Canada here I am...

So…
Here we are in a basement apartment in Crescent Heights in Calgary. But exactly how did I get here?
Do you remember the thing about never doing it the easy way? How about the thing where my presence prompts extremes of weather? Well this is all in store because I have a lot of catching up to do.

FLYING START:
My little brother Tom kindly dragged himself out of bed at 2.30am to help me catch my 8.30am flight, the drive over was great, we got to have some final giggles and listen to some good music in the car (who knows how long my I Pod was going to be with me on my trip), but it took us at the longest 2 hours which meant I had 2 hours to kill on my own before proper check-in kicked off (if you find yourself wondering why we set off so early you need to remember that Mum was still in charge whilst I was under her roof---HI SUE).

I flew to Toronto from Manchester on a TransAt flight, it was cheap, the food was rubbish—I didn’t even eat that much of it, they played Hulk and Hancock on the flight which was great (the ending of Hancock is a bit dumb and it has the fella off Game On as the main baddy). Its true I could’ve flown straight to Calgary and saved myself the hassle of feeding/ watering and protecting myself, but I thought that it would be a missed opportunity if I didn’t catch a greyhound across the Great Lakes and the Plains.

Well it was lots of fun. Where to start. Off the plain, i mean of course the plane…
It was normal temperature, it was grey, and it could’ve been England. Except, all the people were nice (you’ll need to get used to me going on about this) all the staff were bending over to help you out.
I had the usual guilt prang in my guts whilst waiting in customs. My mind kept creeping back to the hassle Mike and I had had in the Caribbean. Forget all of that Jo; I had all my paperwork in order I just had to not make a fool of myself.
I presented myself at customs and it took the guy about 8 seconds to scribble on my customs paper and say, “enjoy your time in Canada”, “thank you ever so much mate” I replied in a wave of relief. I was in...

No I wasn’t: as I left that room down a corridor I looked down at my customs paper. The first thing I noticed was that he’d used red pen, alarm bells were ringing already, I attempted to decipher the scribble as I neared the guards on the door, then I convinced myself that he’d stressed “YOUR TIME”, he was going to get me pinched. In a terrible moment my mind found the patterns in the scrawled text, “get him out”, I looked up just as the (heavily armed) Customs guards diverted me away from the other happy free people and into a cold dimly lit room to the left.

This room had 6 people behind desks along the wall; only 2 of these people were seeing people. I think the others were reviewing torture pictures on the Internet. I had to wait in the queue for a while. In this time a lady interviewer started giving a Korean guy a really hard time “exactly when did you last see your sister?” “Sir I must be firm with you, you keep changing your mind!” I was packing myself.

I was called over to an Asian chap; I got all my paper work out. What is the purpose of your visit “For an adventure”; he coughed “Sir?” “Sorry I’m here to live with a friend, he lives in Calgary”, “and Do you intend to enter into paid employment whilst here?” “Yes”, “Will you be working in Toronto?” “No in Calgary, I’m here to catch the Greyhound over to Calgary”. At this the customs guy looked at me for the first time, I got a frog in my throat. “You flew here to get the greyhound”, “Yes, err I thought it would be a bit like the early settlers, y’know Wagons West and all that”, “I’m sorry I don’t understand”, “Well you see I’m meant to be having an adventure”, he coughed again whilst maintaining eye contact. He looked over my papers again.

All I could hear was the Korean guy having to explain again that his sister was married and he hadn’t seen her in 10 years, he was noticeably sweating. My mind was wandering trying to imagine the worst possible scenario: My Mum had said to be careful, was I being careful? I started thinking that I wished Dan were here.

“What is the status of your friend”, “He’s an engineer, I think he’s single and he’s a pieces” (I kept thinking Dan is single, I’m sure, I mean he’s good looking but I’m sure he’s single. He looks a bit like a TV star. Then I started singing the theme tune for the OC in my head ((for those old enough to know better OC is a show about rich handsome people in LA)), “Sir?” “He’s single?” “No is he British?” “Oh, no, well half, his Mum is from California, so that makes him half Canadian”, “Sir?” “Oh God, his Mum is from California, I mean Canada, yes that’s it she’s Canadian”, I was making such a mess of this, “How do you know this friend”, “Oh from University”. His face changed from that of a man listening to the ramblings of a fool to one who suddenly understood the meaning of life. “I see, you have his address?” “Yes I do”. BANG, BANG, BANG, he’d stamped all my stampables. “You enjoy your time in Canada Sir”, “Thanks Mum” I said.

