Day 43 - Leaving Canada

Tuesday 31 August 2004

Summed up as: rain, humidity, packing, repacking, and flying. I haven't done the flying yet though.

Hostels in Canada

I wish to have a whinge at this point. I've been hostelling for over a month, and have seen varying qualities of hostel on my stay.

The best was without question Quebec City - beautiful wooden finish, comfy beds, clean and modern shared facilities, and all in a quaint old building that is very well located. Vancouver would come a very close standard, and easily has the best service of any of the HI's I have visited anywhere.

The worst would be Halifax. It came across to me as slightly rundown, and the service standard just wasn't up to the other places I have visited (the office was often unattended or people there couldn't help). As far as the hostel itself, there was no concept whatsoever of personal space, even in the common rooms and relaxation areas. It was, however, well located and a comfy bed.

I should temper my whinge by saying that all HI hostels would get at least a 5/10 score, through being in an association which has standards. There are hostels in Canada which are not HI hostels that you would not keep a dog in.

Best and worst in Canada

After touring the entire country, my favourite places to be so far have been Greater Vancouver, Quebec City and Saint John. I would gladly visit all of these places again, and hope to do so as soon as I can get money to do so.

Edmonton would get my bottom vote, but it actually wasn't a bad place. I just felt somewhat bored there. Kind of the same with Halifax - although there's a lot more happening here than I got the chance to see. To be honest, I will be looking at different accommodation options for Halifax next time.

Things that I'll probably miss when leaving Canada

- The local obsession with hockey and Tim Horton's coffee
- My friend Daniel, who has been an amazing travelling companion
- Yellow-box traffic lights and uniform traffic rules (and generally orderly traffic) throughout the country
- Friendliness overall of Canadians
- The amazing amount of green everywhere, even in cities
- The smell of the local forest - different from home, and quite nice
- The accents, most of which are quite pleasant, and the local language
- Bilingual signs and products (even if noone can speak one of the languages on the sign or product)
- The cool looking coins (I won't actually miss those as I've kept a few)
- The ruthlessly efficient way by which most things work in cities here
- Canadian and provincial flags flying everywhere (does any Australian my age know what their state's flag looks like?)
- Running lights on cars in full sunshine in the middle of the day.

Things I probably won't miss

- Homeless people begging on city streets (this is No.1 for a reason)
- The ruthlessly efficient way by which most things work in cities here
- Being completely lost when confronted with French-only Quebecois
- The world-aware-yet-unaware thing one often has to confront in attitudes to Australia and NZ (it's different to the States, but still hell annoying)
- The lack of seating options and restrooms in public places (although the restrooms here are almost without exception clean and well maintained)

* To respond to two emails, yes, one item is in both lists, and deliberately so.

What would I do next time?

Vancouver
Banff National Park (not just Lake Louise) probably with Moose or another tour
Calgary
Winnipeg
Toronto as a base for the region
Montreal, Quebec, possibly some of the region (learn French first)
Saint John (Acadian/Orleans goes Quebec -> Moncton)
Halifax region via Digby
(Cape Breton? Lunenburg?)

Summary of Day 8-43

I have had an amazing time in this country. I've had opportunity to whinge at times, but that's because I've thrown myself wholeheartedly into an environment to which I had no exposure prior to my trip, and decided to go hostelling for most of the way which comes with its own unique set of problems and frustrations no matter where one does it. But I have no regrets (other than possibly not checking that taxi in Toronto before getting out sans camera) and am already looking forward to my next visit. My departure is bitter-sweet - I'm eagerly looking forward to new experiences in Ireland, Eastern Europe and Turkey, but am sad to leave this country that has treated me so well behind. Canadians are in many ways a lot like Australians so many times I have not felt that far from home here. I will be curious to review this entry after I've finished Eastern Europe.

(Edit from Poland:) I pretty much agree with what I said above.

Day 39-42 - Saint John, Digby, Wolfville, Halifax

Friday 27 August 2004, 23:30 AT (GMT-3, Perth-11)

I have arrived in Saint John - a city of about 100,000 and, as I found out once I got there, the second foggiest city in Canada after St John's, Newfoundland. The scenery on the way here (from Halifax, up through Nova Scotia, via Truro and Moncton) reminded me a lot once again of Tasmania - farms, very green trees, and the occasional distant mountain range.

The place I'm staying at, Carleton House, is positively amazing. I am treated like a guest in a friend's home rather than a paying holiday-maker, and the room is the best I've stayed in this trip with a nice comfy bed - great for recovering from 30+ days of hostelling. Stan and his wife Nancy have gone to great trouble to make my stay as enjoyable as possible.

Saturday 28 August 2004, AT

Breakfast (french toast, maple syrup, crispy bacon and tea, all prepared by the hosts) was served, and then I decided to go do some sightseeing. The fog hung around until about 11am, so I checked out the Inside Connection (Saint John's version of PATH, but above ground instead of underground), scored myself some CD/DVD bargains (and more paperwork for Tuesday) and then went sightseeing. Saint John is Canada's oldest incorporated city - it's been around since the 1600s - and the beautiful old buildings are everywhere. Saint John is also home to the Reversing Falls, created by the tides of the Bay of Fundy (which can be up to 14m) as they force the Saint John River to flow upstream towards its source for several hours every day around high tide. It truly screws with your mind to watch it for any length of time. A note for later - there is a basic, but good, public transport system which runs well into the night - I didn't use it but good to know it exists.

Sunday 29 August 2004, AT

I was offered an extra serving of breakfast as the ferry food is expensive, and then got the grand tour of Greater Saint John from Stan, where we went to some places that were a little too far away to walk to. After that, I was off walking again - the fog had completely disappeared so I went around to photograph some things I'd missed on Saturday and rephotograph some of Saturday's shots. I had to be careful with the time though as I had a 4:45pm departure on the ferry across the Bay of Fundy to Digby, and had to be there an hour before departure.

The ferry was similar to other ferries I've been on - probably most like the Vancouver-Victoria ferry, or the ones that carry passengers from Perth to Rottnest. I sat with some goth kids and their older sister, who made passing the time quite easy. I think the quote I'll take a while to forget is "But I just don't feel right going out without things dangling from my hands!"

One thing someone forgot to mention somewhere along the line is that the Digby ferry marina is not the marina on the map of Digby. It is, in fact, the end of the 303 highway some 9km away. After walking nearly half of it, I came to a Nova Scotia Tourism office, and was offered a lift the rest of the way into town. I still cannot get over the friendliness of people in the Maritimes (as Atlantic Canada is usually called).

The Bayside Inn is more like a motel than a B&B, but I didn't mind the creature comforts offered at all. You have no idea how much you get used to a lack of personal space and shared facilities in hostels, and how much of a welcome change something like this place is.

Monday 30 August 2004

I was leaving Digby at 8am on the bus, but I really wanted to stay longer. I made the best of it by taking a walk at sunrise to see the place (which includes Canada's biggest scallop fleet) and getting back to the B&B for a home cooked breakfast. The service and quality of this place is good, and I do hope to return someday.

Left on Acadian to go to Wolfville. Wolfville was actually really nice, although the bus stop is really badly located if you're carrying half your life with you as I was - especially if it is over 30 degrees and humid, as it was. I still got a good meal at a place called Acton's on the main street, which does an awesome local buffet, and got in a bit of sightseeing including the Waterfront Park where one can see the place twice in two hours and the tides have completely transformed the way the place looks. After several hours of sweating, I got CJ's Taxi back to the bus stop and then went back to Halifax.

