All the excitement of the greyhound

The bus journey from Ottawa to Edmonton took 52 hours in total. Here are the events of day one:

I sat on a bus today.

And here are the events of day two:

For most of today I sat on an uneventful bus. For most of the journey I had had two seats to myself, that changed at Thunder Bay when the most enormous passenger of the trip boarded. Of all the seats available he chose to sit next to me, perhaps I have a friendly face, or a skinny arse. Either way I was left with half a seat thanks to the 6'5" (height and breadth) of the excellently named Andrew McCooey. As the driver came down the bus to count the passengers he pointed out that there was a double seat available further back. To my astonishment Andrew declined. Unbelievable! I was too shocked/polite/British to say I'd take the other seat but if Andrew was staying on all the way to Edmonton I'd have to move.

After half an hour of squashed silence Andrew spoke 'Where you from?'
'England'
'I got a friend from England. He used to live here but he got deported'
'Oh'
Five minutes passed then Andrew spoke again
'How long you been here?'
'About a week in Canada'
He reached in to his wallet 'You seen Canadian money before?'
'Err. Yes I've needed to use it a fair bit this week'
'How about American?'
'Actually yes, I was in New York at the start of my trip' He seemed disappointed that he had nothing to show and tell so he rooted in his wallet and puled out a card: 'Firearms Licence'. Oh God.

'You wanna know why my buddy got deported?'
'If you want to tell me then yeah'
'He stole his Dad's money and car and got in a high speed pursuit with the cops'
'That would do it'
'He like to drink too much'

For five hours I was sat next to/underneath Andrew McCooey and the conversation ran as smoothly as a rubix cube down a sandpaper slope. I couldn't figure him out, he was either slow, a danger to the public, desperate for a new friend or all three. It was like the most awkward first date. Topics he covered: What movies do you like? What food do you like? What music do you like? Do you like drinking? - actually that part of the conversation went on well for a while.

Some good and odd McCooey conversation tit bits, usually dropped in with no link to any other part of the conversation:
'If you go to a strip bar you know how to get the girl to dance up to you? Ignore her. I'm telling you it works'
'Thanks, I'll bear that in mind'

'Your light on your watch, you know how that lights up?
'No I don't actually'
'Uranium.'
'I'm not sure that's right'

Occasionally it got scary. After I'd fallen asleep for half an hour Andrew woke me with a nudge and asked 'Did you get some sleep?'
'I was sleeping yeah'
He leaned in and whispered 'Did you hear about the guy who had his head chopped off on the greyhound?'
I became very aware that I was pinned in to my corner of seat with no escape route. Andrew continued 'After he did it he walked up the aisle holding the head up by the hair. It was on this route too.'
I nervously replied 'It wasn't you was it?'
'No. But that's why I never sleep on the greyhound'
And thanks to Andrew I didn't sleep again on the greyhound.

Eventually an explanation came for Andrew's conversational oddities. At age thirteen Andrew had been knocked off his bike by a truck and suffered brain injuries that took him years of rehab to recover from. I felt bad for judging him earlier but was glad I had chatted to him. It had been the most interesting part of my journey and he was just looking to be friendly.

Niagara, Toronto and Ottawa

After the megabus from New York I arrived Saturday morning in Toronto and was impressed with how quickly I located the hostel. However, on arrival I found out that I'd messed up my booking, it was for the following Saturday and they had no beds tonight. Nor did any other hostel in the city. But the HI in Niagara did have space so I went back to the bus station and made my way there instead.

Niagara is a nice spot, but full of tourists, as you'd expect, so I took the standard photos and headed back to the hostel for a pleasant evening with a pleasant group of travelers.

Monday, Toronto
Explored the Toronto islands then off to the skydome to watch the Chicago White Sox at Toronto Blue Jays in the baseball. I think I like baseball, quite a good sport. After the 7th innings comes the 7th inning stretch. Nearly all the crowd gets to their feet and follows the lead of the mascot and cheerleaders in a spot of aerobics. I couldn't see it taking off at the cricket.

Some of the crowd around me took me under their wing and tried to answer some of my questions about the league. They were pretty much clueless, in a season of 200 games it would appear that regular fans just turn up for the odd game to enjoy the beer and the aerobics. The Blue Jays won after two extra innings so everyone was happy. As I left I saw a group of girls in I ♥ BJs t-shirts.

