s07e17 - This isn't 'real' cold

It's been a little while since my last blog and while nothing massively life changing has happened in that little time, there has been an adventure or two.
Most notably the fact that I went to Vancouver for 4 days to visit someone elses rellies. (Hey, you think visiting your own rellies is tough, try visiting someone elses!)
It was a good little break actually, one that I hadn't planned on doing when I left Oz about 5 weeks ago.

It's been almost 8 years since I last visited Vancouver and what would you know, it has changed a bit in that time. Most noticeably is that the city is gearing itself up for the 2010 Winter Olympics, a pretty big deal up in these neck of the woods and so the city of Vancouver is getting a major face lift, which I'm sure all the locals will be pretty happy with.
One thing they wont be overly pleased about is the several inches of snow they had while I was there. Now it might sound odd that a Canadian city isn't geared up for snow, but Vancouver really isn't. You see while Vancouver's surrounds are often white round this time of season, Vancouver itself doesn't usually get too much snow and so when it does, it doesn't cope well at all. So, when a few inches of snow drops in a day and the temperatures plummet the local villagers freak out. Luckily for me, while I was in freezing Vancouver (-10C) it was -48C back in Calgary ... fuck that, -48 is not what I signed up for!
While in Vancouver (well, at least near it anyway) myself, Naomi and Sebastian stayed in a massive house in Anmore which, I guess is about 45 minutes drive from Vancouver, which as I learned is only one of 11 different cities that makes up the Greater Vancouver Area (some other random facts include 30% of Vancouver is made up of East Indians while 20% is Asian*)

Anyway, Anmore is a little settlement up in the mountains, and when I say "up in the mountains" I really mean it. It takes 15 minutes to drive to civilisation and the backyard consists of trees, trees and more freakin' trees (aka a forest)
The community is rather select (land up there starts at around the $600,000 mark) but they still do the Christmassy thing and put up their lights, not that too many people see them as they are so far out of the way.
I was thinking one night that it might be cool to head up and photograph some of the more impressive house lights, that is until I was told that no one walks around there after dark because of the bears and coyotes that frequent the area .... WTF?
It goes without saying, I don't have any photos of the Christmas lights.

I got a couple of touristy things in while there (before the snow hit and the place became impossible to traverse) including Granville Island, the van Dusen Light Show and Grouse Mountain, which is a ski run 3,500ft up that over looks Vancouver and is as cold as a Nun's .....

*All statistics where provided by Peter Elias Statistics

s07e16 - The Towering Inferno

I introduced Canada to the "Aussie Burger" tonight.
OK, so it wasn't all of Canada, but you have to start small and so everyone in the house got themselves a bit of Aussie "tucker" for dinner tonight.

It was pretty surreal though as the burgers themselves had to be cooked outside on the BBQ during a pretty crazy blizzard. It was made all the more bizarre when Andrew decided to shovel the back porch with a hockey stick!

Anyway, for those wondering how these little beauties where any different to your run of the mill Canadian burgers, well that simple ... Beetroot.
It wasn't exactly 'that' simple because there was also beef, bacon, grilled onions, an egg, lettuce, tomato, cheese and tomato sauce crushed between two bits of bread. I was going to add some pineapple, but there just wasn't any room and gravity wasn't being kind already to these towering monstrosities.

Oh, for all the Aussies back home wondering why this made a posting ... well you see Canadians don't see the potential in beetroot quite like us Aussies do and tend to be really boring with their burgers, sticking to the tried and true beef, pickles, ketchup, cheese with maybe bacon and or mushrooms.

s07e15 - Who Woulda Thunk It?

After my long and harrowing "walkabout" earlier in the piece and after a hearty dinner, it was decided by Naomi that we would attempt to make it all the way across town to the Calgary Zoo to have a look at their winter light show.

It was brought to our attention that the zoo lights close to admission at 8:30pm and would shut down at 9pm. This didn't deter Naomi though and so at 7:45pm, myself, Naomi and Sarah bundled into the car and made a mad dash for the Zoo ... which I'm pretty sure I mentioned, is on the other side of town.

At 8:27pm, while the car was still moving, I was thrown out at the front entrance to the Zoo and told to buy tickets for the three of us and that we'd meet at the gate once the car was parked.

Sweet.

It looked pretty painless, pay a few dollars and go for a 30 minute walk and have a 'bo peep' at the light show which is supposedly outstanding. This was made a little more difficult by the woman at the box office who had to carefully inspect every coin I gave her , this right after she explained that we wouldn't have much time to look around "Oh look at that one ... haven't seen one of those before" .... for the love of God lady, just gimme my damn tickets already!

So with 25 minutes in we went, and I gotta say, that 25 minutes was some of the most fun Ive had on the trip so far. The lights where great and the company was outstanding which together made for a very enjoyable experience.

