24/08/2010

I was suppose to leave Kelowna today hoping to get a ride with my bicycle to Vancouver with Moose tours that was passing through the Samesun hostel but unfortunately it fell through. Just as I find out I check my facebook and see that Rose a girl I treeplanted with added me as a friend and I remembered she was driving to Vancouver. I got in contact with her and saw that tomorrow she would be here… what luck!

I cycled into town down the crazy hill… so much fun, and caught up with the German girls (Sarah and Melina), Sarah was getting a tattoo and I wanted to get a quote on how much the tattoo I want would be, about $80 with no shading.

We went back to the hostel where I gathered a bunch of people and headed over to the beach to play some volleyball. There were 3 on each team sometimes 4, but it was the most intense game ive played in a while, it was fun as fuck.

Later I cycled back up to Christinas getting some food on the way and then cooked spag-bol for her and her housemates.

23/08/2010

Even though I wanted to sleep in today I couldn’t… Damn early mornings treeplanting.

This morning I headed down the hill from Christinas place back to the hostel, I needed to find out for sure whether Meg would be able to join me on my trip to mexico, she had a job interview but it only pays $9 a hour. Its such a shame but we both agreed that I should go and start the journey without her and if in some miraculous way she stumbled across a thousand dollars she could come meet up with me.

I called Deb (My Chef in Big White) at around midday and caught up with her for a few drinks around downtown, I again bumped into Lindsey and we joined her and her mother for drinks at the fed.

We got a bit tipsy and grabbed some more food at the mango place I had eaten at the past 2 days… wonton soup for $4 isnt bad at all.

I picked up the rest of my luggage at Keelyns place to give to Deb to store for the next 9 months until I returned to Canada then headed back to the hostel where I chilled and napped in the TV room. It’s a great place to hang out even though im not staying there.

I cooked for Sarah (a Swiss girl I had met a few days ago) and Aaron (Canadian that’s good friends wth Meg), just a quick stirfry and headed on my bike back to Christinas place.

The Cycle was difficult, it was all uphill but I suppose I need to get myself in shape for my upcoming trip.

22/08/2010

Cure for the weekend hangover…. Drink some more!

Where I crashed last night there was a guy, Phil who was recently in a car accident where his truck crushed his arm when it flipped on its side. His arm was in bad shape with even a little vacuum sucking out all the crap and puss. It was a pretty horrible sight, and not something I wanted to see with this hangover.

We got some lunch at that Asian place we ate at yesterday and headed back home.

I cooked dinner in the evening, made a roast for 7 people that only cost $17… not bad at all. Everyone loved it and I even made Yorkshires.

We played some Pictionary and started watching a film, although not long into it we all went to bed.

21/08/2010

Christina and I spent the morning listening to metal, drinking an alcoholic smoothie I concocted with more leftovers in her fridge and freezer and tried to piece together the night before. I was carrying her phone last night and at some point it went missing. I felt responsible but thankfully and after checking the places we went to last night we found it beside the seat of her housemate who took us home.

Whist in downtown Kelowna we ate at this Asian place that offered cheap food and it was also so good, its surprising to find a place like this in downtown kelowna as everything is normally really expensive.

We went for a swim in the lake to try and cure our hangovers that worked but was only brief while before they came back again.

In the afternoon we headed to another lake area towards Vernon where we napped on the beach with Christinas housemate and her boyfriend.

Later Christina dropped me off ot the hotel where I got involved with the keg party that is held there every Saturday, its $10 for a cup and all you can drink until the keg runs dry.

Again like yesterday I got pretty smashed, but it was a good night, meeting more randoms in the hostel and in the street when heading to the bars around town.

At one point some people I know well who stay in the hostel suggested to have an orgy… that’s right and orgy involving 6 of us! I was keen to get involved, but most of the others had second thoughts. Haha, what a funny night.

I managed to get a ride to one of Christinas friends places with Christina where I was so smashed I just passed out outside on a couch under a gazebo.

20/08/2010

Friday Night! Spent the day cycling around downtown chilling at the beach.

I had to wait for Christina (Canadian) to finish work before I could get a ride to her place with my belongings where id be crashing for the next few days.

It was great to catch up with her because last time I was here to see her I was all over the place having traveled for something like 3 days straight from India.

I gathered some leftovers in her fridge and cooked up a spicy prawn curry with rice for dinner then got some beers from the shop.

