From Vanderhoof to Montreal

Probably about a month ago now I packed up my tent and planting bags and crawled out of the middle of nowhere to Vanderhoof (still the middle of nowhere, but at least it had some kind of civilization). The nursery (tree) had some problems so we had two weeks off before finishing the last 3 weeks of planting. I couldn't afford to stick around for two weeks of paying for hostels and drinking far too much, so i decided to head home to paint houses (again) with Andrew.

It took about a 12 hour drive south to get to Vancouver. I hopped a lift with one of the other planters, Ian, who was heading there also. He had bought a car that same day. We drove straight for probably about 10ish hours, when the car broke down, he ended up scrapping it and we hopped a bus for the last two hours. HAHAHA

Vancouver was great!! I met some really cool people at the hostel. I hung out mostly with this Scottish guy, and several Australians guys. I checked out Stanley Park, and the Aquarium; I decided the otter is my new favourite animal, God they're cute.

I also hopped over to Vancouver Island (nanaimo to be specific) to visit my friend Bev, who I travelled/worked with briefly in Australia.

(Bev and I in Nanaimo)

I then had to figure out how to get from Vancouver to Montreal.

I checked out "craigslist" to see if anyone was headed the same way. Turns out there was a girl with a van leaving when i wanted to leave, going straight to Montreal. As dodgy as it was it ended up turning out to be pretty cool!!!! She was a really cool hippyish chick, that had been driving from California-to Vancouver- Montreal STRAIGHT. There was another cool chick and her dog for a part of the way.

We picked up a REALLY sketch hitchhiker with a broken arm and lots of eyeball boogers. He appeared to be in severe pain as he moaned the entire 7 hours it took to take him to the hospital he wanted to go to. anyway he appreciated the ride. We also missed hitting a deer by about 2 cm. Also a truck shot a rock at the windshield, and shards of glass flew at my face while I was sleeping. HAHAH Sandra (the driver chick) flagged the truck down (I'm talking bout an 18 wheeler) haha and made him pull over, so she could get his details.

It took us about 3 and a half days driving straight to get to Montreal. It was a much easier ride home then when I drove from Montreal to Prince George. Sandra had lots of blankets and pillows and tons of room in the back of the van, so i was able to sleep comfortably.

Anyway now I'm back home, painting my heart out and working my ass off and absolutely loving the summer in Montreal, Its been awhile since I've experienced it, and I forgot how much I love it here when I'm not freezing my ass off. As of September I'm going to be out of a job, and I still have NOOOOOO clue what I'm doing next. But I'm sure something will come along, i still have a month to figure it out.

SOME PLANTING PICS:

(the view form where I was planting)

(Kieren, my planting partner, and I hiding under the tarp from the hail)

(wasting time=no money made)

(Chilling by the camp fire on a day off)

(the crummy)

Tree planting; life as a rookie

After 50 hours of straight driving with someone i never met before I arrive at my destination ( a month ago):

UGGGGHHHHH, I don't even know where to begin or what to say. Tree planting is hard work, much harder than I expected. I thought since i did all this fruit picking and other manual labour work I'd be prepared, but i was wrong. Anyway things are getting better/profitable/less painful slowly, I've been out here a month already, and I'm still making progress. I'm literally in the middle of no where northern ish BC.

Just to give you an example of how my days work:

I wake up at 5 am every morning to the freezing cold (literaly its usually below zero) I peel myself from my steemy warm sleeping bags and 3 layers of clother+scarf and get dressed and stumble out of my tent to breakfast.

-Make my lunch with the stuff provided

-Wait in line for breakfast; Eat breakfast

-Load into the crummy (the bus thing that takes us to our block)

-Drive for an hour

- plant plant plant (this involves having 300-400 trees strapped to me all day and pounding into the ground with my shovel)

-finish at 5ish

-drive for an hour

-wait in line for supper again

-eat a spectacular supper at 6ish

-some randomness for about an hour or so

-go to bed by 8-9 ish

thats about it, we work 4 days on one day off. Just two more months to go...uuughhh,...

it sucks, but yet i like it, hmmmmm

(home; my tent, well JEff's actually, maybe he'll get it back one day)

(at work the first week with Michelle)

