My trip to Canada...

Yippee! The time had finally arrived when I could leave my job and start my much anticipated road trip. My friend Alex arrived in Calgary on Wednesday evening (7th September) and we hit the road the following morning and headed south to Salt Lake City. The drive was slightly longer than we had expected and so we stopped off at a place call Helena. We ended up staying in McDonald's car park and getting some shut-eye before moving on to Salt Lake.
The city can be described as fresh, crisp and clean. As this was only a "pit stop", we decided to visit the main tourist attraction, Temple Square. On arrival to the Square we were greeted by two young Nuns or "Missionaries" from the Church of Jesus Chris the Savior, the organization who had first settled in the City. Neither Alex nor I are religious, however out of respect felt that we should hold conversation with the two Nuns. After twenty minutes this conversation started to drag, however not really concentrating on the conversation I didn't realize that Alex was playing a game of his own; he was about to ask the Nuns to come out with us on the town that night! Unfortunately I went and stuck my foot in it when they asked what religion we were. Alex explained he was a Catholic and I said that I was "Church of England". "What is Church of England" they replied. Unfortunately, I did not really think about what I was saying and so said the following: "King Henry VIII, created the Church of England so that he could marry more than one woman, seven in fact". This killed the conversation and that was that, time to move on!
The not so long and windy road took us west towards our next destination, San Francisco. On the way, not far out of Salk Lake, we came across the evaporation basin or "salt flats" which are pictured below. This as well as providing a great back drop for the photo is where the land speed trials are held. We continued driving all day and arrived in San Fran in the early hours of the next morning. After managing to fall right into the rough end of town we managed to get our bearings and find our way to the RV Park, which is about a ten minute bus ride from the city centre.
San Francisco is and amazing city. Vibrant, Full of culture and great shops, oh and food it was great and the sun was shining! After hitting the Malls we walked through the city and down to the harbor. On Saturday we headed of to the North of the city, over the Golden Gate Bridge and up to the Muir Woods which were amazing. Our next destination was Los Angeles. To be continued.....

Back in Calgary, it was not long before i stumbled across adverts in the paper for job vacancies. With my resume in toe, I applied to all positions, which included shelf stacking at the local supermarket and waiting. After a few days with no response, I was not quite sure what to do, I had run out of Harry potter books to read, so had the choice of starting again or reading Di's Geography books, the later not likely as I still have nightmares of "A" level Geography and my teacher that the class nicknamed penguin! However my luck was about to change, or so I thought, when the cashier asked me what I was doing in High River. I was polite and said the usual stuff and mentioned that I was looking for a job. "I can fix you up, my Husband is looking for someone to help him for about a month or so; its laboring but mainly just holding nuts and bolts". This sounded great; I was willing to try anything provided that the dollars started flowing my way again. By the way Mum and Dad- Auntie Di offered to give me the money that you sent her for my keep, but realising that this, whilst a very attractive proposition, would mean a months worth of reading Geography books and Danielle Steels!

I had to get off of my backside and do something so agreed. "OK" said Mrs Furnley, "he will be round at 5.00am in the morning". Ah, I suddenly thought; who mentioned anything about getting up at 4.30am???!! At home, I struggled to make it in to office at 9.00am! Taking the cool approach, I thought to myself: I can do this. Well for the next 10 days I worked for 8 hours a day. The reason for getting up so early was that the job I had accepted was building Grain Bins & Hoppers on Farms, 10,000 bushel bins in fact that are 60 ft in height (this is meant to sound impressive...). The Bins are made from sheet steal and when the sun shines and reflects, within about 10 minutes you look like Magda from the film "There's something about Mary"!See pic below!

The work is ok, tiring especially in the heat, which on a bad day can reach 37c, although a couple of nights ago the temperature did drop to -2c which was a bit of a shock! The people who I have to work with though are not so good. Its sounds really harsh, but they are all quite slow - partly due to living in the middle of nowhere for most of there lives; for example, one of the guys I am working with races motor bikes and yet when it came to jump starting a truck, he couldn't find the battery, let alone hook up the jump leads. I am the first to admit that I am no mathematician but the guy who owns the company had to get a calculator to divide 288; I’m glad to inform you , Mum, Dad, that I managed this sum, however he was not willing to take the advise of a "minor" and told me that 144 was wrong! (However came to the same conclusion 5 minutes late when he had worked out how to turn on the calculator!)

I have come to the conclusion that this is going to be the longest and most painful month of my life (so far); I even find myself singing Christmas Carols to pass the time - it is this bad!

Looking ahead, one of my best friends from Uni is coming out to see me which I am really excited about! Di has offered us the use of her new camper van and we plan to head south into the States. On the 8th September we set off to Salt Lake City then on to San Francisco, L.A. Vegas (time permitting) back up to Seattle, Vancouver and Banff before heading back to High River and flying back to the Uk on the 22nd September.. This will be a great end to a great summer and produce a few more tales along the way, im sure!

Whilst in Toronto, I had to decide on my next move. I had no way of checking my bank balance in the UK and to be honest, didn’t really want to know (what usually happens is that a few days after I start to wonder about how my bank balance is holding up, Mum phones me and gives me a “howler” (for all of those Harry Potter fans) about how much money I have spent….). True to form, Mum did inform me that my funds were a bit depleted, however this was a few days later than a this point in time! So not knowing how much money I had, I was going top take a gamble and planned to head for New York and then if my card continued to work, down to my cousin Julian’s who lives in North Carolina. Unfortunately I was unable to contact Julian who I think was on holiday so I decided to stay for another night at the hostel and make a decision the next day.