Ottawa
Chose to stay at the Ottawa backpackers which as luck would have it had filled up their main dorms so I was taken next door and had an apartment to myself. Bought a bottle of wine and a tin of ravioli and settled in for the evening. At 10pm a 47 year old called Andy who was originally from Ottawa arrived and took a private room in my apartment. We went to a restaurant together and Andy had some dinner whilst writing out two full pages of A4 recommendations for me of things to do in the area. After food Andy headed home and I found a lively bar with open mic music. A group of locals invited me to join them playing drinking jenga. One of the group, Sarah, seemed to like me (what does that prove? She's not blind), so we arranged to meet the next day to do a quick tour of Ottawa.

Went to the houses of parliament with Sarah, the main plan was to find the Cat Village, one of Andy's recommendations. Sarah had never heard of it which made me think it might not be real but after some inquiries we got there. It was everything I'd hoped it would be. Literally, all it was was one slightly crazy man poking a cat with a stick.
'How many cats are there?' I asked
'Six' replied the bearded man still poking the cat
'I heard rumour of a couple of raccoons too?'
'At night. They come for food but they don't stay here'
Sarah asked if she could pet the cat
'No, he's pretty mad right now. He'd probably scratch you' said catman
Well I'm not surprised he's mad, you're poking the poor bugger with a stick.
The Cat Village made me happy. This was a good day.

For those of you who are interested Sarah was a bit dull and young (18) so there was no romance. In fact she was too young to drink in Ontario so she was using her cousin's I.D. Her name was actually Julie. Julie wore glasses on our tour of the city. It turns out that she genuinely was a bit blind the night before.

Ottawa was good and so was having a bit of space in the apartment so I spent another couple of days there, visited museums and went for a 40km walk out to a park on the French Canadian side of the river. I took a stick for the walk. Her name was Sue but she was no Herman. Too arrogant and French, I left her by the road after the walk wondering if any stick could ever live up to the quality of my reliable old buddy, Herman the stick. It seems unlikely.

Up next, a 50 hour bus journey from Ottawa to Edmonton.

New York

Thursday - Museum day. Apparently the Guggenheim is closed on Thursdays so I went to the Metropolitan instead. I enjoyed a lot of the stuff which is unusual for me in an Art gallery. Impressive collection of painters: Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Rembrandt, Pollack, Warhol. My favourite - favourite is underlined as a spelling mistake on this computer. Stupid Canadians - was a photo of a man tucking his willy away mangina style*. He looked like he was having a great time, who can blame him.

After the museum I stepped in to a bar and befriended a local drunk called Eric.
'So your name is Clint, like Clint Eastwood'
'No, Glyn'
'I never met a Clint before'
'You still haven't, I'm Glyn'
He then introduced me to all the bar staff as Clint. I gave up trying to correct him.

Passing another bar I popped in for one happy hour beer. I emerged six hours later pissed as a fart. It wasn't my fault though, the barman was very friendly and explained American football and fantasy American football to me. The league system is still a bit of a mystery. I didn't pay for many drinks because a kind American banker called John who had lost a million dollars in the recession - bit careless - insisted on buying me several drinks. He also said I could stay in his house while he was on holiday the following week. His holidays consist of him telling his wife he's going fishing while he just sits on his boat smoking weed.

John left and I noticed the shots and beer had hit me. I was stuck in conversation with an arrogant republican arse and every time I tried to reason with him after he made a ridiculous claim about socialism I would end up losing my train of thought and slurring 'I can't remember what my point was, but I know you're wrong'. It was time to leave.

At 5am I woke up on a park bench nowhere near the bar or my hostel or the route between the two. Oops.

The final day in New York I walked the high line path and then got my backpack ready for an overnight journey to Toronto. New York was good, I enjoyed it and its people very much.

*Mangina is also underlined red as not recognised as a word. As is recognised.

It'll all be fine

And so it begins... although it nearly didn't.

I came very close to cocking up the whole start of my trip by not looking in to the U.S visa. I didn't have one at all the day before I left and only by chance helping my brother book his flights at STA travel did I find out I didn't have one. I should have known better but fortunately my application was accepted and I dodged a pricey bullet.

There are things I will miss about home, not least my Mum and Dad. In the car on route to the airport:
Mum: 'Why are you wearing your sunglasses? There's no sun'
Dad: ''Cos I'm a cool dude and these are good sunglasses. They work in the dark'

At the airport I hit another snag. The U.S visa requires you to have transport out of North America booked to prove you're not staying. I had a bus to Canada booked but that was not enough so I was taken to the ticket desk and had to buy a flight. Off the top of my head I said Los Angeles to Bogota, Colombia. I booked it and now had to add a few more destinations to my itinerary. Panic over, I was on my way.

