paraphernalia

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Sorry!

Also, Travellerspoint now has a Map option. Click here for the link. It's pretty nifty!

Thursday
Haha, well today was interesting. To sum it up: I hate Dulles airport.

With schools being closed again, Jen kindly offered to drive me to Dulles, and even though I was there with at least 80 mins to spare, a combination of massive line-ups and me lining in the wrong line twice meant I missed my 8:36 flight. Luckily the woman at the desk reseated me on an 8:50 flight through Seattle that actually got me to Vancouver earlier – at 1:50pm. Yay for that!

[start of rant]

Unfortunately I was delayed in security (because I am clearly a bad person!) for 45minutes as I was selected for ‘extra screening’. As such, I missed my rescheduled flight and had to wait for 2 and a half hours in a United service line. There I made such errors as presuming the call centre would be faster and explaining my situation. The woman at the counter was incredibly unapologetic stating categorically it was ‘my fault’ and therefore she was going to be unhelpful. Any requests made by me for the location of my baggage were met with ‘well it’s not going to make this flight so you can deal with it in Vancouver’. Well fuck you woman!

Some people should NOT be in customer service.

[end of rant]

And so it was that I arrived into Vancouver at 9pm, only a mere 30hrs behind schedule. Once again I was sans luggage, but seeing all my old friends and roommates again was awesome and more than made up for it. Sebastian, Rob, Hanneke and I stayed up chatting till about 1am and it was great.

The most interesting thing was meeting Sean and Kevin – the new replacements for Isaac and I. Sean is an exchange student from Cape Town in South Africa and Kevin is another local student. Our replacements share many of our eccentricities and personalities, with Kevin going home most weekends, having his meals cooked and generally staying out of the others’ business. Sean and I have the exchange student thing in common, which accounts for a lot, but we also share a passion for dance music and the Dutch (ahem!).

Friday
Today was my first full day back in Vancouver and already I’m really glad I made the decision to return. Although many of my friends aren’t here because they have already headed home for the holiday (it’s reading week here), I managed to do fairly well. My luggage still hasn’t arrived and my cell phone battery is rapidly dying so we’ll see which one gives in first. Something tells me Air Canada aren’t nearly as efficient as United at returning lost luggage. They clearly need to lose more of it to improve their practices!

Due to the aforementioned lack of luggage (which came to define my return visit to Vancity), I spent most of my time whining about its loss and buying replacement items. It also meant I had to re-wear my old clothes. Eugh! If this luggage doesn’t come soon it will be one smelly Tristan my friends get to meet.

This afternoon I met with Vivian, a friend from two of my classes last term. We discussed the upcoming AIDS conference and how she could help out. Very positive stuff. We also made a quick trip to the UBC Bookstore so I could buy my UBC patch – the one I had intended to purchase about 4 months ago. I got a really nice one and Vivian had a chance to practice her French with our Quebecois server. Fun times.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find my C$90 that I was convinced I had packed in my luggage somewhere to no avail. Much of the time was also spent preparing for tonight’s party.

Before to long it was time for Gage E13B to again do what it does best – host parties. By all accounts it was AWESOME. Early on, numbers were down on last time (we even had to call around to get people to come at the start – bummer, eh?), but was SO much fun. Best night I’ve had in ages, if only because all my buddies were there partying with me. Clayts came with his new girl (he’s a changed man I tells you), all the E13B peeps were there (except the new Isaac – no surprises there), there was great music and it lasted longer than last time too boot (helped by the fact that we knew the RAs on duty).

Ended, as all good parties do, with a big group of us going to the top of BuTo with Chris. We didn’t go right to the top as there were too many of us, but we did take some great stupid photos and throw moss at the ground. Good times. To top it off there was a fire alarm at 2am. This was surprisingly good as I had yet to go to bed and it gave me a chance to see a whole bunch of people I hadn’t yet caught up with.

