Leaving Today

It’s more than a week since I confirmed that the large furry creatures hadn’t got me and I now find myself needing to pass on reassurances once again. This time all limbs are (just about) intact following my trip to Sun Peaks, and only my camera sustained any injuries whilst gallivanting in the snow atop Grouse Mountain.

Sun Peaks dons sunglasses to cope with the stranger in town

I’ve got the end of holiday blues, and am finding it difficult to find the energy to write about anything though there are lots of tales to be told. I don’t want to sound as if I’m not looking forward to seeing everyone back at home – of course I am. However, I could quite easily extend my stay in North America by weeks, if not months. There are so many things I didn't have time to see or do that I want to go around and repeat the trip – and I want to spend a summer living in downtown Vancouver again (only this time without the cockroaches, 6 room-mates in our one-bedroom apartment, 5.30am start at work and general lack of cash – but that’s a whole other story from a long time ago...).



Alas, my flight ticket is for tomorrow evening and I have plans for a big May spring cleanup at my poor, neglected house so the day-dreaming will have to stay just that...

For the time-being anyway.

Maybe I’ll even find time to document all my North American adventures over the next month (I have no doubt that it will be more interesting than the chores I'll be procrastinating over). In the meantime – Au revoir, Vancouver.

The aptly named Sunset Beach

Bears

Thanks to Dav for his concern, but neither I nor my laptop have been eaten by bears.














I'm alive and well and packing my bag again in Tsawwassen (south of Vancouver) - I've even done a mini update (see below). In a couple of hours I'm being whisked off to Sun Peaks ski resort for the weekend so further updates about Jasper and the second leg of my train journey will have to wait (if indeed they materialise at all - see Tanzania and Central America updates!).


Happy Easter!

Toronto to Jasper

Back end of a train at Sioux Lookout (pop 3,100)

From the moment I was mistaken as one of a large British tour group boarding the train to Jasper, I knew I’d have a problem having any ‘me’ time on the train. I had thought that I’d have a lot of time for introspection and would possibly be rather bored at times during the 2 ½ day journey. No chance.

For this stage of the journey I upgraded my railpass to first-class travel (on advice from people who had been there before. Thanks Harold!). The upgrade bought me a bedroom and inclusive meals (as opposed to a reclining seat and the ability to purchase light meals and snacks from the Dining Car).

Serves me right for ridiculing my huge hotel rooms in Montreal and Toronto

The train was prime people-watching and people-meeting territory and I met some real characters. Each mealtime brought a new group of people to chat to (and at! I’ve got the Sabbatical explanation off to a tee now). When not in the dining car I could be found in one of the ‘dome cars’, where a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside was available – if the windows were clean and paintball-free (a bored soul in Saskatchewan was an excellent shot):

A couple of real characters enjoying the view (stop giggling, Rob)

Obviously Canada is huge – and travelling this way gives a great feel for just how huge – but I was surprised at how glad I was to see flat prairie-land after a day of the very picturesque trees, snow and frozen lakes of northern Ontario. I had been warned that the Prairies would be the most monotonous piece of scenery, but we passed through a lot of Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the dark – so really had no time to be bored of flat land before we were back in tree-lined country on the run up to the Rockies.

Yet again, I’ve taken hundreds of photos – most of them pretty terrible quality due to being taken from a moving vehicle a number of seconds after the particular beautiful sight had been passed. I also have far too many versions of the clichéd train curving around the side of a lake shot:
one of a series of 200 clichéd shots

Psshtecuff, Pssshtecuff...

Well, that's officially one quarter of my Sabbatical year behind me.

To celebrate the fact that I still have nine months to go, I'm going to spend two and a half days on a train from Toronto to Jasper, in the Canadian Rockies.
Who knows - it could look like this

I've had a busy week since I spotted the random skier on Mont Royal. After a couple more great days in Montreal, I headed over to Grand Island, Buffalo to spend a long weekend with one of my oldest friends, Heidi, and her lovely family:


Yesterday Marek, Heidi's husband, drove me up to Toronto in a thinly veiled excuse to visit the local Polish neighbourhood - particularly Benna's deli. They do a mean sausage (so mean, it's still repeating on me now). Today, I had planned on having a wander around the city - to reacquaint myself with the place. However, once the wet snow started to fall, I wussed out and popped to the theatre to catch a matinee of the World Premiere performance of the Lord of the Rings musical. I dont care what the critics have said - I loved the books, I loved the films...and I loved this production. I was captivated for (what felt like) a short three and a half hours.
Unleash the schoolbus

This evening, Sabbatical trips collided when I went to visit Dorothy, who I met on my trip to Tanzania. She treated me to a gourmet meal of home cooked fresh lobster and champagne, and we reminisced about the holiday (and I finally found someone who didn't tire of the unedited version of my holiday snaps!)
Dorothy's roomate, Lily

So, that's a very quick catch-up - what have you been up to?