Day 38-39 - In transit, via Halifax

Thursday 26 August (jeudi 26 août) 2004, 11am ET

Back in Montreal - or rather, Dorval Airport. The worst part about transfer flights is fatigue, two sets of security checks, etc... I had to unpack part of my baggage this time, as I have a radio, CD player and other stuff in there that fails their security check unless it's isolated. Quebec Airport's a bit out of town and costs $27 for a taxi as there is no shuttle - next time I'll have to see if I can get to Sainte-Foy on public transport and get a taxi from there. Daniel was amused by my attempts, using 'dictionnaire Français', to communicate with a woman (non-English-speaking) sitting next to me. I couldn't understand a word she said (except when she grabbed my dictionary and started speaking 'dictionary English', as she called it) but she could understand me and seemed quite amused by the whole thing.

Friday 27 August 2004, AT (GMT-3h, Perth-11h)

Halifax is an interesting place - one of the oldest cities in Canada, it contains a lot of old buildings and green spaces and a beautiful waterfront area with some islands, but is ridiculously small for a city of 300,000 (it reminds me a bit of both Launceston and Hobart) and can only be explained by the apparent contradiction of "slow and chaotic". Once you get off the multitude of freeways coming in and going out of Halifax, the traffic is very slow - there are traffic jams regularly in the two-lane main street in the city, and I've even seen drivers stop in the middle of an intersection for up to 30 seconds to negotiate it. Service is very slow here, but friendly. One odd observation is people here seem to have a much stronger Canadian accent than I'm used to - the 'a's are even flatter than Vancouver's, the 'ay's are shriller, and the 'ou' in 'about' is meticulously pronounced.

Not much really to say other than that. I'm going by bus to Saint John, New Brunswick, today and staying in a nice B&B there for a couple of days. It'll probably be a while (Tuesday maybe?) before I can update this again.

Day 36-37 - Québec City

Tuesday 24 August (mardi 24 août) 2004, approx 9pm ET

Have arrived safely in Quebec City. The place looks amazing so far, but I've got a few admin things to do so that I can go out all tomorrow and explore the place.

My final thoughts on Montréal - It'll be better when I learn French. It is truly an amazing place and I love the architecture and the green spaces there. I am definitely coming back. (This list so far includes Auckland, Vancouver, Calgary and London) In particular I want to explore Longueuil and Parc Jean-Drapeau a bit.

I spent the day after writing the last entry photographing the stuff I saw the previous day in Montréal - and went into the Marie Reine de Monde church and was stunned at the scope and intricacy of the 2nd biggest church in North America. The bus trip (we ended up on the 4pm one) was fairly uneventful but we got to see some nice Quebec scenery. The place reminds me a little of Tasmania. Some absolutely massive

Wednesday 25 August (mercredi 25 août) 2004, ET

Wow, this place just rocks. I don't know how to describe it, but it's the only walled city north of Mexico in North America, and is full of old European architecture and vibe. Obviously lots of other people like it too - UNESCO gave it accreditation as a site in the 80s. I've never been anywhere like this, and I definitely intend to come back.

The hostel here is really good too - nice modern interior in a historic building. People here speak less English than in Montréal but are very friendly and will help you no matter what. The place has a lot of tourists - mostly American and French - but has not sold out like some of the places I've been to. It's quite funny seeing the horses and carts trying to compete with the cars on the narrow steep streets.

One interesting view of this place is from the St Lawrence Seaway. The name of the city (and province) come from an Algonquian word meaning "narrows", and at this point and for 80km northeast, you still get almost 100% fresh water. We went out on the Louis Jolliet, a boat named for an 18th-century French explorer, and had a guided tour in English and French of the district, including Levis, Beauport, the shipyards (2nd largest in North America) and of course Chute Montmorency, the waterfall 12km east of Quebec which is taller than Niagara (but nowhere near as impressive - still nice though)

It's amazing too how just outside the city you're instantly back in modernity - although, in much the same spirit as Montréal, a lot of the architecture is still comfortably old.

So yeah, I am kind of in love with the place. Too bad I have to leave tomorrow.

Day 34-36 - Montréal

Sunday 22 August 2004 (dimanche 22 août), ET (GMT-4; Perth-12)

We left early on Sunday morning for Montreal. Unfortunately, the Airport Express shuttle in Toronto does not go anywhere near the hostel, so I had to haul my baggage across about five city blocks to the nearest stop. This proved too much, so I hailed a taxi.

This led to the first actual disaster which has happened on this trip - I left my camera behind in the taxi. The last day or so has not been good as I have been pining after it and worried that I may never see it again. I guess as the day has worn on, while I am still upset/sad about it, I realise that it is replaceable (albeit expensively so) and that if people don't do the right thing and hand in my poor, worse-for-wear camera to somewhere where it can get back to its rightful owner (i.e. me), then it will only come back on them - I'll have a brand new camera and all my old shots, and they will have their conscience.

The next few hours was a bit of a blur - travelled to the airport, waited at the airport, found out I had a seat but Daniel didn't, flew to Montreal sans Daniel and camera, completed the police report at both ends of my journey, and got the airport shuttle to my accommodation in Montreal.

I found out on a quick walk around Rue Sainte-Catherine, one of the main shopping areas, that French is somewhat more mandatory than I had presumed in these parts. Several people had told me it was possible to survive with just English. It appears that while this is possible, you don't get nearly as good service (and indeed I have been ripped off a few times). Montreal is a very green, beautiful city rich with history and culture, and there isn't a huge number of highrises here, although it seems many people do live in quaint three-storey apartments with stairs up the front.

Daniel arrived at around 10:30pm due to a mix-up at the airport, and we've been inseparable since. The hostel is actually really nice and the room has its own bathroom - something we've kind of lacked since - well, we've just lacked it full stop, I think.

Early observations about Montreal

1. This place is in Quebec, one almost has to pinch themselves to remember that this is the same country I have been in for the last month or so. The roads are wide boulevards with big black traffic lights, not the yellow box ones almost ubiquitous in most of Canada, people just look different, sound different and even the food is in a category all of its own. Not that any of these things are bad - I have actually done quite well for food in Montreal. It's a very international city and you can literally name your cuisine, walk around a few city streets and find it in no more than 20 minutes.

2. While the drivers here border on insane, it's a remarkably easy city for a pedestrian to navigate. I'd hate to drive here, though.

3. Once you get used to written French and get to know a few common words, you can mentally translate back into English fairly easily. Sometimes the French even makes more literal sense than the often-euphemised English and can even be quite fun. One example mentioned possible removal of limbs as a safety hazard, whereas the English version just mentioned injury.

4. There's a unique smell to this place that is hard to define. It's sweet, faintly smoky, faintly perfumey.

5. While this is French Canada, despite what I said in (1), it is still Canada. French-Canadian teenagers zipping about on skateboards listening to Sum 41 and Millencolin (even if they can't understand many of the words) dressed in black t-shirts and Nikes are proof of this, in my opinion.

