I think I like snow

Toronto :: Canada

Brrrr, it's cold in here.

Places: Toronto.

Coolest thing I did: Went for my agency Christmas drinks on top of the Manulife Centre. Pity about the view.

(un)Coolest thing I didn´t know: Canadian elections are even more boring that Australian ones.

After a blink-and-you'd-miss-it autumn, winter has arrived in it's most pleasant form. While the nastier winds I was promised have been intermittent over the last month or so the snow has been falling in great big, slow falling flakes and it's quite spectacular. After wading through grey slush and having wet ice fall on me in the UK I was a little skeptical that snow was anything like it was on TV, but I've had my faith renewed by the last few weeks. Last night was the heaviest single fall we've had and I walked through the softly falling flakes from the subway and was surprised at just how pleasant it was. Add to this the novelty of the snow capped houses and skeletal trees and I'm really enjoying this.

The Canadians appear to take some perverse pleasure in telling me how much worse it's going to get. When I say I'm enjoying the winter they boldly laugh and go on to tell me about the time so much snow fell the army had to come and plow the streets. Or how it's going to get to -20, -30 or even -45 at some point soon, which to someone where the winter gets down to +10 sounds pretty close to the point where atoms stop moving. The Ontarians are not the worst though, anyone who comes from the flat cold middle bit of the country love to tell stories about digging out meters of snow from their doorway before going to work on their snowmobiles.

I'm starting to doubt the authenticity of some of these claims. It's kind of like when Australians tell people we all surf and wrestle crocodiles for fun.

I had my work Christmas party and the band was Kool and the Gang (yes, THE Kool and the Gang), which meant I did lots of not knowing what any of the songs they were singing were expect for Jungle Boogie. I'm assuming they all get together with John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Sam L Jackson every Christmas and give thanks to Tarantino for rescuing their careers. There would be no black Jedi without him.

I had my agency party last night, which was a far more noteworthy affair. They hired out the restaurant at the top of the Manulife Center on Bloor Street, from where I'm told the view usually competes with that from the CN tower. It also coincided with the biggest snow storm we've had thus far and I thought that they had pulled the blinds down when I first got up there. No, that was the wall of snow limiting the visibility to about 10 cms outside the window. Anyway, there was an open bar which more than made up for the lack of view and the fact I didn't really know anyone there. My agent spent a bit of time introducing me to lots of other contractors and man, was there some money in that room. I was starting to wonder why I don't own a Porsche and go skiing in Switzerland but then I remembered I'm not a tosser. It was an interesting bunch but I have to say I'm kind of glad I don't hang out with rich people very often. The walk home from the subway station through the park in the snow was very nice, but I have a feeling it was made more pleasant by the fact I was drunk.

Christmas, as you are probably aware, is approaching with some speed. I decided to take the whole week off in between Christmas and New Years and there isn't going to be much sitting still done. As it common with all the working holiday ex-pattery, we're having an Orphans Christmas Party here and it's a mostly Antipodean affair. Some girls I know have organised an appartment at the Blue Mountain ski resort a couple of hours north of the city so I've decided to go up for Christmas Eve and come back on Christmas Day. I'd already planned a trip up to the resort at Mt Tremblant in Quebec over my week off so I'm fitting all that in. Blue Mountain is supposed to be more of a hill than a mountain so I'd rather go to the best place I can within striking distance of here and try and get some more snowboarding under my belt. My goal this winter is to go from shakey and crap to steady and crap on a snowboard and I think it will be helped by actual snow and long runs rather than hills you can walk up and long queues for the ski lifts. I have been warned Tremblant is very friggin cold so I'm going to go buy thermals and a balacalva this weekend. I'm a little concerned at how on earth you figure out what size thermal underwear you are supposed to buy as I doubt you can try it on.

Problems we just don't have at home, eh?

I'll end up on the note that the Canadians have decided to have yet another election, only 18 months after the last one. If you thought politics was dull at home you should see it here. Not only are half the debates in French, but the leaders have zero charisma and all the policies are so damn sensible. I guess this is the price you pay for good government, dull politicians.

Mouldy Pumpkins

Toronto :: Canada

Haloween appears to be a bigger deal than I thought, even for grown-ups.

Places: Toronto.

Coolest thing I did: Carved a proper haloween jack-o-lantern.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The of Jack (he of the lantern) was originally about a squash, not a pumpkin.

So Haloween rolled around and I was a little unprepared for it to be treated like a second Christmas. The amount of effort that goes into decorations and costumes for the big night is a little worrying, but both the kids and the adults seem to have a good time. While our own efforts were a little half hearted we did decide to get a bit of good old-fashoined pumpkin carving under our belt.

Has anyone else ever actually tried to carve a pumpkin? I don't think I've even cooked something with pumpkin in it before so it was an eye opener to see just what the hell is in one of those things. After hacking a suitable lid out of the stem and ripping the hole open you're confronted with a whole load of sticky, seed ridden goo, kind of like a big orange spider's web that's been smacked with a sunflower. While the actual carving is a whole load of fun the cleaning out of the goop is tedious. A tip is don't try and scratch it out with a fork. Once you work out this is a stupid idea you also have a whole lot more work to do with the spoon, which is the proper instrument in this situation.

Still, after a bit of work we were all standing around the kitchen table beaming proudly down on our new member of the household. We tried to name it but no consensus could be reached so it was forever known as 'the pumpkin' or alternatively, 'pumpkin'. The pride lasted about as long as it took to go to the Haloween party we had been invited to that night.

Some of the pumpkins that had been carved out as decorations in shop windows and even at the party made ours look, well, a little ordinary. How long must it take to carve out "Happy Haloween" in old English on both sides of a tiny little pumpkin? Too long to bother with, even if it does look a bit cool.

The party we went to last Saturday night saw myself and Yvette don rubber masks purchased from the chemist the day before, chosen mostly to not look stupid on the streetcar on the way there and to allow beer to be drunk through the cleverly placed mouth holes. We, once again, were a little underdone compared to everyone else. The costumes were all very well done, and some were even very inventive. One of our mates went as a vending machine and even gave you stuff when you pushed her buttons (oo-eer). As the night dragged on and her responsed got slower and more erratic they placed an 'Out of Order' sign on her, which was tops. All the backpackers we know who showed up put in quite an effort we thought. That is, until the Canadians started to arrive.

The best costume of the night had to be the "Danger Will Robinson" robot from Lost in Space who had blinking lights fixed on the front of it. We all felt a little shamed by the effort (well, more drunk than shamed, but there was some shame in there) but the Canadians didn't seem to mind. I was talking to a bloke who used to live out in Sydney and knew didn't give a toss about Haloween so was surprised some of us put in the effort we did. Despite the build up of saliva and sweat in my rubber mask, I tried to keep it on in recognition of those who put in so much mroe effort than me.

Much fun had by all.

Our landlord put up a sign on the doorbells directing all the kids trick or treating to his floor, which I thought was tops, but the girls in our house decided wasn't fair. However, once the 700th (or so) kid showed up looking for sugary treats it did seem like a good idea after all. I reckon if was faced with sugar hyped kids all night I would have become a bit sick of it but the locals seem to love the whole thing. It's either that or they don't want kids throwing eggs at their houses. I heard this one story of kids filling their SuperSoakers with wee and demanding junk food or the dousing of the householder in urine would result. I'm sure that could be classed as armed robbery and get you 10 years.

So I put our now furry pumpkin out last night for the garbage man. It only took about 12 hours for it to start smelling funny and the aroma of penecilin was unmistakable when walking into the house yesterday. I'm not sure how long they are supposed to last, but it seems to be a leading factor why people display them outside their houses, not like we did.

On a side note we indulged Yvette's culinary fantasies on her last night here by going out for dinner in the poshest Tapas bar in the world, Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar. No reservations are taken so you show up, they take your mobile number and you get a call back sometime in the next hour when they have a table. We ended up with a nice little number out the back where the really expensive wines are racked (and probably rigged up to alarms). The idea is that the menu changes daily so you just have a small plate of everything and they suggest a wine to go with each one. We tried this idea at first, but it was becoming rapidly too expensive so we went for a bottle instead with our last few dishes. Duck liver, Poutine with pork belly, rare beef and mushroom gratin, it's all pretty rich stuff. I enjoyed it more than I let on, but I think the range of food is more to do with the fact that most of us are too poor to eat there more than once, so we'd best get our try of the whole range on that one visit. Still, Yvette loves all that kind of gourmet stuff so was pretty happy with the whole thing.

Leafs

Toronto :: Canada

Another trip into the French bit. Includes whales.

Places: Montreal, Quebec City & Tadoussac.

Coolest thing I did: Saw whales with my own two eyes.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Whales mate whilst several metres above the water. Man, that sounds hard.

Whilst most of this post is about the trip myself and Yvette just undertook over the Thanksgiving weekend to Quebec to see things we wouldn't see in downtown Toronto it has to be mentioned that we've been hosting Grantos recently. He's returned to Canada for the very last part of his Working Holiday visa, but to do more holidaying than working. I was slighly embarrassed that he seems to know more Canadians in Toronto than I do but as a happy side effect we were introduced to another source of ultra cheap jugs of beer at a student pub called Eiensteins. Viva life.