Saturday
The loss-luggage issue continued to be a huge issue for me as my cell phone died last night. This meant that even if the luggage had arrived I had no way of confirming it. I called Air Canada to try and explain this predicament, but they were rather unhelpful. Grr! At least I now know the luggage is in Vancouver! In fact, it’s been there since 3pm yesterday so c’mon guys … why don’t I have it yet!?!?!

The day was complete at 4pm when my luggage ARRIVED and the fun began.

Plans for the big party that night were split between the exchange party that Sean was going to – a costume party at Fairview, or a Rob, Erin, etc. party at a house nearby. I made the decision to go to the Canadian party as I actually knew more people there (!) and wanted to end my time in Van at a place I knew would be good.

In the end this was the best decision ever as we had a ball. Met loads of Jess & Erin’s friends at Annie’s place and really enjoyed myself. That may have had something to do with the alcohol, but probably more a combination of having new clothes, my luggage and being with awesome people. The photos speak for themselves. Fun times abounded, especially revolving a bottle of beer (“once you go browny-translucent, you never go back”), my “Ich Bin Ein Berliner” tshirt and a yoga ball.

That was, until I thought it would be an awesome idea to climb a BC Hydro power box and leap into the tree. Well, Daniel had just done it and been fine, so I thought, well hell with it – me too. In the end I picked the one part of the tree that had just been trimmed and landed stomach first onto a big branch. Eek!! It winded me and I still have marks and will do for some time, but all is generally good.

So the best night ever ended perfectly with a LONG walk back to Gage – predicted at about 2hrs until …. A 99 BUS came to pick us up! How RANDOM was that?! It was awesome because not only did they pick us up, but they drove 100m down the road and picked up our friends. Talk about service!! All faith has been resorted in Vancouver as a city of incredibly friendly people.

We all went back to Jess’ apartment for my first taste of KD (Kraft Dinner – mac’n’cheese), nachos and watching Erin & Adam’s wedding video. Awesome fun, but the video and wedding look … well awkward!

Sunday
After a few days of late starts and bumming around the house, I had huge plans for my final day in Vancity, and I think I met most of my objectives. Well, except for the haircut and piercings, but that’s ok – I can do them anywhere.

A group of us (past and present exchange students) headed to the Chinese New Year parade. Vancouver is known for its ethnic populations and this parade was no exception. Well executed, huge and with lots of firecrackers – simply put it was great. It also seemed apt that I was ending this trip with something that just screams “Singapore” to me. Tying the two trips together pretty well, don’t you agree?

As I mentioned, this trip was made with many new exchange students. Some of the basic dynamics are there from last term, but to be honest, it’s just not the same. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that I don’t know a lot of them, but the personalities that existed in last term’s batch aren’t replicated here. There are FAR less Aussies and far more Europeans too, so all-in-all a more diverse group.

Because we arrived so early to the Parade (about 2hrs in advance actually!), we went for a walk around the route, eating bao along the way. Mmm… nothing like Steamed BBQ pork buns to cheer me up! The parade itself was all it should have been – colourful, noisy, imaginative and above all proud. It was amazingly inclusive too, with the Brazillian community presenting a few floats, along with almost every other minority in Vancouver. Interesting, eh?

After the parade I finally met with one of my friends from Singapore (!). Jeff studied at SFU, the other Uni in Vancouver, and so after much cell phone tag we decided to meet and have lunch at Tim Hortons for one last time. It was an awesome way to end my time in Vancouver and a great example of how things have come full circle.

Before too long, however, it was time for me to hop on a taxi to the airport. That was definitely the saddest I’ve felt for a LONG time. I nearly cried many times, including at transit in Portland. I miss UBC and Vancity SO much, but I consol myself with Facebook, Skype and the fact that I’ll be back soon!

Sunday ended with a safe arrival (WITH LUGGAGE!) in LA. My relatives, Chris, Lillian and David all came to pick me up, which was awesome. Now it’s definitely bed time!

Sunday
After being consistently amazed by Ottawa (and surprisingly so), Toronto had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, it failed on many counts, not least because I missed its winter festival (known as Wintercity). Nonetheless, I really enjoyed it, although it definitely did not endear itself to me like Ottawa, Montreal & Quebec City did.