Music memories

I usually record the music that reminds me of each place I visit. Here is the list so far:

Auckland - Maroon 5 "This Love"
Honolulu - Chevelle "Send The Pain Below"
Vancouver - Pete Townshend "Open The Door To Your Heart"
Toronto - Hoobastank "The Reason"
Montreal - Morcheeba (find name of song)

Songs I've heard in almost every city (usually in hostels or shops):

Delta Goodrem "Born To Try"
Abba "Mamma Mia"
Beastie Boys "Paul Revere"

Tuesday 24 August (mardi 24 août) 2004, Montréal, 12 midday ET

Yay! I got me a camera! Thanks very much to Image Point in Rue Ste-Catherine, with their friendly bilingual staff.

I spent all of Monday just getting around Montréal. It's a very interesting city and is great to explore. One warning though - if you're British or Australian and have my levels of French speaking ability (i.e. negligible) it's worth saying Bonjour and Merci (or Merci beaucoup) whenever appropriate, and clearly emphasising your nationality. They don't mind the tourists, but if they think you are English-Canadian, you will possibly get crappy service or even ripped off.

Examples:
- A guy insisting my $20 note was counterfeit and trying to make me use a credit card for the purchase. (I got the bank to check it later, it definitely was kosher). I had a second note though, and he would have looked an idiot claiming both were.
- A shopowner Daniel encountered who, when given $14 for a $13 purchase, said "Thanks for the tip", smirked and shut the till without giving change.
- A cafe staffer who attempted to pass me off a no-longer-legal-tender old-style $10 note. I realised immediately and only got a correct note when a Swiss-French guy intervened and said lots of stuff very quickly in French. Conspicuously, the guy put the old $10 note back in the till - presumably for a less assertive English-speaking victim.

That being said however, most people here are very friendly, even if English is not widely spoken. Anyone who speaks it fluently usually turns out to be from another province.

As I now have a camera, I'm going off to photograph centre-ville (downtown) Montréal before bussing off to Québec City.

Added section: Survival French

There are variants to all of the below, but these work:

à or au = to
de = of, from
sur = over
sous = (under?)
-er or -ez is usually a verb
bonjour = good day, hello etc
merci = thank you
beaucoup (bu-ku) = very much or a lot
excusez-moi (skew-zay-mwah) = sorry, excuse me
bon, mal = good, bad. While you sound pidgin saying these before nouns, who cares, they do understand you.
monde = world

Doors - Poussez=Push, Tirez=Pull
Shops - Ouvert=Open, Ferme=Closed
Signs - Arrêt=Stop

Days:
Lundi/Monday
Mardi/Tuesday
Mercredi/Wednesday
Jeudi/Thursday
Vendredi/Friday
Samedi/Saturday
Dimanche/Sunday

Lun à Ven=Mon to Fri

* Pronounce en, ent, on, an, ant etc as a nasal "on", without quite pronouncing the "n"
* Pronounce in, ain as a nasal "an" as above
* Unless a word ends with an e or the next word starts with a vowel, don't pronounce the last consonant(s) - eg dix (ten) is "dee". Exception is words ending with c.
* Pronounce "u" and "ue" by saying "ee" with an "o" mouth shape.

Day 32-33 - London ON, Toronto

(Second go at writing this - the first entry got simply lost.)

Friday 20 August 2004, ET

Our destination today, London, a city of 300,000 people just 199km away from Toronto or 2 hours by Greyhound, turned out to be a really good choice. It's perched on the forks of the Thames River and has plenty of green areas and parks for walking. In addition, the city's done a great job at preserving many of its old buildings and houses in the forks area near downtown. A newer addition is the Covent Garden Market where we had a very English Canadian meal - eggplant kebab and burek.

I even managed to pick up the new Tea Party album (Seven Circles) two weeks before its Australian release at a store in Dundas Street - while it's not that exciting, you may be happy to know that Bob Rock only got his hands on three tracks.

The weather could have been better - was raining (also experienced by Toronto and Niagara, as we heard later), but not that hard and I find that sort of soft rain atmosphere is excellent for walking around foresty types of areas as it brings out the smells in a big way. I always remember walking around Star Swamp at sunrise back in Perth when the dew really brought out the eucalyptus and you could just breathe it - this is similar, but it's primarily maple and conifers.

Overall I was quite impressed with London and I do intend to be back sometime :)

Saturday 21 August 2004, ET

Today, we tried to pack as much as possible into one day, it being our last in Toronto.

Firstly, we had heard about an eccentric millionaire, rich from the Niagara Falls hydroelectricity scheme in the early 1900s, who built himself a castle on a hill in Toronto. Unfortunately, he ended up bankrupt less than 10 years later, in no small part due to the maintenance required for his castle. We went early but it seems the tourists had discovered it in droves and there was a steep entry price on the castle itself - but the grounds were free, so we wandered those for a bit.

A bit up the road, but away from the tourists, we found another castle - this one, it turned out, was the Casa Loma Stables. Evidently, his horses deserved the best too. I was let in by a caretaker who allowed me to take some closeup photographs. He was keen to point out to me that the guy was the culprit behind the introduction of grey squirrels to Ontario from Britain - not only do they compete with the native black squirrels, but they also hunt and kill them sometimes. In parts of Vancouver, you only actually see grey ones, although the black ones are in abundance in parks and gardens here.

The area around Casa Loma and Dupont/St Clair West seems to be where the wealthy people really live - it looked just like some of the similarly-priced suburbs in Perth I wandered around in early July. I hope the tourist guides don't discover it, though, as it will probably become just as rundown as Yorkville has.

Next stop in our whistlestop tour was the Queens Park area. It is a garden with a very English feel to it, and near a statue of a mounted horseman, we realised we'd walked in on some weird music festival. We quietly shuffled off towards the Ontario Legislature - seeing as we'd seen the BC (Victoria) and AB (Edmonton) ones, we thought we'd compare. The western ones are far more stylish, but this one just oozes grand. (It turns out it was built in the last century after an inconclusive open competition - ultimately one of the adjudicators got the contract amid much protest!)

Enough of the west - we jumped on a subway and went off east to Greektown on Danforth (near Chester station). Before getting there I was expecting it to be very tacky, and was surprised to find it was the sort of place you'd actually find Greek people who speak Greek eating at the local cafes and tavernas. Even the English street names nearby (Logan Ave, Danforth etc) had been translated into Greek on street signs. We tried out some of the local gyros before going up the road a bit to one of the many hidden attractions listed by this site (which I recommend to anyone, even if just for the pictures) - Leaside Bridge, with amazing views over the Don Valley. These amazing views, however, like many other things in Toronto, were framed by a freeway - namely the Don Valley Parkway.

As it was now 4pm, we decided to head off pronto to the CN Tower as we had tickets ($16 each). The tickets saved us a long wait at one counter but didn't save us from the next - between security checks and just plain out waiting, it was 37 minutes until we got to the top. On getting there, it turned out the place was not just crowded but a swarming mass of tourists and very little could be seen. All the good views of downtown had been fenced off and made into a cafe, so you couldn't see them from the observation points. Even the famed glass floor, which turned out to be only a tiny area much smaller than that at the Sky Tower in Auckland, was so covered in people that you'd barely have known it was there. At over twice the price of its Southern Hemisphere rival, I didn't end up concluding I'd gotten value for money. However, I can now say I've stood 346m from the ground on a man-made structure.

After that, we needed to get away from people, and I'd seen the Western Beaches on a map (and the boldts site recommended them too) so we thought we'd go there for the closing hours of the evening and, after 45 sweaty minutes in a streetcar, we were there, just off Lakeshore Blvd near the Humber Bay area. Now, I should make one point clear. These are beaches purely in the sense that they are where land meets water. Most of them are reclaimed land, and none of them could be described as a beach by traditional standards. However, it was a beautiful place to see out our last evening in Toronto, and I got some awesome pictures.