Okay, now I was in.
I found myself at the bus depot and got myself aboard a bus going to the Greyhound station. The bus driver was pretty much the happiest man on earth, he sang the whole journey which was about 25 miles round the houses dropping passengers off all over the town centre.
There was a nice looking girl about 18 boarded and she was the subject of most of his songs. Every 10 mins he’d stop and say “S’cuse me Beautiful Lady”, no answer “S’cuse me Gorgeous Lady” ,no answer “Young Lady” “Yes Malcolm”, “same stop as usual Young Lady”, “Yes Malcolm” I wonder how long that had been going on.

THIS HOUND IS GREY:
So…
Got to the Greyhound Station, I had about an hour and a half to kill so I went to find out where my bus would be leaving and was introduced to a senario that was going to become a daily staple, it goes like this:
Jo: “Excuse me”
Canadian: [SMIRKS] “Yessir”
Jo: “I wonder if you could tell me (insert important required data)
Canadian: [ADOPT AN AIR OF OBVIOUS KNOWLEDGE] “Yessir its right over there just like it says on this enourmous neon sign behind me”
Jo: “Of course it is, thanks ever so much”
Canadian: “Have a great day”,“Where you from?”
Jo: “I’m English”
Canadian: [WHILST CHALKING A TALLY LINE ON A WALL NEARBY] “Oh, long way from home”
Jo: “Yep”

I went to my stop an hour early because I wanted a front row seat, not because I’m a geek but it makes for better videos if I’m in the front, and I decided that I could chat to people who were going to be getting on my trip.
Enter Marg, a middle aged woman of about 5 foot nothing with hiking clothes on smoking a rollie. We got into the “England”, “Beatles” , “Rolling Stones” conversation, my information that I had once lived on The Penny Lane flew right over her head and narrowly missed a pigeon.
It turned out Marg was in the clear after surviving from an aggressive cancer and had promised herself that she was going to finish a trip she’d started but had to abort in Thunder Bay (cool name number 1) on route to Vancouver. To me these were places on maps, but I did my best to portray admiration and we continued to make chit chat.

I’m just going to point out that there are going to be a lot of odd characters coming up and I didn’t remember all of their names, but I did give them all my blog address so if they read this and its wrong; comment on the blog and I’ll either change it or ignore it if I think the new name is better.

Next up is the first of our First Nation characters, First Nation is what you’re meant to call people that less PC people call Native American or god forbid American Indians or even worse Red Indians (seriously this last one is pretty out of order so change your habits at once).
I’m not about to judge them either way, all I can do is explain my experience and get on with the adventure.

So we’ll call this lady Winnipeg. This is were she was going and she was the second of the other passengers to arrive but she had more luggage than everyone in the Isle of Man put together. In the UK we would call her a bag lady, she was nice enough, she didn’t speak much English and children were very wary of her but she smiled all of the time, I even checked up on her a few times in the night(s) and she smiled when she had her eyes shut (I wont say sleep because there is very little sleep to be had on a Greyhound).

The most interesting thing about Madam Winnipeg was her concept of time. It became apparent very early on that she was going to Winnipeg, we left Toronto at 4pm on the 12th, we wouldn’t be in Winnipeg until 10pm on the 13th and that included a 1 hour time loss or gain or whatever it was. But she asked every stop “what time eWinnipeg?” and I’d go back to her seat and show her my timetable with Winnipeg underlined and say “Its going to be another 18hours I’m afraid love, sit tight eh?”

So off into the wilderness of Great Lakes Country we were in this country for 2 days and its really pretty. Lots of trees. Bollocks, that’s a disgusting understatement, there are just so many trees its impossible to comprehend. It got dark early on which was a big shame, its much harder to keep your bearings when its dark. We went through places like: Orillia, South River, Sturgeon Falls and Sault St. Maria all in the dark.

I had some movies on my I Pod (cheers Tom) and I made the most of them now. In between episodes of South Park whilst nodding off I was listening to Arcade Fire (ooops topical), and I was thinking, this sort of soft rocky anthem stuff is great for driving to, I was in the middle of ‘Keep the Car Running’ when the driver stopped in a snowy icy parking lot and said “There’s washrooms here but we aren’t here long, 10mins max, I’ll keep the Bus running” to which I had a little laugh and everyone eyed me suspiciously.