In the plane I was sat next to a girl called Jo who was on her way to the Dominican Republic on behalf of the Christian Union. She would be directing a half improvised play on the gospel of Mark in Spanish. It sounded bloody awful but she was a nice enough girl so I wished her well.

Through immigration, giving all ten fingerprints and an eye scan. I was in. Had a stroll through central park and bedded down in my hostel at 9pm (2am GMT).

After a good nights sleep I woke to be greeted by a stressed looking American lad in his pants. Even though there were two people still asleep in the dorm he spoke at normal American speaking volume (150% of other nationalities volume). He complained that he had been kept up by a Fat man in the bunk below watching a film on a laptop. The irony that he was now stopping others from sleeping was lost.

Walked to the bottom of Manhattan for the view across to the Statue of Liberty. The Liberty island is further away than I expected.

In the evening went out with two of my roommates who were as geeky as me. A German scientist and an American pharmacist. The question 'What do you think of the 2010 health care reform act'. They were good people and I learned that in the U.S.A. there are more deaths from prescription drug overdose than from automobile accidents.

After a pint met up with Asa, an Israeli I met in Slovenia and two of his friends and we went to the Top of the Rock, 67 floors up for a night time view out across the New York skyline. A good way to end a day.

Make like a banana.

Friday 26th August.
Our first port of call in Croatia was Zadar. We arrived at 3am and I walked while John hobbled along on his crutches out through an industrial estate to the peninsula of the old town where young people were still partying and swimming. Grabbing some sleep next to the world's only sea organ made sleeping outside much more pleasant.

We positioned ourselves facing west and awaited the sunrise. The sun does not rise in the west. We missed the sunrise. Zadar is an excellent small city, rich in culture but we were too tired to fully appreciate it so we made our way sweatily to the youth hostel and had a relaxed evening watching an awesome sunset (in the west).

Saturday 27th August.
We made like a banana on our day trip to Split. On the bus there we passed a full on forest fire with fire planes and helicopters dropping water over it. It was quite exciting to watch which I'm not sure is the correct emotion when witnessing a natural disaster but it really was cool.

Split is most agreeable, we spent a happy afternoon and evening wondering the narrow streets of the historic walled city before stocking up on beer and playing cards for the 10pm bus ride back to Zadar. After a couple of games of shithead and a couple of beers our bladders became too full and we had to annoy the other passengers by getting the bus driver to pull over so we could wee in a bush. He spoke no English so this was communicated through the cross legged I need to wee mime. After this we became sleepy and stretched across the back seats for a nap. I was woken by John and I told him to leave me alone.
'Glyn isn't it three hours from Split to Zadar?'
'Yes. Go to sleep'
'Didn't we leave at ten?'
'Yes, they know where we're going, they'll tell us when we're there'
'But it's 2am. We've been on here four hours now'
'Oh. I see. I'll go check'
We had missed our stop and the next stop was Rijeka at 5:30. Our conclusion was that getting off was pointless as we were in the middle of nowhere with no idea when the next bus back to Zadar might come. Might as well get some sleep then.

Sunday 28th August
By the time we got back to our hostel too much of the day had gone to go out to the national park we had wanted to see but determined not to waste John's last whole day we got on a ferry out to an island. It was a great day. We explored, swam in the sea, watched Liverpool stuff Bolton 4-1 and Man U smash Arsenal 11-6 or something like that, there were a lot of goals. We were also able to play our new favourite sport of electronic darts cricket and finish off the night sharing a bottle of booze on the beach with some Germans and Belgians from the hostel.


John had been an excellent travel companion and I look forward to our next adventure in South America in November. Love you little brother.

Luang Prabang 2010

Just found this in my drafts. Here it is published two years later.

Very beautiful town but the time there was sullied by pink-eye and illness. On top of that Garlick and Digweed got robbed by a cheeky bugger with a hook on a stick that he poked through their window in the middle of the night. Will woke up and scared him off but they lost a camera, an ipod and some money.

And then on this one day there was like this waterfall and OMG it was like sooooo pretty and these people were like this place is awesome and I was like totally and near the waterfall there were like these bears who were like rescued and shit and they were like so cute and the water was like sooooo turquoise and I jumped off a small waterfall and it was so much fun.