Toronto is very different to what I expected. I guess I expected something more like Melbourne - and indeed, superficially, it bears some resemblance. But it is a big city in all the ways a big city can be. It's cleaner and better organised than, say, Sydney, and it's got its own charms, but you have to look for them. I guess time and more travelling will decide my views on this part of the world.

Last night in English Canada for a few days.

Day 29-31 - Toronto

Tuesday to Thursday have all been fairly quiet days. These entries sound very brief because we basically went somewhere, looked around for a short period of time, did basically nothing, then came back.

Tuesday 17th August 2004, ET

Very quiet day due to lingering weak-knee syndrome after our day at Niagara Falls. We went up to North York and took a few photos, then came back via Yonge Street and Church/Wellesley, known here as the gay district. That was pretty much all.

Wednesday 18th August 2004, ET

Decided to explore the subway system a bit, so went firstly to Yorkville, allegedly Toronto's upmarket suburb (but it looked pretty rundown), then all the way out to Scarborough, an eastern residential/commercial suburb (about 12km E) and spent a while in the local mall, as neither of us had spent time in a Wal-Mart before. :P After getting bored with this, we came back via Danforth, India Bazaar and Chinatown.

Thursday 19th August 2004, ET

Daniel decided he didn't really want to explore Toronto any more, not helped by the not-so-fine weather - but I managed to persuade him to come out as we're here for just a few more days (we depart on Sunday morning). He agreed, on the condition we spent one of the days away from Toronto. So London was decided upon for tomorrow, and we spent all afternoon around the Front St and Bay St areas (basically the financial district and the more blatantly touristy bits). We walked around the base of the CN tower but the size of the queue put us off until another day. One odd feature of Front Street is the sheer number of hot dog vendors operating from vans parked at the side of the road - there's about 2 or 3 per block and some have been there since 1984!

We then went on a tour of CBC's Broadcasting Centre, where we got to see the sets for some Canadian news, comedy and variety shows, and were able to appreciate the finer aspects of this one-block-wide, 10-storey-tall building from the inside.

After that, we went through bits of the underground city and the Eaton Centre, only coming up to see thousands of old people on walking frames and in wheelchairs herding out into masses of accumulated buses covering two lanes on an entire block outside Roy Thomson Theatre.

Then it was off to buy the Greyhound tickets and that was pretty much the end of the night.

Day 28 - Niagara Falls

Monday 16 August 2004, ET (GMT-4, Perth-12)

Before arriving in Canada, my travel agent set me up with a Moose Pass tour to Niagara Falls, and I was able to get Daniel on surprisingly easily. He'd seen it when he was 8, but didn't really remember much, so it was a good catch-up.

This tour was amazing. Friendly group of just 14 people from all over the world plus a knowledgeable driver, and a lot of interesting stops along the way that a lot of the major tours simply don't do - and for just $62 ($50 + $12 for Maid of the Mist). We went to a winery and learned about Canadian ice wine, made from frozen grapes picked at -10 to -12 degrees in February, went to a lovely town called Niagara on the Lake which was full of old shops, flower displays and green parks, climbed up a monument to a hero of the 1812 war, Sir Isaac Brock (my knees took two days to recover unfortunately), and then went to the Falls itself. It was weird being at yet another border crossing to the US, but this time I didn't have to cross it, so there was no worries.

Not that I needed to cross it. The Falls themselves are divided in two - the American Falls, which are pretty much straight down from near the Maid's launching point near the Rainbow Bridge connecting the two countries, and the Canadian (or Horseshoe) Falls. You can only really see either from the Canadian side as you'd just be looking straight down onto the top of them from the US side - so the Canadian side has a very developed tourist infrastructure centred around Falls Avenue and Clifton Hill - things such as Coke machines that only accept US$1 bills, all manner of amusement arcades and theme shops, hotels, observation towers, expensive restaurants, fast food stores, casinos, toy shops selling made-in-China moose (the correct plural for moose according to Oxford) and the compulsory Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe. In short, a tacky tourist town that tries to capitalise on its location.

The first hour was taken up with just taking in the Falls themselves and then going on the Maid of the Mist boat ride right into them. The "mist" is more like something barely short of torrential rainfall, and they do issue blue cellophane raincoats as part of the entry process. Even standing on the shore I had to dry my distance glasses about four or five times.

The journey itself was incredible. It reminded me of those shipwreck disaster movies where you couldn't see anything, heard the falling water all around you, and were being thrown all about a ship with a whole bunch of people. This was at least partly as I chose to stand on the front deck rather than up top. Daniel wimped out and went right to the back of the boat, only getting to see the real Falls when the boat turned around and started heading back.

After this, I listened to some guy murdering Hotel California in a mock-country style on an acoustic guitar and bought some rather-too-rich fudge for dinner before going into the city centre. I'd never been in such a place so did take the time to look around a bit before deciding it really was far too commercial for my tastes. I did however find a nice garden which was a good escape from the city, but my time to go came when I overheard an American woman on a cellphone saying that she wanted to send an email but Canada doesn't have the Internet. (Who owns .ca then - a moose maybe?)

The Falls is one thing by day and another by night. Much like Kings Park back in Perth, the lighting experts have set up this changing arrangement of coloured illumination for the Falls which is just spectacular. The mist isn't quite so "in-your-face" at night, so you can just sit there about 50m from the Falls and watch the vast volume of moving water as it tumbles into the light. It is just awesome.

The return trip was pretty straightforward - Queen Elizabeth Way express back to Toronto and everyone's hostels or let-off points. All in all, a great trip and definitely the highlight of our time in Toronto.

Day 25-27 - Toronto

Firstly, a comment - on Friday 20 August, I will have been away for one month. It seems like an eon ago that I left Perth, and even Auckland and Hawaii are quite distant memories. When I get back, Canada will not just be a place on the map - it will be an experience that I've had, and have shared with many people (not least of all Daniel). It's bizarre that, despite the many similarities between Canada and Australia, one rarely features on the news of the other, and only mutual visitors actually know much about the other's country. It's not for a lack of interest either - I find many Canadians actually are keen to know more about Australia and ask me plenty of questions, as there is this general understanding that Canada, Australia and NZ are the only members of a hard-to-define group with shared lifestyles, attitudes and sensibilities.

Onto the journal...

Friday 13 August 2004
Friday was a day pretty much spent travelling:
- 8am - enjoyed the rest of the bison and tomatoes.
- 9am - left the hostel via the Sky Shuttle (465-9515; $13)
- 10am - arrived and checked in at Edmonton International Airport, nearer to the next town, Leduc, than to Edmonton itself
- 11am - after some waiting, both of us had boarding passes but neither of us had seat numbers, and despite the fact boarding had apparently commenced, our names hadn't been called yet.

I got a business class seat! Yay! It even had massage features built into the base - I didn't even know about them but a somewhat more travelled person sitting next to me showed me how it all worked. The smoked chicken lunch went down well too. Unfortunately, Daniel was almost at the back of the plane.

The inflight movie, Mean Girls, compensated for 3.75 hours of boring scenery (endless squares of green farmland are not excitement plus). It was almost like flying Perth to Melbourne.

