Yo.

I'm in SF atm. Eugene was very fun and Rose and her housemates were very friendly and welcoming. Rose told me today that they all said how much they'd missed me last night after I'd gone.

My camera is a little funny. I'm not sure why. I'm going to try to find somewhere in SF tomorrow to see if they can fix it.

My luggage is a massive pain. The new bag is bigger than the old one and therefore even though it has the same amount of stuff in it, it's heavier than the old one, which has led to fun times at checkin. United made me stuff loads into the smaller case, which then wouldn't shut, so they taped it shut :S Amtrak made me take out stuff and put it in a box. Fuck knows what Air Pacific and Air NZ will do. Hopefully just charge me a fuckload to keep it as is (you know things are bad when this is what you're hoping for.) Booked my flight home today. Will be back on Sunday July 3rd. If you're reading this, Mr Lazar-Gillard, I expect you to be in attendance with a polypin or two. An Aubrey would be good too but I very much doubt either of us can persuade/bribe him into it. So I shall just have to wait a while until I see him (probably for the best.) There is, of course, the option of turning up at city hall whenever I'm next in Norwich and scaring the crap out of him (it looks quite likely, for various reasons, that I'll be about towards the end of July. If not, I have decided that my very belated 21st/welcome back thing: The Norwich edition shall be held over the bank holiday weekend.)

I went to Macy's today and got this because it was nice. The shoes in the picture are ones I got in a vintage shop in Eugene, with a view to wearing them with my suit. I also got a haircut in Eugene as I hadn't had one since I left the country :S

Dude, I think this whole town is high

So sayeth the t-shirt I bought today in Denver. Ami and I took the bus to Denver today after we went to her psychology lecture. It was fun and I also bought a new camera (Ben lent me his but the batteries refused to charge - I'll post it back soon) and a new suitcase (the exploding shampoo and conditioner was the final straw with the old one.) The new suitcase is big and red. The new camera looks like this. I'm hoping that whoever found my previous camera did the right thing and handed it in to Continental, and that it is on it's way back to the Heath. If not, I hope that the holiday photos of us will convince that person to do the right thing. If not, I hope a tree falls on them.

Boulder was awesome and I didn't get altitude sickness, just a little nosebleed earlier (the Rockies seem to make me have nosebleeds, as evidenced by the ones I had on the train to Toronto.) I'm hoping the journey to Eugene tomorrow is ok and that Rose's house won't be too tricky to find lol.

Hope you like the picture selection :)

Rocking out in Boulder

I made it ok! In 5 minutes I'm going to head out so that I can meet Ami for dinner.

Quick list of things that have happened:

-Lost my camera.

-Suitcase broke even more. Somebody checked my bags and fixed it so that the zip isn't gaping open everywhere. Thank you, nice TSA person.

-I own a suit.

-I got a place in halls at Vic.

-I've been assigned a buddy at Vic.

Oh no :(

I will update properly and I will pack properly but right now I should go to bed because I am very sad.

Do you remember last month I wrote about the death of Jake Staines and how I thought the passenger was probably his fiancee Holly, who I also knew?

His funeral was a couple of days ago and in the facebook tribute group I read the following, as written by Holly's dad:

Holly remembered Jake today. We told her what happened. She knows but I don't think she understands yet.

I'm not an expert in such things, by any means, but I can't help feeling that things might've been better if neither of them had survived. They'd been together since they were 13 and been engaged since they were 16. They were a year older than me. You don't have to be a genius to work out that that's a damned long time. I can only hope that Holly will recover ok and will some day be able to love again. I can only point to the case of Czech model Petra Nemcova who lost her fiance during the 2004 Tsunami and is now engaged to somebody else. Apologies for linking to The Daily Fail/The Daily Hate Mail but it was the most reliable source (?!)

Locked in a basement in Halifax

That's where I am now. I'm not complaining as I have the entire dorm to myself. Apparently Halifax is deader than dead at this time of year. Not sure why, it's warmer than Montreal was! I do hope nobody decides to turn up and stay in this room as well, because it's currently decorated with my washing. The dryer didn't work and I wasn't paying another $1.25 to try the other one. Oh well. The receptionist scared the shit out of me when he tried to open the door a while back. I stuck my head out and was like 'WTF?!' and he was like 'I just wanted to make sure you'd locked it' which was nice to know that he cared.

