Co-op

Hey all,

Well I had an interesting turn of events the other day. I went over to my old house at the Co-op to pick up some stuff I left with a friend there and ran into some of my other friends. When they heard I was staying in the youth hostel cos the office for the co-op wouldn't let me stay at the co-op for only a few days they were outraged. And since noone is actually in my old room, and they had the key... Well I'm back staying in my old room again. Weird. It's nice seeing everyone again, and they're all happy (and shocked) to see me. But its a bit strange being back in a place I'd said mental goodbyes to and put behind me.

I went to Niagara Falls yesterday on a tour and had a great time. The falls were really incredible. Hardly real. Especially with the way the light shone through the mist, the effect was more like looking at a painting than real life. All the land around the falls is parkland and really pretty in early spring with tulips blooming everywhere. The attached town is a bit tacky but hey, so's the Gold Coast. Sadly I couldn't get into any of the 60's motels. I have images of honeymoon suites with heartshaped beds spread with pink chenile that I wanted to check out.

Am making final Central America preparations. It's quite nerve-racking, have no idea what to expect. But that's part of the fun I guess.

Home

Home Again (Well Toronto anyway, which feels like home). I flew back in to Toronto today. Spent my last morning in Halifax trying not to get too annoyed at the eldery woman sharing my hostel dorm. She was obviously not there as a traveller, but becuase of the (relatively) cheap rent and lack of affordable housing alternatives. I totally understand, but its still really annoying to be kept up half the night cos she refuses to stop talking and turn the light off, and then woken up at 8:30am by her turning on her radio to 'Halifax's Golden Oldies'. Sigh. Once up I went back to my favourite bookstore in Halifax. Its called Venus envy and is described as 'a bookstore for women and the people that love them'. But really its more like the local 'everything alternative store'. I has fun there browsing (and buying a little). Then the flight back. It was a bit bumpy but I handled it fine without chemical enhancement. Very proud of me I am. Its nice being back in Toronto. I was thinking that it feels like home but I couldn't work out the strange not-quite-the-same feeling I was getting. Then I realised, it's Toronto with good weather. Its 18 degrees here today, and it feels odd to be able to stroll around the streets, luxuriating outside instead of rushing from one heated indoor location to another. All the resturants and cafes have sprouted sidewalk patios full of beautiful young things, and everyone is looking relaxed. Well relaxed for Toronto anyway. I like it. T.O. might not have the culture of Montreal or the history and architecture of Quebec or the Alterna-yoof vibe of Halifax but it feels real. Like a place you'd actually live in rather than a tourist destination. Went back to the same hostel I stayed in when I first got to Toronto and was a bit disconcerted (but not really surprised) to find irritating Suzy still there (and still irritating). I am so over the Bob Marley/Rasta girl dreadlock 'jokes'. Went out wandering again to avoid the crowds at the hostel and stumbled into the studio audience for a Toronto talk show called 'Because I said so.' Had fun watching that. I've seen it on TV but hadn't realised the host was a dyke (or at least queer). Nice to see though. Also nice to see that pretty much all the production staff (except the camera operators) were women (some who were also dykey-looking - cool). At the end they gave all the audience a fridge magnet, but I also got given a baseball cap 'cos your from a long way away'. Don't know what I'm ever going to do with it but hey.

-- Back from Cape Breton I am --

Well I'm back from my driving adventure. The Cape was very beautiful. Lots of forested mountains plunging down into (oddly still) oceans. And the road hugging the curves as it winds up and down and through the park. I'm so glad I'm traveling at this time of year.

I did a lot of driving and going 'wow' 'that's pretty' etc. Also some bushwalking, also going 'wow' as well as '4 km my arse!' etc. I spent a night sleeping in the car, then decided that small cars are not conducive to a good nights sleep (and pain-free knees) so stayed in hotels the rest of the time. I also had one of those fabulous travel moments that seem to condense the whole point of traveling into one instant. THis time it was when I came over a hillside in Cape Breton National Park and there was a mother and baby moose standing by the road. It was so cool, and the baby so small - like knee-high to its mother - that I just burst out laughing. It made me so happy I sang about the baby moose all the way down the mountain.

The weather wasn't so dry the last couple of days but that was cool too. I saw smokey mountain covered in the fog it was named for, and everything looked appropriately moody. Am now back in Halifax and tomorrow fly back to Toronto. Have to mail some more stuff home. Don't know how I've managed to accumluate so much stuff. God knows I'm not buying anything.

