Vancouver
Writing about Vancouver is a lot harder than writing about the previous stages of the journey, because I am no longer traveling and nostalgia is creeping over me. I will still try and give my best because Vancouver deserves a good description, if only to jog my memory in times to come.
I had decided earlier to travel by bus from Calgary, since I would be able to see the changing landscape and the mountains from afar. Walter, a friend I made while studying in Montreal, traveled with me which made the 14-hour trip a lot more pleasant and kurzweilig than it would otherwise have been. I slept during the first few hours on the bus and woke up facing a mountain! We went via Banff and Kamloops through mountains interspersed with lakes (I was disappointed at those lakes at first, having imagined them as turquoise blueish when they were first muddy and only later of a satisfactory deep blue).
In Vancouver I stayed with Jozina, another friend from Montreal, in a quaint house with a lush garden a little outside of downtown. What strikes the senses first upon arriving in Vancouver is the abundance of nature in everyone's front garden (roses!), the size of high rises in downtown - only to be topped by the vast mountains looming in the background.
I guess I "did" more in Vancouver than in Calgary, but then I had 12 days to spend there.
The day after arriving I went camping with Jozina, Walter, and his brother Mark, and although it rained most of the time we spent in Golden Ears Provincial Park a little outside of Vancouver, it still was a great experience. The trees in that forest were higher than I'd ever seen any and all the more majestic for the dull greyness of the sky. Had it been sunny while we were there the trees would have been less imposing, I'm sure. I hadn't been camping since I was a kid, so it was all very exciting, the four of us crammed into one tent, confined to it for half the day, until the rain ceased a little and we ventured out on a hike to some really cool waterfall. On hte way there we stopped at a river to skid stones over the water and see how often we could make them tip the surface before going down. And who could thrown a stone most accurately on a rock at the other side of the river. Sometimes all it takes to pass a few enjoyable minutes is water and a few stones.
The day we came back from camping I had my first sushi experience. All you can eat sushi! My friend Emily, who hails from Vancouver and therefore is an expert on raw fish navigated me through the whole variety of uncooked fish and I must say that although I only really disliked the oysters, I don't care much for raw fish. I prefer vegetarian sushi.
The next night Emily took me and some Australian friends of hers out sailing in English bay, where we spent two hours idling across (with me on the tiller steering, yippieh) the bay, downtown skyscrapers and a mountain range as the backdrop. To grow up with the sea and the mountains in view at all times is quite enviable.
The next days I spent walking around downtown, visiting the art gallery with Jozina, reading on the shore at UBC (University of British Columbia), walking to Stanley Park, mainly enjoying the company of the friends I made last year. On my last night in Vancouver Jozina gave a dinner party which ended with a backyard bonfire at midnight and me saying good-bye to Emily and Matt, soon to be Mrs. and Mr. Rogers, to Jozina who housed me and made me feel at home at her place, to Bernie, my fellow exchange student at McGill, and to Walter, who brought me to the airport on Tuesday morning. I did not cry, but I think it would have been a relief. The tears are still in me, waiting to break free, and I fear my mom will have to bear them once I set foot on German ground.
Here ends the travellogue for now. Thanks for joining me on my trip across Canada.
Calgary
I had a great good-bye from Edmonton thanks to climbing down into the river valley and spotting a beaver (!) there and almost watching the sunset. Not to forget practising cartwheels and the Ave Maria in the legislature grounds around 10pm. My feeling for time is being turned upset down not so much due to jetlag but because the sun sets so late here. Thanks, Meaghan, for making my stay in Edmonton so eventful and memorable. I'm glad I got to see you again!
My morning drive to Calgary started out in pouring rain, but once the sky cleared I got a first glimpse at what people mean when they say the Albertan sky is different. Its vast and all-surrounding and you could spend a day just watching the clouds move over it. I am at Walter's place in the outskirts of Calgary at the moment and enjoying a few days of doing nothing but sky watching and strolling along the almost picturesque Fish Creek. Tomorrow morning we're taking the bus to Vancouver, a 14-hour ride.
I'll get back to y'all soon.
Edmonton
From Halifax I have proceeded to Edmonton, and I have managed to do so without tranquilizers thanks to a gentlmean on the plane who sat next to me and tried to take my fear away from me by pointing out that so what? what's the use of panicking on the plane when you can't change what's happening anyway? Whatever happens, happens. We're all going to die some day. And it'll be a quick dead. Well, apart from those cheerful and uplifting comments it helped that I was seated at the front of the plane where I could see the flight attendants caht and prattle and be merry. And as long as they have no wrinkels of worry on their foreheads, why should I worry, right? Still, there were some nasty bumps on that flight (over Ontario, Great Lakes Region) which made me aware of the fact that I wqill never be able to enjoy a flight. Or relax. I will always be tense and dread it.
Anyway, I'm in Edmonton now and since Meaghan has to work I spent yesterday with her boyfriend Stephen, wandering around downtown (which looks quite ghostly to be honest, because you have all those high rises and so few people walking the broad streets) and seeing an art exhibition featuring young Chinese art. It was good, esp. walking thorugh it with somebody who loves art and does art and can point out those little details that a non-artist like me would never have thought of. But it had a disturbing number of pink pig heads which reminded me of Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies combined. Brrrr. We had a vegetarian lunch afterwards. Today I spent with Meaghan's friend Malcolm cycling on a tandem which M&M had used to bike through Asia a few years ago. It was a very leisurely ride for me, sitting in the back seat and enjoying the landscape (mainly trees and meadows, no sunshine but the smell of woods.lovely) we did 60km in less than 3 hours. I did feel my legs afterwards, so I suppose I was not entirely idle.
