Jul 2007

Hey,

Okay so after 36 hours, 5 meals and several kips on the train I finally arrived in Winnipeg and hauled my stuff upto the hostel and literally passed out on my bed bc it was 10pm and the train ride really wiped me out.

So I woke up around 11ish and grabbed my stuff and headed out to see what was around in Winnipeg and doing the whole tourist thing with pictures of this and pictures of that. Found myself among the Winnipeg bears and totem poles and then down into the french speaking part of Winnipeg just across the river. Found myself by some old ruins of a church which was nice to walk around apart from not understanding the french signs.

So made it back to the english part of Winnipeg and stopped off at the forks park and the mall there which was full of bars, restaurants and takeouts...it was food, food and more food there... Had a nice break in there I must admit as it was really hot outside and took a look in my travel guide and it said to do this, this and this so naturally, I did.

So starting off with the Manitoba museum and planetarium was good to look around for a few hours, catch a breeze on Pontage and Main (apparently the windiest corner in North America) and then finish the night at the ball park for the Winnipeg Goldeyes against the Fargo Redhawks. Good game to watch and a win for the hometeam 5 - 3 and then afterwards a signed baseball by some of the players and best of all a picture with Goldie the Goldeyes' mascot.

So back to the hostel for another night and got woken up by the house keeping staff saying I needed to have checked out of the room about 45 minutes ago. I wasn't informed what time check out was so luckily she was okay with it so basically just chilled in the lounge at the hostel with my laptop.

Met two Irish guys there and a Canadian girl who were all checked out and waiting for the same train ride to Edmonton so naturally we all latched on to each other and went down to the station and stayed on the train together until we hit Edmonton.

So that was Winnipeg, brief I know but it is a nice place to visit but not to stay there for a long time.

David

Hey,

So I arrive in Montréal late as per usual with the likes of long distance trains here in Canada, but atleast I got here and to be honest I wasn't really that worried as I had been here before.

So I was sat on the sofa in the lounge when two guys came into the room and started to chat to me. We had Luke from Australia (Not the Luke from Toronto) and Taylor (A former US Marine sniper from Atlanta). An interesting combination for sure but about an hour later we headed out to Mont Royal and spent about 30 minutes up at the top and watched a storm above the eastern part of the city, which was quite interesting to see as we were above the storm on the hill and in the blistering heat. So after the sightseeing was done from Mont Royal, we did what any group of three guys wanted to do in the heat...grab a drink at the bar!

So after one/two....maybe I can't remember how many we had we got back to the hostel with a few drinks from the store and then was pre-drinking until we headed out at around 10pm to downtown Montréal for more drinking. Luke suggested we try this bar called Mado and much to our surprise it was a drag bar. Must admit it was cheap drinks and well interesting entertainment. Later we hit a karaoke bar just down the road where we met three girls from Ontario and were so glad to hear we 1) spoke english and 2) were not from Canada, meaning 3) we had an "accent". So again after a few drinks and some karaoke fun it was time to head back to the hostel at 4am and then stayed up for sometime before actually hitting the sack.

Next day was more of a chill at the hostel and work on my assignment for uni back home before heading out again downtown but into the Old Montréal area for drinks and paid the most ever for a pint. We were charged $8 for a pint and $6.25 for a half pint so although the choice was good the price didnt quite match the excitement of good beer for once.

So again back at around 1am we again chilled in the lounge when to make it more interesting thre Geordie lads came in to chill and all 6 of us headed out to the store down the road for more beer. It was quite funny that night as the Geordies tried to keep up with Taylor and ended up passing out on the sofas before heading to bed.

So this pretty much wraps it up for Montréal as Luke and I left the next day to head to Toronto. Luke went by bus though as I went on the train but must admit I had a great time in Montréal and the is the end of David in Québec for the time anyways.