Hockey returned to Canada last week and it's made people quite happy (well, those that give a toss about hockey, which is most men my age at least). Grantos and I spent and evening in front of the TV at one of the only real pubs close to my place observing the locals observe their national sport. Due to the year off and several rule changes as part of the deal to end the players strike they seemed just as confused about what was going on as we were. We saw the Maple Leafs (I know, it's a crime against English but that's how they spell it) play Ottawa into a penalty shoot out and no one in the bar could agree on the actual rules of penatly shoot outs. I felt a little less clueless as a result. Good fun and hangovers were the result.

As an incredibly subtle segue I'll now mention that we went on to Quebec mostly so Yvette could observe the leaves (not leafs) change colour. I admit to being initially a little unsuportive of this endevour but have since reneged my leaf teasing ways. It was something else to see the rolling hills of southern Quebec (the province, not the city) ablaze with various reds and oranges. The fact that different trees changes at different times means there is a whole splash of contrasting colours to observe. Ok, it's hard to explain but it is cool. It would want to be because the drive between Montreal, Quebec City and Tadoussac is a long one.

The return to Montreal really smacked me in the fact with just how utilitarian a city Toronto is. I've alluded to being able to find Toronto's hidden charms over time but Montreal is so obviously superior in every way that it's made me question again why Toronto was the place to settle. Then I remember I can't speak any real French and the pseudo French I do know is strangled so badly by my Australian accent that no one can understand what I'm attempting to stumble over anyway. But I digress. After dropping our bags off and walking up Rue Cresent for a beer you could see just how much the place had come to life in summer. It was a happening strip when it was subzero degrees and snowing but add decent weather and it was already pumping by 10pm. Better buildings, better beer, cool European stylings, just way, way, way better than Toronto. Come to think of it Vancouver was way better too, and the speaking French argument won't hold there. But I digress.

So the next day it was off down the senic route to Quebec City. I like Quebec City, but it has nothing in common with Montreal. It's the only walled city remaining in North America so should appear stuck in the past but it does have a certain cool added to it by a high student to real person ratio. It reminds me of all those old University cities in Germany that have populations of 40,000 and it's 80% students. In our two stints in QC over the weekend we did managed to leave the walls and go have some food and beers where the students do and it was a very chilled vibe to be hanging out in. Except for that crazy bloke hanging out the window yelling "I'm smoking the fucking drugs!" to passers by. That was more hilarious than relaxing.

QC has not one but several Chateux based on the Fairmont hotel school of architecture. In most Canadian cities you'll find a castle like structure that looks like it should be somewhere in the Loire Valley, only made out of grey stone with green roofing. These are mostly owned by the Fairmont hotel chain and used to be the stop off point for monies 19th century individuals who wanted to travel in luxury on these new fangled 'train' things. The one on Lake Louise is the most famous example but the one looking out of the St Lawrence river from QC is supposed to be the most photographed hotel in the world (the LP says building but I reckon the Pyramids or Taj Mahal would have to take that cake). Add to this the narrow cobbled streets at the base of the wall and it looks like the French did their very best to recreate post medieval France in North America. It's a nice attempt but you really can't create that layered effect of building one house on the rubble of another if you only start in the 1600s. It did, however, get many flashbacks of middle Europe while walking the streets. It's funny how these memories sit lodged somewhere in the back of your brain until a little cue like cobbled streets set them off. It was very nice.

The drive from QC to Tadoussac is a whole other expressionist painting. I mentioned the leaves were very nice to look at earlier, well north of QC they are nothing short of spectacular. OK, as spectactular as leaves can possibly be. Rolling hills stretch off to the horizon and these are just chock full of firery hues. You see less and less of the evergreens and more stark contrasts of red on orange and yellow so it looks almost unreal. Yvette just sat curled up on the car seat and said "pretty" a lot. I guess it was worth going up there for.

Tadoussac is a small little hamlet and was the first French fur trading post in North America (this may not actually be true, but thats what they told us) that is now really only famous for one thing: whales. While it is very nice, remote and must be reached by ferry I can't imagine too many people come up just for the scenery. I think it's a small miracle that it isn't more tourist-centric than it actually is. We stepped into the tourist information place (they use '?' instead of 'i' so it's a little confusing) and the woman got a bit of a smirk on her face when we said "we'd like to see the whales". Not too many people would come in asking for giraffes, would they? It took very little effort to get on a boat for the next morning.

Our host at the B&B we stayed at was very friendly and wanted to make sure we squeezed the most out of the stay. I've decided looking for whales involves lots of being cold. We hiked out to the narrowest point over the fjord that meets the St Lawrence at Tadoussac to watch the sunset and hopefully see some whales. We did not but it was nice. We then climed the hill overlooking the town to watch the sun rise and hopefully see some whales. We did not but it was nice. It did not, however, set me up to be that hopeful of actually seeing whales on the boat. We scoffed down a bread and butter pudding breakfast (which I didn't know as a valid breakfast item, but hey, it was nice) and then rugged up in all the clothes we had for the boat.

Lucky we did because it was the coldest I've been in a while. With nothing to stop the wind between Tadoussac and the Artic it was bloody freezing out there.

The whales (minkies apparently) did not disappoint. At first they are just sprays of water on the horizon but as the boats close in they seem to have no problem with the poeple around and will quite happily show themselves at the surface to breathe. It's not a "hey, take my picture" kind of happy, rather more like a striptease, with the whales not giving any clue as to where they were going to show up or what they were going to do. Lots of flashes of black followed by spouts of water and then slinking back under the water. I did learn that the blood rushes to the first bit of whale to surface so if the white belly is exposed to the air it can be quite pink, almost red. That was very cool.

We then had a nice cruise into the fjord. Either side has sheer stone cliffs with patches of plant life clinging to every vertical surface and the occasional waterfall trickling down in a narrow stream, slowly digging away. It isn't as staggering as the Fjords in Norway, I think the scale of it makes it far less dramatic but it has it's own charms. While the guide told us Fjord was a Scandinavian word meaning "narrow waterway formed by the movement of glaciers over thousands of years" I was somewhat skeptical. It's got to be too compact a word to say all that, doesn't it?

I would recommend Montreal (again), Quebec City and Tadoussac to any potential Canadians when they arrive, it was a weekend chock full of French accented goodness. It renewed my faith that Canada is made a far more interesting country by the loose coupling of the Provences, allowing each distinct group to retain their own quirks and culture (like speaking French for instance). I tend to see North America as a whole as a big, indivisible lump of US cluture and it constantly proves to me otherwise. I like being proved wrong in such ways.

Stark raving contrasts

Toronto :: Canada

Back to the Rockies - part the second.

Places: Banff & Edmonton.

Coolest thing I did: Stood atop Sulfur Mountain for possibly the best view of the whole trip.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The reason all those mountain lakes are that spooky light blue colour is the water is filled with minerals from the melted glaciers. I don't understand it, but that explaination sounds plausible enough.

It's funny how the memory can play tricks on you. I really recall the town of Banff being a rather small and cozy place but after Jasper and Lake Louise it seemed like pulling into a small metropolis. The caveat is that most small metropolises don't have such a perfect setting but still I felt a little let down (or perhaps forgetful). I guess it was that much colder in March to keep people indoors or out on the ski slopes so I didn't notice it being so large last time. I just don't recall their being THAT many ski shops and starbucks coffee houses.

As it's such a short drive from Lake Louise we pretty much had our last full day to do all things Banff. We chose to do the 2 hour walk right up the side of Sulfur Mountain and managed to overtake all comers and get to the top in less than 90 mins. As the only other option is one of the steepest Gondalas I've ever seen (both in price and gradient) it was a far more rewarding way to see the place. I'ts about 5km total trail with an elevation of 250m and the view from the top is like nothing else. There is an old weather station at the peak that has 360 degree views down the valley into Banff and over the border to the B.C. side of the mountains. If it wasn't for the Gondala disgourging thousands of loud, fat, smelly, baseball cap wearing, RV driving hicks at about the same time as we got there it would have been perfect. I love the Rockies but after 4 days I was kind of sick of most of the bus and RV people that seem to inhabit it. I think being in one of the range's most beautiful spots and having it chock full of humanity sums the whole thing up really. It's bitter sweet.

After the trip back down we went for a soak in the 40 degree stinky water of the hot springs that are powered by the sulfur that give the mountain it's name. The facilities that mean you have to pay are modelled in the old school 30s style, which is nice but again, all of humanity seems to have decided to find a gap on the side of the pool and take a seat. Still, after days of hiking it was all very relaxing and nice.

Instead of holing up in the Samesun we booked into for the night we decided to have a good old drink at the St James Gate in town, then authentic (you guessed it) Irish drinking establishment that must exist in every human settlement on Earth over 25 people. It was a goodun and the Steak and Guiness pie is highly recommended.

Our last day was spent trying to make it back to Edmonton in time to catch our plane. Three things about the day stand out.

Canmore is the first town just outside the national park and it shows. As development is in no way hampered as it is inside the park the town is growing and fast. It's worth a look, if only for the fact that everyone looks like they are out of South Park but I wouldn't stay unless it's ski season and staying too close to the slopes is out of your price range. The Three Sisters (which I thought us Aussies had copyrighted) which stand over the town are very impressive, again in a different way to every other mountain range we saw in the trip. The cool thing about the Rockies is the scenery keeps changing. You haven't seen all the variety your going to see even in the first couple of days.

