the crescent, three houses away.  My elementary school was about a two minute walk – I could literally hear the bell ring from my house and make it into class on time.

At 18 I moved slightly west and a bit south to the city of Hamilton to attend McMaster University.  I lived in residence for my first year, spent that first summer back in my parents’ place and then headed back to Hamilton where I lived the next two years in an apartment on the west edge of the city.  After that I moved back to Milton⁵ and lived in an apartment for the next two years while I did my last year at Mac and my year-long Master’s degree at the University of Guelph. Guelph being again further west.

After Guelph, I made the big move west – to British Columbia.  At first I lived in Burnaby, BC, but that only lasted about 8 months as it turned out that driving the 20 km from Burnaby to school takes a friggin’ hour (!) and the Skytrain, to my great surprise, didn’t go to the university.  The possibility that Skytrain might not go to the university hadn’t even occured to me. I mean, who would build a city where the rapid transit doesn’t go to the university where 50,000 people have to go every day, right?  So, yeah, I moved, yet again, further west to W. 16th Avenue, near the university and lived there for about five years.

My last move was a short one – it happened when my ex and I split up – I stayed in the same ‘hood, but moved to sublet a friends’ basement suite, just for the summer.  That was just more than three years ago!

Here’s a Google Map of all the moving goodness:

View Places I’ve Lived & Gone to School in a larger map

Except it doesn’t have my current place on it, because I don’t need the paparazzi showing up.

¹Sarah and her husband Dave go on, by my latest count, at least 12 cruises per year and they are starting their new son, Teddy, off with his first cruise at the tender age of 8 months²! My neice by 18 months of age and my thesis have both been on more contenents than I, but who’s counting?
²Not that I’m complaining. Their cruise leaves from Vancouver, which means that *I* get to see them! And I can’t wait!
³If not actually “proverbially” at least the “Pet-Shop-Boys-songial”
⁴My parents still live there to this day!
⁵My then-husband hated his job in Hamilton, so he went back to a job he’d had in Milton. He didn’t have a driver’s license, so we moved to Milton to so he could get to work and I drove to school.

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