The night out would have been a better if I could remember something but from the bits and pieces I can recall it was a good night. I managed not to sleep in my bed either cause when we got back to Christina’s im pretty sure I was hitting on her, but shes kinda seeing a guy so nothing happened… Damn! Although she is a good friend, and I would like it to be more, I was staying at her place and that’s a no-no.

Oh, and on the way home I got free food from 7 Eleven.

19/08/2010

Spent most of the morning chilling with Keelyn in his recently bought house. We headed the the bike shop where the bike he was selling me was getting a tune up, I offered to pay a little more for the bike as it had a little more wrong with it than he anticipated. So, for $350 I now have a bike to get me down to Mexico.

We cruised around downtown Kelowna for the afternoon hitting up the beach looking for some of the others I know from the hostel without having any luck.

We got back to Keelyns place and I cooked dinner, I made sweet and sour pork, stirfry veg and rice… I had to make do with the ingredients that he and his girlfriend had and although I had to improvise with some other flavours I managed to make a decent meal.

Keelyn and I cycled to the hostel to get some table tennis action on but unfortunately had been hogged up by some Asians. Saw Christina and…well, meh!

18/08/2010

Caught up with Keelyn today (a guy who I worked with treeplanting) to have a look at the bicycle I will be buying from him, it’s a light weight racing hybrid bike that has already down the trip from Vancouver to mexico. It had been locked up away for the past 5 years and was in pretty bad shape although Keelyn was willing to pay the price of getting a new front wheel, a tune and a fix-up of any other issues. Ill be getting the bike for $350 hopefully with the old panniers he had lying about in his garage.

Keelyn and his girlfriend Carly invited me to stay at their place for the night too, so I didn’t need to pay for another night at the hostel.

Again, today I gathered a bunch of people from the hostel to go and play some volleyball but it was much hotter out today and playing volleyball against and with people who seem to be totally un-coordinated isn’t that great; especially an Aussie chick we met on the walk to the courts who literally just fell over every time the ball would come close to her. We would have won the game if our teem kept on serving the ball to her but after a while we felt kinda sorry for the girl.

Anyways, I got back to the hostel where some Mexicans I had met last night had invited myself and Megan to an end of season cherry pickers party in east kelowna, we decided to go picking up some beer on the way. It was a bit of a mix of people mostly from Quebec but the orchard was owned by an East Indian family who get the land from the government if they come to the country to work on it, paying back the money when they make a profit from the crops.

It was a good night simply chatting to everyone and chilling around.

After, Meg and I got a ride rack to the hostel where I squeezed in a few games of ping pong before taking all my gear to Keelyn’s place.

I hadn’t really eaten much all day so I stopped by safeway for a quick snack, I got chatting to the checkout chick (Sarah) about tattoos and metal music and in the brief 2 minutes of talking to her I ended up with her number.

17/08/2010

Its getting quite annoying, for the past few days since I finished planting ive been getting up at a ridiculous hour in the morning, my choice is to sleep longer but I simply cant do it.

Anyway I headed to the mall on Megans bike to run a few errands, Megan I met yesterday, she had cycled the accoss Canada, a really sound chick. This girl may in fact join me on my cycle trip to Mexico, it would be fantastic as id love to have the company.

I got back to the hostel and gathered a bunch of people to go play Volleyball on the beach, a bunch of German girls, some South African Guys and a French girl.

It was good fun under the sun often having breaks and cooling off in the Okanogan lake beside the court.

Later we got some beers and chilled outside of the hostel having a laugh. The German girl I was interested in who I met on the day I arrived in Kelowna was getting felt up by another German guy but as she told me later, the guy was a dick.

Ive been trying so hard with this girl since I met her, cooking her dinner the other night, chatting on the beach, giving her beer and telling her how beautiful she is… IN GERMAN! I thought I could have a chance. Instead as the night went, the group of us who were all pretty drunk headed to the strip joint where the beers are cheap, I buy her (Christina) a beer and go find a table with the others, she talks to some random guy at the bar and never joins us. 10 minutes later, the guy and her leave the place together. After 10 fucking minutes! Ive been trying for 4 days! WTF!

Anyways, its my fault that I didn’t make a move on her earlier.