My first impression of Toronto will stick with me for a while. To me it symbolises what differentiates it from other cities around it. You arrive from Ottawa on a rapidly expanding highway, approaching 9 lanes in each direction about 45mins out of downtown. Nowhere else in Canada that I know of ever gets to this level and I can only dread to think about how bad the traffic is in rush hours.

Suffice to say, the scale alone shocked me, and it was clear from the onset that Toronto was a different bread of city – big, brash and very very business-focused. Not a lot of tourist sights here, unless of course, you are here in the summer months. Then, I’ve been told, it’s awesome. It’s just I wasn’t visiting then!

After meeting my 2nd cousins (I think that’s how we are related – Norm is my Dad’s cousin) at the bus terminal, we drove straight to Niagara Falls. After checking in (to the Embassy Suites no less!) we had drinks at the Manager’s Reception and I headed out in the blistering cold to the IMAX theatre. Despite the amazing view from our room (see the photos), the weather was overcast, so I decided to go watch a movie on Niagara in the summer. See it how it should be seen, I guess.

The movie ended up being on the history of the falls, and more particularly on how people have attempted baralleling over it in various contraptions. The movie documents the success stories and has some awesome footage of the falls themselves, as only IMAX can. It also tells the legend of the falls, which involve a First Nations woman who, upon being given to the oldest and wisest man in the village, decided to leave rather than deny the old man his gift (if that makes sense). Legend has it she kayaked to the falls and fell over, becoming the “Maid of the Mist”. That term has since been the name of the boat that goes right up to the falls in the summer months.

I think today ranks up there as one of the coldest so far – the high was -13 Celsius, which became -27 with wind chill. Buffalo, just across the border in the US was 3F today. Ouch!

But I digress. We eat dinner at the Keg restaurant which overlooks the Horseshoe Falls (on the Canadian side). The steak and salad were of Canadian proportions but incredibly juicy and delicious. And the brownie I had for desert was definitely a fudge brownie, and as rich and thick as one should be. I have been spoilt this trip!!

Following dinner, Norm and I headed to the nearby Fallsview Casino, which really didn’t impress me at all. If anything it gave me a chance to see just how bad gambling really is. There were absolutely no redeeming features here to entice me. It was just row after row of poor, desperate, predominantly superstitious (lots of rubbing the screen here) people eager to ‘beat’ the house. Look, it’s not going to happen, and you will waste your money and ruin all that you have worked so hard to achieve. Argh! It got me so worked up! At least I saw the end of the Superbowl, which the Indianapolis Colts won rather convincingly.

Monday
We awoke this morning to find the poor weather gone, revealing a bright blue, sunny sky and the falls shimmering in all their glory. The mist was down too on yesterday, revealing more of the Horseshoe falls. The photos speak for themselves really – it was an awesome sight, and really noisy!

Luckily for me, Norm and Anne had a car, so we drove past the falls towards Niagara-on-the-Lake, passing many vineyards and the hydro plants on the way. Niagara-on-the-lake is renowned for its ice wine, and after a false start (we stopped at the one winery that didn’t make it first!), I tried some and bought a bottle. It’s so sweet – a sugar rating of 18 (desert wine has a rating of 8) – but really quite good.

We stopped twice more on the way back to Toronto (or as Jane would call it ‘T-dot’). The first stop was a quaint little Scottish pub known as the Queen’s Head in stylish Oakville. There I had my first Scottish Meat Pie, which was the perfect antidote to the biting cold outside. The second stop was an outlet mall where luckily I was able to withdraw some Canadian dollars. Once again, Toronto outdoes all other Canadian cities with its many strip malls blighting the landscape. These places are so wasteful! Doesn’t anyone realize how inefficient it is to have each shop in a separate building, surrounded on all sides by a mammoth single-level car park? Argh!!

Tuesday
After having re-checked my sightseeing guides to Toronto, I realized that there just wasn’t enough to see here to cover my three days if I proceeded at usual Tristan pace. So I gave myself loads of spare time to explore the city. This turned out to be most interesting, and led to some great times in Chinatown and in the PATH system.