Tomorrow morning I'm going on to Calgary.
PEI the second
I've just left this most beautiful island of all to go to Halifax, where my flight to Edmonton is leaving tomorrow. I'm staying over at Meredith's place, a girl who studied linguistics with me this past year. She's in Edinburgh at the moment, so I don't actually get to see her. But I can sleep in her room. Which looks cosy and the bed is soft and inviting...and before I fall asleep, let me update this travel blog. When I came back from Souris on Monday I stayed in most of the day after walking around Charlottetown for a bit, because I really felt rathre low and had a real cold coming on. That night my hostel decided to cook lobster, and I watched the process of cooking the poor things (inbetween watching a couple of other poor Things on TV lose the Stanley Cup to Anaheim). I went to bed early because I wanted to be ready fo r my tour to Cavendish the next day and felt quite ok the next morning. Contrary to the weather forecast the sun didn't let us down on Tuesday so I had a splendid tour across the island to Cavendish, home of author LM Montgomery, the surrounding villages and beaches. I got to visit "Green Gables", took a stroll through Lover's Lane and took at least 40 photos of the landscape (I felt guilty because I had used my camera rather sparingly the other days). Had really scrumptious potato pie with a bacon/maple sirup sauce at one of the restaurants around cavendish and got to tase delicious lemon curd. hmmm. Went to bed earl, though, because the cold caught up with me that night. Decided to stay in bed Wednesday to gather strength for the weekend, when I was scheduled to go west. Since I did feel much better Wednesday afternoon, went for a walk along the shore/board walk with Kiwi and Hanni and Nanni (that's how I call them in my mind, they're really called Lizzie and Lizzie and hail from England). Andie, should you read this blog, one of the Lizzie's has just graduated in drama and took part in the Old Vic-New Voices programme last year as an assistant director (and yes, she got to meet and almost work with Kevin Spacey. You should so try to get into that programme if you can. never mind you're older than 25. you're perfect for the position). Anyway, we enjoed ourselves at the beach and spent the night watching Ottawa's last final painful breaths before losing the game to Anaheim. I've never watched that much hoceky in my life. Is hould go get some sleep now. Why? Because of the drama of last night. I had two guys and a girl from Saskatchewan stay in my dorm last night and one of the guys got drunk in his inhibition-lowered spirit told the girl he loved her. Should I mentio nthat she was with the other guy? Anyway, she tried to comfort the drunken guy until 5 in the morning, which was precisely 1 1/2 hours before I had to get up. You can imagine how muh sleep I got. Nothing against a good story, unless it interferes with my beauty sleep, which is holy to me, esp. when recovering from the evil sniffles.
Oh, lest I forget. I learnt a few very important small talk fun facts> The expression "Sleep tight don't let the bed bugs bite
" apparently originates in a time when people used to have rope instead of wood as "Lattenrost" for their beds. So wooden frames with rope running from one end to the other end, on whcih you put the mattress. Now, when the material the rope is made of stretches and loosens, you got to tighten the rope and make a new knot in the bed. The bed bugs part is mroe obvious, seeing that people used to fill their beds with straw, which did contain bugs...
Enough wisdoms for today, sleep well, beloved readership, I'll get back to you soon
Travelogue: PEI
Dear readers, just jotting down a few notes on my current travel activities:
Took the bus to Charlottetown, PEI Friday night and arrived here after intervals of sleeping and reading and listening to music at 4pm. Forgot my sweater in the baggage that went intop the luggage compartment of the bus and therefore only had my towel to wrap myself into and fight the freezingly cold air conditioning. Result: got the sniffles.
In Charlottetown came into the most cosyt, friendly hostel you can imagine. A quaint little house in the centre of the city, with me sleeping in the attic and over me some neon-yewllow stars of the type you'd put into your child's bedroom. They absorb light during the day and then give off light during the night.
Anyway, since the weather was threatening to get worse on MOnday I decided to take my bike trip around the east coast the next day. When I arrived in Souris, east coast, I was counting on one of the hotels to rent a bike from, but none had any. On my quest for a bike I came by the Bayview Lodge and entered, thinking this would be another hotel. Turned out to be a home for the elderly. But the receptionist took up my cause and called someone ("Can't be that hard to get you a bike for a day") and so I got a friend's bike and helmet and after some really tasty fish and chips I set off for the coast. Instead of the planned 40kn to the East Point I did a mere 12km to Basin Head Beach. They have the so-called singing sands there, sand containing silicium which makes funny squeeky noises when you walk over it with your bare feet. The wind and the hilly road then forced me back to Souris, where I arrived with a thorrough sunburn on my face. I found the house where I was supposed to stay easliy (it was described to me as the pie-shaped house) and everyone in the tight-knot 2000 souls village knew who lived there and how to get there. Lindsey, the girl I stayed with, took me to a Ceilidh with traditional fiddle music after. I'll see if I can post a link to that soon.
Have to go!!!
