To infinity!.. and... beyond... uh..... - haveyouseenmypassport
Ok, so this is the trip that the pre-trip trip was all about, going to Cananda to start with, Vancouver to be precise and seeing what happens from there. At the end of the day we're going to be...

Leaving home again...
Melbourne, Australia
Time to leave the safety of the Ivanhoe nest once more.... I'm going to have to do a Deery and go to Canada then Europe, so it should be most excellent, in the words of Bill and Ted.
Airports suck, but they're the beginning and the end of so many people's journeys I guess it's hard to think they're a bad thing! I used to think that Australian customs were unusually and unnecessarily brash and rude... But I guess they're here for a reason and we need them and if you're going to look like the Crack Addicted alcoholic that I look like then you're going to get some scrutiny... But hey, that's good for all the Mum and Dad drug smugglers who hide their stash in their kids pram and walk straight through customs with a smile on their face and a wave of their hand.
It's all good. Screaming babies on aircraft? Yes please. But that's for installment NUMBER 2.
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on March 9, 2007 from Melbourne, Australia
from the travel blog: To infinity!.. and... beyond... uh.....

Going to US? Read for your own convenience, you might not know...
Los Angeles, United States
Ok. Planes, however large they look when you're standing next to them are actually pretty small. So when there is a group of less than *how to phrase this without sounding offensive*... intelligent, loud mouthed over bearing individuals who insist on shouting at each other from 6 inches apart for the duration of a polite conversation it's kinda hard to escape. Someone needs to invent a life jacket that you can remove from it's cover under your chair, inflate by pulling the red tab or using the mouth piece and all of a sudden you won't hear these annoying people. But really the flight, despite that it was 14ish hours, was fine. But... and there's always a but, here is the kicker, border control there is HARSH, if you EVER travel to the states, please follow:
Step 1)
ENSURE that you RUN as fast as you can to the front of the line, push people out of the way if necessary, particularly if they are infirmed or elderly, these people will only hold you back. Remember, in America only the strong survive anyways so you don't need to feel too bad for too long.
The reason for Step 1 is because the immigration "officers" are SO slow, the amount of crap they have to do is huge, so it follows that it takes a LONG time.
Step 2)
Despite being at the front of the line it'll still take FOREVER because unless you're a US citizen there will probably only be a couple of booths open. If this is the case fill in your GREEN and WHITE forms. Double Check them. QUADRUPLE TUPLE CHECK THEM. Do not get anything wrong, they will send you to the back of the line, they aren't joking!
Quick story:>
Now it might just be me that answers questions that are asked literally, but when the question reads: "Where will you spend your time in the US?" and the answer to that question is "At LAX because I'm in transit to Canada" it follows that you would write "LAX" in the answer box. NO NO NO NO NO. ARE YOU SO STUPID (or should I say STOOPID?) THAT YOU THINK THAT'S WHERE YOU'RE GOING the man asked me... I simply said "Oh, sorry, I'm jet lagged". Of course in my brain I'm thinking, well, I answered the STOOPID question, so aren't you the jerk bag? But I didn't want to be sent home, so I complied.
Step 3)
Don't bother looking for a sign. That tells you anything. There aren't any.
If you're not planning on staying there to see all the wonderful stuff that I'm sure is there behind a curtain of rude, arrogant and generally unhelpful airport people (I'm sure past the iron curtain of the airport there is plenty of nice things and people... well, it looked like that in Borat) then enjoy your stay :)
Oh and don't leave your laptop in it's case when you're going through the gates, they'll draw their guns and I don't mean draw them with Crayola crayons on scrap paper.
I never thought I'd star in a teen movie, or even be an Extra, but it seems that LAX is EXACTLY like the movies, and the general population of the airport was EXACTLY like the movies. "Pledgers" on their way to Spring break, "Soccer Moms", "Jocks", "Nerds", amazing! It was kinda cool in a really odd sorta way. Of course there were plenty of foreigners too, but in general it was everything that I thought was TV, and nothing that felt real.
Anyways... OFF TO CANADA!!! WOOHOO
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on March 10, 2007 from Los Angeles, United States
from the travel blog: To infinity!.. and... beyond... uh.....

Home away from Home
Vancouver, Canada
After my experience with the American border guard, and the subsequent flight to Vancouver I wasn't expecting much. Probably more to do with my attitude than to do with what I was arriving to... Amazing. That is the only word that I can use to describe the contrast between the Canadian and American border guards. Now I've heard that Canadians are nice people, and I suppose all the ones I've ever met have been nice, but really, it was amazing. They questioned me, at length, in a similar fashion to the Americans, with I suppose similar questions and yet they managed to not come across as... well... jerks. Lovely begging to my stay in this country! Easy to get my visa issued. Easy to get through the airport. Easy to get my bag. Pleasant taxi drivers.
So having been in town for all of about 40 minutes Sarah and I decided that we would definitely need a bottle of wine. I thought that I wasn't jet lagged. It turned out that I was wrong. Although, while we were making the trek between the bottle-o and our house we were given very stern looks by two local police officers who happened to drive past exactly as we stepped into the road to jay-walk... Ooops. Luckily I managed to avoid being deported on my first day.
Luckily we found some vikings. But that is another part of the story. Anyways, to give you an idea, here it is really interesting when you look for a job. The service and hospitality industries here are amazing in the standard that they require. Looking for work as a bartender was quite daunting as most bars require that you have EXCELLENT cocktail skills. As much as it hurts me to admit that I'm actually not that savvy when it comes to cocktails, I managed to get over it and got hired in a Malaysian restaurant as a bartender. Amusing first night. The place's website is here http://bananaleaf-vancouver.com/ . It was fun and the people there were really nice, but I was wanting a day job cause I don't like working opposite hours to Sarah... It sucked. But it was only a couple of days anyways!
Now I am a "filing clerk" translation: general office bitch. It's good though. I'm working in the south of the city, just near a place called Richmond actually, but it's a nice mix of people. I am possibly one of the younger people there.
But everyone seems really nice and while I'm doing my filing every now and then I get to go and make a coffee and generally chat to people. Like I said, they are all really nice, so it's going to be a good place to work. Sadly I don't think it's going to be a place to work like the Doot, but it's still going to be a bit of fun. I take two buses to work and I still get there in around 20 minutes and I get to wear my jeans to work so it's a pretty good little deal. Can't wait for a paycheck though! CRIKEY!
Sarah and I decided that it was time to do some walking around and seeing stuff today instead of just gathering dust on the sofa. By the way, our apartment is really sweet, but that's another story. So we left home around midday, which was just after we woke up and headed around to a place called Granville Island. This place is famous for it's local brewery (Surprise Surprise that we ended up there), it's not a big brewery and I am led to believe that they only service Vancouver, but I'm not sure. Either way, we are planning a return visit for next weekend. I suspect we will be tasting some beer then as well.... But who can tell these days?
Well, I guess this is getting a bit long, especially for those of you that are sneaking internet time at work and stealing from the company... But briefly, this place is amazing. When we walk out the front door (as long as it's clear) we can see snow capped mountains, and the ski runs on them. The people here so far (touch wood) have been absolutely lovely. Even the beggars here seem to be nice. Not that I have spent
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on March 18, 2007 from Vancouver, Canada
from the travel blog: To infinity!.. and... beyond... uh.....

