Esperanto Experience

My first encounter with Esperanto was in the 1980's at the main Richmond Public Library, where I found Teach Yourself Esperanto by John Cresswell and John Hartley.  It had intriguing illustrations.  The language looked fascinating, partly because it was "manmade."  I was still a teenager.  I started learning a little bit, but not really in depth.  Then in my university days at UBC, in the ancient grey castle Main Library, amongst the shelves were interesting old books in Esperanto.  Also, one day in one of the Buchanan buildings at UBC, I found Teach Yourself Esperanto Dictionary by J. C. Wells.  A Colombian from Bogotá named Gonzalo Bermúdez R. left it in one of the classrooms.  His "business card" was inside the dictionary.  It was not until 1997 when I seriously started studying Esperanto, and I had been going to Esperanto meetings, in fast-food restaurants and Asian restaurants in Vancouver, as well as the mountaintop SFU in Burnaby.  Today, I'm still a full-fledged Esperantist.