The Alberta Bahn, the stretch of road between Calgary and Edmonton has to be the most boring peice of asphalt man ever drove an automobile on. It's dead straight, long and so flat you can still see the Rockies even hundreds of kilometres away if you look over your shoulder. You also get to see the joys that rapid urbanisation can bring. The treeless suburbs of Calgary are built in a uniform grey and the McMansions seem to go on forever. It's not something you can fully explain without seeing it but it does bring out a sense of despair for modern society. Only the pure pursuit of profit can produce something so truly uninspiring as this. Add to this our lunchtime stop in Red Deer, a single old street of vintage buildings surrounded by Walmarts, Safeways and Home Deports and you can see the way things are going out here. There is something to be said about cities that grow slowly and gain character over time, rather than a massive expansion that causes all this sameness and ultra effiecient design.

The last big gem wasn't Edmonton itself, as that's really a shell of a town now, but rather the West Edmonton Mall, one of the wonders of the retail world. It may or may not be the world's biggest shopping centre any more but it must be close if its not. Not only does it have 800+ stores but it has drawn most of the community activity out of the downtown and into it's muzac playing clutches. Inside the masses of space it's got a theme park, submarine ride, ice rink and even an indoor beach and water slide park. I know people don't want to go outside much when its 30 degrees below but there is something sinister about being cooped up inside where the main option is to shop. This much consumption quite frankly is scary but fascinating to watch at the same time.

The best thing about the mall is right in the middle is a bronze statue of three oil workers taping a well. None of what you see around you in that monument to retail would be possible without the rapid infusion of oil money into the communities of Alberta. It's like Dubai with cowboy hats. It will be interesting to see what happens when they eventually run out of the black stuff and whether that mall becomes a relic of a bygone era. I can just see people coming into the interior from the coasts of Canada in 50 years and seeing these ruins, kind of like the pyramids or Ankor Wat, poking out of the plains. I can see them scratching their heads wondering what on Earth those three blokes are doing.

All in all I think the Rockies was one of the best things I've done since arriving in Canada, both with and without snow. I think it's one of those places that could keep drawing me back as long as I am still able.

Compulsive Photography

Toronto :: Canada

Back to the Rockies - part the first.

Places: Edmonton, Jasper & Lake Louise.

Coolest thing I did: Went white water rafting for the first time ever.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Alberta has only been a place on the map since 100 years ago last weekend. I would never have known that had they not been celebrating when I arrived.

Let's be honest here, when you decide to drop everything and go to Canada you aren't going to see the cities. You get this idea in your head about snow-capped mountains reflected in crystal clear lakes and all lots and lots of pine trees. The cliches are endless. Since arriving in the country in March I've done a fair bit of going out into the touristed wilds to see all these things for myself but nothing compares to the Rocky Mountains national parks (both Jasper and Banff) in the task of providing the great Canadian outdoors. The only thing remotely like it I've seen is the Austrian or Slovenian Alps and even these seem like pale imitations when compared to North America's most famous mountains.

The plan was simple enough, give Budget a huge wad of our hard earned money and drive ourselves for 5 days in a round trip from Edmonton to see as much as possible in such a limited time. You could spend a lifetime out there and not see a fraction of what is on offer but the best bits that can be seen on a whirlwind trip are spectacular enough to leave you wanting more.

One thing that gets you is you start trying to take millions of pictures to get that perfect shot of mountains reflected in misty aqua lakes surrounded by pine forrests and it takes up a lot of time. You can't help yourself. Take a picture, walk 5 metres and the next potential masterpiece of a photo presents itself, usually the same thing as you last photographed, only at a slightly more impressive angle. It's crazy, but you feel like you will never be able to explain how beautiful the place is because every picture you've ever seen of the place (and trust me, you've seen lots, even if you don't realise it) doesn't do it justice in the flesh.

Glaciers were something new to me. I wanted to walk on a glacier in Norway on my grand European adventure but was unable to as I was a fortnight too early for the roads to be opened in Fjordland. However there are more than enough glaciers to go around in Jasper and walk on them we did. Halfway down the Icefields Parkway, which must rate as the most scenic road in the world, is the Columbia Icefields with no end of glaciers. The one most easily walked on can be reached from the car park in minutes and it's simple enough to trudge out onto it you could probably do it in ugh boots. To go out onto the glacier proper you need to get on a tour on this bus with monster truck wheels but that didn't appeal so much.

I like the sheer pragmatism of the Canadians. All the way up to the glacier are posted stories of people who didn't obey the warnings and signs, slipped into one of the cracks in the glacier and died of hypothermia before they could be rescued. No promises of liability, no one to sue, just if you do something stupid like cross the fence and get trapped in the ice we will try and save you but you will probably die. I prefer this approach to the American way of doing things ("These Penut M&Ms may contain nuts or traces of nuts").

Jasper is a nice place to stay, much smaller than Banff but with enough of a population to support actual commerce. This meant a choice of places to stay and eat, which was something Lake Louise suprised us with. The village of Lake Louise consists of a mall, a petrol station & a single resteruant. The rest is hotels. With hindsight we may have decided on two nights in Banff and one in Jasper. Still after entire days of walking up mountains and stuff like that being in bed by 9 is the usual rather than the exception.

After the experinces of deep fried everything in the back country of Ontario the food in Alberta is much more to my liking. Red meat abounds and I think I put away the best steak I've had in a long time. Add to that they get the real Kokanee beer right from B.C. made with proper glacier water (rather than the stuff you can get sometimes in Ontario which is made with Lake Ontario water...) and I was satsified with the fuel I was getting for all this hiking.

We took a day to go white water rafting on the Kicking Horse River in B.C. It's not something I've ever done before but I enjoyed it a lot. Though the water runs directly off the glaciers and is a balmy 4 degrees they do dress you up in wetsuits and jackets and stuff and work you hard enough paddling to make it so you don't mind so much. Though the low level of the river (apparently spring is far rougher, as the snows start to melt) meant we were going down some beginner level rapids I found the skills of our guide somewhat awe inspiring. With just an authoritive voice and a keen eye for quick changes in conditions he managed to get 6 complete newbies to guide a rubber raft down though tight circles of rocks and waterfalls without error or even a loss of temper or patience. I find it almost too rare to see people so good at what they do anymore, it's a sight to behold.

Of all the hyped tourist sights I though Chateau Lake Louise lived up to it's reputation. You're dumbstruck as you clear the trees to see this hotel perched on the edge of one of the most perfectly cliche ridden Canadian scene anywhere. If a Mountie rode up on a Grizzly bear under Aurora Borrealis then maybe, just maybe it would be more Canadian. The place is almost too good to be true.

The wildlife was a bit fleeting for us on this trip. We did see glimpses of deer and the squirrels and chipmunks were like pigeons in Trafalgar Square the bigger prizes remained more elusive. The fact that a woman was mauled by a bear in Banff National Park only a week before we left meant that this probably wasn't a bad thing.

More on our return to Banff and the trip back to Edmonton to follow.

Details

Toronto :: Canada

Appreciating the little things.

Places: Toronto.

Coolest thing I did: Managed to not get the chop from my contract when CIBC lost 2 and a bit billion dollars to settle with the Enron shareholders.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: There is a bit of the Berlin Wall under the middle arch of the Freedom Arches in Nathan Phillips Square..

Over the last string of Sundays I've had to do a couple of hours of work that I can't otherwise do during the week and it's had the happy side effect of letting me wander around the downtown of Toronto without the millions of suits that inhabit it during the week trying to crush me off the foot path and into oncoming traffic. When I first got here I didn't like the look of all the ultra modern glass phalluses that house the banks here but I've since decided some of them aren't too bad. I like the fact that nex to each one of them there is a neo-classical or gothic structure that has been left alone or incorperated into the new building, giving that cool blend of the old and new. I also have noticed a whole lot of the banks have either communist style heroic workers or classical gods and godesses carved into their fascades. What on Earth is that all about? Even in the 30s, when you could get away with saying the Nazis weren't such bad blokes in polite business circles in North America I'm wondering if people were still a bit wiered out by having Zeus staring down at them all day.

I'm also glad to see the old main railway station, Union Station could have been transplanted from Budapest or Prague, as smaller but no less fancy Grand Central. Also across the road is the Fairmont Hotel in all it's gothic glory and old world charm. While there's probably something wrong with thinking it's cool that the doormen still wear uniforms and white gloves I think there aren't enough of those kinds of places left (even if I won't pay what they are asking to experience it myself). I wonder where all these kinds of places went in Sydney, a contemporary city to Toronto. Why is Central station such a dump, don't tourists catch trains in Australia anymore?

When I first arrived here the Freedom Arches out the front of the town hall (in Nathan Phillips Square) were an ice rink and they have since been changed into a fountain. Though it's really non-obvious I did read quite recently a chuck of the Berlin wall is interned under the middle arch. I've been really meaning to see if I can see it before it all ices over again. I've also been meaning to find out a) why there is a great big statue of Winston Churchill in the square and b) why they chose to portray the great man trying desperately to hold his pants up. No one seems to know.

Sampling the obvious delights of College Streets Italian section, which happens to be walking distance from home, was an obvious thing to do during the summer nights but I've recently been introduced to it's real gem hidden in the back streets. Housed in what looks like a run down milk bar is California Sandwiches. It does what it says on the tin. Big fat sandwiches, no optional items, no table service for about $6. The Veal sandwich with hot sauce is as good as any single cheap meal I've had here. I've since had pale imitations but California is in a class of it's own. Highly recommended. Best meal I've had since we discovered Burrito Boys.

I've decided that the nightclubs in Toronto are very, very average. Our latest foray into one of the myserious-sounding-single-word-named venues was typical of the experience. Line up outside for ages with lots of unhappy people. Get inside and give anywhere between $10-$15 of your hard earned cash to an equally unhappy door bitch. Go inside and pay a stupid amount of money for bottled beer in a plastic cup. Listen to rubbish hip-hop and/or RnB. Leave and consume either a Burrito or hotdog (aka street meat).

