Happy Days

I was looking for my Resume and ended up wasting time looking through old computer files. I found this poem I wrote in 2004, 2nd year of uni. I called it Happy Days... What the hell, dark.

The worlds woe spills and gushes
Into a vast expanse that doesn’t care
Like water from a broken fish tank
Fish left lying dead on the floor
At first flapping about madly
Then slowing down
Life leaks from its small helpless body

Mindless chatter fills the room
Problems a plenty
But no one that cares to listen
Fake laughter runs clear
But is soon forgotten
Amongst the air so thick of pretense
Fake as plastic plants
Hideous and lifeless

An insurmountable heap of rubbish
All that can be seen, heard and felt for miles
There is no bringing back the dead
No finding the lost
No saving those in danger
No helping the weak and poor
Nothing
All that was pure has gone forever

Putrid ash spills forth
Shit leaks into the world
Bins over flow
The sun is shining
But for how much longer?

Homeless Katie

My current situation:

When I was in Vancouver last I was sleeping in the lounge room of the house I was living in with April. Aprils work has moved to Toronto and instead of moving with them April has turned the lounge room into an office, so at 7am in the morning for the last 3 days or so I spent in Vancouver the room I was sleeping in became an office and I moved my sleepy arse into Aprils bed.

This is a less than optimal situation, for starters I just feel bad that I’m taking up so much space and not paying rent, if it was just April’s house I’d feel okay, but two other people live there also, and I suspect that they were less than happy about the situation (even though they didn’t say anything about it).

The other alternative living situation is staying with my man friend, he has 4 other house mates who I don’t really know all that well though, so I’d feel bad being this strange Aussie girl hanging out all the time.

This would all be okay I guess, except I really like to spread my belongings out, I like to know what I’ve got, and I like to be able to see it all at once. This of course is just not possible in the current situation. So I have things, but they’re in unmarked/unorganized boxes and bags under Aprils bed, under the kitchen pantry, and in under a bench thing at the entrance of the house. Yay?!

The icing on the cake…. Eliza is coming to visit for 5 days!!! Hahah. I’m super mother fucking pumped to hang out with Eliza, my Aussie mate from College who I lived with for about a year (or more?). It’s all gonna be a little bat shit freakin crazy though. It’ll sort itself out… man friend has charitably offered his Van as accommodation, there’s a cool mattress in there.. it’ll be ace…

Basically I feel like I’m just a big homeless (and financially poor) pain in the arse to everyone. Things will be better as soon as I move back in with April and get a job (hopefully in October).

End of my Canadian adventure went well, went white water rafting. Always wanted to do it. It was real fun, rapids could have been more hardcore though. There was an opportunity to go skydiving and for the first time in my life I actually thought it might be an okay idea (probably because for the first time ever I didn’t really have enough money to do it). Next time?

I leave for the States in a week or two to meet up with the parentals. I’m super excited as I haven’t seen them since late January. I’m slightly nervous too as they are people who I’m very comfortable with, so I’m nervous I’m gonna let out any pent up bad moods/emotions out on them as I haven’t really been comfortable enough with people in Canada to do it. I’m sure I’ll be able to make the effort to not be a moody bitch?! I sure hope so anyway.

Down with snorers and people who feed wild animals

People who snore in hostels are the absolute pits. I hate them. If you snore and travel in hostels – Fuck you. I really wish that there was a room in hostels just for people who snore. It’s so damn rude. About 80 percent of the rooms I stayed in while traveling around had someone who snored. It’s so damn awful when trying to sleep. In one room of 8 people 3 were snorers. Together the effect was awful. One of them had this bone rattling bloody wheeze while he snored. One girl in the room got up and shook them all awake and told them to stop. It was so awesome. I just said, “thank god”. It was real funny, one of them kinda jolted up in bed and yelled a little when she woke him up. It worked though, no more snoring for the rest of the night.

So many places we went to in Canada there were lots of little squirrels, so cute! They were getting really close though, a sure sign that people had been feeding them. I saw about 6 people feeding them. I gave all of them death stares and told them not to feed them. In a way it’s cruel to feed wild animals, and selfish. It’s not food made for the animals, so it’s not good for them for starters. It means they stop fending for themselves and looking for their own food. It also gives them a false sense of hope, they think that there’s going to be a plentiful source of food, so they start having lots of babies, but then over winter when tourists stop going to the touristy locations their food source diminishes and there’s not enough food for them and there’s a huge die off. Cruel. Boo to people who feed animals.

Edmonton Baby!

In about 1998 my Dad sent me a post card from Edmonton with a picture of a rollercoaster inside the Edmonton Mall. Ever since then I have wanted to go to Edmonton. Today, that dream became a reality!