(This is where my camp is (half hour from fort st. James, we were in a gravel pit out previous camp in quesnel), I wake up to this view every morning)

on my way to prince george BC in a car with a guy I've never met before

So I just spent a month in Ottawa and now I'm ready to head to B.C.
I'm no longer taking a 3 day bus, I'm actually hopping a lift with one of the guys who will be planting with us. Should be good times.
I leave Montreal the 25th, first stop is Toronto, where I will be staying with my older brother and meeting up with Richard.
Who is Richard you ask? Richard is a friend I met in the midst of a hurricane in Progreso, Mexico five years ago. We were both doing our teaching practicums there, I then later convinced him to come to China with me, where we ended up living and teaching together for 6 months, he later went on to marry one of my students and is now living happily (more or less i imagine) in Toronto again.
Its really nice being able to meet up with people I randomly travelled with. Every now and then it feels like my stories are a figmant of my imagination, and when I get a chance to meet up with people who shared these journeys with me it confirms my stories are infact reality. I love reminissing!!!
Well besides that I haven't a clue as to where I'll be stopping and who I'll be seeing, all I know is I have to be in Prince george by the first, where I'll be meeting the entire crew at the hotel. the morning after we will head of into the wilderness to start planting.
I'm antisipating excrutiating pain, and mass fatigue. I'm so out of shape that my body is goign to punish me hard for pushing it to work hard for 10 hours a day. I think the first two weeks are going to be brutal until I get used to it. IT better be worth it!!! And I better not break a leg or twist an ankle, or get mauled by a bear or anything to keep me form doing this job, oh man I would not be a happy camper!!!
well until then enjoy your summer, adn think of me slaving away in the middle of nowhere being consumed by mosquitoes!

Woops, i kinda dropped off of the face of the Earth and forgot to tell anyone!

So a couple weeks ago i sporadicly decided to go visit jeffy in Ottawa. I didn't really tell anyone because it was just supposed to be a few day thing. Anyway 2 weeks later I'm still here, just so everyone knows I'm not in Montreal. So I'm here doing random things, mostly cleaning up after jeff and his roommate (cuz they're dirty) and walking their dog. Jeff's girlfriend hooked me up with some random jobs which is cool too. Anyway since i've been here i got offered a job in BC planting trees. So that's where I'm going in less than three weeks. I haven't told too many people about that either, but now I am. I'm going to get home on the 22nd of April from Ottawa, and I'm leaving for BC on the 27th (I'm taking a three day bus across Canada) . And then I'll be gone for 3 months in the middle of no where working my ass off. OH and just in case you wonder, I have been to both a naturalist AND an Allergist it appears I am definitely not allergic to trees, hmmmmmmmm.
anyway, unless something stupid happens in the next 3ish months i should come home in great shape, no debts, and not quite as broke, ready for my next journey somewhere....
and sorry for not telling anyone where i disappeared off to

Trying to remind myself there's a good reason why I'm broke and cold and have to work my ass off for the next few months

So my life continues to play cruel little jokes. Just as things start to look good and jobs start heading my way, I get a job at a hotel. I went out bought myself some suits, and started working my ass off to learn everything there is to know, a week later they cut my hours (cuz the girl that originally left wants her hours back). So technically I still work there, yet i haven't worked in a week and a half, and any other jobs I may have had a chance with are now also gone. So now I have to start all over again in my hunt, but on the plus side, i now know i look pretty damn good in a suit, hahaha. Anyway I plan to go plant trees in northern Ontario in May (assuming my appointment at the allergist goes well, beause trees and I haven't been the best of friend lately) and until then I'll just try to find whatever job I can, or if something better comes along I'll stick with that for awhile. either way I have A LOT of work to do before I can head out on my next adventure...

Until then I spend a lot of my time looking at these things, just to keep my sanity and remind me that the reason life is being a bitch is because life was unbelievably amazing and beautiful not too long ago:

A whole lot of nothing

So last year I added this cool thing to my blog called "Stat counter" This thing tells me how many people actually read my blog and what part of the world people come from, and how they find my site. Anyway I checked out the stats the other day and realized I still get an average of 50 hits a week from all over the world. So I figure since people are still bored enough to read my rants, I'll entertain them and write about the very uneventful time I've had since I came home, just over a month ago.