I liked Luang Prabang but with less than two weeks left it was time to move on south towards Cambodia and Thailand and so with Will and Carmel I took a bus to Vientiane. We had chosen the V.I.P bus and I joked that all that would mean is that it would have frilly curtains. I wasn't far wrong. Will and I had foolishly started drinking and so were desperately hoping for a toilet on board. There wasn't. In fact it was a bloody cheek calling it V.I.P at all; there were ten people too many on board, the leg room would have given a dwarf bruised knees and it broke down for 4 hours.

The break down was moaned about by the majority of the western passengers. We took it as an opportunity to build a fire and sing some songs. One passenger had a guitar, another was travelling with bongos. I know what you're thinking, there are two types of people who travel with bongos. He was the dickish type. After loading all our bags on to another bus only to realise it was about twenty seats smaller we loaded them back on to the original bus and eventually it chugged back to life to wind its way round the lumpiness of Laos.

My most distinct memory of the journey was the final couple of hours when our already over filled bus picked up another family of locals. A father and three ill looking children. They sat in the aisle next to me and were all handed plastic bags. Within minutes the purpose of the bags became clear. All three children began to be sick in to the bags at  frequent intervals. I assumed they had been in so few moving vehicles that travel sickness was unavoidable. The youngest of the kids was resting his head on my leg and a bit of sicky dribble was trailing from his mouth on to my thigh. I became annoyed. I had paid extra for the nice bus and this was what I got.

Stop, look at yourself Glyn. You have become everything you dislike about western tourists. Here you are in their country having the time of your life and you have the disgusting superciliousness to think you have it bad because you deserve more from your V.I.P. bus. Next to you there is a family dressed in rags who may be on their way to the big town for one of the first times in their lives, for all you know to go to hospital or to try and start a new life.

I felt ashamed. I learnt a lesson and was reminded just how lucky I was; to be travelling, and to have been born in a wealthy country.

There's a voice keeps on calling me...

One month today I fly to New York to begin the next adventure.

The nerves are setting in, which is good, I'm starting to remember what the buzz of loneliness feels like.

In previous travelling experiences I've learnt a few things and here is a fairly decent summary:

Approach every situation with a laid back smile and you'll do alright. Things will go wrong and you will feel scared a few times but that's what will make the next view you see or friend you meet that little more special.

Saturday Night in Southampton

This is present day Saturday 3rd March 2012, I'll finish off summer 2011 in the not too distant future.

Was I being a stupid gobby tosspot or was I being a people's champion, standing up for my beliefs?

I'll let you make your own minds up.

1:30am sat on a wall after a night in my home town that was overall pretty enjoyable. I was feeling happy, in that lovely correct level of drunkenness and with a barbecue original pizza in my lap, life was good. On the road in front of me two rude boys came bowling past, one tubby lad in a cap and a bomber jacket, the other a skinny white boy whose jeans didn't fit. A few yards after they'd passed me the one with a cap on said to the other 'Dude get up on the sidewalk'. I paused and ran the sentence back through my head to check that something was wrong with it. Yep, that was an American word said an English accent (well it was that weird mock London accent of the rude boy).

'You mean pavement' I called out in a jovial tone.

The boys stopped and turned to me. Without hesitation the skinny one shouted back 'What you getting involved for?' This didn't really make sense, there wasn't anything to get involved in. Perhaps he was about to correct his friend and was annoyed that I'd beaten him to it. Or perhaps he had misheard me and thought I was being aggressive. I tried again to make sure they got it.

'He said sidewalk, that's the American version, we call it a pavement'.

I don't know what I expected their response to be. I wasn't looking for 'Thanks for the correction old bean, God save The Queen' but them coming over to square up to me seemed a bit over the top. Several sentences like 'Shut your face and eat your pizza' (clearly impossible) were spat in to my face; I gave up trying to be jokey, declined the offer to 'go blows', apologised and made my body language as unaggressive as possible. Their final act was to knock the pizza box out of my hands...

HULK MAD

ME LOVE PIZZA

As they walked away kissing their teeth the fairies of good fortune were on my side and somehow the pizza box closed itself mid-flip and all my pizza stayed good to eat. I think this was a happy ending but I was annoyed. Not because people like this exist, morons are a fact of life. But because all my skills of banter had failed, I still seem to think that acting calmly and trying to make a joke will save me from any threatening situation. This may be why I have been filled in so many times.

I'm still glad I corrected them. Sure, it was no Tiananmen square but I made a stand for something I vaguely believe in... the stand of the stupid gobby tosspot.