Mighty Ducks 4: Learning to skate!
Vancouver, Canada
Limo, with Aussie Flag number plates!!!!
While unrelated to the tittle of this blog entry, I think that this is probably the most interesting sight that we have seen this week. Sarah and I decided that it was time to indulge in some of the local recreational activities here in Vancouver. While we were hoping to pop up to the mountains for a spot of skiing, we thought that something perhaps a little more local was the order of the day. So we looked up our local ice rink, which happens to only be a 10 minute walk away! Brilliant! This car is actually a limo and was parked in one of the side streets on the way to the ice rink! We couldn't smell any BBQs going on, or hear anyone shouting about kangeroos, but none the less we were under the sneaking suspicion that there were some Aussies about. If we believed the rhetoric in this: blog then we would have run as far as we could. But anyways, on to the ice rink!
Mighty ducks
If you've ever been to roller city in Eltham then you'll be pretty well versed in the ways of the skate. The general demeanour of skaters was very similar to that or the roller skate cousins of these ice skaters. In fact, I could have been at Eltham roller city if it wasn't freezing and there wasn't ice instead of concrete. We expected that we wouldn't exactly be fantastic at this new sport, but we were pretty sure in ourselves that we wouldn't receive compound fractures to our "tail bones". Okay, ice skating is HARD. Much harder than roller blading/skating. Our first tentative swooshes on the ice were hilarious for the locals I'm sure. But we continued and ended up going pretty good. We stopped short of triple spins and although I was keen to throw Sarah into the air, she was reluctant... I wasn't mad at the little kids that were better at skating than me. I'm just jealous.
Sadly it hasn't really been a terribly interesting week otherwise. Interestingly, perhaps on a social observation side is the labourforce here that would generally be made up of teenagers in Melbourne is made up of middle aged people here. At every Safeway supermarket I've been to here, the checkout chicks are generally between the age of 30 - 40. And that's interesting considering that I think it is likely that Safeway pay around minimum wage. Minimum wage here is $8.00 CAD per hour. So think yourself lucky at home when your're getting around 13 or 14 dollars as a minimum at home in Australia. Especially considering that the cost of living here is very similar to at home in Melbourne. Just a thought.
Otherwise, I hope everyone is well and having a good time! More pictures to come!
Cheers
Tom
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on April 1, 2007 from Vancouver, Canada

Why doesn't this forest smell?
Vancouver, Canada
Easter weekend! For us that means four whole days off! For me anyways. Sadly for Sarah she only gets three days off. But after a somewhat same and dullish week I was absolutely totally ready for a four days of relaxation and general pottering!
Amber and Simon gave us a call Friday morning while we were recovering from hangovers and suggested that a trip to the wilderness might be the order of the day. We agreed and half an hour later we were on our way to the Lighthouse National Park. I've been pretty subdued in my attempts to get "out-doorsy" here, so when I came to the national park I was a little concerned that we were going to have to hike. While we weren't hiking as such, someone had the bright idea to go rock hopping!
Which was totally fun, if not a little bit scary. Sheer ledges and jagged rocks below are a good motivator to not fall off the rock you're currently hopping on. This lighthouse turned out to be a bit of a let down as it was on private property, but it is definitely a tourist attraction as we had to cue up to get photos of it. Not in an organised cue or anything, just polite tourists waiting their turn to have the photo. Ours turned out pretty well!
As entertaining as the Llighthouse was, we weren't even a third of the way through our day. Piling back into the jeep in the carpark we set out for Lynn Canyon national park. There is a suspension bridge there that is free to go across. Basically you're standing above a canyon (funnily enough Lynn Canyon) and below there are rapids and waterfalls and generally winderness like events.
Apparently some stupidly large number of people have been killed shile trying to jump off the waterfalls or swim down the rapids. That's sad. Many of them were in the 80's, or so I gather from the memorial stones.
Getting to the bottom of the canyon saw a break for lunch. Now I'm not sure why, but it seems that Canadians like to pop to the local national park to smoke a spliff. Why? I don't know wither. Everywhere we walked there was the extremely pungent smell of skunk being burned. Bizarre. But what's more bizzare is that the forest here has no smell. I didn't notice it when we were by the sea, but in the middle of the forest there was absolutely no smell. In the rare moments when the ganja wasn't in the air there was none of the wilderness smell that I thought there would be. But anyways.
So we had our lunch, did some more walking and had Amber, Simon and Mark over for a roast and a watch of the film Kenny. Kenny comes highly recommended to anyone who has not yet seen it. 2 bottles of wine, 1 bottle of Bacardi and a few beers later, we were all sufficients smashed to turn in for the night.
As if we didn't have enough excercise on the Friday, we decided to go roller blading around Stanley park with Sarah's friend Erika on Saturday. Now I'm a bit sad cause I finally came across some locals that I didn't like. Strangely they were both from the bike/skate hire places on Denman street in downtown Vancouver. Perhaps a life of hiring things to people who are clearly going to enjoy their day much more that you is enough to make anyone turn into a nasty pastie... Not sure. But these people are RUDE. Don't bother asking for your student discount either. The sign means that you just go in there expecting to get a discount. Skating was way fun despite the unpleasant people who hire out the skates.
I was trying not to get too aggressive about it, but Sarah kept egging me on and saying that she was a better skater than me. This could have resulted in disaster if I hadn't stopped just before the collision!
Overall a pretty active weekend. I am now exhausted.
And I have another day off.
I hope you're all well!
Cheers!
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on April 8, 2007 from Vancouver, Canada

Gathering dust and growing mushrooms
Well geepers.
A quiet week was ordered and subsequently delivered to us this week. While I was extremely excited to get back to work in the filing room, I was not ready for the pile after pile of work that had accumulated in my "in" trays. Wow, I was thinking tha tnothing would have happened over the long weekend at the office, sadly I was wrong.
But really, the only purpose of this blog update is to maintain my weekly updates.
No face merkins, hilarity, hiking or lunches being eaten by seagulls this week... I am getting pretty good at Texas Hold 'Em on the PSP though.
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on April 15, 2007 from Vancouver, Canada