While I had a good time at our last foray to one of these places, that was more due to the fact I was muy burracho before we arrived and there were so many cage dancers they even had to put one into the lobby to make them all fit. The music was crap by I chose not to care this time. It's funny to watch all these under age kids drive in from Markham and Streetsville to frown at each other and get into fights on the street. I guess its the same everywhere else in the western world, only usually with better music and the possible option decent beer being available.

To end on a high note I have to complement the city of Toronto on having possibly the best book shops anywhere I've been. After years of trying to find something worth reading down King Street or Shafstbury Avenue it seems impossible to do any wrong here. I don't usually bother with Chapters or Borders anymore as I can always find something worth reading in the musty stacks down Bloor, King or College Streets. I wonder if that's got something to do with all the time that gets spent indoors here? Winter must *really* suck, eh?.

Sorry.

Playing tour guide

Toronto :: Canada

It's only been a few months but already there are visitors to show a good time.

Places: Toronto, Niagara & Niagara-on-Lake.

Coolest thing I did: The Maid of the Mist, despite all it's tourist cache, was rather cool.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The wineries here are so young that they make the Adeliade Hills look like Bordeaux for wine making vintage.

After a lull of normal life the visit of some of our friends from various parts of the Antipoean ex-pat world has given the tourism a lease on life once again. Lisa flew in from London on the red eye for Thursday morning, Kate arrived later the same night from Adelaide (which I'm told involves about 4 planes) and Paul arrived from Vancouver on Friday morning. While I was busy working the girls (and later Paul) managed to drink their way around town. Apparently the Steam Whistle Brewery just over the road from the CN Tower is worth a look but I'm just going to be left wondering, as by the time I got home from work on Friday afternoon the lot of them were stewed and happy.

So we decided to show them some of the best we'd learned about nightlife in Toronto in our short stay here. This was a good idea to start with but the big day of drinking mixed with all the duty free and our new found knowledge of how to make some tasty cocktails out of mostly Vodka, we only managed two bars. Eddies Pool Hall on College Street is a nice place to start a night out, as it is indeed a pool hall. It's got enough trendy decor and high enough drink prices to let you forget that it is, but as the girls say, it's "funky" which tends to mean if you're a bloke "Pricey but you don't mind too much". I made the fatal mistake of starting on the Rusty Nails (which are a concoction of scotch and dramuie and ice) and the night started to spin rapidly out of control. We then took the group round the corner to the converted car garage which is The Octopus bar and it all gets very hazy. I know I took Kates camera and reverted to my old trick of taking my picture with a lot of random strangers becasue the pictures left evidence. Apparently the drinks went into a mix of Heineken and Rusty Nails and that was about it. I went from the life of the party to comatose in about 30 mins but much fun was had by all.

The next morning was supposed to be a trip out to the Islands for bike riding but it turned out to be mid-afternoon. Yvette was nowhere near the top of her game due to the previous evenings festivities so she spent much of the afternoon asleep under a tree. The rest of us got the crappiest bikes left in the hire place and I regaled all with my witty Napolean Dynamite quotes ("go over any sweet jumps on it") despite the fact that the movie left me confused more than anything else. It was a nice day and the fresh air did me the world of good. If anyone else was suffering they managed to hide it pretty well and after a quick feed of chicken wings (a hangover's best friend, trust me) we were back on the beers in the lazy afternoon sun. The resteraunt where we ate also looks over the paddle swan boats from the Island's amusement park, which is lots of entertainment because the voices keep coming over the loudspeaker saying "number 20, your ride is over. Seriously, don't make me wade out there and get you. Guess you had to be there.

Sunday was a bit too much shopping in Kensington Markets intersped with some more drinking of beer. It's a trendy part of town and the streets are blocked off on the weekends, meaning people have table tennis and giant polo and stuff like that out in the street. There was also a band which I thought were pretty good, and I watched them for quite some time while the girls wandered in and out of the shops to get the shop assistants all excited with their trying things on and not buying them. Some beers in Sneaky Dees, some more in the Supermarket and some in between in some other place we found by accident and that was pretty much it for the day.

Sunday meant a hire car and the 5 of us going off to do the tourist thing in Niagara. The falls were just as spectacular (but not so special without the snow and ice) this time around, but I loved the Maid of the Mist, which didn't run last time I was there. It's a boat that gets right up close and personal to the falls, so close that it's hard to hold your eyes open in the spray. It's like looking directly into a storm, with all that power and energy so close you can almost touch it. Despite this apparent danger, you feel like you are on an amusement park ride, with it's long line up, being crammed onto the boat with as many people that will fit and the flash bulbs going off it's almost a bit too safe. Still, the plastic ponchos they give you to keep dry have more of a psychological impact than anything else. You still end up sopping wet and smiling.

For lunch and the way home we saw the posher side of Niagara, Niagara-on-lake. When contrasted to the garish sideshow that is Niagara Falls, the town is quaint enough, even if it's obvious that some business saavy has been mixed in with the rustic charm to make sure those cash registers keep ringing. With a bit more time it would be worth exploring, but all you would probably do is end up with lots of little trinkets and nick-nacks and teapots and stuff like that. Instead we decided to go and track down the free wine tasings of the surrounding valley. I abstained, having to drive our hire car, and wasn't that dissapointed after my last foray into Ontario wine. However, some wine was drunk, some more was purchased and all were happy. One of the places even let the girls taste ice wine which I didn't think they did. I like the idea of ice wine (picked at the right time, the right temperature to make the sweet desert wine taste) but I don't think I could bring myself to give anyone $60 for one of those tiny bottles, it just feels wrong.

All told, I think it's a lot like having to teach someone anything. As soon as you are forced to explain something out loud you really have to think about what you are saying and that's probably the first time you really get understand something properly. I got a better understanding of all the things I've learned about this town and am starting to think less of it as a faceless North American city and more to appreciate it's little touches of character and culture. It's not as pretty as Vancouver or as cultured as Montreal, but it is home.

Cottage country

Toronto :: Canada

A long weekend with the rest of the Toronto escapees.

Places: South Baymouth, Tobermoray & the 26.

Coolest thing I did: Ate something called a stretched pork sandwich. Possibly the best single thing I've ingested in North America.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Live 8 was far far far less interesting in Canada than it was in London. Bryan Adams. Woo hoo.

With the recent danger of life becoming something like normal the Canada Day long weekend seemed like a really good time to get out of town for a few days and see some more of this country. With the collapse of one of the cheap airlines and record oil prices I've had to cut down on trips that involve flying in aeroplanes. Luckily it is cheap and easy to hire a car here and get out of town somewhere nearby. What I've learned from my yuppie banker workmates is lots of people own cottages around the shores of Georgian Bay, an extension of Lake Huron. Cottages can only mean one thing, scenery (or lots of guilable bankers with cottages facing concrete walls).

It seemes the weekend was a good one to go up to this part of the world. Every man and his dog heads for Ottawa for a massive display of patriotism and waving of maple leafs so the traffic up wasn't as bad as I'd first thought it would be. While seeing the Canuks go nuts on their national day in their capital would have been cool, I couldn't get the picture out of my head of what a similar celebration would have been like on Australia Day in Canberra. Yawn.

So we saddled up our Pontiac Sunfire (who the hell names cars in this country? yanks?) and headed for the northern shore of Georgian Bay. The plan was to head around to Manitoulin Island, which was supposed to be a picturesque bit of farm country with a few First Nations reservations (what they call them Indians here in PC land) on it. After a very, very long drive we arrived on a rather pretty but also rather dull island. We took a detour to see the local beauty spot, Bridal Veil Falls, which turned out to be so eroded they have been paved over with concrete so look more like a storm water outfall rather than a water fall. We spent the overnight in a town called South Baymouth which has a pretty little light house and bugger all else. When the local pizza shop cut us off from the beers at 9pm there was little else to do in the town of 500 but go to bed. Bit of a disappointment.

One ferry ride later the next morning and we found ourselves on the Bruce Penisula and a hopping little seaside town called Tobermoray. This was more like it. There's a dock that is a gateway to the nearby islands that wouldn't look out of place anywhere on the Med. Tobermoray also has the distinction of being Canadas primo diving site, but the idea of a surface temperature of around 5 degrees turned me off a little.

The surroundings almost seem out of place in Canada. The lake is so large you tend to forget you are looking at fresh water and the forrest lined beaches are postcard perfect. It's natural beauty is the kind of thing you expect when you come to Canada, only there aren't any mountains or polar bears.

We took a boat out to Flowerpot Island. Flower pots are what they call pillars of rock that have become detached from the rest of the island at some point due to some geological process that was written on a plaque I didn't really read. Lets just say they are pretty cool. It's the only island in easy striking distance of the port that has hiking trails and it's a easy 90 mins to circuit around the whole island. Spending the rest of the time waiting for our ride back while dangling bare feet in the crisp clean water in the setting sun was relaxation itself. To boot we managed to get a ride back on the jet powered Zodiac instead of the normal boat, which goes very fast and sits half out of the water. Good fun all round.