Bleddy brilliant - Summer 2011

Arrived in Bled with my brother John already famous because our Israeli friend Asa had had told everyone in the hostel to expect the ginger guy on crutches. Asa and I went canyoning for the afternoon which for obvious reasons John was not able to join us for. It was fun, we jumped off stuff and came back unscathed, I'd recommend it. We'd arranged to meet John at 7pm and were a little worried when he didn't show up for a couple of hours. When he did turn up he was drenched in sweat having done a full circuit of lake Bled - around 6km in 30° heat... on crutches! I was glad he did because this meant I had no problem leaving him and going off on my own. He was clearly capable of entertaining himself.

Did you notice I managed to do a degree sign ° earlier. Alt and 0176 on the number pad. Who knew!

In the evening we played a confusing game of electronic darts cricket in the hostel bar. It would become our new favourite sport once we'd worked out the rules two days later (the instructions were in German). Our night was an absolute pleasure, topped off with a midnight dip in the lake .We met a French girl called Cecile who I would happily have married and an English girl called Sandra who I would happily have beaten unconscious with a bat. Sandra was boring, self obsessed and miserable. Her first conversation with us was about her unrequited love for a Slovenian man who didn't know she exists. The reason he doesn't know she exists is because she has never spoken to him. The girl was mental and I feel bad for the Slovenian man who will more than likely get a stalking from mental Sandra. I made sure John was on the receiving end of her tales of woe for the evening.

When we returned to the hostel room there was a man in John's bed. Deciding it could be the hostel's error we left the man to sleep and John took a duvet on to the floor. The next morning the man was kicked out by the girl from the hostel. He turned to John to offer an explanation 'Sorry, I was drunk.'. Seems fair enough to me, I am of the opinion the  he walked off and the hostel gave us a free night which we asked to be turned in to a bar tab so it was all good.

Day two in Bled: Rather foolishly took John and Asa for a walk to Vintgar gorge. It was three miles away and the midday temperature hit 36° (degrees sign again, check me out), not walking weather and definitely not crutch hobbling weather. We made it though and the gorge was beautiful. We got a taxi back.

Back at the hostel bar Mental Sandra returned and insisted we listened to her. We clearly didn't want to and sunk our heads in to our books but she carried on in depressing fashion anyway. We had all come to the conclusion that Sandra is a leach who had picked us to suck the blood from. When we ignored her enough she wondered off to irritate other people. Although not exactly ugly her miserable attitude means I have no I have no problem pointing out her physical flaws - black straw like witches hair, a bushy monobrow and significant armpit stubble. I think I am reasonably tolerant of most people but this girl did all of our nuts in. Two Welsh girls - Katie and Jenny, and a Dutch guy called Max helped make it better. When we were exchanging jokes Max chipped in with 'What's white and shaped like a cube? ...... A square ping-pong ball.'. It was another fun evening.

We spent a total of four days in Bled, all very special supplying great memories. Particularly a walk up to a view point that I only shared with a circling hawk and rather lost and lonely looking goat. It also transpired that Sandra was genuinely mentally ill. I felt a bit guilty for having treated her so badly. I had no excuse, I am a bit of an arsehole.

Oh and if you haven't been able to tell from the pictures Bled is one of the most stunningly picturesque places on earth.

The Five Questions

In one of our many conversations with Asa we got on to 'The Five Questions'. These are fun and supposedly give a philosophical insight in to your persona.

Play along folks, answer the questions before reading what they are supposed to say about you, I'll leave a few lines between each one so you can hopefully control your eyes from peeking ahead to the explanation.

1. What is your favourite colour? Or a colour that speaks to you right now and give three reasons that colour speaks to you.



Have you got an answer?

Okay here is what it might say...





This is your private view of yourself.


2. What's your favourite piece of clothing? How do you feel when you wear it? Three reasons if possible.





This shows how you want to be perceived by others.


3. What is your favourite animal and three things you admire about that animal.





This is what you are looking for in a partner.


4. Imagine yourself in your favourite body of water. It can be a bath, a shower, river, sea, waterfall etc. Now say three feelings you have when you are part of that water.




This is how you feel during sex.


5. Imagine you are in a white space, everything in every direction is pure white. How does this make you feel. Three feelings if possible.





This last one is your attitude to death.

I'm not convinced by all of the questions but it was interesting and fun asking people. Try it yourself when you're with a group of friends and have nothing to say.