Survived the fire!
Sarah tried to kill me with fire. She killed the book good too
At first I thought we were going to have another fairly normal, not very interesting week. Little did I know that on Thursday, Sarah was going to try to kill us by burning the house down! A tip for people with naked flames in the house, don't put your library books on top of them ok. It's dangerous kiddies. Charley says "Don't play with matches". Please go to this url: for more information about what Charley says. It all turned out ok, seeing as I saved the day and removed the slain library book from the flames and doused it with water. I'm not sure what we're going to tell the library yet. Not to worry.
Now, for the rest of the adventure of Thursday! We popped to our local to watch the Vancouver Canucks play the Dallas Kings in the play-offs for the hockey here.
Bus riding! WOWOOO
Sarah inisisted on taking the bus and as it is still somewhat cold here at night, I agreed this was the best option. Of course what bus trip would be complete without a picture to document the event? That's right, no bus trip! Room 18 is this little restaurant bar near us that has 3 screens (about 11 shy of the doot, yeah) but it was a nice place to be watching the game. Packed out as well. They were about to have a lawsuit on their hands though, as we were sitting on the bench seat across the wall it broke. We were accused of being responsible by these locals:
Crazy Canadians who accused us of breaking bench chair
however they were very polite and were actually really good fun. Sadly I am not sure what their names were/are and I won't remember even if they had told me as I had been forced into drinking a large number of beers. These chaps had however made the adventure to Australia, one of them to Melbourne and the other one to Perth. They concurred that Canada and Australia have many things in common and are both very nice places. We were left pondering that thought as the Vancouver Canucks lost by a goal in overtime. This "ice" hockey is a rather exciting game actually, they belt the crap out of each other and hit the opposition with their sticks and everything. Kinda like Ultimate Fighting, but way better cause they have blades strapped to their feet. Friday morning saw regrets of drinking so much the night before as 7 hours in a file room with a pounding headache is rubbish no matter how you look at it.
Friday night did however hold some surprises. Sarah informed me that we were invited to a party with some locals. Needless to say, I was reluctant as I was still recovering from Thursday night, but I agreed... We played the following board games:
1) Poker
2) Cranium
3) How to host a murder
Now you'd think that with a list of activities like that it was going to be a quiet night in at the mortuary. Not the case. I have never heard more XXX rated conversations in my life. I wasn't even taking part! Sarah was sitting there blushing while the girl next to her told everyone how she pashed her best friend (also female) the week prior and that if we would like to see photos they were on her boyfriend's laptop. These Canadians eh. Crazy. So after a few more cans of "Pilsner" which is apparently the worst beer in Canada we popped home and crashed out.
Seems like it's crazy here alright!
Saturday I got cosy with the sofa.
Sunday we went and did walking trails in the forest around the University of British Columbia, which was pretty good.
On for another week of filing!

Go Canucks!
I'm sorry that I don't like sport. I'm not sorry that I've become fascinated with this game of ice-hockey. Sarah keeps asking what I've done with her real boyfriend. I keep assuring her that indeed I am him and she shouldn't be concerend as I have not been body snatched by aliens with superior techonology and intelligence. I'm starting to wonder if she watches Star Trek Voyager too much. Waking up with a sweat and speaking "Klingon" should have been a good indicator that Sarah has had enough Star Trek in her life time, but it's not for me to impose rules on the TV now is it? Luckily we have two teles so we can watch the hockey and Star Trek both at the same time. The good news is that the Vancouver Canucks won game two against the Anaheim Ducks in a two overtime period thriller. But enough about hockey.
There have been some interesting events this week. Tuesday-ish apparently the storage locker area was broken into here in the apartment block. I was going down to inspect the damage when I met one of the other tennants. Now, apparently the block next door houses a crack dealer who "buys" stolen goods off local hobos using rocks of crack, which is why we have a hobo party in the car park of our building all weekend. I'm pretty annoyed about hearing this cause the hobos are really annoying when they are just sitting there and stinking up the area. Very sad and all that, but annoying, cause I don't want to live near a crack head stolen goods dealer. Very irritating. Don't worry John, the hobos don't attack anyone, they just sit there and be annoying. As we don't have anything in our storage locker, we were lucky and nothing was stolen.
Thursday night my steak craving finally got the better of me. There just wasn't anything that I could do anymore, so we popped to a pub that has a $10 steak night. Had a bottle of BC's finest Cab-Merlot. Was very nice pub actually, the pub was pretty nice, large main area with a mezzanine that we sat at one of the tables on. So that was pretty nice. The steak was just fantastic. Not often is a steak cooked exactly how I ask for it, but the chef in this place definitely had his head screwed on. More to the point, it's not often that a $10 steak is really something to write home about, unless you're at the Doot. So we were pleasantly surprised with how nice the meal was. Especially for a tenna! Brilliant.
This entire six or eight weeks I was planning on chopping off my hair when the weather got a bit nicer, so I wouldn't have a cold melon. Trying to plug the charger that I brought with me for the clippers I found that it wouldn't fit!? Shocking I know! This has lead to my severe cultivation of a mullet.
Serious Mullet Action
I'm not sure how it's going. I have probably got more work to do in terms of shortening the top and lengthening the back, but I'm pretty pleased so far. Sarah keeps trying to cut off the whispy rat tail bit at the back, but I'm resisting pretty hard. If I can find a new charger for the clippers then I'm going to give it the chop as soon as possible. Failing that I'm concerned that I'm going to have to leave the old Whalies behind. I know, I know, that's pretty drastic, but it's nearly a kilo that I could lose in terms of backpack weight if I donate them to the salvos. We'll see.
This weekend is pretty much a sitting about and chilling. We did pop to IKEA Richmond (Oh my god, I was scared) for a fix of shopping that Sarah required. What is it with chicks and needing to go and luck at stuff that they're not going to buy anyways? I managed to amble around the entire IKEA at a pace that was conducive to my love looking at as much Scandinavian-Home-Furishing-Ware/s as she could handle. We escaped without buying anything, not even a shoe rack. A shoe rack is probably the thing we need most right now, I mean I have absolutely no where to put all my shoes. Oh well. We also popped 'round to a friend's house for a spot of surfing (couch type) and a couple of cans while eating Russian and other Eastern block region type foods, which were very nice. We called it an early night though. Sunday... Well, it's now Sunday and I'm pretty relaxed. In fact I'm so relaxed that I'm going to go and cook up some dinner and watch the tele some more. Brilliant!
Take it easy!

My Mum says I look like a Mormon
Kits Beach Monday afternoon
You know, I was pretty upset when I found out that my clipper charger is at home. But I didn't think it would mean that I would be copping quite so much grief from this side of the world! This weekend Sarah and I went to another city here in BC called Burnaby. It's more of suburb than a city if you ask me, it barely took any time to get there on the train. Kinda like going from Ivanhoe to Greensborough. Anyways, there is this "Mall" there called Metropolis, and it's at the station called Metrotown. I kinda felt like I was in a Robocop film and the mega corp OCP were just around the corner. So this mall was pretty mammoth, but we couldn't really find anything that we should buy. Sarah did a pretty good job of avoiding killing me... Well, avoiding trying to kill me anyways. Alas, the only this that we were looking for (a webcam for using on skype) was no where to be found. Still, we were pretty tired and we didn't even get to have any beers. We headed back to town emptyhanded, but definitely enriched for the trip to the burbs.
The sun through polarised sunnies and clouds
In town we managed to find what we were looking for in a store called London Drugs. Now I find it awefully strange that the call pharmacies "drug stores" and that they don't just sell pharmaceutical goods. No, no they sell everything you can think of, including cds, dvds, computers etc etc. Sarah was standing in front of a 20" iMac and she was nearly in tears cause it was so beautiful. The sales guy was slightly bemused by her watery eyes and for a minute there I truly believd that we were going to see some water works. It was fine. We were further tempted to buy extra stuff though. At the checkout the She-Ra movie was on display next to the check out bloke. The guy's sales pitch was absolutely unreal: "Oh yeah! Man I love She-Ra too! So you wanna buy this or..?". We were nearly sold, the only thing that stopped us was that we're not confident that we'll hang on to it while we're gallavanting around.
Friday night we had poutine (POO-TEEN) at a local joint called Hell's Kitchen. I was pretty happy with the poutine, but sadly people here don't seem to understand that 330mls of beers IS NOT a pint. They do have some real problems in the service industry here. For a start, they don't know what measurements constitute a pint (in any bar I have been in at all!) and the workers only get a base wage of $8.00 per hour, so they are constantly trying to crawl up your arse to see if you want anything else. The other side of that is that tipping etiquette is to tip between 12 and 20% of the price. So the more they get you to buy the higher the tip is likely to be. It's really annoying when you're trying to have a conversation and someone keeps hassling you, even when you haven't nearly finished your drink. Regardless of all that whinging, we had a really nice time!
Near the yacht club in Kits
Thursday we'd been BBQing with Amber and Simon. True to form Sarah convinced me to drink too many beers, so I was a little bit drunk. Not so drunk that I was sick or anything, but I did have a pounding headache on Friday morning. It wouldn't have been that bad except that I had to go and file stuff. I have finally finished consolidating the file room. For some reason this means that I am now going to be doing morning reception. I'm not totally adverse to the idea of doing reception or anything... the executive P.A.'s telling me that I would need to wear a skirt and heels on Monday morning. I'm starting to wonder what kind of work place this is...
Only four weeks left in Vancouver! Plenty of opportunities for Sarah to try and kill us left! I'll keep you updated!
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on May 6, 2007 from Vancouver, Canada