Well I came home and fell immediatly into the rut I thought/feared I would. Ugh, well first, friends of mine from Aruba (the same ones that took me to Miami twice with them a few years back), offered for me to go down and visit them in Aruba , which would have been cool, but that fell through, then I was planning to go back to New York to visit a friend, but i backed out of that for personal reasons. And then I decided I wanted to go to South Korea to teach English, but to teach there legally (to get the visa I need) I need to have my bachelors degree, but in order to finish my bachelors degree, I still need to do 40 hours of in class teaching, So you see the problem I had there, So I abandonned that idea. I've also toyed with moving to calgary.

But alas, I am still a bum living in my parents house, mopeing around and bitching at everyone. UGHHH I dunno why this always happens to me when I come back home.

Anyway I'm having a really hard time finding a decent job. Which doesn't surprise me, my french is just too crappy for anything in Montreal. Makes me kinda wish they changed that law where "any kids of non-english speaking immigrants have to go to french school" one year earlier that they did ( I just missed it). Also, I should have taken my dentists advice when he told me I should date more francophones to learn french as opposed to wasting my time with all these spanish speaking boys. What good will spanish do me here??!?!? MIERDA!!!

Anyway I have a place i want to move into around cote de neige which has been waiting for me since the first week i came home.

I can't in the least bit stand the West-Island (no offence). But the people here are just too superficial/ annoying and just smell too much like perfume, hahahaha. And I just don't understand why every chill little Pub they have here has been turned into a half-assed club by gay music and skanky annoying teeny-boppers. Also I'm sick of being so far away from everything.

Today I spent the last of my new york bakery money to join the gym. So now I have a reason to wake up in the morning, and get dressed also I have somehting to keep me busy so I don't have to spend all day waiting for someone to call to give me a job. Umm I've also been catching up with old friends and drinking too much...and getting myself in to some trouble just like the good ol' days in Montreal ...
I miss the friends I made in Australia, I really do, they were good times, in fact I miss Australia all together, If it weren't for the stupid christmas tree crap, I'd probably still be there with a pocket full of cash I made from picking Mangos and a nice tan and a BOX full of tasty wine, my visa doesn't even run out until Feb 14th!!!! Can you tell I'm bitter???? ?!?!

..awww man I hope I find a job soon!.. I'm sick of being completely useless..and in a complete shit mood all the time..

I got a random message from a friend from mexico who I haven't heard from in ages while I was sleeping last night. He said:

"
****@hotmail.com says:
oh girl, I hadn't read your update about the tree-selling period, really sorry things didn't turn out the way you planned them
****@hotmail.com says:
anyway, remember that what you have in your life, some other people envy....so you can't be doing things so wrong
****@hotmail.com says:
big hug - Raul "



Anyway eventhough I've been complaining and bitching about everything lately and re-evaluating the entire way I've lived my life, He did make a good point, and it made me feel a bit better...i guess...

.. anyway I am coming up with random things I want to do int he near future, but everything is still just ideas that I'm toying with. I'm sure life will start rolling eventually... at some point, in some country! Hopefully sooner or later

BAH!

for now me and Lisa will just continue pretending we're Zoolander:
"It's not easy being really really ridiculously good looking"

Thinking back to the Tsunami 2004

Though I don't like to admit it, the tsunami two years ago had a huge impact in my life. I'm thinking back to the day now, and a certain instance is standing out in my mind.
It was after the fact, maybe even a day later, Derek and I were sitting on the stone stair way leading up a mountain to the temple. the one that we slept outside of the first night. There were a few of us sitting there. We didn't want to go back to ground level, because we still don't know what happened, every now and then we'd ask someone and there was alwasy a different story, one point someone said it was somethign that broke out form an earthquake in Tazmania, close enough. Some people had they're FM radios, and listening to it religiously. There were constant rumors of another Tsunami coming, everyone had a diferent time of when it would come. SDo there was no way we were going back to ground level. the instance that touched me the most was, when other people were looting one an other, or just running away, there were these two ladies, that we recognized as living just down the street, that had lost everything. They were walking around, and up these stone stair in 40 degree weather, with packets of rice and curry and a huge bag full of drinking water. They were handing them out food an water to everyone, not asking for anything in return, just completely selflessly helping other. They were good people. People like that make me hope Karma really does exist