The following is what I wrote in my travel journal:

Holy mother fucking Jesus Christ! What a day! I spent the first half of the day with a stupid excited grin on my face and the other half with a more tired/satisfied look. The mall was definitely everything I had dreamt it would be. It satisfied my big mall with rollercoaster needs. Everything about the mall was big, bright and excessive. I loved it, I reckon today was the best day ever since leaving Vancouver to travel BC/Alberta. Even the washrooms were very lovely and clean.
- There was a sloth! I got to see it move around and scratch its bits, pretty awesome. Good timing too because it waltzed away and wasn’t to be seen for the rest of the day.

- Fish aquarium, really cool

- Fire breathing plastic dragon near cinemas, every 20 mins or so this thing came to life, lots of lightning and shit, and it would breathe fire.

- Seal show, this cute seal did tricks like collect rings and jump up real high at a ball and stuff

- The rollercoasters!!! I went on two, the third looked mega lame. The first one was in an individual cart thing with 4 seats. The cart spun around while going along the tracks. Pretty cool, could have been more fun/scary. The second one was fucking nuts. Looked and sounded real scary. I sat myself right up the front, wanted to make it worth my time and money. The freakin thing stopped dead on the tracks 5 seconds into the ride. We were stopped there for like 5 mins, I was already shitting my pants about the ride. It ended up all good though. Ride scared the hell out of me but was damn fun. I would have gone on it again immediately except it was super pricey.







Anyway, great freakin day. Super glad I came to Edmonton, best shit ever. Dream fulfilled. It’s almost embarrassing how much fun I had, sorry Canadian Rockies, you’re alright.

Canada trippin

Seen so many freakin’ trees, big mountains, lakes and rivers in the last 5 days or so. Don’t get me wrong, it’s stunning as hell… but you get over exposed and it becomes less exciting.


I’m really bloody glad I’m getting out and about and seeing Canada. Felt weird when people would ask me where in Canada I’d been and all I could say was Vancouver. Things are definitely on the up in that department though.

Highlights:

- jumping off a high rock into an icy freakin cold lake

- sitting around a fire with Moose tour group drinking beer and listening to German dude Tobias play guitar/sing.

- Lake Louise, tourist as hell, pretty bloody lovely though. Really awesome coloured water. I’m really sad at myself for not jumping in. That was one of my aims for this trip, jump into as many stupidly cold Canadian rivers and lakes. It was so fucking cold though, and there were these rocks… making it hard to get in, and there were so many freakin tourists hanging around… excuses, excuses. I know… boo.



- Getting an elevator to the top of the stupid motel that faces Lake Louise and convincing a lady who works there to let about 5 of us from the Moose tour into a room and take photos of the lake from a higher vantage point.

- Canadian animals, saw me some deer, elk, mountain goat or something… more squirrels (still high up on my fave animal list, so damn cute). We also saw this baby black bear. So many people stopped on the side of the road getting photos. Some of them were stupid enough to get out of their cars and try and get close. Silly fuckers.

- Staying at hostels in Edith Cavell and Rampart Creek that didn’t have electricity or running water. Made for some good and smelly times. Took a shit in a pit (one of those smelly pit toilets). These hostels were much cooler than the other ones. Much quieter, not full of rowdy young back packers. Made for some real nice times.

- Moose group. Ended up being a real cool group of people, made for many good times. Had to say bye to most of them today, kinda sad. That’s the hard thing about traveling I guess (one of them). Make all theses friends that you have to leave. You add them on facebook, but you know it’s never gonna be the same.


- Hot Springs in Jasper. Damn cool, they were outside and surrounded by mountains and trees and shit. Looked just like a pool, but the water was supplied by natural hot water from the ground or some shit. Really awesome temperature. Lots of fun running between the hot ones and the cold ones.

- Went up some glacier, got up there in a truck. The helicopter ride and hike around a glacier in New Zealand shat all over this experience though.


- Kayaking on some river thing.. in Revelstoke. Family business, they took photos for you and put them up on net for free. All the boats were hand made by the guy who took us around. They gave us this real cute packed lunch at the end. Real nice. Click here for photos.

Whistler

So time in Van flew real damn fast. I did a lot of hanging out and catching up with people, organising of future travel. Nothing really to note except that it was excellent/relaxed. Went to another hippie festival, got naked again, same shit. April had her birthday, Marti and I slaved away to make her a gluten free cake, real pain, but real worth the happy times on her face.

Left for Whistler yesterday. I'm going on this tour around BC/Alberta in Canada for 2 weeks with this company called Moose. It's been okay so far, good starter for a trip, relaxed. Realised I really need to be in the mood for conversing with strangers while travel. Wasn't really feeling it yesterday. When I turned up to meet my tour group I overheard the last group getting off the bus complaining about how the Aussies on their trip had just been real obnoxious and drunk... yay.

I had a few beers, wasn't really feeling it though, usually a bit of a booze hound, I just felt like chilling though, so went to bed relatively early (lame). Oh well.

Travel Itinerary:
Shuswap Lake
Banff
Rampart Creek
Edith Cavell
Jasper
Edmonton
Jasper
Banff
Kelowna

Should be ace, other people who had done the trip already had good things to say. I'm excited!