Pole dancing AND killer penguins. Wait I mean seagulls.
So for a comparitively quiet week it seems some reasonably interesting things have happened. Now, as I am a filing "clerk" my days are boringly tame. I haven't been issued with a desk, or stationary yet. I'm a bit sad about that, but I guess you can't really put a desk between the two moving shelves of the file room, so that's alright.
ANYWAYS! Sarah and I decided that we should do something for the end of the week. We got a couple of people over for a few "quiet" drinks. By a few drinks, I'm pretty sure I'm refering the bottle of bacardi, 6 stubbies of beer, one bottle of wine that was consumed between us. Sarah is making drink lots Mum. It wasn't my idea I swear. I think the neighbours still like us though as we weren't having loads of people come and go all night. Unlike the people across the hall. I'm starting to wonder if it's a brothel or a drug den. Not sure yet. But will keep everyone updated on this page.
Saturday day morning for Sarah saw a hangover. As I am way more better at drinking and I drink a lot less than her too, I had no hangover. We decided that the best thing to do would be to go to North Vancouver. Not that we knew exactly what was there. But we got to go on a "Sea Bus". Not a bus at all really, more of a ferry. But these Canadians are strange sometimes. Sarah, in her hung over state thought that it was appropirate to be pole dancing in a childrens playground! Photo evidence is attached.
Now, there didn't really seem like a whole lot to do on the North shore, but we had a wander around a market and a bit of pizza. It was while enjoying my lunch that I was ATTACKED by a seagull. It swooped down, removed the slice of pizza that was in my hand (moving towards my mouth) and proceeded to crash into the ground where the clever seagull was set upon by his so called mates and the pizza slice was devoured in about 5 seconds. At first I was mad. but then I was kinda impressed by the ploy. That brave criminal penguin has his mugshot posted here.
Otherwise we had a very pleasant afternoon, generally wandering around and taking pictures of downtown from the North Van "Sea Bus" stop. Nice.
Sunday was rather quiet as once again we had a few "quiet" drinks with friends on Saturday night. But Sarah decided it was time she learn how to throw a firsbee. A quiet afternoon in the park with the frisbee was just what the doctor ordered after he ordered a two bottle of Bacardi weekend.
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on March 25, 2007 from Vancouver, Canada

Winding up the weeks
Ok! A busy week of not much this week! It's now Sunday, and while I feel like we've had a really busy time of it, the opposite could not be more true. Starting with Monday, we went and had a game of frisbee at Kits beach. Sarah still throws like a girl, insisting that I have to walk 30 feet to either my left or right to catch the frisbee that she "meant to put over there". I'm pretty sure that I got seven or eight times the exercise she did that day. I have decided that her attempt to kill me this week was clearly by running me on the beach so much that I would go into cardiac arrest. Obviously this did not eventuate. Phew! The feeling of Summer is getting stronger and stronger though, there were heaps of people at the beach on Monday night, so I imagine the weekends are getting pretty chockas down there.
Tuesday and Wednesday we managed to not do anything interesting at all... Well, not that I can remember, so it either wasn't that interesting OR is was so much fun and so interesting that I can't remember. I have a feeling that it is the former.
I was getting serious steak cravings Thursday evening. Once you've gone back to having pub food, you know you're in trouble cause you crave it more and more. I (having no will power or budgetry sense) forced a sit in at Bimini's tap house for a $10 steak. Brilliant! Once again cooked to perfection. I'm pretty sure it was anyways, mine only stayed on the plate for about 30 seconds. As for Friday, well, it was my last day at CLBC. The lovely crew there took me out for lunch to the pub across the road. Now, I had only been there a couple of months, but everyone was so lovely, they made me feel like I had been there for about 10 years! It was awesome! I had a nice burger, plenty of bacon on that one. Finished out the afternoon and said good bye to all the CLBC people. Sad to go, but happy to move on. I think that's probably the best way to put it. I'm really looking forward to getting moving across Canada and leaving work is just one step closer! But I would like to say a big thank you to everyone therefor making me feel so welcome, it was great!
As for the weekend, well, I can't really remember what happened, so it can't have been that interesting. There is no doubt in my mind though, that we had penty of time for beering and relaxing! I know for a fact that we watched "Return of the King" on Sunday, so that took up a good 3.5 hours and there was plenty of domestic work around the house. I even got a little bit out of control and bought a swifer. Yes, I was getting homicidal about the dust. I don't know exactly what it is about our apartment that makes it so dusty, but it sure is annoying when you sweep and 10 seconds later there is more dust. This could be affecting my decision to be a full-time house husband. But probably not.
Hope everyone is well and stuff. Only like 20 more days here in B.C. Probably less, I didn't do the sums.
Cheers
Tom
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on May 13, 2007 from Vancouver, Canada