Early on day 2 we stopped in Wawa. I bought a map and started writing all of the cool stuff I’d seen on it. A few hours later in White River I bought a Bacon And Egger at an A&W restaurant.
When we got to Marathon the scenery became fantastic. Its on Lake Superior and the road keeps nipping off into the woods while the giant lake goes and hides, then all of a sudden ‘Voi La’ there is the Lake again in all its grey vast superiority, at points you can’t see the other side even though your hundreds of feet above it.

Its an interesting point to make that the Greyhound is a bit like a postal route aswell, the bus stops off quite often but in very small places where there aren’t facilities. Its also important to note that even most of the more important stops are in towns of only a few hundred people and they all look more or less identically the same, one gas station a few diners. A small supermarket and gift shop (open in summer) and a campsite—remember I only passed through so this is what you can see from the highway (there maybe more to the story).

All the while it was getting colder and there were more and more smatterings of snow.
Just after Nipigon the driver slowed down on an empty road and two huge Moose walked across not 50 metres ahead. They were perfect and I’m pretty sure they only made an appearance for me (so that I could watch, mouth agape for 2 mins, then when they were well and truly out of sight--go for my camera).

YOU’RE MY FIRST COWBOY:
So…
To Thunder Bay, now if that name doesn’t stir your loins then we need to have words. Except, of all the towns we stopped at Thunder Bay was the pits. It was ugly, its right on the waters edge and they have all of their industry right on the waterfront, as an urban designer in a past life I was gutted.
I went into my first Sears here, basically I have nothing nice to say so I will say nothing.

Except, I met my first real life COWBOY. But first. Do you remember Marg? She was coming here to alight and finish her trek? She had been looking more and more grey the closer we got ( I was keeping my eye on her), after my gorgous jaunt to Sears and back across the arse end of nowhere I had expected her to be long gone.
I was late for the bus but I sat down and asked what was going on. She was choacked up. “I’m really scared”, “Yeah so what?”, “there is loads of snow predicted, I’m not going I’m buying a ticket back to Toronto”, “What? Are you telling me you just sat on your bum for 2 days, only to get spooked and sit on your bum for 2 days?”
“yeah”
I went for the cheery approach
“well that’s ridiculos, aren’t you Canadian?”, “yeah”, “well a bit of snow should be the least of your worries, the US is on the other side of the pond and I’m sure they can smell your oil” (laugh-good)
“come on, there’s no point giving up before you’ve begun, why not start, then you can decide in a few days if things are crummy, you can bugger off back east?” (she was thinking, but there was colour coming back)
“nobody is going to think any less of you for trying and failing, but not trying is a big shame isn’t it?”
“yes, you’re right”
“so buck your ideas up and go to your hotel and get your head in order”
“yeah thanks”
“don’t mention it”
We said our goodbyes. I boarded the bus. It really snowed a bloody lot over the next few days so I kept away from the newspapers in case there was a story about and ex cancer sufferer who had perished in the snow. Yikes.

Now, shut your eyes and imagine a cowboy. He’s more or less the Marlborough Man isn’t he? (unless your really odd and there’s something like the milkybar kid in there). Imagine how excited I was to get back on the bus and find a real life 70 year old cowboy called Clive on the seat where Marg had been.
I worked on him, said hello a few times over the next few stops. By nightfall I was sitting next to him having some awesome banter. Some of his stories were so good I’m sure he got them out of cowboy books. Stalking wolves, chasing bears, sleeping rough for weeks, loosing horses in flooded rivers, knife fights in bars… I lapped it all up, before long he was sharing his hip flask with me and I was having to write really fast to keep up with the old timer. I asked him if it was moonshine in his flask, he told me it was actually Scotch, Jura to be precise, hands up who’s sailed a yacht around Jura (when 13)—he was dead impressed..No he wasn’t he didn’t even know where Scotland was.
Clive had the hat, the boots, the scarred hands, the funny smell and the big moustache (perfect for getting beans stuck in it). He had a far away look in his eyes, I tried to convince myself it was a look aquired out of years on the plains, a look that meant he knew where the next watering hole was, he knew that there were Coyotes in the next valley, but I think I might’ve been more like he’d had quite a lot of scotch towards the end.
I told him he was the first cowboy I ever met. He gave me his phone number and told me I was the first Scot he’d ever met. Clive got the driver to drop him off at the roadside somewhere west of Virden.