My first stop, given the good weather I was blessed with, was CN Tower. Just to clear things up first off: CN is not CNN spelt incorrectly. Instead it stands for ‘Canadian National’ and refers to the railways company that operates Viarail and all intercity rail in Canada. It still stands as one of the tallest structures in the world, despite it being over 30 years old. The viewing platform that I reached was 346m above the ground!

To be honest, I don’t think its worth the exorbitant fee charged (C$22+). To start with, it’s such a symbol of Toronto that to take a photo from it defeats the purpose. You spend your whole time going ‘but where is the CN tower’ in all your photos. In addition, the ‘amazing’ glass floor doesn’t run the whole way along, but rather a very limited portion of the level, enabling you to see the concrete spire below and not much else. Being winter, the outdoor viewing deck was closed (a fact they failed to mention anywhere), so my pics were limited to those taken behind Perspex. Pity, because the view is amazing and the weather was perfect, if freezing.

From the CN Tower, I took the PATH underground city back to Union station and from there the subway to Museum. I emerged opposite the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), however I chose to leave that to another day and begin my walk back downtown. Starting along University Ave, I reached the Legislative Assembling buildings (otherwise known as the Provincial Parliament).

Some of you may be wondering, as I did, why the provincial government is in Toronto, but the national is in Ottawa. It’s all due to history, apparently. When the province (Ontario) was first colonized, it was done in Toronto, and so the legislative buildings all grew there. Ottawa as a national capital was added later (located where it is to appease the Quebecers & Ontarians).

The buildings themselves are well worth a visit, and I was lucky to have essentially a private guided tour. They have led an interesting history, having been burnt largely to the ground in 1909. Unlike the national Parliament, where the library was left intact, the library in Toronto was destroyed. Instead they were able to save the chamber, and it stands, partially restored, as a monument to colonial Canada.

From there I made the obligatory rest stop at Tim Hortons before making a brief visit to Old City Hall (now a large courthouse and subsequently mostly off-limits). I also stopped in the enormous Eaton Centre shopping complex, spending quite a bit of time lounging in Chapters and HMV. It was here that I caved in and bought the new Fall Out Boy album (early thoughts: nowhere near FUCT, but growing on me).

I knew I had to be opposite the MuchMusic studios for 6:30pm to meet Jane and her friends, so I made the most of the rapidly depleting sun and headed for Chinatown. I’m very glad I made that decision as Toronto’s Chinatown is the real deal. For starters, the majority language is Mandarin, not Cantonese, the markets are wet markets and the shops signs are all written in characters. This is my kind of place – for some bizarre reason it felt comforting, like home would. Odd, eh? I take it as a sign (if ever I needed one) that I’m a born ‘egg’ as always will be.

Think about it … what do eggs look like? White on the outside, yellow on the inside yeah? So … geddit? Ah forget it!

To continue the egg theme, I met with Jane and her friends (including another egg, Peter) for some Korean BBQ. We ate far too much and it was awesome. Great company, great food. What more could you want!? After nightcaps in Starbucks I headed home to watch some TV with Norm.

Wednesday
To my regret, a lot of my spare time in Toronto was wasted attempting to activate wireless internet in Norm & Anne’s apartment. I should have resigned myself from the outset that this was an unachievable goal and moved on. Instead I let it get to me and it came to define my time in Toronto. In the end I had to get my internet fix and did so at St Lawrence Market, but that wasn’t until Thursday. Before then, I bummed around the house watching BBC World. I guess there are worse things, eh?

And so it was that I found myself at midday in Starbucks on Bloor St, peoplewatching. To be honest, I love people-watching. It’s like stalking without the creepiness. Well, without most of the creepiness. You never know their names or occupations, but it’s always interesting to think about where they’re going, or what compelled them to dress the way they did. But I digress …

The aim today was visit some of Toronto’s museums. The first stop was the aforementioned Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). This place is destined to be huge, once the additions are finished (in the summer, obviously!), but in the meantime it’s a great venue to see Asian art – in particular Chinese and Japanese – and the history of Europe through art. From the ROM I made my way south to the CBC Museum. CBC is Canada’s version of ABC or BBC (hence the acronym), and is surprisingly good. It is seemingly well-funded and produces some excellent documentaries. Plus it hosts the Hour and Rick Mercer. With those two shows alone I’d watch it!