Clambashing?
Sechelt, Canada
Ok, this wasn't really in Sechelt, it was on an Island called "Nelson Island" which is off the West Coast of Vancouver, and between Vancouver Island and Vancouver! Unfortunately Sechelt was the closest that we could get our little Blogabond map! And it's not surprising really, considering that Nelson Island has a full-time population of 0! The thing is this Island has a bunch of holiday homes on it and we were lucky enough to be whisked away by Shannon and John. Hilarity does not ensure, but it was a SWEET trip anyways!
==> Taking a step back for a moment, unfortunately it was a fairly un-eventful week. The highlight was possibly when I got to fill envelopes with bits of paper for the BC Education something or other. The lucky bit was that I was in an office with another temp who was ok with my constant blabbing on about general rubbish and life. So, thanks Heather, I needed to be a motor mouth, just like most days!
Now, back to the most awesome weekend ever. Our preparation was mostly done on Friday night. By most, I mean all of our alcohol shopping. We decided that one bottle of Bacardi and one bottle of J&B was going to be enough for us to get through the 2.5 days away. We were right. But anyways, we packed our bags and watched Teev until really late so that we would sleep. This turned out to be the less wise idea as we were absolutely shattered in the morning when Shannon and John picked us up at 6am. Still, we were so pumped about going to a private island (I was having visions of Skaramanga's lair, but that might just be cause I saw a man with three nipples), and generally having a lot of time off. The drive was nice, the scenery was pretty sweet and I kept on getting into giggle-loops because Shannon and John are pretty hilarious at the best of times. They were telling us all of the Canadian slang for various things, not all of which are blog friendly! So we arrived at the marina and got on Shannon's Dad's boat and headed over the rolling ocean to Skaramanga's lair (for anyone scratching their head right not, that is a James Bond reference: The man with the golden gun. You know, the one with "Nik Nak" the psychotic midget servant). So, we land the boat at Shannon's private jetty
and we're looking straight at the cabin! SWEET! Incidently, the boat that we got there in is parked in the photo, the photo was from when we were out in the dingy, cheating death>>> But more on that later. We were greated by Trudy, and sat sraight down for lunch. I must admit that I was looking for Nik Nak for a good portion of the time. I was however disapppointed as he did not appear. SO, we had plenty of time for doing outdoorsy type things as there is no teev in the cabin. I was a little surprised that I managed alright without it. After about 2 hours I didn't even notice there wasn't one! I have learned a few new card games. Actually, I learned them, but now I forget. Already. God damn you teev.
On this Island, there are a number of lakes for us to visit. We only got around to hiking to one of them, but it was pretty amazing. Just as in previous Canadian forrests, this one also had no smell. So weird. We did find a metal tap in it's natural habitat of the Canadian wilderness.
Smaller lake on Nelson Island
Arriving at the lake we weren't disappointed with the view. This picture simply doesn't explain how pretty it was, but hopefully you get the idea. On the hike back from the lake Sarah cried out in pain, for no apparent reason! Then we discovered she had fallen victim to a Tick! Not the kind that you want on your homework in grade 2, with a big red pen, no the kind that give you LIME DISEASE! We didn't know about the lime disease at first, Shannon's Dad filled us in later. It was a pretty gross insect that was sucking the blood from Sarah's belly region. It was Alright because Dale removed the tick without incident. Apparently the mortality rate for tick victims is quite low. Still, we were pretty impressed. So after that excitement we decided to go boating!
This was when were in the dingy. I'm not a huge dingy fan to be honest, but I'm prepared to give most things a go. So out we headed around the little bays that the Island had. It was amazing, some of the houses that have been built on this Island are just stunning. On cliffs, next to the forest
Purdy boat and water
whatever. It was sweet. Just a few moments before this shot was taken a man went past in a sea kyak/canoe thing. He nodded, although he didn't wave as I think he was too busy holding the rowing sticks. Still, it was nice. Life's better boating as they say here! So while enjoying the scenery and waving to other like minded "boaters" we were unawere of the danger lurking in the water. No, not a shark, not a croc. I'll give you a hint "It's big, it's heavy, it's wood!"... That's right you guessed it. A log.
Killer Log!
We hit this one despite me shouting "LOG". I was later informed that the most appropriate thing to have said would have been "LOG!!!" followed by the direction that the log was in. Thanks to pretty quick thinking on Shannon's behalf and some damn good log spotting by me, we only hit it at a crawl. Sarah's face was rather amusing. Sadly I dind't get a picture of it. Not to worry.
Our next major expedition was prawn hunting the following day. We managed to score a couple of shrimp and one rather large prawn that Sarah and I got to eat. Dale and Shannon told us that some Summers all you can eat is prawns cause you catch so many. Not this time, but not to worry! They were awesome. Tasty little buggers. Kinda cute and innocent looking, while they still had their heads attached anyways.
Prawn hunt with Sarah and Shannon's Dad
The next morning we pretty much cleaned up and went home. We were absolutely shattered from all of the activities and no teev. Thanks you so much to Dale, Shannon, Trudy and John. We had an absolutely sensational time! Seeing something off the tourist track was fantastic! We hope to return the favour to Shannon and John in Aus!
The gang on the Island
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on May 23, 2007 from Sechelt, Canada

I'm an Extra Terrairian
Lake Louise, Canada
Well, I've managed to slack off and not keep up the whole one entry per week. Sorry about that, I'm sure you're devastated, but I've been pretty busy you know! Can't just sit around writing blog entries all day. For God's sake! Right, so let's finish off the Vancouver chapter of our story shall we? So I finished up my week and a bit with West Coast Air. I must admit, I did have a rather pleasant time of it. Everyone was lovely and the work wasn't too hard, so it was winners on all sides really. Thursday was the day of cleaning. Megan was to return home on the Saturday, so I wanted to get everything tip top. Did you know that if you accidently inhale oven cleaner, it burns your lungs and throat!? Well it does! I wasn't doing anything other than cleaning the oven with oven cleaner, but none-the-less, it was a fairly unpleasant experience. Friday was more cleaning and generally sad to go from the house, that was until Sarah came home and we went down to the beach for a BBQ with Sarah's mates and their "Smokies". Smokies are kinda like the equivalent to the good ol' Aussie snag from coles. Not much meat in it, but extremely tasty! a few drinks and smokies later and we headed to Simon and Amber's for a drink, then Sarah and I said our goodbyes to many peeps that were good enough to turn up. That wasn't fun. Sad to leave, but happy to move on is the only way that I can put it.
Saturday morning we moved out of our place that we had called home for an all too quick three months and headed back to Amber and Simon's. Looking for something to do, some bright spark came up with the idea of heading to "Wreck" beach. Well, yes, the place is wrecked. That's because of all the nude weirdos there. Don't get me wrong, it's fine for them to be there. I suppose it is a nude beach after all, but it was... unpleasant. Basically there didn't seem to be many naturists there. I'm sure there were some, no doubt. The majority of people however seemed to be off their faces on one substance or another and just looking to get nude. I can now say I have been to a nude beach though. Fortunately, clothing was "optional". We opted to keep our clothes on. After such a disturbing experience I wasn't sure if I was going to cope with all-you-can-eat Japanese and Korean BBQ. But I struggled on! It was AWESOME! Basically for those of you not lucky enough to have experienced it, there is a nice big grill type thing in the middle of your table and you order lots or marinated meats and cook them for yourself. I know what you're thinking, "What kind of idiot pays a restaurant so that they can go and cook their own food?" Well, apparently lot's of idiots. It was SUPER tasty though, so we had fun. Once again there were a few more drinks at Amber and Simons and we turned in for the night.
Our last afternoon in Vancouver couldn't have been more ideal. Sunday arvo, we headed down to a rammed Kits beach for Bocce, picnic and yes, surprise surprise some beers! Brilliant! We lost Bocce, but won the race to the Esky, most of the time actually. Heading to the Grayhound station a bit light headed we were deifitely feeling sad that we were leaving, yet so excited it was time to go and see some stuff! WOO! Grayhound buses, for those of you who are wondering are not exactly... luxurious. They are enough to get from where you are to where you're going, but don't be surprised at the lack of lavatory technology. There is a hole. And it has blue stuff in it that smells bettter than poo, but not better than no blue stuff or poo. Sorry for being so crude, but it was something that I'm probably going to be scarred for life with. It's ok Mum, I'll survive. Right, the 15 or so hour bus trip to Lake Louise wasn't that bad at all actually, we just had a quick snooze and lots of looking at the pretty mountains. Sadly the bus was moving too quickly for piccys.
Nice shiny lake (possibly my best pic ever!)
Here in Lake Louise, the scenery is just stunning. There will be photos added to this blog sooner or later, but the internet and I are having a disagreement at the moment. Nothing serious, just a lovers tiff. Right, so we get here, dump our bags at the hostel and go hiking! Sweet, the trails were pretty nice, well trodden and clear. Getting to the top was easy and walking around lake Louise really was a nice end to the afternoon. Coming back down to the hostel wasn't without it's leg pains, but it was alright. Now, for some reason two people who try to start chainsaws with their sinus cavities checked into our room. Hostelling isn't as great as they would have you believe sometimes. So, if you SNORE like a constpated T-Rex, maybe you should consider other people's mental health and get your own room. Please.
Me and Oreo, we're good buds
Now I've got that out of my system, Tuesday (today) we had a smashing time horse riding. That's it folks, you heard correct. Tom has now ridden a horse. It wasn't without it's challenges. Oreo (my trusty steed) did attempt to go home early at one point and he was having none of my attempts to re-direct him down the way that we were supposed to go. Our guide, Steve, sorted him out good and proper though, so we were back on good terms (me and Oreo). Two and a bit hours of riding later and Oreo got a bit spooked by some other horses coming up behind us. I'm convinced that it was my pure skill and horse whispering abillity that prevented a full blown bolting. Sarah seems to think that it was Steve grabbing him and getting in the way that stopped a bolting. I like my version better. But whatever.
So now it's now and I'm pretty zonked!
Hope all are well!
Tom
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on June 5, 2007 from Lake Louise, Canada