- 5:41pm EST - Arrived in Lester B. Pearson International Airport near Toronto. It is a HUGE airport, and I actually sort of got lost trying to find the baggage counter. Not that it mattered, as the baggage took half an hour to materialise.

An Airport Express Shuttle and a short taxi ride later, Daniel and I were at HI-Toronto at Church Street, Toronto. For the Toronto-aware, this isn't actually the gay part of the street - that's about 14 blocks further north at the intersection of Wellesley Street. This part is right over the road from St James Anglican Cathedral, and you can hear the quarter-hour chimes in the room. HI-Toronto is a little dingier than we have gotten used to in other cities (the paintwork has a decidedly artistic/alternative feel to it), but the service is very friendly.

Saturday 14 August 2004

We had tickets to the Vans Warped Tour in Barrie, 100km north of Toronto. Before I get to that, I'll mention the transport situation. I'm not sure if this classifies as a Torrid Tale(TM) as I haven't ratified the copyright with Lucas yet, and we did actually get there fairly easily in the end.

However, the ticket didn't include transport - we had to get a bus (see Parking and Transportation) from Yorkdale bus terminal, which is on the subway line. No problems, we thought, so we headed to Yorkdale, paid our $25 each, and then found out people had been waiting for 6 hours, there'd been a handful of buses, and the crowd of approximately 400 had concluded Greyhound (for whom PMCL is an agent) sucked. Two hours later, and two cancelled buses later (1:30pm and 3:00pm) and the crowd was about ready for a riot. The sight of a crowd of punk rockers and alternative people booing and hissing and mobbing any incoming bus was starting to scare arriving tourists and elderly people, and the security contingent of just four (who couldn't get in touch with any of their superiors) was hopelessly outmatched in the event a full riot did occur. It seems Greyhound did not even try to get other operators to pitch in with buses.

Groups of the quieter/more conservative people started banding together at the edges of the group and making collective arrangements for taxis - I ended up in a group of 12 which ended up in 3 taxis at a cost of $20 per person. The poor GO Transit people had to handle all the one-way ticket refunds ($10) for the taxi people - they were remarkably patient considering it wasn't even their company's problem and that they were dealing with hundreds of refunds.

I got to Barrie at 4pm and Daniel at 4:25pm in a separate group. Not knowing any of the bands bar about one or two (and having missed one of those), I hung around mostly the smaller stages and listened to a variety of bands including Alexis on Fire, Mêlée, International Noise Conspiracy, Army of Freshmen, Subb, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, and of course Bad Religion. (There was also a session of Punk Rock-a-oke which was going on somewhere which was quite amusing) It was fun seeing some of the smaller bands and getting to talk to their members, who were very surprised to find someone from Australia at the gig and were keen to know more about my place of origin. I gave a few of them details about the Big Day Out annual concert series, and at least one is going to follow it up.

Transport on the way back ended up being by bus - evidently Greyhound were trying to make up for what we heard actually became a riot by about 4:30pm at Yorkdale, and were hiring buses (even the evil Gray Line empire) from just about everybody to get us all back. Our original group of 12, now down to 10, managed to meet up and hold together and we only had to wait 45 minutes for a bus back.

Sunday 15 August 2004

A quiet rest day. Almost nothing to report.

Day 21-24 - In transit - Lake Louise, Calgary, Edmonton

I'm wrapping this all up into one entry as there seems little point in elaborating more.

We left Vancouver on Monday at 6:30am, exactly 24 hours later than the original itinerary - but this change has been a blessing in disguise. We have had excellent weather ever since Sunday. On the way out we got a last glimpse of Nanaimo Street, of Burnaby Lake and of outer Langley before heading off into the Coast Mountains. After Chilliwack, the view was absolutely awesome. The poor bus was struggling with the grades, but it made it eventually. We basically followed the TransCanada Highway 1 (mostly freeway grade) and stopped in Kamloops, Revelstoke and Golden on the way through to Lake Louise and went right up into the Rocky Mountains and crossed the Rogers Pass - I got about 75 photos on the way through.

One side note is that the timezone jump from GMT-7 to GMT-6 is well inside BC (before Golden), rather than the provincial border.

Lake Louise, though, was a bit of a shock. On arriving in Lake Louise, there was no directions to the hostel, and no-one around seemed to know where it was. It was 8:20pm and most things were closed in the village. So here was the two of us walking around with all our luggage not knowing where to go and walking in some direction hoping it was that way (we turned out to be fairly lucky in our guess). In the midst of all this, my camera fell out of its pouch to the ground and rolled, and the shutter button was all but destroyed. This really darkened the mood for the night, even though I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets ever, all I wanted to do was cry.

Thankfully, I thought of the idea of using a paper clip for a shutter button, so I was able to take photos after that although with some effort (edit 17/8 - I'm quite good at it now!). The hostel was clean and secure, but food in the village was very expensive - we spent $30 each on food in one day yet really didn't eat that much. The views, however, around the lake (4km from the hostel) and the surrounding mountains were amazing and we managed to get in about 5 hours walking, and explored the nearby Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise hotel, which was like a mini-shopping centre (someone told us that CP Rail built all the luxury hotels along the railway line, then Fairmont bought them - hence why they've got so many nice ones). The CP Rail train thundered past the village every now and again, giving a certain vibe to the whole experience.

On Wednesday we woke up early again as we had to be on a bus at 8am to Calgary. The first part of this ride was good - but I was kind of glad I didn't stay in Banff as the scenery didn't seem quite so accessible as at Lake Louise. Banff (inside the national park) is forbidden from exceeding its present town limits by Parks Canada, so the town of Canmore (22km away and just outside the Banff NP) has emerged as a residential and commercial hub for Banff. We arrived in Calgary at 10:30am.

Calgary has a very nice skyline and a lot of greenery surrounding the Bow River, and we found plenty of things to explore. They have a free tram running up most of 7th Avenue which is handy for getting from West End (just east of the Greyhound terminal) to the centre. Daniel shouted me a meal in a steakhouse, and we went up the Calgary Tower (kind of like a mini-Sky Tower) and up to Chinatown and over to Fort Calgary, where we spotted some cute gophers doing their thing (In retrospect, I'm glad I don't have a house and garden in Calgary, the garden would be full of gopher holes. You should see those things dig!) We ran back to the terminal via Shaw Millennium Park where we saw heaps of young skaters and cyclists on the biggest skate park either of us had ever seen (edit: it is in fact the biggest in North America), with a punk rock and hiphop soundtrack being cut by a local DJ. Unfortunately, while I made the 3pm bus, Daniel did not - the next bus was 3 hours later.

Calgary to Edmonton is a 299km drive across flat green country on what is for the most part a straight freeway with signs to small towns just off it. It counts as one of the most boring drives I've ever been part of, apart from possibly the Sydney-Canberra run via the Hume Freeway in 1998. Unlike other Greyhound services, this one actually showed movies - we saw Chicken Run (in French, but it's such a visual movie that you don't actually need an audio track) and some army movie which seemed to involve betrayal, shooting and killing - great for the kids on board, even if it had been cut for airline audiences.

