Goodbye civilisation

(This has been on my desktop for a few days and haven't had a chance to upload.)

Well, haven’t I been lazy with getting one of these up lately? So where have I been the last two weeks since leaving Quebec City? I ended jumping on the Greyhound (who might I say have the worst customer service I have ever encountered) waved goodbye to the snow and made my way down to semi-sunny New York.

So New York… Big, massive, hectic, overwhelming…. The amount of superlatives you can use is pretty much endless, but generally, they all point to the same meaning. From my perspective, a lot of things I’d heard about New York were true and many others not so much. The first Hostel I booked In New York was in northern district of Harlem. The only thing I’d heard about Harlem before my arrival was the Harlem Globetrotters, and I didn’t expect to see them spinning basketballs on their fingers any time soon.  A quick google of the place and a few reviews of the hostel quickly suggested Harlem is no American Utopia where everyone gets along. Most of the phrases tossed around were “dodgy area,” “Didn’t feel safe walking at night” and “suspicious looking people in the streets.”  I was set to arrive at my hostel around 7pm, just after sundown, so I was preparing myself for an interesting journey in trying to locate the hostel in my perceived post-apocalyptic, every man for himself warzone.  Not surprisingly, it wasn’t like that at all. Harlem is a massive melting pot of cultures that has developed its own distinct personality. I had the pleasure of staying in West Harlem, which is considered the black area and then found myself in the eastern area, which is considered Spanish Harlem, due to its large central American and Mexican populations. The places weren’t dangerous at all and luckily for me, gave me a great view on some of the “real New York.” Walking around and just listening to the locals speak with each other is like being in movie.  At the end of one drunken night out, I managed to successfully negate central park alone and find the fable white castle at 5am in the morning unscathed so it can’t be too dangerous. (Please don’t try this if you visit New York.)

A taste of some of NYC's best buskers

During my time in New York I did all the touristy stuff, which I won’t go into too much (any?) detail about. One thing that I think is worth mentioning though is the New York residents. I found them to be a great bunch of people who are proud of their city. I didn’t really have a single negative encounter at all and on numerous occasions people in the street would just begin chatting with me out of the blue. They really do come across as a genuine bunch and have to be some of the friendlies people I have met. They have certainly improved the image of American people in my eyes.  Riding the subway is just an adventure in itself. The amount of things you see on it are just down right bizarre. The one that tops the list is the dancing/rapping 10 year old buskers on the Lexington 4 train. 

I did manage to get myself to a few museums while I was in the place including another contemporary art museum, the MOMA. I have now promised myself from now that I will now completely avoid contemporary art. It was great to see the Andy Warhol pop art, which was about 1% of the gallery, but the rest of it just made me feel stupid.  I just can’t see how some of this stuff, which includes a black & white video of someone blinking on loop is considered art. It just comes across as a torture mechanism to get suspected terrorists to speak.  I apologise to all the contemporary artists out there, but my uneducated view of the stuff is that it belongs in a serial killer’s lounge room.

If it means contemporary art, then I have to agree.

Before I left New York I also visited the Bronx zoo which was hugely disappointing.  In the colder weather basically every animal is removed, so hardly anything was on display except for the animals nobody wants to see anyway, like the peacock. The absentees included the Honey Badger, much to my great disappointment. I guess I will have to continue to the search in India, where they do roam wild after all.

I also made the 5 hour journey down to Washington DC to check out the capital. I was surprised at how small the white house actually is and how close you can get to it. As a capital city, it certainly puts Canberra to shame.

Potentially me if I can't find this vaccine.

So I’m typing this from my hotel room in Mumbai (Bombay) severely jet lagged after the 17 hour flight. My body doesn’t even know what time it is and I haven’t felt tired once. It was the first time I’d successfully slept on a plane so when I got off it, I wasn’t tired for once. I think I’d have preferred to be knackered when I got off than have been awake, after the last 24 hours.  My first impressions of Mumbai are that it’s completely and utterly chaotic. I’m not even sure why there are traffic lights as the cars just do what they want. I think the horn must be connected to the accelerator as they honk incessantly.  I have now consumed two curries – a Chicken Masala and a Chicken Moghali and they have both been incredible. They were both for the measly price of around $2/£1.40. I’m currently in the process of trying to track down some vaccinations as I was too lazy to do it in the UK.  I managed to locate the Hep A vaccine, which comprised of me asking for it at a chemist, then them handing it to me with a sealed needle and a block of sealed medical ice. The guy honestly expected me to inject myself! Thankfully there was a hospital over the road, which administered it for $3. I managed to track down the Typhoid vaccine, but the Polio one still eludes me.  I can’t have them until Monday anyway as my immune system is currently in battle mode with Hep A. 