Banff, Saskatoon and Emma Lake
Prince Albert, Canada
It would seem that there is a city missing from every Australian map. Perhaps that would be better phrased as “every map of Australia”. Apparently Banff, Alberta, Canada is also a city in Australia. “What?” you say, well it’s like this; after the magic of Lake Louise and the Banff national park, we left early in the morning for Banff. Upon arriving at our hostel, we were… well, I want to say greeted, but that’s not really the case. We were tolerated by the front desk attendant, who was gracious enough to inform us that check-in was not until 3pm (It was 8:30am). We could put our bags in their storage locker. Sorry, by storage locker I mean trash pile behind a broken fence. I wouldn’t have been so offended if it weren’t for the slack mouthed Australian chick pouting so much about doing her job. Ok, fine. It was fine. I calmed down after a bacon and egg McMuffin. It then became apparent that the people who weren’t speaking Australian (yes, that’s Australian) were the tourists, all the people who were speaking Uztray-yun were in fact the locals. The scenery was pretty and we did manage to meet some people who weren’t from Australia, but overall I have to say that I was disappointed with Banff. Certainly not a patch on Lake Louise. I think the skiing and snow boarding is the big thing there, so seeing as we were there during the cross-over between snow and sun, we were probably a bit unlucky with the weather. Not to worry though, we managed to hike a bit too! Sarah was leading me out of town when we came to what looked like a walking track. “Let's see what's down there" said Sarah "Ok" said Tom. So we wandered down this track. I couldn't help but feel like I was being led down the garden path. I can confirm that bears do indeed sh*t in the woods. We didn't catch Yogi pinching one off or anything, but we did find what appeared to be bear poo. It might not have been, but it was fun to say that it was. We did manage to see a deer, but it was scared of Sarah so it ran away. Fair enough really. hehehehee. Only joking. So after a hike up Tunnel Mountain and a few more snap shots, we headed back to the hostel, checked our email and headed for Saskatoon! Only a 15 hour bus ride, pretty short by our standards really.
Rockin' out with Stu
When people told us that Saskatchewan, which is the province that my mate Stu lives in, was flat, I sorta went "yeah yeah, course it is, whatever". Now I realise why they felt it necessary to mention. I don't think we actually made a turn between when we crossed from Alberta to Saskatchewan until we were about 10kms from the bus depot. Stu arrived at 05:30 to pick us up, sporting an Australian flag and chanting Aussie Aussie Aussie! We were most impressed! So not have seen Stu for a couple of years we had to do all of the mandatory catching up and general banter. I'm sure that Sarah was bored out of her mind, not having been present for most of the stories we were reciting. Excellent to catch up. No sooner had we arrived though and we were on our way again with Stu, Amanada and Andrew, Amanda's son.
You know we need a lot of stuff
We need quite a lot of stuff for four days away, and we made sure that we jammed everything into Stu's VW Jetta. Nice little car that one. So the two hour-ish ride to Emma lake was FLAT. I mean not one hill on the way. Sure, over say 20kms we might have gone up or down a foot or two, but really, it is that flat. Upon arriving at Stu's cabin, Stu entertained all of us by squealing when he went into the cabin to clean out the spiders. We were most impressed with his show of courage and stoic resolve to rid the cabin of cobwebs. You'd think with all the travelling that we'd be pretty well relaxed by now. It turns out we weer able to get even more relaxed by spending a few days at the cabin. The most active thing we did was probably canoeing, but it was with a difference. We were towing a dingy behind us with Andrew and Amanda in it for a bit, then we were towin Stu, then they got to tow me! Sounds pretty fair really.
Don't get any ideas Sarah
One of the higlights for me about Emma lake was the opportunity to buy fireworks! Not a brilliant idea after a few cans of lager, no, but we bought a "Dragon's Egg" and set it off. We were completely sober anyways, so it didn't matter. You can tell we hadn't been drinking because the video of the rocket going up has my not drunk maniacal laugh in the background when the rocket goes off! Sweet!
The dock at Emma Lake
After our four days at the lake it was time ot come home. Stu had to go back to work in Saskatoon. Poor bugger. Hat off to him for not calling in sick though, I know I'd be tempted. Especially if there were a few drinks in it for me. We've basically been sitting around and updating blogs/photos/emails for the past day now. Stu has brilliantly let us hog his internet connection, so we're pretty stoked. Next stop is a place called THUNDER bay. Hoping to see some THUNDER there. Then it's Toronto. WOOWOOO!
Hope all are well.
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on June 13, 2007 from Prince Albert, Canada