On the way home on the last day it was a lesiurely drive along highway 26 which has the distinction of housing peoples summer and winter cottages at the same time. On one side is the Bay and on the other side you can see the ski runs cut into the tree line of Southern Ontarios premier ski resorts. While the quality of skiing in Ontario can't be compared with the Rockies or Lautentians it's only a couple of hours drive from downtown Toronto so makes for an easy weekend away in winter. With this all year round use you can imagine that the land is in high demand. To make up for it the cottages that people build would be called small mansions by anyone else. Some rise 3 + stories out of the tree line and there aren't that many places you can actually get down to the lake. The exception is Wasaga beach, which we didn't have time to see but I'm promised is the Costa de Sol of the Ontario lakes. Perhaps next time.

With the abuntant natural pleasantness nearby it's little wonder Toronto is half empty at the moment. If I had the option of a month off I'd be up out there too.

Heavy air

Toronto :: Canada

Summer is upon us.

Places: Toronto

Coolest thing I did: Took the very quick ride out to the islands.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Said islands didn't come apart from Toronto itself until the 1800s. One big cyclone and viola!; islands.

I hinted that it was getting a little bit warmer last time, but the extreme change from May to June is something you have to feel to belive. The last fortnight has seen the mercury rise will into the 30s every day and the humidity would put Singapore to shame. While I'm much happier in the extreme warmth than I was in the extreme cold I am finding that Toronto itself has some nasty side effects when it gets hot. I work in a building with a fine view of the CN tower on most days but since the heat turned up a mixture of polution and mist have made it either invisible or very faint recently. After that one magic week of heat and clear skys the smog has settled in and I'm a little concerned it's here to stay for the duration of summer. It may well be a part of the cities character but it's hard to be enamoured when a jog feels like running underwater and after 20 mins your mouth tastes like rust.

However, like I said, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I'd much rather have the heat.

So with this in mind I took my first trip out to the islands that have been taunting me since arriving. Between the waterfront of Toronto and the rest of Lake Ontario three large sand islands are all you can see on the near horizion and it makes you naturally curious. From the CN tower you can make out the airport on the western end of them but not much else. After an aborted attempt every other warm weekend we've been in Toronto I was deremined this time to take a look.

So after a crammed ferry ride over (on a ferry that smells disconcertingly like urine) through the early morning haze we found ourself on what is a pretty pleasant parkland spread over the three islands. While the central one has been covered in amusement park rides and (of all things) a farm, the others are still lightly forrested leading onto a nicer set of beaches than can be found on the mainland. I seemed to be a little cooler than the city side, perhaps because there is enough space for a decent breeze to crop up over the lake itself.

I'm still not convinced Lake Ontario is safe to swim in (it looks pretty murky to me) but they do love their beaches over here when they get a chance to use them. There is even a bunch that go so far as to try out the 'clothing optional' beach, which I've decided means 'nude' beach. Could you imagine what would happen if you showed up there fully clothed and just hung around looking at all the nudies? It may be peace and understanding most of the time but I'll bet it can get nasty once you decide not to conform to the nudist ways; "we respect your right to do as you please but GET YOUR DAMN PANTS OFF!".

We hired the gayest looking bikes in the universe (mine even had a basket!) to get a good ride around the place and the vistas of the city itself are damned impressive once the morning smog clears by lunch time. You find yourself constantly stopping to take a picture of it from another angle. It's alot more interesting a skyline to look at once you've been here long enough to work out what alot of the buildings are. However if it wasn't for the tower and the dome of the Rogers Center (note the new North American spelling?) it would look pretty much like most other cities. I think a skyline needs a good unique feature or two to give you that instant recognition that only a few cities really boast. If it wasn't for St Pauls then who could tell London from any other flat city?

I love the Torontians attitude to summer. People really seem to get out there and do things when they get their chance. The streets are packed, you can't walk through a park without being mowed down by someone on roller blades/a bike/both and their iPod blasting their eardrums out. I guess if you got 8 months of bitter cold a year you'd get your full use of the weather too. I think we may be a bit jaded in Sydney in this regard. There's always another perfect weekend around the corner if you're too hung over to go out to do something. I kind of like the extermity of the change here.

Moose!

Toronto :: Canada

Getting out of the big city.

Places: Algonquin National Park

Coolest thing I did: Saw both Mooses and Chipmunks.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Everyone in Canada says insert name of place in Canada is the best place to be in Canada in summer.

Thank you Queen Victoria. Due to the fact that Canada, like Australia, never had a real ly pressing need to fight their way out of the British Empire that feisty old battle axe was the constitutional monarch of the country for half a century. For some reason the Canadians think this is a top reason to have a long weekend in late May. Whatever the reason, the words gift, horse and mouth come to mind. This was just the excuse to hire ourselves a compact car (something called a Toyota Matrix) and drive out of the big city to the wilderness.

So after a little trepidation of driving on the wrong side of the car and road, we left Toronto and headed North to Ontarios oldest national park, Algonquin. It seems that most of the park is only accessible via canoe (which is why canoe outfitters are so frequent all the way there) but you can still get a good look at the place off the 60-odd km of highway that makes its way through the south of the park. The added benifit of having a highway through the middle of the park is it attracts the moose. Apparently they spend all winter eating not much and one of their favourite things to do once the snow starts melting is drink salty water. As large amounts of salt is used to melt the ice and snow on the highway this all pools around the edge of the road and every morning the moose just wander onto the side of the road and drink the salty goodness.

Which makes spotting the pretty easy if you get early enough. They wander off for a sleep about mid morning so we only got up early enough on the last day we were there. Everywhere there is more than one car parked on the side of the road there will be moose. We had no problem taking pictures with all the other gawkers and just being generally amazed. I had a vague idea that moose were big but they make cows look like poodles. When they get a bit sick of all the attention they quite often bound through the crowd and over the road. It's only when they are put next to humans that you get an idea of the scale of these things. We didn't even see any full grown males with horns and they were still impressive to behold.

Our other brush with the live wildlife (we did see a whole range of dead animals splattered on the road but they dont count) was with chipmunks. We did one of the shorter walks and it was almost a complete waste of time until I nearly stood on a chipmunk eating some plant or other. They are both small and very quick and surprisingly not too jumpy around people. I think Yvette got annoyed with me singing the theme to the Chipmunks show for the rest of the day (Alvin, Simon, Theo-dore...).

We did see beaver dams and mounds but apparently they don't come out until October. After a lazy summer they come out and work their tails off reparing their dams and probably cursing all the people who have come walking through all summer. And drivers judging from how many flat dead things we saw that could well have been beavers at some point.

We stayed in a town called Maynooth, which had a total population of 200. The hostel was the biggest building in town (there was also a couple of petrol stations, a post office, a shop and a bottle shop) but it also housed the pub and resteraunt. Lets just say it was pretty quiet. Still, the people at dinner who seemed to have only a vague idea of where Australia was is the kind of thing we wanted to see. It was a nice experience but on the Sunday night when the resteraunt closed for dinner at 3pm we started to look a bit further afield. Ending up in the pub in the next town along (the metropolis of Bancroft, 20km away) we found the country way of cooking is what we expected of North America all along; take some food, deep fry it, pour gravy on it, serve it. The place also had that ambience that you can only get from a bar lined by people whose parents were probably siblings, all tanked after a long public holidays drinking, which is something we've been missing in the cosmopolitan cities. It was tops.

On the way home we had a whole day of hire car to use up and nothing much to do so we took a detour to the Bluffs, which are big cliffs just outside Toronto. I'm not doing them much justice, but they are tall, looking over Lake Ontario and very impressive to behold. It's made even more interesting by the fact there is no fence at the edge (I assume because the constant erosion means the fences would keep falling into the lake) so you stand there peering over the edge and going "Woah" in your best internal Keanu voice.

This has inspired us to take more trips away when we are blessed with public holidays only vaguely connected to the thing they are named after (next one is either Canada Day or Civil Day, I can't remember which). There is now one a month until the end of summer and we've got alot to see. I guess it's a bit pointless having them when it's -40 degrees outside. Can't wait.

Strangeness


Toronto :: Canada

The Oddities.

Places: Toronto

Coolest thing I did: The worlds largest plate of nachos (the staggering "Kings Crown" at a place called Sneaky Dees (that should make you happy, Bradbury).

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Steve Nash (this years NBA mvp) is actually a Canadian.

As you can probably tell by this point I've become a bit of a fan of Canada in general since my arrival here. I think much of this is due to the lack of culture shock between here and home, allowing me the extra time to get down to the serious business of liking the place. Even if there is probably more in common with the US than with the other Commonwealth outposts (though you'll never get the locals to admit to THAT) it's still all pretty familiar. However, some things are just plain odd.

Try, for example, the extrodinary cheapness of all foodstuff except for cheese. While they are pretty much giving away the red meat that once held all that diary for free, cheese is like 3 times more expensive. God knows why (no one can explain this, I guess because no one thinks cheese is expensive).

It's hard to compare just how much better the beer is here than the hog urine that passes for amber liquid south of the border (and I dont mean in Mexico) yet its pretty much a spirits country. It'd expect in the US that no one in their right mind would drink their "beer" unless held at gun point by Islamic militants of some kind but why on earth do practially 5% of the population only drink the wonderful nectar here? I'd say that I'm just showing my alcoholic roots but having seen the kids throwing back vodka and rum on Saturday nights menas I have no real guesses at this one.

I live in the middle of one of the more interesting ethnic mixes around town I feel. We spent Saturday walking down Roncesvalles Avenue, a street thats so Polish you start thinking you can pronounce the letters W, C & Z without any vowels. Pubs displaying signs for Zwelic beer and a 10 foot bronze statue of the late Pope JP2 could be in downtown Warsaw. The Polish sausage you can buy here is beyond good. Just to let you know, there are bbqs set up all down the street on Saturday afternoon and you can try before you buy for a couple of bucks. Or try the Portugese cafes all down College Street where the old men stand out on the footpaths out front (you cant smoke inside like they would have done in Oporto or Lisbon) and argue passionatly about God knows what (but most likely something unimportant like politics, or something life and death like football). You get just the most interesting street life any sunny afternoon. Yet, all I get from the blokes in the office that I'm living in the sticks when I should be living in one of those souless Condos that seem to be self replicating down on the waterfront. Bizzare attitude if you ask me.

I like the people I've met here so far, but the number of Canadians I'd consider myself on first name basis is probably under 10 in number. I'm finding it a bit harder to meet the natives in their own country than I am meeting nearly everyone else here. I guess if I think back to all the foreign travellers I managed to meet at home in Sydney could also match this number I guess it's only fair. Still, I'm sure it was easier in London. I guess its still early days.

I love the sport here, but its hard for the people here to get into it too much at the moment. With perennial losers for a basketball and baseball team, I think they are missing the Ice Hockey royalty that is the Maple Leaves. With the lockout still in effect and the fans having to sate themselves on the world championships (which dosent even make the front page of the sports section) you can tell people really dont have their heart in it. We watched the Raptors get pretty much ripped to peices by the Celtics in the last game of the season and there wasnt a whole lot of love for the local boys in the stands. I think there were far more emerald green jerseys and the crowd seemed to boo louder when there was a Torontian at the free throw line. I hope there is Hockey next year. I've given up hope of seeing a live game here (season tickets are already selling out, even though there is no real decision if the pickets will come down next October) but not seeing live hockey here would be like missing live Rugby or Cricket at home. Almost a crime.

Normal life


Toronto :: Canada

Food, clothing and shelter.

Places: Toronto

Coolest thing I did: Found a pretty interesting part of town to settle in.

(Un) Coolest thing I didn´t know: The old distillery does not contain anything that needs to be distilled. Instead it’s all artsy shops. Deceptive buggers.

There are three competing backpacker joints in downtown Toronto and anyone thinking of coming out this way would be best to check ahead as to what kind of experience they want:

• YHI: Expect grumpy arse staff, a layout that discourages interaction with other humans at every turn and to want to spend as much time as possible away from your room.


• Global Villiage: What your Mum thinks backpacker hostels are like. Bar onsite and a location in the heart of club land doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for sleep. Good for a short trip.


• Canadiana: The place people come to live, literally. There were people here who'd been in the hostel longer than we'd been in Canada.

We lucked out and went with option one to start with and after we got through our 4 pre-paid nights we were out of there as fast as we could lug our masses of luggage down the street. Canadiana was our home for the next couple of weeks and it was good to us. It seems to attract the stayers and while the nightlife was a big part of it, people also have to go to work during the day so the fun is not constant. Perhaps I can't keep up seven days a week like I used to too.

Our initial attempts to look for somewhere to live were not so successful. We found that everyone seems to work on a month by month cycle, so by starting to look in the second week of April we were looking to move after another 4 weeks in the hostel, which we really couldn't afford. So we had to turn down a few good places and a whole load of complete dumps (one woman wanted us to live on her balcony) just because we needed something sooner. We also found being a couple and wanting to share hard. Most of the student places wanted someone their own age (cheeky little bastards!) and people our age apparently don’t share. However one of the girls at the hostel, Mary of Northern Ireland found a floor of a house with three rooms that just been renovated and would take a couple. So it was with little pain that we moved in with Mary and a bloke from Holland named Rolf.

So the place we live in is a family home which has been chopped up into little rentable pieces. Our landlord and his young family live upstairs, then our three rooms take up the middle of the house and there about 5 students living the basement, though we've not managed to meet them as they tend to scatter like roaches when someone opens the door down there.

We're having some teething issues with our landlord. As the renovations are so recent he can't quite seem to let go and is always finding reasons to come down and fix something or change something which can be a bit unnerving as he sees it still being part of his house. There have been no unexpected visits at awkward times but I can't imagine it will be too long before his inability to knock causes an embarrassing situation. Still, it's new and cheap and I don't mind too much. He is currently getting us more furniture and pots and pans one cheap auction at a time so every week we get another job lot of old cutlery to go through and see what we can use. It's been good in that way as we don't want to buy much if possible.

As I've mentioned before, due to Torontos extremely logical grid system everyone finds their way around by giving directions and locations in intersections. Our new place would be classed as Dufferin and College, even though its on neither street. It's an interesting area wedged between the Koreans on Bloor Street, the Portuguese on College, the Italians on Dundas West and the Bangladeshis and Poles a bit further West. Everyone tells us we should see summer around here, so we're now hanging out for that.

The other news on my end is my conquest of the IT contracting game here. Two weeks of looking and I found some very keen agents who managed to get me a contract with one of the big banks here in a space of 48 hours and 2 interviews (including a written Unix test...I don’t understand some people). So the plan at this point is to see these next 6 months out here and move back west to Vancouver or surrounds when the winter starts getting bitterly cold.

Less banal stuff next time, I promise.

The Big things in T.O.


Toronto :: Canada

The wet, the pointy and the faux-castelian.

Places: Toronto & Niagara.

Coolest thing I did: The glass floor on the CN tower.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: You can buy your rapper chains here in parts. First pick your chains, then the medallion to hang it off.

I know it's been quite a while since I updated this so I will break it up into parts over the next few days. First, lets talk about being a tourist in our new town.

It has to be said, as a tourist town, Toronto itself is far better at being a live-in city than it is at being a tourist site. If you are thinking of real tourist attractions al-la the Sydney Opera House or Harbour Bridge, there is really only one in the city itself: the all seeing eye that is the CN tower. We took about a week and a half to find a day clear enough to make it worth while, but the afternoon was perfect. It was probably the best day we'd had in Canada thus far and you could see forever from up there. We avoided spending $18 going up there on the days we couldn't even see the top of the tower from the ground, we thought that would be a bit wasteful.

I don't usually have a problem with heights, but I have to say the initial rush of watching out the window of the lift as it climbs hundreds of metres in less than a minute does make you take an involuntary step back into the corner. I was also a bit taken aback by the glass floor that lets you look down at the street level below. While I'd seen that before in Auckland, this was seemed a whole lot higher. For some reason I seemed to think that walking out onto the glass on my tip-toes would somehow make me lighter, before common sense kicked in (well that and seeing Yvette wander out as if it was normal floor, I couldnt be shown up could I?) and I realised it was going to be pretty safe. I didn't even mind when all those school kids started jumping up and down on the glass floor a little later.

I won't describe the view, it's hard to. You can't see the other side of Lake Ontario but you can see further than we'd gone towards the cities edges. We could make out our little hostel amongst all the multi-story buildings along Queen Street and Younge street (the worlds longest street) lined by sky scrapers off into the horizon. Wait, I just did try and describe the view.

The other big attraction that you are supposed to see is Niagara Falls. I did it on the extra cheap but cheerful Magic Bus Tour, so it was an old school bus painted in rainbow colours a-la Electronic Acid Cool Aid Test, but instead of hippies and authours on heaps of drugs, it was a bunch of hung over backpackers. On the way out they stop off in the winery district outside Toronto and tell you how unique the climate is and how different that makes Niagara valley wine to the rest of the worlds output. So 15 small glasses of taste testing later I made a firm decision that Canadian wine leaves a little to be desired. Ranging from undrinkable (and I'm no snob, I'll drink pretty much anything) to the bizarre, I couldn't name one I'd rush out and buy again. With one exception: Ice wine. The last three glasses were of a rich, sweet tasting drop that can only be made by picking the grapes at sub-zero temperatures (something I'd say Canadian wine would be unique in) and it's both strong and drinkable. I was a fan of this one, but due to the loss of moisture in picking the grapes in the cold, it's pretty pricey, requiring lots of extra grapes to make a vat of the stuff. Maybe when I have a job I'll be able to buy some more.

On the way to the falls they tell you how many bathtubs/beer bottles/swimming pools per year/hour/second go over the Horseshoe Falls and you kind of roll your eyes and tell yourself they can't possibly be THAT big. However, they are as staggering as everyone has said. Taking those first pictures into mist thick enough to count and rain in some countries you take back all the skepticism you may have had. You find yourself walking along the waterfront away from the falls and taking a picture every 10 metres, trying to top that last one you just took. Rainbows in the mist, water rushing into huge boulders of ice, it's all there. It's one of those you-just-have-to-see-it kind of places.

The rest of Niagara leaves alot to be desired. Like most places that have been a tourist attraction for a long time, the falls have managed to turn the town of Niagara into Carnival Ride Hell. Even Burger King has a giant plaster Frankenstein on the roof, predictably eating a Whopper. Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, they are all here. There is also a Casino hidden behind all the crap somewhere, but I didn't bother taking a look. I can't imagine it's like Monte Carlo or anything. I wonder if it's the yanks coming over the border from the fall less impressive (but still cool) American Falls that inspire all this kitsch or if it's self-inflicted by the Canadians. Still, it can't take away from the natural beauty of the falls themselves. Its easy enough to just turn your back on it all.