However, the museum was small, and lacked anything to make it stand out. It focused too much on the technical improvements in broadcasting, and less on what makes CBC important, interesting or historically engaging. A pity because it could have been so much better!

I also headed to MEC (Mountain Equip Co-op) to check out the day bags (mine is just a little worn!), but I completely forgot that you need membership to buy anything. Bugger. Another thing to add to my Vancouver to-do list.

Wednesday evening was destined to be a highlight of my time in Toronto due to one thing – the NBA! Norm bought us tickets a few weeks ago and so I’d been really looking forward to it for some time. The game, between the Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic was wicked fun and pretty close. Neither team played their best, but it took me back to primary school and collecting NBA cards. Back in the day! The final score was 113-103 to Toronto! We won!!

Oh, I almost forgot – for dinner we went to this little Japanese place in their apartment building. Great food and clearly Norm & Anne are regulars – we were treated like royalty! I even tried Sushi Pizza, which is raw salmon on crusty rice. Good stuff!

Thursday
As I mentioned earlier, today was the big day: I got internet again! And had a really nice mocha to boot! I started the day at St Lawrence Market – an old-style food market, similar to Eastern Market in DC or possibly a small version of Flemington Market in Sydney. The downstairs part has given way to a large number of tourist-style shops, but the upper level still feels like a proper weekend food market. It was definitely another side to Toronto, which was great as in a city of 5 million people I was beginning to feel it was all just commuters, businesspeople and work.

At St Lawrence I picked up my pride and joy, a Tim Hortons tshirt. Well, not a real one, but one that I think is even better! It says “As long as I get my Timmys no one gets hurt!”. Gotta love that, eh?!

After a brief stop at Pizza Pizza (What would Toronto be without Pizza Pizza?!), I met Carol at Union Station. Carol and I studied together in Singapore, and it was great to see her again. Within a few minutes it was like we’d never left and in this cold weather it made me smile. Somehow talking about Singapore made me feel warm! Odd, eh?

Later on we met up with Jane and Ira (also ex-NUS exchangies) at Starbucks and went hunting for some Moroccan cuisine. The place, called 93-Harbord or something similar to that (my memory is a little hazy!), served Moroccan fusion cuisine and did it very well. I think the place was far more ‘nice’ than we had expected, but the food was amazing and the service (especially for Ira!) was great. Jane’s friend Louise also joined us and made sure we didn’t talk about Singapore the whole night!

We had our nightcap and said our farewells at (where else) Tim Hortons. There’s nothing like a double-double (my first one!) and TimBits to warm you up! And that was it! I was back at Norm and Anne’s for one final night. Luckily Norm was awake and we got to have a good chat about politics, Canada and everything in between. Despite all I’ve said against Toronto, it does have its charm, and in a city this big it is always the people that make or break a city. For me, it was the people that were its savings grace. Thanks guys!

Lorali very kindly picked me up from the train station and, after a short trip on the Queensway to her house, we rapidly fell back into our usual ways. For those who don’t know how we know each other: we met on the Gecko’s tour around Central America. Us Canadians (have I been there long enough to claim honourary citizenship?) tend to stick together, tied by our anti-Americanism and wicked black humour. Can I interest anyone in a small Guatemalan child? Some Pringles maybe?!

Thursday
Lorali had to work on Thursday, so I had the day to myself to go exploring Ottawa. Lorali, being the awesome host that she was/is, had gathered some promotional material on the sights and events, and I spent some time this morning reading through them. To be honest, I had no idea Canada’s capital could be so interesting. There’s definitely something about capital cities that makes them targets for awesome museums and events. Must have something to do with national pride, I guess.