So, Montreal. Was fun, although speaking more French would've been good. Managed a few half conversations so I think I deserve a pat on the back. I went to the Notre Dame Cathedral, the biosphere (where I took photos for mother as they had an exhibition on making outfits from waste materials) and I took a walk around the gay village and Mont Royal park. A lot of stuff was closed due to the weather. Walking around Montreal was not fun (which is why they have many miles of tunnels built under the city to link important places so that people don't die) as the snow had begun to thaw. And then there was more snow. So you ended up with snow over black ice. Not good. The metro is a bit weird too as the doors have an unnerving habit of opening before the train actually stops. Other things that happened in Montreal include me getting asked for money by a woman in a fur coat (?!), arguing with Lance and Nanoo over various things including super-colliders in Texas, having wine with Lance and Paul (the hostel owner), Paul letting me check out late, eating vegetarian poutine, and getting seriously started with househunting with Kirsty.

Ottawa was very confusing. I spent the day at the national gallery. I can safely say that modern art DOESN'T make me want to rock out. Some of it what quite cool but a lot of it made me think eh?! A blind toddler could've done that. There are no pictures from Ottawa. There wasn't really anything I wanted to photograph lol.

The train to Halifax. The first bit was shitty. The train was uber-booked and I was sat next to a very fidgety woman who only spoke French. So yeah, that was pretty crappy. The upside was, she got off at Bathurst (an early-ish morning stop) which gave me the opportunity to snaffle both seats and go back to sleep. There wasn't much to see view-wise and we got delayed by an hour thanks to a broken down freight train but it was all good. Halifax seems very nice so far. Also, my hostel was literally just round the corner from the station so I looked like a bit of an idiot with my $3-something cab fare. Tbf, the driver also reckoned that I probably wouldn't have made it with my crap.

In other news, I only got onto one of my course selections at Vic. so now I'm having to make some more lol. This university is le stupid.

In other other news, I have blisters on my fingers, a gash on my ankle and my handbag has broken. The question is, do I get a new one in Halifax or wait until New York?

Oh my fuck, she's written an update!

Yes, it's true! I'm updating properly (perhaps minus pics but hey ho, we shall see.) I'm currently writing to you from Montreal (where the question is 'Parlez vous Francais ou Anglais?' and the answer is always 'Anglais.' At least I understand the question!)

Because I suck at updating, I shall be bulletpointing what I did between now and my last proper update.

Vancouver

• Went to Granville Island. Bought a bag, some luggage tags, a damned nice cuppa and a hammock chair.
• Went to the aquarium. Saw axolotls! Also stroked some anemones, sea urchins, sea cucumbers and starfish.
• Went to Canada place and saw the Olypmic Cauldron, as lit by The Great One, Wayne Gretzky aka the king and god of Canada. Look him up, you'll see why.
• Skated at Robson Square. Then got drunk with some Kiwis.
• Saw the Ricmond Oval but missed the skating session.
• Christmas trivia quiz.
• Lynn Canyon, which was fairly shitty and rainy and almost everything was closed.

The train

• Not as bad as you'd think it'd be. Saw Mount Robson which is the highest point in the Rockies.

Toronto

• CN tower. Queued forever and ended up going up in the dark, but everything was lit up which was nice. When to the Skypod.
• Met Martin for a drink.
• Went to Niagara Falls (which is pretty much like a British seaside town) froze my arse off, tasted wine. Bought wine.
• Tim Burton exhibition!
• Shoe museum!
• Hockey hall of fame!
• Spent NYE at Wayne Gretzky's (the restaurant, not his house) and the hostel bar. Got given a glass of Baby Duck :D
• Everything pretty much shut on new years day so I went to the TIFF lightbox (where the Tim Burton exhibition is - it's Toronto's version of the BFI) and saw The Tempest. It was alright.
• Got the frak out of there!

Montreal

• Not much so far. Made peanut noodles for foods. Hostel is very nice. AND guess what?! The bathrooms are individual little lockable rooms with a shower, loo and sink! That's right, for the first since I came over here, there won't be people in the room as I take a shower!