The only other big tourist attraction we've been to is the Casa Loma, a French-style Chateau built by a bloke who managed to get a Monopoly over the supply of electricity to the city of Toronto around the time electricity was invented. His reign at the top of the Canadian corporate world was short-lived but he managed to leave this monument to his ambition looking down the barrel of Spadina Street to Downtown Toronto. It's been restored rather recently and it pretty much comes off looking like a new world Versailles. My favorite bit was the very complex shower that had jets shooting out at all angles from this huge cage like structure. The latest technology in the 1920s but thank god they never caught on. The view from the Scotish-style turret on the roof was probably the best you could get over the city until the CN tower finally came about in 1976. Worth a look but not a must see.

Overall, I'm finding Torontos charms are not so obvious as other large cities I've been to. A lack of landmarks and it's oh-so sensible and practically rigid grid system (everyone here talks in intersections) don't make for an obviously beautiful place, but the whole place grows on me daily. While there isn't the country town friendliness of Vancouver or the European nightlife of Montreal, it's a rewarding place to be. More on the less obvious later.

Chairs that look like hands!


Toronto :: Canada

The Adams Family. Da da da da, click click, da da da da, click click...

Places: Montreal, Ottawa & Toronto.

Coolest thing I did: A the biggest smoked meat sandwich known to man.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Montreal is named after Mount Royal. Obvious when you think about it.

It only takes a short time of getting around Montreal on foot to recongnise the spirit of Continental Europe is alive and well on this foreign continent. In stark contrast to all the cities before and after it, Montreal just has a face that shows some unecessary but interesting details when compared to the stark functionality that was so prevealant in other North American cities. The architecture is a bit more daring, the streets have a bit more charm and the nightlife defies the bleak cold that would otherwise deter people from stepping out their doors. All in all, it's a very different city from the rest of Canada.

While the old town is one of the better preserved historical sections of any of the cites we'd seen (in stark contrast to the tourist trap that is Vancouvers Gastown), it wasn't a highlight for me. There are lots of nice old buildings and cobbled streets but nothing that compares to the real thing in Europe. I was much more interested to see how that French culture has adapted itself to the more modern buildings and townhouses. When compared to the rapid Pyrmontification of Vancouver it's a refreshing change. It dosen't have Vancouver's natural setting, but I found it a far more fun place to be.

The food and nightlife were something to be experienced. We had the blessing of Dee showing up to meet us the day after we arrived, as it's always good to have another friendly face, especially one so congenial as Ms Bradbury. The hostel was in the heart of the University party area and the pubs were mostly faux-Irish and packed with kids. Our Friday night consisted of meeting a Canadian rugby team (not THE Canadian rugby team, despite what Dee keeps telling everyone), seeing girls dressed like pole dancers just to go out for a night on the town and a bar that had $1 drinks from 11pm to 1am on Friday night (so long as you purchased a $5 cup on entry). Add to this a quick stumble home and you couldnt' have done better.

Or so we thought, but we went to the Boulevard St-Laurent, the Champs-d-Elyse of Montreal on Saturday night for diner and drinks. Though we pretty much missed every single bar you could go to on our first attempt, the cold forced us to move pretty quickly to the first place we saw. We ended up in a bar called Go-go, playing what must now be called retro 90s music (it's a bit worrying when the music you listened to at High School and Uni are now considered old classics) and best of all, chairs that looked like giant hands. It's the kind of place that dosen't exist in Sydney, due to our hellish licensing laws, that mix of cool, cheap and relaxed. We just made it in time as it was well below 0 degrees with the wind chill and they started making people line up just about the second we got inside. On the way back home we passed probably 20 queues on the next block, it seems every second story appartment has been turned into a bar and starts getting picky at 9. They raise them tough here. I couldn't imagine standing still in that cold for 30 seconds, let alone 30 mins.

The food has two tourist classics going for it. The first is supposedly the first place to bake bagels in North America, the Fairmount Bagel Bakery. They are still doing it too, and we got our cheesy pictures taken eating bagels out the front. However, much cooler in my opinion was the giant smoked meat sandwich from Schwartz's, an old Jewish place thats been making them that was since the interwar period. It's litereally an inch of meat and mustard with two bits of bread hanging on for dear life. There are also so classy photoes of Yvette and Dee tucking into theirs to make it complete. Anywhere that has a lineup at 11am for lunch should have been good and it didn't disappoint.

We spent one hung over afternoon trudging through the snow to the to of Mont Royal, the mountain that gives Montreal its name. I think its going to take some getting used to, as we were walking slowly to try not to slip over and people were jogging past up in trainers. The view was worth it, as was seeing a snow woman, complete with breasts and bum crack that some dedicated soul had made up there. I'm sure you've all see Dees photo of me groping it by now so no more needs to be said of that.

Before I compare Ottawa to Canberra, I've just noticed I've been using comparisions between Paris and Montreal which are not quite fair. To call Montreal a North American Paris would be like calling New York a North American London. Montreal takes alot from its French past but has a unique attitude all of its own.

Ottawa is a capital. It's full of suits, government buildings and the middle of it as that feel only a large bureaucracy can give. However, the parliament buildings are strangely gothic in inspiration, like if your capital building was designed by the Adams Families architect. It's all bell towers and spires with little fences around them. I think the thing that we both liked most about Ottawa was the situation of it on the bank of a wide river, all frozen over. I don't think I've ever seen such a volume of ice and we apparently missed the season for ice skating on the river and canal that leads into it by a mere 2 days. We did, however manage to go to the frozen waterfalls near the Governor Generals house just as they were dynamiting the ice further upstream. At first we couldn't figure out what that distant boom was, but cracks were starting to appear in the frozen falls and water was starting to run through at a quickening pace until we saw what they were doing. It was quite cool.

To do comparisions, I'm still convinced Australia has the most boring capital in the world. We were staying in the Byward Market district, which had actually places to eat and drink, which is something Canberra would never even consider. Australias wonderful capital is the city that always sleeps, not being able to get even a Big Mac after 9pm. I felt like you could actually live there.

So after much ado the traveling season ended and we Greyhounded our way to Toronto. Much more has been done and seen since but that will follow shortly.

Powder baby!


Montreal :: Canada

Fun in the snow.

Places: Calgary, Banff & Montreal.

Coolest thing I did: Sat in an outdoor hot tub while it was -5 degrees and snowing. Very invigorating, yah?

Coolest thing I didn´t know:

Since last we spoke I've been mostly snowboarding.

After a quick flight out to Calgary on Canada's only remaining cheap airline (thank got we chose Westjet over Jetsgo, who went bankrupt last week) we got a nice 1.5 hour drive through the flattest suburbs on Earth and into some of the nicest scenery I'm ever likely to see. More on that in a sec. Watching the rockies disappear beneath the plane as it came into Calgary we were confronted with what must be one of the longest plains I've ever seen. You can see the Calgary skyline from miles and miles away, a jagged square silhouette jutting out of the infinite horizon. I'm sure if you had good enough binoculars you could probably see Toronto from there, it's that flat. However, off into the other direction, from whence we'd come, you could see the majesty that is the Rockies.

The drive up is everything you want from Canada: fir trees, mountains, frozen waterways and snow, lots of snow. It was an excelent reward from the trip through the estates of identical 3 story houses you see for miles before (one family per 6 bed house apparently, they call them Mc Mansions over here). The only thing that could have made it more perfect if there were mooses (is that the plural?) strutting over the road. This is why we came to Canada, and it was only going to get better.

We met Grantos at the Sunshine village, a remote little ski resort that he's currently doing fine work in. The place is nestled in a valley between several mountains that must be reached via a 20 min gondala ride. Most people come up from the town of Banff to come do snow sports there, but thanks to the Friends of Sunshine program, Grant got us a place to stay in the lodge for next to nicks. We did get a lovely room first up looking over the water filtration plant, but with that much snow, who cares? It was tops.

So, we spent the next few days on a bit of drinking, a few sessions in the outdoor hot tub and, of course, lots of snowboarding. Yvette had to take a lesson on the first day we got there so I went out with Grant and he was quite paitent as I tried to regain my balance, then composure, then courage to turn the board. He had to work a fair bit, so we'd hook up with him on his time off and either eat, drink or board with him and go out riding ourselves. Yvette did very well and we were pretty much going down the green runs (for us beginners) at about the same speed by the end of the week. Silly grins on both our faces.

We had a fair bit of snow, but only two mornings when there was freshly fallen powder snow overnight. It was so much better to ride on and I had a ball. Grant and his mates have become what they like to call snow snobs, only really being happy if half a metre fell overnight and towards the end we were both getting a bit like that. We were very lucky though. We overheard a few blokes at Calgary airport saying they were off to another local resort, Fernie and there was so little snow their mates had passed mountain bikers going up the slopes. With what we heard of the conditions in Whistler too I think we were extremely fortunate. I hope the option comes up again to go this winter, but if not, there will have to be another next winter for sure.

Being such a small village, we found the nightlife was mostly the people who live on the mountain, as the hotel guests who can afford to stay there are mostly too old or boring to be out on the booze. After a big night on Sunshine Lager (as good as it sounds) we converted to something called Honey brown, and then coke and Rye whiskey. Between that and eating in the staff cafateria we got a good look at who works up here and why. There seems to be a certain crowd attracted by the idea of spending half a year doing nothing but working and snow sports. Almost appeals to me too.

It was a very young crowd. Gap year brits, aussies and kiwis dominate so it looks like alot of fun. We even got to see the world famous DJ Weasal play, who is a kitchen hand that smokes weed with Grants room mate. At least I think we saw him play, too much Sunshine larger in between the afternoon and going to bed that day. I like to think it was the altitude but I'm assured by Yvette that I was just too drunk.