So, better get back to battling the Hep A vaccine and my jet lag, the next one will be quicker.

Quebec City and my developing phobia of snow,

A rare sighting of the Canadian flag in Quebec

Right, so as far as I'm concerned, Quebec City is not Canada. It's France. A very distant and cold part of France, but none the less France. If I was to wake up here one cold morning in a bathtub filled with ice and a missing kidney, stumble out onto the street and in a mad panic evaluate my surroundings, I'd immediately think I was in some small French city. Apart from the tacky souvenir stores selling bad t-shirts and hockey memorabilia, there's absolutely nothing Canadian about this place. Not surprisingly, I really like it. The people really aren't as nasty and anti anglophone as we're lead to believe. They've all been very...well...French, which isn't bad because I had no issues with them when I was in France. You can definitely catch the vibe that they wish they were part of France or a simply a Francophone country. The Quebecois flag is found proudly floating in the icy wind 10x more than the Canadian flag. Everything is very pro-Quebec. For me, I don't have a problem with it, but I can see how the Canadians would resent it quite a bit and I'm guessing this is where the whole "well sod off and form you're own bloody country" attitude stems from.

Just in case you didn't notice, it's on a hill

As a city Quebec is considerably smaller than Montreal or Toronto. It is strikingly European and is a far cry from the planned and gridded staple Canadian cities. It has winding roads, ancient streets and buildings perched on hills. It reminds of the small towns you see from the helicopter when the tour de France is on. Not that I expect you uncultured people to watch Le tour! Anyhow, lots of Chateaus on hills with pointy roofs. Apparently it's the only city left in North America with a fort surrounding it. The French were mighty paranoid of the English before their eventual defeat, because the place is completely garrisoned by cannons. Anything which was brave enough to sail down the St Laurence river (Quebec is based on the banks of it) would have encountered quite the arsenal. Walking around the old part of the city is particularly amazing. There's sites to rival that of any European city and I guess it's refreshing to see in amongst the sky scraper obsessed cities of the modern age. Quebec does have a number of modern tall buildings, but they have cleverly built those quite a distance from the old ones, which is nice to see.

The weather has been extremely cold. I'm really starting to resent not having bought boots at the beginning of my Canada trip. I can't walk outside without salt loaded snow staining "me strides" (one for you there Mike) and my socks getting soaked. The salt destroys everything. I really liked the pair of shoes I bought in Toronto too and the snow has pretty much eaten them. They now resemble painted tissue boxes. Apparently this Thursday it's going to be 16'C in New York which would feel like I'd stepped into the tropics. I don't think I've felt a positive Temperature in over 3 months so maybe it's best if I ease myself back into warmth rather than transition directly into this crazy warmth. I might get sick!

I immediately abused the bus driver for ruining my photo

I'm back off to Montreal tomorrow and then heading off to a country house, a very big house, in the country for a birthday.

Canal Skating, French Speaking and Bed Bugs.

Well I've been pretty productive the last week or so. I've managed to squeeze in Niagara Falls, Ottawa and now Montreal. I probably could have made more entries, but as you all probably know, I'm pretty lazy. I have also managed to considerably top my high score on doodle jump for the iPhone. If you don't have it, look it up.

My score is at least ten times this score...

So, let me try and give a quick run down of where I've been and what I've gotten up to. I really should have done this as I went along. That was the original idea, wasn't it? 


Ok, so Ottawa. You mention the word Ottawa to any Canadian and their face seems to shift into a shape representing either boredom or confusion. This ultimately depends on whether you're discussing the prospect or visiting the place or just the word on its own. It's almost like Ottawa is Canberra's tran-pacific sister. Anyway, I felt it was only necessary to visit Canada's capital...right? Well, I did and I certainly don't regret it. I honestly feel that Ottawa gets a bad wrap unfairly. There's certainly plenty to see and do. The fact that it's a bi-lingual city makes it interesting also. The Rideau Canal is simply amazing, especially for someone from a hot climate like myself. For those of you who don't know what the Rideau Canal is, it's a canal that splits the city. In the winter it completely freezes solid allowing people to skate on the ice. There's people who actually skate to work via the canal. I could almost say for me, visiting Ottawa was worth it just to see this. Surprisingly enough, I didn't struggle at all skating on the canal. The hire skates may have left me with permanent ankle injuries, but my ankles were pretty bad anyway.