Jump in the waterfall, it's REALLY safe!
Thunder Bay, Canada
Leaving Saskatoon to go to Thunder Bay was a slightly sad experience. It had been absolutely fantastic to see Stu and hang out for a week or so. Also, meeting Amanda and Andrew was great! Arriving into Thunder Bay after 20 hours on a bus was... Interesting. The cab driver at the Greyhound station insisted that the place we were going did not exist. "Do you wanna stay at the Super 8 motel?" "No, please take us where we asked to go" "Ok, but I'm pretty sure you want the Super 8, Machar St is pretty sleazy" "Please, just take us to this address" "Ok". Right, so we arrive at the hostel, open the door and we're greeted directly by the owner! They must have known that we were pretty important. Lovely lady, more of a converted house than hostel, but the welcome was sensational. So we settle in, decide to go shopping for some food (side note, it's pissing down with rain). So we head out, find the the local supermarket is shut due to lightning strike and power outage. No problem. Head back, get changed for a nice pub dinner, lock the room, asking for a key on our return. We stumbled on why the cabbie told us Machar street was a bit sleazy.
Sleazy Street
About four porno stores, less than a two minute walk away. Sarah was in heaven. They had private "viewing" rooms in them too apparently. I know if I open a porno store, that is going to be in BOLD print on my sign. Sadly the pub was full, so we walked, bought our staples (bacon and eggs) and headed back to the hostel. The nice hostel owner then informed us that she was unable to locate a key for our room. Which was locked. I managed to find the key, un-marked on a coffee table next to the sofa. Weird. So after a pretty hectic/weird day we retired for the evening. Although we were invited to the farmer's market in the morning we didn't go (I thought Sarah would try and sell me to a farmer).
We did however take up the invitation to go to the falls and river with the hostel owner. "You can jump in, it's really safe" was what we were told. The falls however look like this:
Jump in this... yeah... right
and the water was pretty high. Neither Sarah or I were game, although seeing as Sarah hasn't tried to murder me recently, I guess she egged me on a bit. Now, this wasn't exactly the kind of place that everyone gets to visit in Thunder Bay. We had to trespass, lead by the hostel owner and we had to park the mini-van in some out of the way dirt road and put the hazard lights on. So seeing as we'd gone to all that effort, we weren't leaving without someone jumping into the waterfall. Of that much we were fairly certain. Carlos, the awesome Spanish dude we met at the hostel was going to be the one that took up the challenge.
Brave Spanish Carlos
And just to give you some perspective of the size of these falls:
Clever guy
This is one of five locals jumping in to the wash from about 5 meters. Crazy.
Look at my "piece" (not really ;) )
We were lucky enough to get taken to another locals only swimming place by our intrepid hostel owning guide. It was pretty awesome there too, although there were no falls. There was however a nice rocky outcrop to jump off! Brilliant! Another local who happened to be there showed us how to climb up and generally jump off logs etc. Don't worry Mum, I was very careful, and I'm pretty sure my travel insurance covers falling off cliffs that were climbed for the purpose of jumping! It's fine!
Post days excitement, we headed to the Greyhound station and waited for the bus. I think I had the misfortune of eating the worst hotdog on earth. No photos sadly, but trust me, it was horrid. Our all too short time in Thunder bay ended, but the excitement was not over yet. The Police arrive at the bus station, I was worried they'd find out about that key of "H" that Sarah is smuggling for the cartels, but it turned out they were dropping off Big Ted and his accomplice from certain crimes committed in Thunder Bay. The nice policeman wouldn't leave until he saw the crooks get on the Bus with us. This made me a little uneasy at first, but I didn't catch either of them trying to half inch any of my stuff during the bus ride.
Everyone can afford the Greyhound, even Big Ted
On to Toronto
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on June 18, 2007 from Thunder Bay, Canada

Yo, ya ma.
Toronto, Canada
If I had to describe Toronto in one word, and one word only... It would be... "better-than-Thunder-Bay". Hyphens make more than one word into one word right? Good, I thought so :) The Greyhound ride to Toronto from Thunder Bay was actually not as harrowing as I thought it might be. Probably because we're getting used to these ridiculously long bus rides. If I had to guess. Still, there were moments when I thought I was going to go troppo. But it never happened.
The hostel we're staying in here is pretty awesome. Not far from the bus station, you walk past the University of Toronto and down the equivalent of perhaps Brunswick St and then you're more or less there. A short walk. It's been hot though, so we were absolutely stinking. Sweet everywhere. Yuck. Not to worry, we got to check in and put away our stuff no hassles. The "Much Music" awards were apparently happening on the main road, outside one of the major Canadian TV stations. As Hilary Duff, Avril Lavigne and myself have all had a falling out over a bagel recently we snubbed them and didn't go to watch the performances, had a bite to eat and generally pottered around.
University Street
The Monday however, we got our act together in the early afternoon and headed out for some sight-seeing. Not before some bacon and eggs, though. Essential sight-seeing food if you ask me. There seem to be a lot of statues around here. To be perfectly honest I got a little bit bored of reading all of the descriptions on them. So I stopped after the first one, but that didn't stop me from taking a ridiculous number of photos. I was surprised to find that me and my trusty steed Oreo had been immortalized in Bronze in the middle of a Canadian city park. We were pretty happy about that though (Oreo and I).
Whoa! Me and Oreo in Bronze
This city is actually really beautiful, and reminded me of Melbourne more than Vancouver ever did. The fact that it reaches as low as -30C on a regular basis during winter would probably convince me otherwise though. Still, we had a pretty sweet time walking around and generally checking out the tourist trail. Of course, we couldn't go to a city without checking out the brewery that was closest to our hostel now could we? The Steam Whistle brewery was only a stone's throw away, so we headed there for a well deserved pilsner and free bottle opener.
Inside Sweet Brewery
This brewery was pretty sweet, they fed us up with free samples, took us around, told us history and generally had a laugh with us. Not a bad craic at all. Lovely hospitality. bit tipsy and full of great ideas we decided to head up the world's tallest building as our very next activity. Of course, I'm talking about the CN tower. This thing is stupid large. I mean, like really stupid. What I found really interesting about the place is that someone actually bothered to drop an egg down the middle of the thing (obviously on the inside) and make it not break. Now, I'm not adverese to the occasional frivolous activity, but seriously... An egg... 300 meters of air... and the ground. "Gee, let's see if we can make it not break!" . I just hope tax payer $$$ was not involved!
Dreaming of falling?
A bit more walking around, taking photos and general pottering and that was our day. Sadly we missed the second brewery tour that we were planning on doing at another of Toronto's local brew houses, but we did pop and see the "Music Garden" that was designed with the help of Yo Yo Ma and some other notable music types. While not overwhelming, it was nice to see some purdy flowers and take some piccys and stuff. Didn't really see how the trees related to the garden, but seeing as I don't have perfect pitch and I can't read the sheet music that was on all the placards, I think I was always going to have trouble with that. After a real espresso coffee, a couple of pints of beer and some poo-tine, we now find ourselves in the hostel, looking forward to our dinner.
Hope everyone is well and having a nice time! Niagra falls and Montreal tomorrow!
Yo Yo Ma's Purple flower
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on June 19, 2007 from Toronto, Canada

chirpy birds must die
Montreal, Canada
Well, a very good morning to everyone. It is now about 6:30am, which is a whole hour past when I dragged myself out of bed this morning. I know, it's not the bird's fault that it has to chirp it's happy little chirping. Nor is it the bird's fault that I had a skin full last night and am now hung over, but I would just like for it to stop. For just a few minutes. Not to worry. Montreal has been sensational to say the least! We arrived and instantly booked another night (seeing as we couldn't find 2 days worth of stuff to do at Niagara Falls). Having walked around a bit and done some general meandering, we booked two more nights! Brilliant!
More old Montreal, looking at city hall
So of course, Montreal is in Quebec, and they speak French here. My Quizical looks at the beggars asking me for money in French (either that or making interesting fashion commentry and asking to be paid for their opinions) told them that I was a foreigner, so they had to start the whole story again in English. The answer still a resounding "Non". Still, I was impressed with their language skills. The place is nothing like anywhere else that we've been in Canada. The architechture, logically, is much more "French" and the booze is at European prices (*cheep*). Sarah and I were naturally at home. Or so we thought. Possibily the most bizare scene I have ever happened across was in one of the parks near where we are staying. Picture this, there is shouting and fighting and general chaos. You prentend you're dead until everyone else is "dead" on the battle field and then you start all over again. Yep, knights in plate armour, weilding what appeared to be swords and other such weapons made from pool noodle material were belting the shit out of each other, pretending to be dead, then doing it ll over again! Hilarious!
Noodle fighters
The dudes in the armour were obviously serious about their hobby, and there was plenty of effort in the costumes, so we were rather impressed. I know pool noodles don't really hurt, but I still wouldn't like to have one wrapped around my head. So while all of this excitement is going on, about 200 meters away, a cannibis-haze is floating into the sky from a drumming cirlce. I thought it was impromtu, but the locals later told us that it was in fact a weekly event, as was the noodle fighting. So, basically, for a good time in Montreal, take your pool noodle swords and your drum to the park, and when you're done beating the hell out of the other noodle flingers, you can go and drum with the hippies! Fantastic. I was absolutely gutted that I had left both my bogos and my pool noodle sword at home. Not to worry.
Old Montreal Port
Still, with all the excitement, we've had plenty of time for relaxing. Moving on today to Quebec city, which apparently should be interesting as not as many people speak English. I was entertained greatly by an Australian girl in the bus station informing everyone that the Quebec locals spoke very "poor" English. Yes, love, that's right, they speak FRENCH. Although daunted, we're not going to let it stop us doing anything. We have purchased a phrase book, quite useful actually, and Sarah will no doubt pick it up pretty quickly. Apparently there are quite a few similarities between French and Spanish, so should be no problem. Otherwise, I hope all are well and not too boozed! Take it easy.
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on June 26, 2007 from Montreal, Canada