I had decided to do the ‘Big-4’ today: Canadian War Museum, Museum of Civilisation, the Petra exhibit and an IMAX film. Surprisingly enough, I managed to do all 4 in the one day, although I did rely quite substantially on the late-night closing of the Museum of Civilisation to do so.

The newly-opened Canadian War Museum (CWM) lives up to all its hype. Well, in my mind at least. It’s housed in an architecturally interesting building, reminding me somewhat of a bunker. I’m not convinced that was the intention, but regardless, that’s what I see. The exhibits focus on all conflicts Canada has ever been involved in – starting with First Nations civil conflicts, moving through to the omnipresent Franco-English skirmishes, to more organized warfare like WW1 & 2, and then the post-WW2 conflicts of Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and UN Peacekeeping. After being bombarded (bad word choice, I know) with WW1 & 2 information in high school and University, I found the exhibits a bit repetitive. But that can hardly be blamed on the museum. What most interested me was the Peacekeeping exhibit, and of the two and a half hours I spent there, almost half was in this final section. If anything, it strengthened my resolve to work in that field at some point in the future, possibly right out of college. Who knows where such a decision will take me, but that is largely the point!

What also struck me the most about the CWM was the similarities with our own (Australian) Armed Forces. In WW1, for example, our involvement was almost identical. The battles of Hill 70, Vimy Ridge, Beaumont-Hamel and Passchendale are as important to Canadian military identity as there are to the Aussies. It brought back memories of our 2001 Battlefields tour and generally made me more aware of the similarities between our two nations.

This afternoon was spent almost exclusively in the Museum of Civilisation (CMC). This place is huge and deserves a few hours to do it justice. My first stop was the special exhibit, currently on the Stone City of Petra, in Jordan. You know the one, in Indiana Jones, carved out of the rock face. Given my knowledge on the region was pretty much limited to Mr Jones, it was really interesting to see/hear and read about the city’s extensive influence and power. It was built in an easily fortified location at trading crossroads, and survived for many decades before finally a series of earthquakes rendered it unliveable. Like so many ancient cities, it managed to maintain an ample supply of water using a complex array of pumps, aqueducts and tunnels. It was only after the earthquakes destroyed much of the infrastructure that the city couldn’t continue to exist. Knowing this makes me feel quite sad that we are no longer able to think outside the box to best maintain our environment.

Following my visit to Petra, I continued around the museum, visiting the First Nations Hall (which is awesome btw, with loads of artifacts. Uber-PC though, which gets a bit tedious at times) and the Canadian history exhibit. Both exhibits go step-by-step, exploring themes and issues in Canada’s history, from traditions to inventions, people and places. Although much of it I had heard before (the importance of the railroad for example), it was still really well presented.

My final stop in the CMC was the IMAX Theatre to watch the film Fighter Pilot. I had actually originally planned to see this at the Air & Space Museum near Dulles airport, but circumstances denied me from doing so. As it turns out, it was more convenient and cheaper to do so here! The film itself follows one pilot and his crew in training sessions conducted near Las Vegas, Nevada. The shots are awesome, and do what IMAX does best: show us a world we would otherwise never see. At times stomach-churning, this film was well worth going to see.

By now it was well past night-fall, and I made my way (losing my Greyhound bus ticket on the way, and losing my direction majorly twice!) to Tim Hortons to see Jana & Laurie. I had ‘worked’ with Jana & Laurie on Ko Phi Phi, Thailand in July 2005 and it was only through a bizarre twist of fate (and Facebook) that we had stayed in touch and were able to meet in Ottawa. It was awesome reminiscing about the good ol’ (warm) times in Thailand, and it looks like I’ll see them again at Winterlude! Yay!

Friday
After a late start, Lorali and I made tracks for Cora’s. Cora’s is an institution in Ottawa, known for its substantial breakfasts served all-day. I had a fruit custard crepe, and it was huge and oh-so-good. I’m not entirely convinced by its supposed nutritional value, but mmmm…. Custard has a tendency to make me forget silly mundane things like eating properly!