Plans are already underway to entirely freeze Canal St in Manchester.

Ottawa is also loaded with museums and government buildings, which is great if you're into that stuff. On my second day in Ottawa I was faced with a blizzard of such a scale that people in Toronto were apparently referring to it as "Snowmageddon" or something along the lines. Well I wouldn't say it was as disastrous as the film of a similar name starring Bruce Willis, but it was pretty bad. The snow was up to my knees and stairways started to resemble something of a snowboarders rail. Accompanied by an enthusiastic Canadian who now lives in Costa Rica (also extremely enthusiastic about his adopted country) we made it to the Parliament building and the military museum. Both places were what you'd expect and reasonably enjoyable. Canadian parliament is a lot smaller than I'd expected. The library inside it however is pretty stunning. I met a French-Canadian security guard in the tower at Parliament who had traveled to Melbourne. It seemed drive-thru bottle shops were his favourite part of the entire trip. I also managed have a walk around the Canadian museum of civilisation. which pretty much demonstrated how much more they respect their aboriginal culture than we Australians do.

Ottawa gave me my first taste of Québec. There is a bridge quite close to the centre of Ottawa that leaves Ontario and passes into the adjacent provence of Quebec. If you didn't already know, Quebec is largely inhabited by Francophones and their culture is somewhat different to that of the rest of Canada. As soon as you cross the border, French immediately replaces English as the dominantly language. This covers everything from signage to public announcements. It's pretty amazing to experience when you come from a place where only one language is spoken.

I did briefly return back to Toronto before I bussed off to Montreal. For one night I stayed in the most disgusting Hostel I have ever had the pleasure of attempting to sleep in. Returning to Toronto from Ottawa hungover on a 6 hour bus trip was not pleasant. I have become complacent on booking hostels and have resorted a couple of times of booking one from a starbucks once I arrive in the city. This particular occasion I was given a nice little reminder that there is nothing wrong with booking at least one day ahead. Unfortunately for me on that Friday, everything was booked out. I ended up finding a place a little bit too far out of town for my liking and in an extremely questionable area. I got a 4 bed dorm for $22, which at the time seemed like a reasonable deal. I quickly changed my mind when I opened the door to the stench of what can only be described as rotting food, dirty laundry and mould. I was warned by an overweight and disheveled looking Japanese man that everyone in the room was suffering from bed bugs. I quickly removed all the sheets off my bed allowing me to sleep on a vinyl mattress safe from the blood sucking teeth of the dreaded bed bugs. A man across from me was asleep with his back exposed. The bed bugs had absolutely gone to town on him. His back looked like a pizza. The next morning I quickly located another hostel in downtown, which was the complete opposite of where I had stayed. It was totally immaculate. I was the only person in a 4 bed dorm, which had its own ensuite. It was slightly more expensive, but sometimes it shows that you get what you pay for.  Have a read through some of the reviews from the disgusting place I stayed at in Toronto. , they're hilarious. http://tiny.cc/lji91

This is actually the ceiling in the room...One can only assume the bed bugs chewed their way through.

So after Ottawa and Toronto, I am now in Montréal in Quebec. Montreal is pretty much instantly likable. It has a fantastic subway/metro system, which is pretty reasonably priced for tourists if you buy a multi-day pass. It also has a working smartcard system that actually works unlike Melbourne's "smart" card system Myki. Is that actually functioning now? Best of all, unlike Ontario, you can buy alcohol at supermarkets and corner stores. I really do love the liberal and bourgeois French. Aesthetically Montreal is quite similar to Melbourne, it doesn't come across as being too big and it has a bit of a European vibe, no doubt inherited from the French influence. Speaking of French influence, it is a lot more French here than I had expected it to be. Almost everyone speaks French here, but will respond to you in English if you are unable to converse in French, which is very handy. They don't seem to be as horrible as the rest of Canada make them out to be. The hostel I stayed in was fairly comfortable, but luckily for me and old friend of mine has agreed to let me stay with him for the weekend provided I cook him and his girlfriend my specialty, Madras Curry.