Staying in hostels is great; you meet all kinds of people from around the world who have their own stories and adventures to share, new friends are made and the offer of accommodation worldwide is an absolute bonus! Anyway on this my last planned night in Toronto my dorm of 6 beds was empty except from me. Then just as I am thinking about what I should do with myself, the door crashes open and five Irish medical students the same age as me walk in talking Irish gibberish (no offence intended)! After a few beers and introductions we talked over where we had all been and I explained that I did not really know where to go and that even though Montreal was the nearest city of interest to me, I had been advised by everyone else that I had met not to go there because the main language there was French and if you were not fluent then the people were not. The Irish soon put me straight and told me that this was a load of rubbish and that as long as you were polite and tried to use my limited French, I would be fine.

The next day arrived and I took off to the bus station to book my ticket to Montreal. The grumpy old lady behind the counter informed me that the journey was seven hours direct. Luckily there was still room on the 23.55 that night, so instead of traveling in the heat of the day (40c) this was perfect, and I would save the cost of another nights accommodation-yippee!

On arrival in Montreal, I had to walk about what felt like 10 miles to the hostel. The time was 08.00 on Saturday morning and I was informed by the nice pretty girl with a French accent that I could not book in until 14.00 and so decided to leave my bags and take a self lead tour of the city. This was the fun part; I was about to find out just how much French I could remember from the first two years at Hedingham School (already looking doubtful), I walked into the first patisserie that I can to and ordered un croissant S.V.P. the woman behind the counter forced a slight smile and replied “we do speak English as well you know”. At this point I realized that maybe I should have listened a bit more in Madam Webster’s class instead of making Prit-stick slices and flicking them on the end of a ruler on to all surfaces around the room, including the ceiling and blackboard, and see if it was still there next week (great fun by the way)!

Walking around downtown Montreal, I was presented with a city that even though was in Canada, felt nothing like any of the other cities that I had been to. The people here were stylish, proud and contrary to what I had herd, nice. I was relived that I had not been let down by the drunk Irish group’s advise, as I had been a bit suspicious prior to leaving Toronto! The city is divided in to different areas and you can get to most places on foot, or take the metro, which is relatively cheap. Somehow I had managed to go to Montréal on the week that the international fireworks competition was taking place. This mean that I was able to see the best firework displays in the world, every other night for free. I had mentioned in my Calgary Stampede entry that the fireworks were good; these were ten times better! My first set of photos from Montréal shows me and the friends I made during my stay: Three German guys who were mad, but really funny, a Japanese girl, a couple of French guys a welsh girl and a mad Scottish girl called Stacey, all together a great crowd!

After just over a week in this great city, I decided that I ought to think about returning to Di’s and finding a job (bearing in mind that by this time I had received my phone call from mum). I managed to get a flight home for the following Wednesday. Unfortunately even though I was going Montreal to Calgary, we had to go via Toronto and get a connecting flight (student farers, student treatment!). the day before, the Air France plane had crashed at Toronto and as a result 500 planes going in and out of the Airport were affected. This was my first experience of grid-lock on the runway! Planes of all sizes appeared to be in a blur of organized chaos. Both of the Airport’s runways also appeared to be in action. This is common in Canada due to amount of space they have to play with, however, the usual operation is that one is used for take-off and the other used for landing. On this occasion it was take off and landing on both runways and the runways crossed in the middle – god, I just hope that the air-traffic controllers were on the ball!!
At the other end of my flight we touched down in Calgary. On arrival to the gate the pilot announced, “welcome to Calgary International Airport, as you may have gathered we have landed, however Air Canada appears not to have provided any baggage handlers or docking staff, so unfortunately we have to sit here on the tarmac until I am able to contact someone". One hour later we are able to dock. This is typical of Calgary; everyone is so laid back that even at the international airport, the country’s carrier manages to miss a plane for an hour!

This trip is something you HAVE to do if you are in Toronto, as the Falls are only 1 hour away. Arriving in Niagara, the first thing that the Bus driver warned me of was “Tacky Town”, which is the main strip in Niagara. As I approached I could see why; this appeared to be a replica of Las Vegas; however gone seriously wrong, hence the name Tacky Town. This was ten times worse than Clacton pier and Blackpool combined, even though the Americans love it does not mean that the rest of the world does! This was a major tourist trap and it was full of obnoxious Americans. On the realisation of this, I headed towards the Falls which were a bit more peaceful and allowed me to get some photos of which you can see. As well as seeing the Falls from the viewing points along either side of the gauge, you also had the option of going behind them or even taking “The Maid of the Mist” boat ride to the base of them. I decided that rather than get entirely wet, I would go behind the Falls. Unfortunately, this also did not live up to my expectations as the closest I got is illustrated in the picture with my in the Yellow water proof. This was still good although as you can probably see, I did get entirely wet!

My hostel was about a 10 minute bus ride from the Falls which was nice because it provided an escape from the hustle and bustle of Tacky Town. I also decided that because I was so close to the U.S., I would walk across the bridge and walk on the American side. On entering customs, even though I said that I only wanted to stay for about one hour, I had to have my fingerprints and photograph taken in order to get a “Green Card”. The American side of the falls couldn’t have been more different from the Canadian side. I was presented with unspoilt woodland encased in streams flowing towards the river, and pretty stone bridges that could have been taken from the Lake District. In the evening I returned to the Falls to see some amazing fireworks, unfortunately my Camera didn’t really do these justice so I have not uploaded the photos.

On return to Toronto, I stopped off at the local Vineyards. After about 30 minutes I became bored of the wines and so moved on to the Grappa and Vodka. This was a bad move as I spent the rest of the evening in bed at my hostel in downtown Toronto!