DANCES WITH WOLVES:
So…
lets rewind back east to Dryden. Here I called my brother and got a sarnie. All the road along this stretch was alongside the railroad which I expect was there first. I remember waking in the night to the low sound of Viking horns, “what the hell is that noise I asked the driver”, “look over to the left son” he turned out the Bus headlights and there was a huge bohiemouth of a train not 50m to the left, it was travelling a bit slower then us. There were 40 wagons from where I noticed it, god knows how many were behind in the dark, the engine was honking and honking and when we got level the drivers came out and waved. I got it all on video, it was great. A few days later I decided to do you all a great disservice and pour coke on my camera thus destroying all my footage. Sorry.

And so to Winnipeg, and goodbye to Winnipeg. I helped her unload her bags, it was really late at night but she got off away okay. We had a bit of a wait so I went and got a drink. There was a drunk First Nation fella kicking up a fuss in the seating areas.
I made a gamble and plugged my ipod in behind a vending machine and sneeked off to get a wash and change my keks in the toilets, sorry Washrooms.

Okay, sensitive readers ought to skip this paragraph. People that know me know that I have a 5 pint bladder, meaning, in the pub I don’t need to use the toilet until there’s 5 pints in me. I’m quite proud of this fact, in fact I think its on my CV, sorry Resume. Well I had been saving up to spend a penny in Winnipeg, I had just begun when the First Nation fellow entered the toilets. He came to the next urinal to me (there were 16 so I took this as a bad sign), I began to force my motion to speed up. He started looking at me. I didn’t gulp but by god I wanted to. He turned, mid flow and tried to pee on my boots. I had managed to get things more or less over so I took a dive backwards and to the side. Then he started after me, pushing me and talking in really a really scary accent, all I could say was, "calm down mate, we’ve all had a few drinks”, but he kept coming. My saving graces were two fold. First he had on a rather large body warmer, sorry, vest, which I got a good old hold of and swung him around twice before hurling him towards the pissers. Then I legged it, straight past the waiting security guards, to whom I shouted “He’s been pissing at me!”
The rest of the stop passed pretty peacefully, nearly forgot my ipod behind the thingy though (Its okay Mum, HI SUE).

After Winnipeg, it gets flat. And cold, and there’s a lot more to tell but I have stuff to do. So it’ll be up soon. Also lots has happened in Calgary and we do have pictures of this so expect a bumper update very soon.

Since I’m not there, give yourselves a nice big hug with one of those friendly pats on the back and take it easy.

Jo

And so to Canada...

So...
I was in the Caribbean, but was too early to sail, so back I came to freeze my kahunas off in the UK. My next plan of action is to go to CANADA to stay with a good uni buddy Big Dan Gunn...

Remember this name because it's going to be featured in alot of future adventures. Dan's Mum is Canadian, which means Dan is half Canadian, which means he's allowed to roam free in Canada.

Everyone; this is Dan..maybe he shouldn't be allowed to roam free?
















In the meantime I've been catching up with my family and mates from the UK, mostly the kids in Leeds, people like...

Rosie:










Who really digs her water

Teenwolf:









Who made my Halloween


Law:

Getting Thriller'd on Halloween

Emily:









With The 'Infamous' Zombie Hand



Dyl & Tom:
With margaritas in Sandanista










As Dangermouse & Penfold



And introducing Dyl to the heady delights of an Iranian special plate or two at 4am (courtesy of Kabals by the corn exchange), all washed down with 2 pots of Mint Tea---yummy!!

There was also time to up my Mum's (Hi Sue) stress levels by loosing my phone 4 days before I leave.

We had Mikes birthday party to sort out:
Me & Mike (NB Rosie playing up--again!)

And again!!!

So..
Here we are, my flight leaves at 8.45am tomorrow morning. I get to Toronto at 12ish, then I have 4 hours to stretch my legs and find the Greyhound depot before a 2 day (more like 2.5 day--its across timezones) journey across the plains to Calgary. This journey will be even more exciting bearing in mind that a few weeks ago a man was stabbed 50 times and beheaded on a greyhound bus on the route I am about to take (better pack my spare trousers).

But never fear I will continue to let you know of all the scrapes I get into, remember: "Jo never does it the easy way, he does it the exciting way".

All thats left to say is big thanks to everyone who helped me these last few days, Sue (Hi Sue), Dyl, Tom, Big Dan Gunn and last but not least Mike & Rosie--my surrogate parents since April 08...


Oh yeah, does anyone like Crunchies?