Due to the weather I haven't been able to see much of the city so far, but the weather looks to be improving, so hopefully this will change by the weekend. This time I will try to update more often so you're not greeted with a wall of text.

One week down

Hello again folks.

Well it's been a week since I arrived in Canada and a week since my last blog, so I guess I should probably update on what's been happening. This could potentially be a long one, because I have been lazily avoiding making another entry.

Anyway, I want to dot point some facts you may not know about Canada and some of my thoughts.

- Public Transport is run by one government company called the TTC -Generally I've found the people running it (mainly bus drivers) are bastards! Not an actual reflection of Canadians though.

- Alcohol can only be purchased from one government owned store called the LCBO. It's taxed highly and is clearly pretty regulated. I've seen hardly any booze adverts either. The poor Canadians have to make sure they get their booze before it closes at 8pm and it's not open on Sundays! Now I know why I haven't seen any English people living here. No offy!

- Toronto FC season tickets are more expensive than Manchester United season tickets. The seats prices are up there too.

- Toronto Maple Leafs have the strongest following in the NHL and have probably been the most consistently shitty team over the last 10 years. They still sell out every match though.

Form of champions...


- They are allowed to beat the piss out of each other in Ice Hockey. Apparently there's a code of respect when doing it too...Who'd have known?


- Nightclubs, Bars and Pubs close at 2am. I'm usually only getting started by that point...

- You have to pay to receive calls as well as make them.

- Sales tax is not included in the advertised price, leading to some embarrassing moments of fiddling around for change.

- There are over 25kms of underground paths filled with shops and other things underneath Toronto.

- Nearly everything is bi-lingually labelled. (French/English)

- The only people you don't tip are McDonald's employees. 

- Canadian girls are pretty damn attractive. I'm putting it down to the fact that I've gotten used to Women plastering themselves in makeup to the point where they look like clowns. I'm looking at you UK.

- People are not afraid to talk to strangers in the street. It's nice to see people getting along so well in the middle of a city as bustling as Toronto. People in Sydney or London are generally to scared to even make eye contact.

- You cannot last more than 5 minutes without wearing gloves or a hat in the Canadian winter. I'm surprised body parts haven't started dropping off yet.

- The glass floor at the top of the CN tower is actually terrifying. I've never considered my scared of heights, but looking down from the third tallest building in the world as if nothing is supporting you is frightening.

- Poutine is as good as they say. When a Canadian asks if you've had Poutine and you reply with something along the lines of, "oh yeah I've had chips and gravy before" or "I went to lord of the fries once and had French-Canadian," do yourself a favour and punch yourself in the throat. When you eat real poutine, you'll know why I'm telling you this.

- Niagara Falls is amazing, but the corresponding town is basically Blackpool with the actual falls instead of Blackpool rock. 

I never thought I'd say this, but something makes Blackpool tower look good.


- Cheese in Canada is expensive. Not like 50c more than most places, but like $3 expensive than anywhere. I have failed to find a block of cheese (I'm talking shitty cheddar here) below the $5 mark. Don't even get me started on how much a small wedge of Bri costs...

- Most places require you pour your own coffee (with the exception of starbucks.)  Melbournites, don't expect any heart shapes in your froth because you'll be pouring your own bloody coffee. I find this bizarre considering how massive the café culture is in Canada or Toronto.

Well this is all I can think of at the moment. I'm going to follow this up with my experience at Niagara falls and some more Toronto stuff.

Rough Take off, smoothish landing.

Well last night bid farewell to my beloved Manchester. I only really decided that actually loved the place last week and it had nothing to do with a certain t-shirt.Whenever anyone says that it's what's on the inside that counts, I will think of Manchester. I didn't like her when I first arrived, because quite frankly, she was a bit rough around the edges, had a terrible hairstyle and spoke horribly. However, once you peel away the rough exterior and separate the chavs, scallies and  united fans from the real residents of Manchester (locals and exiles) you'll find that they are some of the most warm hearted and inviting people going around. OK, even some united fans are alright. What I'm getting at is that I won't forget good old Manchester and I'll certainly be back. Perhaps sooner than later.