After a brief visit to the police station (it was going to happen at least once on this trip, eh?) to report my lost Greyhound ticket, we headed to Chapters to buy a book that Lorali had been raving about for the past few days. I haven’t really looked at it much since, given time constraints, but it concerns the Canadian general (Romeo Delaire) who led the UN Peacekeeping force in Rwanda and his (in)ability to act when it was most needed. Should make for interesting (and disturbing) reading.

From there we made the trip downtown to visit Parliament Hill and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We took a tour of Parliament Hill just after 3pm and both found it fascinating. No matter how many parliamentary buildings I visit this trip, I don’t think I’ll ever become bored – they all differ so much in their style, substance and supposed power. Ottawa’s Parliament Hill is very traditional, modeled substantially on traditional English buildings.

Unfortunately the Photo museum was closed, so we made our way to By Ward Market to sample Ottawa’s most famous export – Beavertails. Now I’ll leave it up to you to work out whether I mean actual beavers tails or something different (the photos should tell you the answer!), but suffice to say they were awesome. Everything I’d expected and more. Truth be told I’d eaten one in Montreal a few days ago, but this time I changed toppings to Maple Butter and Nutella. It went EVERYWHERE and was soooo good!

A quick trip through the Rideau Centre reignited our travel plans as we stopped to grab brochures on the Trans-Mongolian railway and started to look at just how feasible the whole idea was. To our surprise, it looks like we could fit everything into 4 months. It will be a pretty intense four months, but definitely worth it. So far the plan entails flying to Germany, taking the train from Moscow to Beijing, heading south through China to Tibet, India and Sri Lanka, then onwards to South East Asia. It’s predicted to take about 4 months (throughout the northern summer) and cost about A$10,000. So far I have no money at all, nor any idea of really where I’ll be in 2009, but it’s a plan, and that’s a start. Something to look forward to in any case.

After a brief dinner of pesto pasta (my first one in months, and very much needed!), Lorali and I left the house for her friend Shari’s place. After a few pre-drinks, an attempt to fix their broken computer and some awkward comments made in front of Shari’s 12-yr old son (not by me!), we left for an even-more-bizarre cab ride downtown. Let’s just say I’ll never think of partitions in taxis the same way again! It was a pretty good night, all told, although I’m torn between the Anchor & Crown’s attitude and Bar 101’s fights for most interesting ‘scene’! It all ended well with pizza and laughing over slightly tipsy people falling over on the ice outside.

Saturday
After picking up Shari and her son Steven, Lorali and I drove downtown to Winterlude – Ottawa’s winter festival. As I’ve said before, winter festivals such as this bring cities alive. It makes winter worth looking forward to, and gives people purpose in the bitterly cold months.

Unfortunately the Rideau Canal was packed (today was the first day the whole thing had been open – a product of a particularly mild winter), so I never got a chance to skate on it. I did, however walk on it, so that’s part of the way there, isn’t it??

My particular highlight was eating poutine (chips, gravy, cheese – heart attack in a cup) then Taffy on snow (maple syrup frozen on ice) whilst watching all the ice sculptures being, well, sculpted. Some of them were simply amazing, and the photos don’t really do them justice (clear ice on white isn’t the best combination!). I will never cease to be amazed by chainsaws used to carve intricate details on ice.

We spent the afternoon re-visiting the Parliament for its open day. We walked all through the buildings and up to the Peace Tower, with its unparalleled view of downtown Ottawa and Gatineau. After a fire destroyed most of the building in 1916, only the library remained. The photos I’ve posted show the difference in architecture and explain why there are so many statues relating to WW1 throughout the building. Definitely worth a visit.

Following that, Lorali, Shari and Steven headed back, and I met up with Jana for a leisurely stroll through the Crystal Garden (with the ice sculptures). All too soon it was time to head back and continue my adventure through Eastern Canada. But not before Lorali and I had dinner at Baan Thai. This place was pretty authentic and served a mean duck curry. Lorali and I, both of whom have been to Thailand, were very impressed, and it was an excellent way to end an awesome few days.