Edmonton reminds me a lot of Adelaide, although it has its own character. Like Adelaide, it is a flat city with few prominent buildings - although the Alberta Provincial Legislature building is really nice. At the Saskatchewan River, though, which separates downtown from Old Strathcona where I am staying, there are some really nasty bends and slopes as the river is a good 30-40m below the downtown, and yet whoever designed the city still tried to keep with a grid layout. Edmonton's public transit system operates just like Honolulu's in that you pay $2 per ride and get a transfer ticket for onward travel, rather than a 2-hour or daypass ticket. The system is mostly bus but they have a light rail transit system (with just one line) which goes from the university through downtown to the inner north-eastern suburbs. Daniel has proposed that Edmonton adopt the motto "City of Stairs" - the university LRT station has no less than EIGHT flights of stairs to get from the surface to the station, and most LRT stations have at least 2 flights. There are hints that despite today's 34 degree highs, this city can get almost as far below zero in winter - there are road signs indicating snow routes where parking is banned, and entire sections of the city can only be accessed from underground (often by use of aforementioned staircases).

A visit to Edmonton cannot go without a visit to the ridiculously-sized West Edmonton Mall, which contains a waterslide park, live flamingoes running around, a mini-theme park for the kids, submarine rides (for $12.95), and of course oodles of shops. It's actually about 20 minutes drive from the centre (the city is between 97 and 110 St and WEM is at 170-178 St)

Edmonton has heaps of really amazing acoustic guitarists - I met and talked to one called Cal in the Legislature gardens, and another called Matt downtown. Whyte Avenue (near the hostel) is a bit of an artsy hangout, and was the centre of the Fringe Festival which was starting just as we were leaving - we kept hearing about it (many people thought we had arrived for it!)

What's surprising is that there's no real competition for beds in the hostel at Edmonton even though it is still peak season - being August and the end of the North American school holidays. It's the one place in Canada I've been that has not been practically booked out - although it's still busy.

As for us, we bought bison in the local IGA supermarket - it tastes really nice. Got eaten with loads of local cherry tomatoes and 2 full potatoes :)

Off to Toronto tomorrow... The sad part is I don't feel any emotional connection with Edmonton whatsoever. So far, Auckland and Vancouver have been the two places to manage that. Other than that it'll be my last day in Western Canada for quite a while, tomorrow will be quite unimportant in many ways.

Day 20 - Vancouver

Sunday 8th August 2004, Vancouver time (GMT-7, Perth-15)

This was the day that wasn't meant to be in Vancouver, but just as well it was - it probably ranks alongside Burnaby Lake as my best day in Vancouver, aided somewhat by the 28°C, fairly non-humid fine weather. Daniel took me to all his favourite spots around the City of Vancouver (I should explain that the City is just one part of Greater Vancouver and includes the downtown and a fair slab of land south and east from it).

Firstly, the grand tour of UBC, where I got to see a very nice campus that is twice the size of the downtown, and is actually a really nice place. Not too many campuses in the world that have their own rainforest - and a naturally-growing one at that. He took me down the perilously steep path to Wreck Beach, Vancouver's clothing-optional beach. It was an experience trying not to see exactly the sort of people you would never want to see naked flashing their bits at the world at large. I did manage to get some good photos though (not of the people, of the scenery.)

Then it was to Granville Island, which Daniel assured me was nothing special and was all hype, so we decided to eat at a sushi place just outside it that he sometimes goes to, then walk through the middle and catch the ferry at the end back to the city. This was all done in roughly that order - Granville Island was sort of like a cross between Fremantle and Sorrento Quay, but busier than both.

Then finally around the city itself and back out to Queen Elizabeth Park. He showed me his favourite view there and I got a picture from it. Some Swedish ladies saw us in the bushes and decided to join it, and after we left we enjoyed a bottle of delightfully expensive French lemonade which we got at 60% off in a bookshop.

Finally, we went to Trout Lake - we went separately as Daniel wanted me to meet Cass again before I left. We went to the lake but some sort of children's sports event was happening but we still had a great sunset there before returning by car to the city. It's funny how when you catch the bus all the time you just don't see a lot of the stuff out the windows yet you do when in a car.

Packing was of the essence, though, as we had to be at Pacific Central station at 6:30am, which meant waking up at 5am. (In the end this proved unachievable but for my mother who managed to get me woken up about 5:15am) - but not before downloading my pictures at the net cafe and visiting Casablanca Kebabs on Davie Street for one last time.

I realised I was really going to miss Vancouver. Four people who had lived elsewhere had talked to me about how they came to stay in Vancouver as it was the most beautiful city they had seen, and I knew Perth, Melbourne and Vancouver have repeatedly been rated most livable cities in the world, so I realised a high point was kind of over.

Reflecting on Vancouver after 2 weeks there, here are my observations. Vancouver is an excellent city with the best transport system I've seen anywhere, although I would hate to own a car here (although traffic is orderly here, it is very slow) or live in the City, as double-digit-floor apartment living just isn't me. There's plenty of green here and many attractive and colourful distractions from the lifestyle though, and the cafes provide cheap and fresh authentic food from all over the world. Vancouver reminds me a lot of Melbourne and is not unlike Auckland as well in some ways.

Canada has transformed the way I think about my own country, and I have no doubt when I see Eastern Europe and Turkey that I'll look back and say it was the first stage in a process. I have realised how good we do have it. I have realised that for all we complain about problems in our cities, with crime, traffic, etc, we really don't have problems in the way other countries - even this one - do. We need to work on race relations, and on reconciling with the Aboriginal people as a nation, and there's never too much that can be done to help reduce the gap between rich and poor and on trying to harm the environment less, but apart from that, we have done amazingly well in creating a country for people to live and work in peaceably. And we need to stop whinging and putting ourselves down.

Day 16-19 - Vancouver

Sorry that this has taken so long to post - I've been a busy boy.

Tuesday was a very quiet day as the weather had 'turned'. I spent it mostly in the hostel, although I got out a bit around the city centre. I was supposed to go on a free hostel tour to UBC but it got cancelled - I ended up going to the UBC Museum of Anthropology - it's free on Tuesdays and I tacked on the back of a tour where I learned a lot about First Nations totem poles and the ideas that go into constructing them. The museum itself is awesome - they've got everything. Rogers have suddenly decided to stop accepting international (i.e. non-Canadian) credit cards so I now have to go to 7-11's and buy topup cards the manual way. Not fun, especially when you're trying to meet someone on a large campus and don't have any contact with them.

Wednesday was to be my last free day in Vancouver, so I went off with my camera on the Skytrain network, taking pictures of interesting bits of the network (Broadway-Nanaimo, Joyce-Patterson and 22nd St-New Westminster are the best bits). Went to New Westminster and checked out the quays there - would be better on a better day as I could have walked around more. Ended up coming straight back, cooking dinner, going to the net cafe and then going to see the Spain fireworks - they were awesome but I still thought China's was better as they kept up the momentum the whole way through and not just at the end.

Thursday was set aside for Whistler - however both Daniel and I proved totally unequal to the task of waking up at 7:00 - we managed closer to 10:00. Having missed the 11:00 Greyhound to Whistler, we wandered around the Cambie Bridge and eastern False Creek areas and took nifty pictures of Science World before enjoying a Jugo Juice (kind of like Java Juice) and then finally catching the 12:30. It takes about 2 hours to get to Whistler. The Whistler Village is all hype and no substance - it's basically a heap of expensive tourist oriented pubs and shops, but there is a free shuttle from the back to a walk trail called Lost Lake. It was nice getting into forest again and seeing lots of wildlife - I counted 5 things (including a couple of chipmunks, which were really cute) but couldn't identify most of them due to a lack of acquaintance with the wildlife up here. We were going to take the ski lift to Whistler Mountain (which was snow-free) but it cost $23, which seemed exorbitant to our tiny budgets ($31 return bus ticket, $23 per night accommodation, $7 for food etc) so we didn't do it. The view going back to Vancouver along Sea & Sky Highway was amazing - even better than Whistler in my opinion. It would probably be better to visit in March than in July/August though.