16/08/2010

Today I volunteered to help with the deep clean in the Samesun hostel, although I spent the night in the IH hostel down the road. To be honest I didn’t like the IH because there were too many long term people there that have their own friends making it difficult to join the group, also the hangout room was also a tv room where everyone would just watch it and not talk to one another.

Paul (a Dutch guy) and myself were assigned to clean all the showers in the place, not a difficult job but time consuming.

It was only from 1pm till 5pm and we got 2 free nights stay, 2 beers and a pizza… not too bad really.

15/08/2010

Today I had to move hostels to one that cost $19 per night as opposed to $33 at the samesun hostel, I had booked it yesterday just to save that little bit of cash.

Just another hungover day today where again I chilled on the beach and relaxed my sore feet that I still have from planting.

14/08/2010

This is an easy entry in my Journal:

Lay in the Sun on the beach and in the afternoon/evening got drunk during the keg party.

13/08/2010

I woke up early to make my way down to Kelowna, so I packed my tent saying hello to all the morning joggers and random passers by.

I managed to get a ride within minutes and then taken to the out skirts of kelowna where I got a local bus to downtown and checked into the Samesun hostel where I have stayed plenty of times. Gerald, the owner recognized me and gave me a bit of a discount on the dorm bed but at $31 a night, its still really expensive.

I met Christina in the kitchen, a very pretty German girl who has been travelling by herself. I headed to the beach with her where although she didn’t talk much (very timid) I found her to be wicked person.

Since ive been treeplanting I never really had to chance to wash my dreads, so today I went out and bought some dread soap, I had a shower and you would not believe how clean my hair was. Actually it was quite the opposite, the water running from my hair was black… but at least now my hair is clean.

I bumped into Lindsey in the street, I know her well from when I worked in Big White 2 years ago, so it was good to catch up with her.

We went out for drink in the evening and I did my normal rounds of meeting randoms and having a laugh.

12/08/2010

Woke this morning with a killer hangover from celebrating the end of tree planting with the people who were left for planting in Caroline, a small town in Alberta. It was a good night out where I got so wasted and passed out face first in apparently several peoples beds. After saying our farewells to everyone, Mark, Shanti and I set off to Kamloops.

Mark was saying that his stereo wasn’t working so I had a look at it, he said there was no point as 20 or so people have tried and failed, nevertheless I still had a quick look; it took me no longer than 30 seconds to solve the problem, two buttons were stuck in preventing the stereo to function, all I did was pull the buttons back out and hit the source button. The look on marks face was priceless, so shocked as it was been broken for the past year and I managed to fix it in less than 30 seconds.

It took us from midday to 8pm to get to Sicamous where I was dropped off at the junction of hwy 97a to hitchhike down to Kelowna.

The first ride I got only took me 20km down the road where I was left standing for 45 minutes, I was just about to give up when a guy in a jeep picked me up and took me to the southern outskirts of Vernon, I think about a 35 minute drive where I pitched my tent under a tree on the side of the Highway.

2^nd break between contracts. (Edmonton)

A few days ago Alex and Chris left to go on their holidays, Chris went to Alaska for a hike whilst Alex went to Croatia to meet friends and travel around Eastern Europe.

It’s a shame they left because we including Cole always have a great time together.

Instead of Chris and Alex in Coles car for the trip they were replaced by 2 new French girls that joined our crew two shifts ago, Camille and Anne-Marie.

The break was for 5 days and the four of us decided to go to Edmonton for our fix of normal city life.

Thankfully I had packed up my big tent the night before leaving as the whole of the next morning it was pissing down, I slept in my tiny tent which really does not have any protection against the forces of nature although it does have its benefits of being easily packed away.

We left camp at around midday for the 3 hour journey to Edmonton.

We checked into a hotel on Whyte Ave, the apparent party centre of Edmonton sharing a 2 bed room for $22 each. It was a shabby hotel reminding me of the crap I use to stay in when I was traveling around India at an extortion rate in comparison. It was in a good location so we stayed.

As it was a Saturday the streets were filled with buskers and street performers which really got us into a party mood, we drank in our room for most of the arvo before Babs and even arrived then hit up the night life of Edmonton.

There was a decent crew of us including Tom and Paul and the night turned to be quite a lot of fun with some of us getting kicked out of half the places we entered due to some substances that were passed around the crew.

We all ended up at a house party somewhere where we were up till the early hours of the morning.

All in all, a pretty good night.