So since then we got on a plane and came to Montreal. From what I can tell flying over the country in about two weeks it can be summed up as thus: Rainy, Mountains, flat, cold, lakes, french, more lakes, Newfies. I'm sure there's more to it but you get the gist.

Leftovers.


Vancouver :: Canada

Things I couldn't write in an hour yesterday.

Places: Vancouver.

Coolest thing I did: Saw lots of waterfalls at Vancouver's 2nd longest suspension bridge, the one you don't have to pay $21 to cross.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Even though tipping is expected here, if you get it wrong people will just tell you instead of trying to glass you to death like in America.

Our big trip yesterday was out to the Capilano suspension bridge, a single man bridge over a gorge north of Vancouver which is a tourist mecca. Thank god we never made it. On the way over we decided to try out the shorter, but cheaper (ie free instead of $21) one over the Lynn Valley. This was a better pick, as the hordes from Nippon all headed the other way with their tour busses. I have a thing with heights but handled this ok as it's a modern take on the original rope suspension foot bridge that the hero always ends handing off once the baddie cuts the ropes. It crosses a narrow gorge that cuts through the forrest (not called the bush here) and has a rather impresive amount of water passing below it. Crystal clear and freezing cold, just like its supposed to be in these places.

How do I know it's cold? Well, back in the Stevil days I would have just followed all the school kids we saw jumping off the rocks into the 30ft pool (i'll take their word for it that it's that deep) but after seeing them surface gasping obscenities that their empty lungs wouldn't allow them to yell, the new, more sensible me decided against it. Pissweak. Add to that we saw a few Canadian blokes walking around in thongs and shorts while I'm in 3 layers and I get the feeling they breed them either real tough or real dumb around here.

Beer. Let's talk about drinking around here. We've had a few quiet ones in the local brewpubs in the afternoon because the other pubs and bars a either closed or a bit too seedy for the missus. The beer in these places is passable but suffers from the same problem most of the Canadian beer is giving me: lack of booze. I'm not sure what the percentage is but I'm not getting very drunk or waking up very hungover. This is not such a good sign. Still, I like the fact they have pints instead of those stupid schmiddy things they sell in Sydney now. The brewpubs have a pint that uses the same tricks of glass creation the schmiddy uses to look bigger than it actually is (it's really about 1/2 a litre). I've christened this the schint. Of the local mass produced drops, Kelowna is my current tip.

Our experience with the rest of the pubs in Vancouver is split between the joint attached to the hostel (those of you who've backpacked know what I'm talking about here) or seriously strange interpretations of Irish pubs. How can you call yourself an Irish pub, have 20 beers on tap and none of them be Guiness? It boggles the mind. To be fair we've not been so adventurous here as we expect heavy lifting on the booze front being at a ski resort all next week during the St Patricks day week.

I'm still finding I like this place, despite the rapid Pyrmont-isation going on just over the road from us. Yaletown is the next big thing and it's sending 40 storey towers of glass out of the ground in rapid succession. It's still a nice looking city, but alot of the smaller, older places will soon have the sun blocked out by these things most of the day. It's like two extremes, untouched nature at one end of town and rapid building over of the other end.

One final note for anyone traveling to North America, this is a godsend: maps.google.com. All cites and it can actually find addresses you type in, not like the Australian ones.

Now in X-Files country.


Vancouver :: Canada

And someone thought we'd get fat on this trip?

Places: Vancouver.

Coolest thing I did: Rode a bike around the 30-odd km of waterfrount that it's possible to ride bikes around here.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The world's thinnest office building is utter crap.

If you can get a plane that goes to Sydney to Vancouver without stopping anywhere on US soil, I'd strongly recommend it. Why they decided to pull us all off the plane at very early in the morning, fingerprint and photograph us then send us all back onto the same plane is beyond me. Stupid orwellian nightmare bloody countries we have to pass through.

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.

Anyway, so after a jetlagged trip back in time (we got on the plane at 11:30 in Sydney and arrived 9:30 the same morning in the 'couve) we find our good selves in what must be the most brilliant sunny day this place has seen in months. Everyone is raving about it, but all we can do is go to bed. Thank god there was just enough left by the time we woke up to make us appreciate what a nice place we've arrived in. People are maddeningly friendly, cars in the middle of the city stop for pedestrians and you can get a bagel with Chilli con carne on it for 4 bucks. What more could you want?

I have to say it's like bizaro world Sydney. Everything is very, very similar, but just a little bit different. I can see why Vancouver gets such good wraps as a livable city, but I get this feeling that thats changing. You can't help but notice just how much of this city is being covered in giant glass appartment complexes. A full quarter of the city seems to be under construction, but not in that good, energetic way, rather in a staid, bland, 2-income-no-kids kind of way. Still, I can't help but love this place

Stanely Park is a very, very good idea. Lets take what must be the most valuable piece of real estate left on the whole island and fence it off for public use. Trails run all through the old growth forrest and it's so easy to forget just how close you are to the downtown. This is the Canada you come to see, the parallel trees rising out of the pine needle carpets, moss on everything that moss can poissibly grow on and just a beaten earth path to follow through it all. Even the old stumps with their frozen tendrils sticking up into the air have been reclaimed by nature. It's something else to see.

We hired a couple of bikes and rode the 30odd km of cycle path around the waterfront and it a) reminded me just how long its been since I last rode a bike and b) gave you such a feel for the amount of work that has been done to keep the inhabitants of this place fit. It's like rush hour with skinny fit people running, biking and blading everywhere. I like the looks of this ice hockey on roller blades but I'm so crap at blading I'd just make a fool of myself. Maybe by the end of 12 months.

The only trouble I'm having here is the idea that most of the tourist stuff here is not like the tourist stuff in Europe. While I'm used to being able to plant myself in a city and walk to all the stuff I need to see, the tourist stuff in town is, well, not worth it. Gastown is the rocks style area that is famous for a clock that shoots steam as far as I can tell. This quickly becomes junkie town, just before it becomes Chinatown. In Chinatown is the worlds skinniest office building. It's really just a kind of annex on the side of an appartement building and we walked past it several times before we found it. Very, very gay. We havent bothered with the Lookout! (always written with an exclamation mark for some reason)as its not very high so we're not sure what we'd see.

So, we've had to make some new choices we thought we wouldn't have to. We've found out medical professionals are strictly not allowed to work on the working holiday visa, so unless the mad typing and web surfing Yvette is doing right now turns up something new, she may be looking for a new career choice. This is not such good news, but it does mean we may not have to decide now where to live. I'm able to see Vancouver as a place to live and I can be more flexible about working in any of the big cities. We have decided pretty much to do a few weeks of odd work in Toronto in April/May before going on a summer trip back here in the west and may now cosider living in Vancouver over the winter instead. It's still very early so we're not sure.

Right, so I'm now fully hooked on WestJet. We've got the flights booked for cheap to Calgary then onto Banff on Thursday then a week later onto Montreal. It's good to have no plans like this. Grant tells us it's snowing big style at the moment in Sunshine at the moment so we're both pumped for the wintersports ahead.

The time has come!


Sydney :: Australia

Last day of work. woo hoo!

Places: Sydney.

Coolest thing I did: Made it to the very end of my 12 month contract with IBM without going mad.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: My entire life fits into 8 cubic metres

Nearly two years to the day after I started my last big trip into the unknown and a whole year later than I expected, we are finally leaving Sydney once more to go and explore the wilds of North America. I think it hasn't yet sunk in that we're finally going due to the fact that it has been on the cards for so long. Until this very morning (which is the last day of my contract with IBM) I don't it's been real, but right now I'm on top of the world. I'm as prepared as I'm ever going to be (and far more prepared than when I moved to the UK almost 5 years ago) and just a little bit excited about the whole thing (ok, so A LOT bit excited).

So, what's in store?

Well to start off our plane lands in Vancouver (because that's the closest place to Australia in Canada) a couple of hours before we take off and then we think we'll be there for a week or so. I have to admit to being a bit naive about all of what there is to do in Canada. I know it's cold, as every man and his dog has been walking around all week going "have you got your warm clothes? ha ha ha" and stuff like that. I also know that there are mooses (meese?) and mounties. That's about it.

Oh, and snow. We're flying to Calgary about a week and a half after getting to Canada in order to stay with Grantos at Sunshine where he now works and lives, after (I assume) he got bored of ensuring that drunk backpackers could get around Europe with a minimum of fuss. I haven't been snowboarding since that big week in Bulgaria so I'm very looking forward to that too (I'm saying that a lot, aren't I?). They apparently have 1.5m of snow, which seems like a lot seeing as there was about 1.5cm of snow in Bulgaria the year I went. It's going to be tops. Yvette has got all her snow gear ready and is learning for the first time. This will be good because it means I'll feel like I'm an experienced pro, even when falling on my arse.

After this we're at a bit of a loss. We might stay on, as the next cheap flight east of Calgary isn't until 3 days later and we're not sure if Calgary will amuse us enough or not. We're going to try and make it over to Toronto (our eventual home) before Dee crosses our path somewhere in the middle. She's on a massive tour of North America and this is the most likely place we'll get to meet her. She'll also be the last person we see that we know for quite some time too so it will be good for all involved.

So now, all that is left is to clear the contents of our house up and put everything that isn't Markies into storage. Like I said in the intro, the accumulation of possessions over my lifetime fits neatly into 8 cubic metres. Some may say this is depressing but I think it's something to be proud of. Shows I still know how to travel light.

So expect more of these again. Next one should be from Canada somewhere!