Friday was our Victoria day. We tried to wake up at 5:30am - again without success. We got out at 8am and Daniel wanted me to see the Queen Elizabeth Park. However, by the time we got there it was pelting with rain and we were sort of running between things and photographing gardens and then running to the next one. From the point we left there to the time we arrived in Victoria 137km away, it took us 7 hours.

9:20am - Boarded 15 (after 15 min wait) to end of Cambie St
10:08am - Boarded 100 (after 20 min wait in rain) to Airport Station
10:28am - Boarded 620 (after 10 min wait) to Tsawwassen ferry. It missed the on-the-hour ferry by just a few minutes.
12:00pm - Boarded ferry to Swartz Bay.
2:15pm - Poor visibility slowed us down so the normally 1.5 hour ferry took 2.25 hours.
2:30pm - Boarded 70 to Victoria.
3:55pm - Arrived in Victoria after seeing just about every street on the Saanich Peninsula.

I'd gotten into the sort of mood where I was just pissed off with everything and had no patience or motivation - Victoria was interesting but not that interesting, and very touristy. A lot of the "old charm" struck me as being for the tourists' benefit, and everywhere you looked or tried to go, hordes of people fresh off Pacific Coach Lines or Gray Line buses were blocking your way. Daniel and I retreated to the safety of Beacon Hill Park, some 500m south of downtown, which was indeed much nicer - forests, lakes, ducks and a rare (native) black squirrel which I actually managed to photograph (Daniel had been teasing me for days about my low hit rate for photographing wildlife).

After checking that out and walking along the beach on the south end of the park (which looked a bit like the far northern Perth suburbs if not for the offshore mountains in Washington state) we were exhausted and needed food and drink, and we ended up finding the Siam Thai restaurant in Fort Street near the harbour, which turned out to be surprisingly good.

We left at 7:30pm and I ended up talking to a family from Montreal who ended up giving me a lift back to Burrard Street from the ferry - which saved me time, money and hassle (Daniel was with friends by this point as he won't be seeing them for a few weeks).

On Saturday, it was Erik's City and Canyon Tour - a special one held to mark the grand finale of the HSBC Celebration of Light fireworks. This tour was thoroughly awesome - for just $9.99, we travelled on every mode of public transport, walked for over 9km in total in both city and forest environments, saw city landmarks and secrets, rainforests, waterways and even a couple of coffee shops, and had a great, very mixed group with a lively and interesting tour guide who clearly has a passion not only for Vancouver but for sharing his love and passion with anyone he can. Over 6,000 people have taken this tour since he started it 10 years ago after retiring. At the end we saw the grand finale - I'm not sure yet who won, but all three countries put on brilliant shows. After that, we went back to Erik's apartment and had icecream, talked and eventually said our goodbyes.

We were meant to go to Lake Louise on Sunday morning, but due to mishaps on both Daniel's part and mine (namely, leaving important items behind when leaving establishments) we were forced to delay by one day. More later...

(A better update will be provided when I have more time and am not so tired)

Day 15 - Peace Arch/Blaine and Torrid Tale

Peace Arch and Blaine
It is truly weird walking down the road to a land border and actually seeing all the weird contraptions set up to handle the thousands of motorists who cross this point every day, and also to look on beaches just a couple of km away and realise they're in a different country. Coming from Australia, where no other nation is visible, this is just bizarre.

The Peace Arch Provincial Park (BC) and Peace Arch State Park (Washington) span the border, and are basically a big green recreational area with forest on two sides, and the Peace Arch, a big white structure which one can actually walk through, in the middle next to the freeway, which has by this point been separated out and slowed down to 30km/h (or 20mph on the US side). The Peace Arch has several inscriptions on it like "Children of a Common Mother" and "Brothers Dwelling Together in Unity". On the inside is a gate (which couldn't serve any purpose as the entire space on both sides is open), jammed open, with the words "Let This Gate Never Be Closed" above it. Each year, there's a big get-together of kids from both sides for the purpose of engendering communication.

About 400m from it on each country's side is that country's customs and immigration centre, which has about 5 or 6 lanes for cars to pass through, and separate duty free areas for each. I noticed Canada's was far busier than the US's. Near them is a flower plantation made up of each country's flag, and not far from the Peace Arch are the actual survey points marking the border.

Now for...

My Adventure in the USA

I walked across the border marvelling at the structures, and followed the path to the US Customs, noting the instructions for pedestrians to go to the east side. I entered a small, functional room at 17:09 whose only welcoming words were that there were no, zero, zip restrooms. In this room was a counter, behind which sat many black-uniformed police and customs officials, and some seats. I was grilled first by a lady who insisted I leave all my bags on the counter, took my passport and told me to sit down and not leave the building. The grilling seemed to focus mostly on the fact that I was crossing a US-Canadian land border on foot with an Australian passport, and despite having a valid 90-day visa-waiver dated July 24 from Honolulu, this was a very strange thing to do. She didn't seem to like the fact that I wanted to visit Blaine, and seemed suspicious of my reasons for wanting to go there. (I put it together credibly at the time, but "mere curiosity and novelty" was the real reason). She even asked if I had specific friends in Vancouver and asked for names (but not addresses) and for my occupation in Australia.

I didn't hear anything for 25 minutes, and when I briefly stood up to stretch my legs, I was told by another officer to sit down.

Finally, I heard my name called and yet another officer called me to the far end of the counter. He asked me many of the same questions as the first lady, except he also asked me where I was staying in Vancouver. He seemed suspicious (but not so much as the first) that someone would want to visit a border city, take scenery photos and then leave. I even offered to show him my White Rock photos to give him some idea, but he said that was fine.

10 minutes later, he called me over and said everything was fine and I could go. He wrote "SOUTH" crudely on a 1/4-A4 torn out sheet that looked like recycle paper, and asked me to give it to the officers in the carpark. After some searching, I found said officers, gave the piece of paper to them and they accepted it and wished me to have a nice day. This was at 17:51.

So I wandered around Peace Portal Drive and Marine Drive, noting that apart from the nice harbour scenery and green-themed roads, it had that very different feel that Honolulu had - definitely not like an Australian or Canadian city. Blaine has American flags draped from almost every lamppost as well, which is quite visible (four lampposts at one intersection = four American flags).

After wandering around the town and taking a few shots, I decided to head for the border again. As I was trying to find it, I noticed two US Customs officers sitting in the emergency stopping lane of the freeway sliproad viewing me through binoculars (the town was pretty much closed up except for Subway) as I moved up D Street looking for the pedestrian exit (as the freeway clearly said "no pedestrians", unlike the Canadian side where pedestrians were directed to use the bike lane).

I found an awesome Mexican restaurant (south of the border :P) called Paso del Norte on 2nd St, where I decided I was actually hungry and would eat. I went in and ordered Arroz de Pollo (which seemed to be a huge dish with bits of chicken, capsicum, tomato, avocado and sauce on rice - and not deep-fried!) and pineapple juice, and sat down in expectation of my meal. The service was fabulous, and the food was authentic. Just as I was getting into the starters, two more Customs officials walked into the restaurant and straight up to me (to some surprise from the staff) and asked me for ID. When I provided it, they asked me how long I proposed to stay, and how long I'd been there. I said I'd been there 40 minutes since crossing at the Peace Arch, and intended to finish my meal before returning. The guy seemed a tad embarrassed when I pointed this out, and said that was fine, and left. I could hear an engine running outside the restaurant the whole time I was there, though, and it was stressful and took away from my enjoyment of the otherwise excellent meal.