In hindsight, maybe the messing around on my part could have been toned down a little as I got covered in snow on more than a few occasions and therefore got a little damp, which probably led to the cold I have now (although I'm still going to blame Sarah for it)

Jokingly I made mention that at 9pm the Zoo staff would probably just flick the switch and leave us all in darkness ... which at 9:05pm, they kinda did, leaving us to navigate the Zoo in relative darkness. Which was fine as I the got to see all the animals that Zoo had to offer at 9:15pm which included Goats and Donkeys!

s07e14 - Previously on Lost

After being cooped up for a day or two and without a decent walk under my belt for a few days I headed off at 6pm on a walk around the small Calgary suburb of Tuscany where Andrew and Naomi live.

On my trek, I was supposed to walk up a hill about 30 minutes away to the grocery store to get some bread and stuff before calling home for a pick up.
So I walk outside and look around to get my bearings and decide that even though Ive never gone right at the intersection, my keen sense of direction says that I can get there faster and more efficiently if I go further into the suburb and out at the grocery store.

Unsurprisingly after an hour of walking I still hadn't made it to the shop and was probably further away than when I started, thanks mainly to a heap of dead ends and caldersacks on the way.

The walk was pretty sweet though as I got to cruise the streets looking at all the Christmas lights that where up and even helped Emma out when I shoveled the last meter and a bit of snow in her drive way.

"I'm not lost ... but misplaced" was my text message SOS and 15 minutes later I was extracted by Andrew before we hit up the grocery store which happened to be 150m away, right around the corner.

As I mentioned, the walk was amazing. I had my iPod on, so while I didn't get to listen to the silence of a suburban winters night, the walk was nice with my favourite tunes singing in my eardrums. The cold was refreshing too, and while it was probably in the negative, I was adequately dressed and so was toasty warm underneath.

s07e13 - Icicles at Dawn

After a moderatly warm day the first day in Calgary, day two started off with about 5 inches of snow.

Snow is a pretty awesome experience .... for the first week or two anyway. After that it kind of becomes slushy and gross, but the time being, its pretty cool stuff (sic)

It snowed al day today and probably dumped about a foot on Calgary, and while the mercury has hovered pretty close to the negative, it hasn't been so bad outside at all.

s07e12 - Up, Up and Away

It's been a few days and since I last put pen to paper I've managed to escape Toronto (just) and have made two thirds of the way across Canada to the province of Alberta, in particularly Calgary where I will spend the next few weeks staying with my very good friends Andrew, Naomi and their little baby Sebastian, who is 4 months old and already thinks I'm something quite odd as I seem to have the knack of making him giggle every time I look at him!

So why did I only "just" get out of Toronto?
Well, me and Baz and devised a cunning plan to move out to Mississauga for our last night in Toronto so that the ride to the airport for a 715am flight wouldn't be a long one. For those wondering, Mississauga is closer to the airport ... 'a lot' closer to the airport)
In any case we checked out of 'crack central' (Sherbourne Ave) at our allotted 11am and then took a 50 minute cab ride out to the Best Western on Dixie Rd, right next to the airport only to have reception tell us that our room was not ready yet and that we should come back in around 3 hours.

Brilliant.

So off we walked down Dixie ... which I know has a few retail outlets on it and so the walk probably wouldn't be so bad. Unfortunately we walked toward the more industrial side of Dixie straight into wind that I'm sure was coming straight off a glacier someplace.
We found refuge in a Mr Sub for about an hour watching the Canadian government stab itself in the front while chowing down on a delicious chicken sandwich. That killed an hour and in that hour we started getting snow. Not the cool variety snow though, wimpy little flakes that burnt up as they hit the ground .... very unsatisfying.
With 2 hours to go before 'check in' take 2, we ended up playing a few dozen games of eight ball in a little tavern just around the corner from our over night digs.

Well the rest of the day after that was pretty uneventful but the morning didn't start without incident with our airport shuttle at 530am being waaay overbooked and then after being promised exit seats on the 4 hour flight to Calgary myself and Baz where seated one row behind the exit seats giving the both of us a very cramped and long flight.

Andrew met us both at the airport and and gave myself and Baz a first rate "idiots Guide to Calgary" tour before dropping Baz off at his mates place and then heading back to his house out on the prairie someplace!

s07e11 - Frozen Coke

To say that I am ill equipped to handle what isn't even winter over here is an understatement. Mind you, I am coping much better than my traveling compadre Baz who finds it necessary to put 7 layers on and cover every inch of his skin even when its in the positives outside.

Its this rugging up that makes me wonder: How much is Baz actually missing?
I realise that for the most part his "softness" provides him with more warmth than myself, but on a few occasions Ive noticed little things while walking while Baz happily plows on, oblivious to what is happening outside of his hood, beanie and face warmey thing.


I any case, my time here in Toronto is about 10 hours away from ending, and while it has been fun, I didn't quite get to do everything I wanted, which included catching up with people. It's always hard to make the planets align when the time frame of alignment is under a week and I can't expect people to drop their lives just to catch up with me.