Coffee shop ramblings

Another short email from the coffee shop.

I've hired a car today and am heading off into the wide blue yonder - which in this part of the world means Cape Breton National Park. I'm looking forward to some more nature and wilderness. Although am a bit nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road. I'm hoping that I'm just overthinking the difficulty and that once I get into the car with the steering wheel on the wrong side it will be pretty instinctive. Anyway I have 4 days to explore Nova Scotia a bit before heading back to Halifax and then Toronto and then Central America. Have to start planning for what I need to take on that part of the adventure. It seems very adventurous.

Anyway yesterday I spent my time walking the streets of Halifax with Selke, the German woman I met. We went to the Citidel and saw British style guard swho aren;t allowed to move. Then to the museum of immigration where I discovered that refugees into 1950s Canada were treated much better then refugees into 2000's Australia - no real surprise there, sadly. On the Madeleine Islands I met a French woman who'd just returned from 7 months in Australia. She absolutely adored the place amd had really wanted to emigrate there. But she didn't meet the immigration criteria - she didn't have the right job - not a doctor or engineer. So she emigrated to Canada instead where she had no problems at all. This is a highly educated, middle-class, fluent Engligh speaking white women and even she had difficulty getting into Fortress Australia - I wonder at what point Australia has to stop advertising itself as a nation of immigrants - no truth in advertising if you don't actually let anyone in anymore.

Anyway maybe I should catch you up on my trip. The train journey from Quebec City to Moncton was really nice. THere was a bit of confusion at first when the train conductor directed me into a first class cabin instead of my second class bunk. I had an idea this was a mistake, but considering the frist class section was almost empty (and it was very nice) after a few minutes of trying to find the guard to confirm the room and whatever I decided just to forget about it and make myself comfortable. I did - had a nice shower, used my own little private loo, and was just making up the bed when the guard found me and made me move. I reminded him that it was his mistake in the first place not mine, and generally put on my confused foreigner face - but to no avail. Oh well, I appropriated the bottle of water and pillow mint on my way back to the middle classes.

Prince Edward Island I think I'll always remember as a place of missed potential. It seems like it would be a lovely place in the heat of summer or the snow of winter. But in the grey foggy rain of spring from a bus window it was a bit depressing. As I think I've said I stayed at a horrible 'tourist home' (read spare room in eldery couple's basement). The chief benefit was meeting Motoko - a Japanese woman who was planning to hire a car to go to the Maddies. Since I was going the same way we agreed to spilt the cost for a couple of days and so I got transport the 80kms to the ferry.

THe ferry ride the the islands takes 5 hours. THe boat is really big, including cafe, bar, tv lounge, quiet lounge (colonised by couple of necking teenagers in the back row of seats who pulled the blinds down looking for some privacy) and movie theatre (1980's french 'comedies') It gets so busy in Summer that you have to book in advance but now, there was maybe 50 people on the whole boat. Enough time to read a bit, look out the window at the oddly calm ocean (all through the Maritimes so far, the ocean has been really flat - no waves at all, even on the shoreline - sometimes its hard to belive that you're on the ocean an not one of the great lakes). and meet Jo - an guy from Sydney who'd just spent a year doing the Arts part of his arts law degree. He's from an old Labor dynasty in Sydney and has recetnly shocked his parents by admitting to voting Greens in the upper house. We got on very well.

The Maddies are a really difficult place to describe. Imagine maybe a Scottish highlands kind of thing - rolling hills covered with grass and purple heather. Now add Norman Rockwell style wooden cottages dropped almost at random over the hills - none of them facing in the same direction, some close together and others isolated. Let a kindergarden artist paint them in Dr Seussian colours - 1 house, 2 house, Purple House, Orange House - now imagine that some giant took a great big knife and sliced directly down into the fields and hills, sawed out a chunk of land and dumped it in the Atlantic. So now the land doesn't taper down neatly to the ocean, instead the hilles just suddenly stop and fall straight down in red - almost maroon - cliffs. That's the maddies - very strange and beautiful.

Our hostel was at the edge of one of these red cliffs - we had a gorgeous view of the sunset, the bay and the lobster trappers in the ocean in front of us. It really was a special place. But then, isn't everywhere special in its own way?

Well pop wisdom out the way I'll pop off. Much love as always.

So much to tell.

Hello again all. I don't have a lot of time right now - the perils of free internet access at the local coffee shop - so I'm afraid I'm just going to regurgitate what I just wrote to Jen in an email. I've done so much in the last week - but at least this'll give you an overview until I can get back online.

So I left Montreal and went to Quebec City for 2 days. Quebec was gorgeous - a very old city. bery Eoropean in feel - this was exemplified by the fact that English was very rarely spoken, all french. And not the 'I can speak english but why should I?' thing that I expected (and totally understand) but really there are many, many people in French Canada whose english skill match my french - ie virtually nonexistent. I can read almost everything and understand it, and I can comprehend most of what people say, but I really can't say much beyond 'how are you' and 'can I have a coffee please'. Lots of pointing and smiling were done by all.

After Quebec I went to Prince Edward Island - very bucholic. overly quaint place whose main cliam to fame is that this is where the Anne of Green Gables books were set. I didn't stay long. THe weather was [pretty bad and I had a bad experience with a very dodgy tourist home in Charlottown (the capital). It was run by these two septegenarian racists who bossed everyone around (especially the Japanese girl they had working for them) and were just generally obnoxious. So I pressed on. I met a Japanese women at the dodgy guesthouse who was hiring a car and heading to the Illes de la Madeleine the next day which was where I was planning to go, so we spilt the cost. The 'maddies' were just amazing - a 5 hour ferry ride away, back into french canada and a whole new world. I ended up spending 5 days at this gorgeous hostel overlooking the truqouise water and red cliffs of the island, and shared with only 3 other people - all of them lovely. The islands and apparently hugely popular in summer, and you can see why - lovely beaches and scenary and seafood and whatever. But now the season hasen't really begun and we had it all to ourselves and the locals. The weather was beatiful - I even got sunburnt! Tyhe only sad thing was that the water was too cold to swim in, it looked so inviting.

Yesterday. I dragged myself away from the maddies and hitched across Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia with a lovely German woman I met. Hitching is really common in this part of the country - the fact that there's no public transport at all in Prince Edward Island might have something to do with that. We had some lovely rides and no hassles at all, and now are in Halifax - the capital of Nova Scotia.

I'll have to write more later, internet cafe is really busy and there's people waiting. Love and maritime greetings to all.

Train Station - Quebec City

I'm at an internet station at the quebec station waiting forthebus thatwill take me to another station that will have the train to Moncton and fromq there hopefully a bus to Prince edward island.

quebec is beautiful, the old city is a world heritage site and its lovely to walk around. very old and european looking. not so many tourists cos its been raining so i had a great time. lots of american students on french camp though which is a little trying. i went to the museam of civilisation - yes another one, which was very good; apart from that i mainly just walked around. my feet hurt but i saw a lot - and tok lots of photos.

looking forward to sleeping on the train. i have a bunk, - hope there's some food there as well.

Rain

Bec's Rainy Quebecquois Ramble

So I'm still in Montreal, sitting in an internet cafe in Chapters (huge bookstore a la Borders) in fact. I'm planning to head off to Quebec city later today - just looking at potential places to stay.

The weather has been pretty grey and rainly recently, which has changed somewhat what travel stuff I can do - indoors oui ; outdoors non .

But its still been nice. I'm looking forward to getting out of the big city. As cities go Montreal is gorgeous - I'd love to live here someday, although my French would have to get better - but I'm just not in the mood. Give me small and pretty, maybe natural, maybe historic. I want lots of sitting on balconies in cafes and drinking good coffee or cold beer and watching the world go by. So Quebec City it is.

I'll also be happy to be by myself again. I met up with a friend from my co-op here, and it was the perfect example of how some people are just incompatible, travelwise. He's a nice guy but really, I just can't wait to only have myself to answer for again.

I'm looking for cheap hotels in Quebec. I'd like a room to myself for a change. I bit of an extragvigance but hey I think I deserve it. Actually I have to watch my money a bit but who doesn't.

Interesting things about Montreal. It is supposedly the world's most functionally bilingral city. I'm fascinated at how this works, many people seem to use both languages almost interchangably in conversation. It has a large immigrant population, as well as a huge alternative scene. I think its a bit of a mecca for alternative types. It defininity has a protest culture - the rallies here are always the largest in Canada and the NAFTA protests in Quebec City a couple of years ago were huge. Right now the firefighters appear to be on some kind of strike. They're still working but they've painted they're firetrucks and stations green and covered everything with protest stickers ("Oui a fusion; non a CONfusion" etc). It's very visible, and I hope, effective.

Mount Royal

BBCC Montreal

Montreal is a very cool place. Everyone said I`d like it and I do. It`s a hard place not to like, with the Quebecquois (sp) culture and all the Canadian sensibility and the amazing weather. I`m fascinated at how a truly bilingual city works. It seems amazing to me.

I got into Montreal today around noon and met up with a friend of mine from co-op - Jurré from the Netherlands. The hostel we`re staying in is lovely - very funky, an inspriration and illustration of the principle that style doesn`t equal money. This afternoon I wandered around the Old Town and Old Port. It was *crawling* with tourists, but very pretty. It`s been a long time since I`ve been in Europe, but I can see why people make comparisons.

Then we went out for dinner and to check out some of the famous Montreal nightlife. Ended up at a martini bar listening to soul music and drinking overpriced cocktails. Fun was definitely had.

Rafting

BBCC Days 2-4

Hi all,

I don't have much time tonight so here is a truncated blog of the past few days.

I went whitewater rafting yesterday up on the Ottawa river near Gatineau Park just over the border in Quebec. I also stayed up at the rafting company's base camp for two nights cos is was so nice I didn't want to leave. Rafting was fun, especially when I fell in and got to have a bit of a swim. The water was pretty cold - we were all wearing wetsuits and thermal underwear underneath.

I've explored Ottawa a bit, mostly the museum and the national gallery, also the Parliment Building which is a bit hard to miss.

Tommorrow I'm heading to Montreal. Will keep you posted.

BCCC

Bec's Bucholic Canada Caper - Day 1 - Ottawa

I left Toronto today.?Was a bit sad at leaving and whatever, but after I got over myself all was well.?Sent some stuff home via seamail - it's amazing how quickly things accumulate (and I thought I was doing really well!).?Then I found some of my co-op housemates and shanghai'd them into coming out for a coffee with me.?It was a nice way to say goodbye, and it turns out that two of them, Mariska and Jurre from the Netherlands, are going to be in Montreal on Saturday.?So we organised to meet up.?It's nice to know I'll see some familiar faces soon.

Off to the station and the 3:20 train to Ottawa.?It was a nice journey, very relaxing, complete with 'rail attendant' bringing around an airline style cart of snacks to buy.?I played on my puter and stared out the window mostly.

South-Eastern Ontario as viewed from the train is very pretty.?It's not godzone, but its sensibly pretty, lots of rolling hills and farmland and those red and white barns that you see in patriotic films about the American mid-west.?Then we went though a stretch that was nothing but marshland.?This sort of land would be covered in birds in Summer, but right now, on the cusp of Spring it was a bit desolate.

Ottawa is a cute city - very clean, and somewhat over-planned, as any created capital tends to be (Canberra take note).?After getting a bit lost trying to find the hostel and instead getting trapped inside a huge shopping centre, I finally made it to the Ottawa Backpackers.?It's a lovely, homely hostel, feels more like staying at some friend's share-house than a hostel really.?They have a cat - big, fat, ginger, tom called Don Gato - so I'm happy.

Tommorrow planning to head to the museum of civilisation, and maybe on Thursday I'll go white water rafting!?

Being on holiday is cool.

Money has changed hands

Paid for my ticket to Guatemala today - Yay! -
Am really going now.

I'm a bit scared but hey! I'm tougher than I think.

- back to packing now.

Packing

I haven't updated for a while - so I probably should.

Have finally started packing up my room. I'm surprised at how easy and fast it is - guess I did a good job of keeping possession down to a minimum. I'm excited about travelling somewhere new, but also challenged - which I guess is a good thing.
I'd love to add some links for you all but most of my surfling at the moment is fanfic and buffy related - which is kind of embarassing when admitted to a non-fangeek. But that's a pity cos there's some really magnificent and creative stuff out there. The sunnydale sock puppet theatre alone is fabulous, and the first example I've seen of what could totally be a whole new form of theatre. Improvised storytelling online. But hey - if you ever realise what you're missing - which is a bit difficult if you're missing it - let me know and I'll hook you up.

It's late and the frat boys next door are having a party complete with loudly drunken girls - call it the Toronto lullaby. 'night.

Quote for the moment: "an adventure is what happens to you while you're wishing it wasn't" - mark twain (actually may not be word perfect but I can't be bothered looking it up)