Anyway, enough sappy stuff. Last night was send off episode III. Actually, I'm gonna say it was episode V, because we all know that was the best star wars. There's certainly nothing better than supporting your mate's championship footy team, eating a pizza which should be too spicy to digest and then topping it off with drinking and some impromptu karaoke. After it was all done I did have to say goodbye, which was still very difficult despite the alcohol consumed. It also made my journey to the airport in the morning a tedious one after only 3 hours sleep, but no regrets though eh? Not even for the sneaky vomit in the toilet before I checked in. I could blame Manchester, but that'd be like blaming beer for getting you drunk. You know what to expect.

So after a two hour delay and a sleepless flight, I finally arrived in Toronto. I often hear about people complaining about how tight the Australian border guards are, but Canada takes the cake if you ask me. They have two checkpoints where they drill you with questions which almost suggest that they'd prefer if you'd just kept on flying through into Alaska. There's even a line-backer type guard that mans a potential escape point (which seems to be disguised as the exit to luggage pickup after the first check point) who seems to take great pleasure in letting you almost walk past him clueless, before screaming at you to go into another room (check-point two) with a line of people longer than centrelink's queue on dole day.  Alas, I managed to give the correct answers and was granted entry. The first non-border guard Canadian I met was the most horrible bus driver I have ever met in my life. In Canada they don't give change on the bus. You must give correct change for every journey. I ended up paying $5 for a £3 dollar ride as I didn't have the change. The guy was running the bus like the soup nazi. He even charged a 1 year old child to ride the bus! Obviously, this committed gentleman is not representative of all Canadians.

Canadian immigration don't mess about

Well everything you've heard about Canada is true in regards to the weather. Having said this, I did suspect -15 and lower temperatures to feel a lot worse than they actually did. I still want to try and throw a bucket of water and see if it freezes before it hits the ground. My first impressions of Toronto itself as a city is that it is enormous. Stepping out of the subway and into the centre of Toronto, being surrounded by huge buildings with biting cold numbing my ears was certainly an experience I won't forget. I was surprised to see that Toronto has trams. Not those silly things that get around Manchester on about 3 lines that probably run over more people than those who actually ride them, but real street trams! Brilliant.





England's deadliest predator

I'm looking forward to tomorrow as I'll be seeing a good friend of mine who is a local here. I guess we'll get to work out what our plans are for the next two weeks.

I'll keep you posted.

Down to the bare bones!

These are my belongings for the next three months!

Wouldn't want to be confused as a Kiwi

It begins...In 5 days.

Oh look, it's a blog. Well it's not just any blog, it's Clarky's blog. Clarky is a cool guy so you should probably read it. If you don't, I suggest you read Bukowski instead, he's a cool guy too. Anyway, I want to try and make this as interesting as possible, so I'll keep the bullshit to a minimum and post as much interesting stuff as I can. I guess these first few entries (before I actually leave England) will be the most boring, so bear with me. I'm likely to get arrested, bashed or get lost at some point during my travels(history usually repeats) so the details will be posted here. Throughout my travels I will also be making it my personal duty to find the fabled Honey Badger. It has become somewhat of an obsession of mine (and others who will remain anonymous.)

THE SEARCH FOR THE HONEY BADGER


The search begins: Can it be located????

If you don't already know, I'm travelling to Canada, the USA and then to India over the next three months. I'll also be spending some time in Thailand, but whether I'll be motivated enough to keep posting by then is as much of a doubt as Wayne Rooney's current goal scoring form. The reason for the blog is because so much memorable stuff happened in my previous travels that I haven't kept any memento for it.

QUICK BACKGROUND

As most of you know, I've been living in Manchester the past 6 months of my life. Manchester; the land of grey, grey concrete, lots of beer and I think I once saw a blimp. Well, Manchester has been good to me and I've made plenty of new mates. Having to tell them that I am leaving was harder than telling my Australian friends 12 months ago, as I know I probably won't see many of them ever again. If being good blokes was a sport, England would actually be good at something. (Cue: BUT WE WON DA ASHES HURR DURR) 

ANYWAY, Friday is my last day at my job at Blemain Finance. The lovely lads and ladettes of the workplace have committed themselves for a solid night of drinking and singing. A sneak peak at the track list for the night which includes:

• Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill/ Don't Give Up
• John Farnham - You're the Voice
• Wings - Band on the Run

*Photos of horrendous singing and drunken group photos of blokes shoulder shoulder bleary eyed to ensue*

Bit of a stinker of a first entry, but if I can stay motivated to keep posting, unlike Manchester's weather it can't get any worse.

I should probably get back to packing...