David

Hey,

Yes! It has been a while since I last wrote here but a lot of things have been going on since my last entry. So here is an update of what has been going on since I arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Well after my first night in Halifax, I woke up to head out again downtown to the Citadel in Halifax and my timing couldn't have been any better. As I arrive at the gates to the Citadel they were going through the changing of the guard, which not as specatular as in London but then again Halifax is a lot smaller than London. Shortly after...well about an hour or so then everyone was surrounding one gun in the citadel as it was exactly 12 noon and the gun they fired was of course the noon gun. Now this has been a tradition for hundred of years that the gun is fired at 12 noon and 9pm everyday excluding Christmas Day. However there has been one change since the early times where they only use 1lb of black powder today instead of 4lbs back then and there was at one point a legislation act that the British Military were not responsible if your windows broke during the firing of the gun.

The citadel itself wasn't as good as the one in Québec City but was still impressive and after my little walk around for a few hours I was back downtown looking around town and watching a magician or two ont he harbour front before heading to Pizza Corner for a Donair, which Pam told me I had to have otherwise I would not have had the Halifax experience.

So back to the hostel to pack and check out before heading off to Truro to meet Pam's family for a couple of days. It was a nice surprise when Pam was telling me about it when I was in St. John's and to be honest I was quite shocked that they offered but not complaining.

So first night at the Tiller's and we spent the night with the grand tour of the house and chilling in the living room watch a film and grabbing a piza delivery so a pretty chilled out night and then a lie in until fairly late, well 10am anyways and then we headed out in the car to drive along the northern Nova Scotian coast. We stopped off at a few places like lookout towers, beaches and a few other places like Southampton and Denmark before finally getting home to relax at night with some Canada Day fireworks from the hill near to where we were. So time at the Tiller's was funfilled and no time to laze about as we were out in the car for a good 8 hours or so. Well atleast I slept well that night.

So the next day I was bound for Moncton so in the morning, Pam's mum drove me around Truro to show me this and that etc, etc and then we stopped off at a drug store for some food on the train and also for a snadwich to eat then. So at the train station, I checked in my suitcase and then Pam's mum took me out to the station platform to show me a wall painting that Pam had started but did not quite finish. This painting was for an art scholarship and was a pair of hands holding the world and all about recycling.

So off I go to Moncton on the train and considering we were up in the north of Nova Scoita, it still took me 3 hours to get to Moncton and when I arrived, I ended up wasting $6 on the taxi because I didn't know where the hostel was from the train station but turns out that it was right up the road about 5 minutes. So the hostel itself looks like a student house with a student-esque feel to it as the people running the place were fairly young. So for the first night Mike (owner), Pete (Australia) and I went to the river bank to watch some belated Canada Day fireworks as apparently the weather was so bad that they didn't go ahead on Canada Day. The display was more impressive than the display I saw in Truro.

So Tuesday came in Moncton and I decided to go walk around town and wow the downtown area was small and I ended up in Dieppe which was a settlement next to Moncton. During the time I was out which was about four hours it had chucked it down 4 times and the last time was just after I had my hair cut and I was outside with my hoodie so I get absolutely drenched wet through. So a new city and new look for the time anyway and when I got back to the hostel there were plans for a new thing too when a few new people moved into my room and one of the guys [John] brought he guitar so him and Pete were jamming away in the lounge and then later on whilst Pete was playing the guitar, John pulls out his violing as well and they continue to jam. Later some of Mike's friends turn up with guitars, drums and other stuff and we all end up jamming in the downstairs lounge for a few hours which was different because half of the time I couldn't understand a word some of them were singing as it was in French but oh well it was good.

So Wednesday comes around in Moncton and the weather is still bad so I decided to take the day off and chill at the hostel and work on some of my assignment for university back home. As I had stayed in all day I decided to go out and grab a bite to eat and ended up in this Vegitarian restaurant which was not what I expected not only was it nice food but it was cheap too! So got back just before we all headed out to the pub to see some live music and drinks all night so walking back was fun as everyone was a different nationality and all having a laugh, which is what I like about hostels.

Thursday came around and it was time to pack up and say goodbye to Moncton...Well after packing and checking out by 10:30 I had to wait until 4:30pm until I could leave to go to the train station and get ready for my 17 hour journey to Montréal. Well it lasted 19 hours in the end as we had to go slowly during the night and we stopped for 30 minutes to have an extension to the train so we were now about 20 odd carriages long! So arriving in Montréal at 10:20am instead of 8am on Friday.

So I'll leave it there for now and write up about where I am tomorrow so I'll catch upi tomorrow now!

David