After paying, I left the restaurant and realised I was a bit disoriented (the stress probably didn't help) and I didn't have a map of Blaine (my Greater Vancouver street map stopped at 8th Avenue, White Rock). Just then, I realised that the two customs guys and a third guy, this one with "US Border Police" on his sleeve, were sitting there in a car watching me. I signalled them and asked them where the exit to Canada was for pedestrians. The guy told me, and I went up to the end of the street, left at the park... and suddenly realised I was back in Canada. Douglas, BC, starts at 0 (Zero) Av and only a crude little ditch with the odd sign indicated the end of the Peace Arch Park was even a border at all. I could have walked off into suburban Vancouver without even trying, most probably.

When I got to Canada Customs, I walked round the side - to find out they were waiting for me and had my name! I showed my ID, explained that I was staying in Vancouver, gave the address, and 2 minutes later (after efficient, reasonably friendly service not unlike when I arrived in Vancouver on the 26th), I was back on Highway 99 going to a bus stop I'd found on the walk there. The guy suggested I surrender my US visa waiver. I didn't argue. I think Point Roberts is something I'll do when I feel a bit more brave.

My two run-ins with the US - the first with the state of Hawaii, which was more a culture clash, and the second in Blaine, which was more like a Nazi police state type run-in, have left me somewhat disillusioned. I actually saluted the first Canadian flag I could see on a home just off the highway between 8th and 9th Av - sure, Canada has its problems and isn't perfect, and same could be said for Australia (I'd happily have hugged an Australian flag right about then), but it is a tolerant, accepting country, and it has accepted me.

Day 14-15 - Vancouver

Sadly, I missed the Sweden fireworks. I'm going to see Spain on Wednesday night and the grand finale on Saturday night though.

Sunday (Day 14) was the quietest single day since my holiday began. I wandered around the city idly for most of the day, and then went up the Harbour Centre tower, which is a lookout over Vancouver not unlike the Sky Tower in Auckland. The only downside is that the observation tower is actually lower than some of the surrounding buildings, meaning that you can't see entire sections of the city, but it was an awesome experience and well worth doing - on a clear day such as Sunday was, you can clearly see a snowy peak in the distance, that being Mt Baker in Washington State, 145km ESE of Vancouver, and Stanley Park in particular looks lovely. The lady told me that my ticket was valid all day, and to come back at sunset as it was supposed to be really good. She wasn't wrong. I spent most of the time with a couple of Australian girls off a cruise ship and a couple of Canadian Chinese who had a similar camera to me and we were trying to get the best shots.

Monday was BC Day, the "foundation day" for the province of British Columbia. Before I go on, I'm going to introduce this with some oddities about BC and Vancouver:

1. Nearly all traffic lights have a yellow frame rather than a black frame, and are like a big rectangular box with the lights "hanging" out the front. This seems to be a uniquely Canadian thing, and can be seen all over Canada. (There are yellow frame lights in the US too but they look more like ours, just painted yellow).

2. Vancouver, the city, is not on Vancouver Island. Some people call it Victoria Island, which is confusing as there is a Victoria Island off the northwest of the province.

3. The top half of the province's flag is a squished British flag, the bottom half is blue-and-white stripes with a sun rising onto it. This flag appears on all route number signs and numberplates.

4. Vancouver is a very young city even by Australian standards. It was incorporated in 1886, and before that existed only as a series of small settlements (including Langley, Daniel's home) and a rail terminus for the Canadian Pacific line. The city's first bill passed was to create Stanley Park as a defence against any future American attack. Click here for a much more indepth summary.

Anyway, I'll divide the day into two distinct parts:

White Rock
On a whim, rather than going to Lynn Canyon as was my plan (but I missed the bus), I headed to White Rock and Crescent Beach (getting to see South Granville and Delta on the way - the former is very classy and I may yet walk it, and the latter is entirely farmland). White Rock is almost right on the US border, about 38km SE of Vancouver (50 by the road system) and not dreadfully far from Langley, so Daniel was able to meet me at Crescent Beach.

Now, in White Rock, the idea of "beach" means quite different than the normal - it's more like a series of mud flats up to 400-500m wide, parts covered in seaweed and divided by little streams and populated by crabs and shellfish. It was still pretty cool, but neither of us particularly wanted to get our shoes dirty, so we moved on to White Rock proper, about a 7km walk away. By this stage, poor Daniel was exhausted, and his initial idea of crossing the border at Douglas-Blaine had basically wilted, so he ended up going home. I came down onto Marine Drive and walked the coast, getting some awesome photos - the place looked a tiny bit like Cottesloe or Manly, except for the totem poles and the odd-looking beaches. One thing we both noticed was the sheer number of Canada and BC flags hung from shops and homes - Canadians are certainly nationalistic, especially when close to the US border, but it's not the "in-your-face" kind of nationalism that usually grates when other countries do it. I have no idea why.

About another 6km later, after walking through the forested 8th Avenue (parallel to the border) near the Semiahmoo (SEM-ee-AH-moo) First Nation lands (translation: lots of forest and a big big caravan park) and down Highway 99, I was within view of the goal.

See next entry for the rest.

Day 11-13 - Vancouver

I have had a great time here the last few days, although there's surprisingly little to report.

- Went out to Port Moody (21km E of Vancouver) on Thursday, and spent time on small community shuttle buses (which look hilarious - I'll post a pic soon) going through steep hills and thick forests, and chatting to busdrivers and other locals. It was a great time. :)

- On Friday, we slept in, and ended up going to Langley (43km SE of Vancouver), Daniel's home district, with him, but not before finding an excellent street musician outside Burrard Skytrain station named Matt who played Ben Harper and other such acoustic stuff. During my time in Langley, I actually got to sit down and spend time with Daniel (which is a rare thing when we're in the city), learned that the Trans-Canada Highway 1 is a ridiculously busy road, that Langley has a lot of interesting wood sculptures and far too many skate parks, that you can eat blackberries straight off bushes in the woods out there, and that the local markets are very good value. I had my first experience, on returning, of cooking in the hostel's communal kitchen. The meal was a bit experimental, but noone who tried it seemed to mind.

- Saturday was one of those random sort of days. Went up to Squamish (64km north of Vancouver) to see, believe it or not, a logging competition! Everyone knows I am a greenie at heart, but every year, these guys compete with each other for titles in events such as axe-throwing, climbing up and down 80m poles, chainsawing logs while standing on them, etc. It was great :) Saw some awesome mountain and ocean views on the way there and back, too. I had some great company for the trip too in a new friend, a professional photographer named Peter. We parted ways near Lions Gate Bridge and I spent about 2 hours on and around it before coming here.

The fireworks are tonight - tonight it's Sweden's turn. I wonder if they can outperform China? It'll be a tough call, but many here believe they're up to the task. This weekend will be busy in Vancouver as the gay pride parade is tomorrow, and this is a public holiday weekend as BC Day (the province's foundation day) is on Monday. I'm going to try and get out as much as possible.