I think we should buy a toaster
Quebec, Canada
"Je ne parle pa francais". I remember that from French. To be more precise, I remember that from year seven French taught by Madam Parker. She was a nasty lady. Probably still is. So, when I say I don't speak French, it's probably very lucky that there are so many people in French-Canadia that speak enough English for us to get by! Phew! Montreal was a hoot, Quebec was... Interesting. Arriving at the hostel, we were greated by a nice lady who gave us our things (sheets etc) and told us that it was essential that we put our "valuables" in the safe. Incidentily, the safe was in fact a locked cupboard. I was a little concerned about her enthusiasm for having all of our valuables in the one place and was even further alarmed when we were told that there were no locks on the doors. So, this was essentially the safest or more accurately, the most secure hostel in the world. No problem, just walk in, no security, walk up the stairs, to a room that doesn't have a lock on it, pick up whatever you would like and off you go, into the street. We moved the next day to one of the best hostels that I've stayed in.
Yep, sure do like statues
Enough griping! Quebec city is a much more stunning place than I had ever imagined. Even the bus station there is awesome! Like some kind of spired bat-mansion that Bruce Wayne would be all too happy to live in! Awesome! The city itself has loads of history about it, which I'm not going into, but trust me, it was impressive. So if Montreal was like Europe, then I'm not entirely sure how I would describe Quebec city. The buildings were AWESOME, the castle/hotels were beautiful and the locals were extremely friendlly. We ended up staying a whole extra day, although to be perfectly honest, after that long we were struggling with the French. It was at that point that Sarah suggested we buy a toaster. That's not going to help your Frecnch I hear you say. No, but Sarah though that it might save us some money, after all, she doesn't like sandwiches, but she does like toast. More on that later.
We spent most of our time in Quebec city wandering around, the whole place is a warren, not like from Broady, more like how the rabbits make. So there were endless lanes, alleyways and general winding roads to explore. The first night that we were there, we decided that we were going to go and watch the sun set. I thought this was a brilliant and romantic idea. When we arrived at the most Western point of the city with the sun going down, we were a little surprised to see that the most beautiful sun setting I have ever seen was punctuated by power lines and tower blocks. Still, it was lovely. What I think I have enjoyed most about Quebec and Quebec city has been the contrast with the rest of Canada. The currency is the same and the federal government is the same, but the people just seem so completely different. It's amazing. There are probably so many similarities between French-Canada and Europe that there isn't enough time to talk about it here, but if you have the time or the inclination then I highly recommend coming here for a looky see.
So Sarah suggests we buy a toaster. I laugh. Heading back towards Boston, we get the greyhound, just like we have every other time we've gone from one city to another on this trip. I told her, sure, not a problem, as long as you're going to carry it. When we got to Ottawa there were some more passengers with some kitchen utensils and one of them happened to be a crock pot. Had Sarah decided to purchase her toaster then the only thing that would have been missing for a whole kitchen was the kitchen sink.
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on July 1, 2007 from Quebec, Canada

Long time between drinks. Not for me.
Boston, United States
Well, I've been extremely lazy updating this thing, so here goes with a bit of a rant and blog.
Let me tell you about the best bus trip in the world.
The first thing that you have to do, is be in Ottawa, Canada. Not an unpleasant bus station at all actually. I wouldn't say that it's the Taj Mahal of bus stations, but it is clean, there is coffee and generally speaking it's "nice". Ok, the second thing you need to do is get the bus to Boston MA via Syracuse NY. The bus to Syracuse will probably be empty, or have very few people on it. When you cross the border form Canada to the U.S. explain your prescription drugs and dual passports to the border guard. They have guns, so don't piss them off. If you're female, I highly recommend putting your toiletries in a highly accessible section of your bag. If you're lucky enough to get a male customers officer, the shade of scarlet that he'll turn when he searches your things is priceless. Thanks to Sarah for that one. Ok, now, get back on the bus assuming that they've not found those couple of keys of Charlie that you're obviously smuggling in... Well, I suppose that you're probably going to try and work in the states illegally (every body wants to according to the border guard). Right anyways. Get back on the bus, and a couple of hours later find yourself in lovely Syracuse NY. You have to change buses here. The distinctive smell of urine coming from the terminal is just delightful. Also, the crack addicts who work at Subway (EAT FRESH!) will be very helpful when they make your sandwich. Ok. You're halfway there. Only 10 more hours to Boston! You're jumping on a bus that's come from Toronto, so there will already be people on it. Lots of people. Well, not like it's full or anything but if the bus is half full and those people all take up more than one seat then i guess you could say that the bus is full. If the familiar smell of urine is not present on this Greyhound bus, you're probably in the wrong place. Don't panic when the driver shuts the CAGE DOOR that seperates you from the front of the bus. No no no, it doesn't put him in a sealed section, it sections off the passenger bit from the door. Reassuring when it comes to having a crash actually. For the next ten hours try do stem the flow of water onto your thing because people take cups of water and put them under their seats. I read recently in TIME magazine the Americans are boycotting drink bottles as the contents doesn't spill out when they're tipped over. Also, apparently "the bathroom" in a greyhound bus in it's entirity is for collecting wee. Accidently pished on the floor? Don't worry! It's meant to be like that. Apparently. Of course, this can flow into the passenger section. And that's how it should be right? After 10 hours... YOU'VE MADE IT!
Boston is nothing like a greyhound bus in the states. I couldn't smell wee, and for most of the time people weren't spilling into the area that I was sitting on. If I was sitting down that is! We had an awesome time here. Sterotypes really were blown out of the water here for me. It was nothing like the US that we know and love from Hollywood. I suppose that's a given. London contrary to popular folk stories called "East Enders" isn't full of people selling lighters, 5 for a paaand. So I guess it follows about the states. The HI hostel there really is nice and if you get there and have the chance, pop and get pizza from the one around the corner from the hostel. $4 for a pitcher of beer! Brilliant!
We arrived and went straight to the Samuel Adams brewery for a tour. It was pretty fun, we were actually touring a research and development brewery, which was interesting. Apparently Samuel Adams beer has won awards in Australia. I had not heard of it before going to the states. