Wednesday 26 May 2010

06/05/2010

A night of sleeping on the hotel floor turned out to be a very good nights rest and because we were delayed another day from setting up camp for tree planting we had the whole day to kill. Personally I would have loved to have spent another day in Kelowna with Christina and her housemates but shit happens.

It was still a good day where we spent most of the day at the swimming pool costing only $2 for entry.

All of us were doing flips and dives off the varying height diving boards and it was good to chill for the day after the amount of traveling I had done over the past 5 days.

We just muffed around town looking in op shops including Vakue Village (love that place) and I tried sorting out my tax rebate but unfortunately did not have enough time in the day to sort it out, next time im back in PG, ill get it done.

Because all of us were short on money we decided to camp out for the night in a park close to town, earlier in the day we went dumpster diving in the wholesale supermarket skip where we got our hands on cheese and vacuumed sealed gourmet cooked sausages that were all still good despite being expired a while ago. The food we collected we made toasted cheese sandwiches over a camp fire before crashing in a forest between a dirt service road and train tracks.

05/05/2010

I had a terrible nights sleep on the couch at the girls place, I honestly don’t know what time of the day it should be for me cause of the amount of traveling ive done in the past few days. But I took a sleeping pill that managed to put me to sleep for a few more hours at mid-morning.

I said farewell to Christina and I got ready to leave with one of her housemates as she was headed into town dropping me off at the greyhound station.

As it turns out I could of saved myself $20 for my trip to Kelowna yesterday if I showed my youth travel card I had got in London a long time ago. Damn!

Anyways, I saved a little on the journey to Kamloops where ill be meeting Cole then headed up to Prince George.

Meeting up with Cole, we headed for lunch with his twin sister who by the way is beautiful at an all you can eat Mongolian Grill where you fill up bowls of meat, noodles, veg and sauce where they stirfry it all on a giant hot plate. It’s a great idea and so simple, the only problem I had was the fact they overcooked the beef, but that didn’t stop me going back for seconds asking the beef to be rare and partial frozen.

The 7 hour trip up to PG was good considering I slept for a good portion of the journey and when we arrived we met up with Chris, Alex and 2 other guys where we shared the hotel room costing $12 each… what I paid in India for almost a week.

We had a few drinks and talked about our winters.

At one point alex and I headed to the liquor store for more beer when we were approached by some natives offering us some beer, they asked what type of cigarette I was smoking and I told them it was a bidi that I brought back from India, the woman must have been confused, drunk or just plain dumb as she told me that I cant use the word Indian in this country as the Indian people here like to be referred to as ‘Natives’. I said I bought them from India and did not say Indian but she got all riled up telling me not to use that word, it was annoying and we lost our patience and left. Later when in the hotel this woman shows up again asking us if she could use our phone and if we wanted her company… if you know what I mean, we just shut the door in her horrible looking face…

This is Prince George!

04/05/2010

I woke early today to catch a ride with Nai to the skytrain where I headed using public transport to the furthest I could get to outside the city, at this time the weather was good and within 30 minutes I had a ride with an Indian guy who took me further out of town.

He even offerd me some money for a greyhound bus to Kelowna but I thankfully refused.

Where he dropped me off wasn’t the busiest of entries on Hwy 1, I stood in the rain for 2 hours with nothing but a dick who stopped until I lifted my bags and drove off. I HATE it when people do that.

Anyways, cold and frozen to the bone I gave up on the hitchhiking and walked to a local bus stand asking directions on the way and was given a cup of coffee from a lady who could obviously see I was freezing. I got on a bus to the center of Abbotsford where I waited for the greyhound for 3 hours to get to Kelowna that set me back $60. That type of money could literally get you all around India.

I wondered around town for a while using the free internet at a café to contact a few people and tried sorting out my phone but Canada being the worst place in the world to own a phone and that part of the department was closed for the day I was unable to fix the problem.

I passed out on the bus for a good few hours and woke at a service stop. I met a guy there who accidently missed his bus to Kelowna and had to hitchhike to Kelowna, as a gift I gave him my Kelowna sign I made in Vancouver to aid him on his trip there.

I arrived in K-town where I called Deb to come meet me, we went to go grab a beer where we chatted for a good while and caught up. I then called Christina and went to her place which used to be closer to the Greyhound station. She had moved into a lush place “up on the hill” where she was sharing with 4 other girls… I was only spending the night but when (not if) I come back to Kelowna Christina said I was more than welcome to stay with her. I stayed up quite late telling the girls stories of my adventures they all being enthralled and interested… a few beers for all of us would have helped this situation. ;)

But as everyone had to work in the morning we all set off to bed.

03/05/2010

Jeremy took me to the airport at 7 giving me 3 hours before my flight.

When I entered the security gate the officials telling people not to take liquid and other dangerous goods told me if I had any type of marijuana type substance to hand it over to them for them to take home.I joked with them for a little while and it was extra funny because they were Indian and said I look like Andrew Simons, exactly what Indians kept on telling me back in India.

Walking around I met an Norwegian girl (Fiona) who was flying home after some time in SE asia and Australia and I chatted to her before she boarded her plane also giving her some chocolate as a gift…. I don’t know what I was expecting giving her this, but if anything it was a nice gesture.

By the time I boarded my flight I was nackard, I was much in need of sleep, instead I watched the new transformers film that was terrible, took a sleeping pill, ate lunch and crashed out a good 5 hours, thankfully I had the entire 3 seats in the middle row to myself so I could lay down for the duration of the flight.

I woke to be given a fajita and some drinks, I even managed to get 3 more fajitas and a bunch of aeroplane food because I told one of the stewardesses I was hitch hiking to Kelowna and also because they were just going to throw it away.

When I walked up to customs the official the woman was very blunt and direct, asking how long id be staying in Canada, who I would be staying with, how much money I had and so on and so forth. It was quite a scary moment because I had to lie about the fact I was working because apparently my visa doesn’t authorize me for reentry. Later as they singled me out from the crowds leaving the airport (probably from my dreads) I met an Australian girl who also had the same visa and told me the “NOT AUTHORISED FOR RE-ENTRY” on my visa does not apply. So basically I did not need to lie at customs. Meh.

Whilst waiting in the very slowly moving crew for 3 hours I had to rip my bag apart explaining in detail everything in my possession, soldering iron, chef knife, sleeping pills receipts and so forth… it was a long process and perhaps not far from being finger fucked by border security.

Anyways, I finally made it out getting on the new sky train to the center of the city and made my way to the Samesun Hostel I have stayed at on plenty of occasions, I didn’t need to stay there but needed to use to internet to contact Naomi using skype because my phone for some reason doesn’t work.

I hung around the hostel until Naiomi came to pick me up where I bumped into Stu and Adam who lived with Diane last season in Big White. Crazy!

I spent the evening with Naomi, Eric and some of his family at Erics place eating some sushi and for some reason which I apologised for later kept on talking to them really slowly as if they couldn’t understand me, like in Asia (Eric and his family is Vietnamese) but of course their English is perfect.

By 9pm I was nackard so Nai and I headed back to hers and I passed out on the couch.