Tomorrow takes me to something new ... Calgary. I landed there once before but it was for a grand total of 3 hours, not nearly enough for me to say that Ive thoroughly scoped out the place. I know one thing about Calgary .... it's cold this time of year. Wow, there I go, on about how cold it is again. No more .....


It was only a week ago I was told by a "true Torontonian" that you haven't been ripped off properly until you've been up the CN Tower. I gave this another try and went up for the 3rd time now and while it is a little expensive for what you get, its still twice the value of Mandalay Bays shark tank!
Right after the CN Tower, I would have loved to have gone next door and done the Rogers Center (SkyDome) tour, but due to a heap of high school "Bowl" games, the $15 tour ticket was instead a $15 entrance fee to watch a few games, which wasn't quite as good as the tour would have been, but the 3 hours of watching kids play 'football' was a good time waster and mildly entertaining for the most part.





Now: Sleep
Next: Calgary

s07e10 - Space ... the Final Frontier

It's been pretty grey and gloomy here in Toronto the last couple of days and pretty cold out as well. Not too cold to do anything, but cold enough to limit movements too much. What is pretty cold? Well, the mercuriy hasn't really climbed much past 4C and has been down as low as -6C with windchill (not to mention the occasional flurry of snow and lengthy periods of rain)

So what have I been up to since last time I blogged? Nothing too exciting really. Got to catch up with some very good friends in Will and Natasha yesterday for lunch and coffee. It is always good to catch up with old workmates and find out what has been happening in their worlds since last time I was around ... which is rarely more than 18 months in anycase.

With the ordinary weather brings more inside time. Sometimes not the best when you're used to travelling solo and having your own personal space for long stretches of the time. In all honesty the inside time annoys the hell out of me because I really want to be out there somewhere doing things, but with the AUD still on the ordinary side and the shite weather it gets tough to motivate yourself to "get out there".

2 and a bit days to go now in Toronto. The rest of today and then all day tomorrow before a trip out to Mississauga for Thursday night which means that the trip to th Airport on Friday for a 7:15am flight wont be a long one or too early.

s07e09 - Sometimes They Get it Right!

How many times in your lifetime have the folks who bring you the weather got it completely and utterly wrong?
Lets turn that into a percentage, and its gotta be in the 80's or higher. They just never get it right.
So, when the weather service here in Toronto says that there will be afternoon rain and/or snow, I took it with a grain of salt and went out for a walk anyway. Sure it was heavily overcast, it was freezing cold and there was a fair wind whipping up, not the best conditions for a walk anyway but it could have been worse .... and was.
Momments like these rarely happen just after you're outside your front door so you can turn around and go back inside to your toasty couch/sofa/bed. No, instead, I was about 3km's away at the time walking away from where I was staying when the weather turned nasty. Luckily there was a massive shopping centre at about this distance (the Eaton Center) and so a little bit of shelter was sought while the initial bit of "shit" weather rolled over.

Once it looked like it was passed it was time to start the 40 minute walk back home, hopefully only in dreadful weather rather than the terribly disheartening weather from a short time earlier.

I didn't get far.

I got just across the road when I got slapped in the side of the head by a whopping great piece of snow. Great, snow .... this is rediculous. Well, it was because the brief flurry soon turned into rain which just plain sucks when it's 1C outside (thats not taking into account the windchill which would have had to have dropped the temp to something closer to -7 or -8C)
The walk home wasn't all that bad, although I was pretty wet, very cold and numb on all the bits that weren't covered.

Today's lesson .... don't go outside .... ever.

s07e08 - Poor Brass Monkey

Wit hVegas left in the dust, it was on to Toronto, Canada, my home away from home and one of my favourite places to just hang out and socialise.

Was it ever this cold though?

The answer is easily yes, but it's been such a stretch since last time I was in this kind of weather that it feels terribly harsh, although I am putting on a brave face and I am way more prepared for it this time compared to last time I lived through a Canadian winter.

It's only been in the low single digits and maybe just into the negative overnight, which shouldn't be too much of a change as it does occasionally get that cold back home over night, but theres always the days which hit mid teens and sunny, unlike here where its just cold .... all the time.

The Clarion on Sherbourne, where Im staying is a little better than I thought. Not palacial by any stretch, but for the price, its pretty decent. The neighborhood isn't the best, but I think I can deal with that. At least it doesn't smell like cats piss like the last place I stayed on Sherbourne.

Yesterday was the first full day in TO and it was basically a bit of a walking tour downtown and some people watching at the Eaton Centre. Downtown has changed a little, but not too much, I thankfully still know my way around pretty well.

The night before was getting into to town which included a tour of ... somewhere, by Sarah who picked me up from the airport and then took me and Baz out for General Tao's chicken where Baz became another immediate convert.

It's almost shirt and shorts weather outside today with the sun out and the mercury sitting at a comfortable 5C, so it must be time for lunch and a stroll .....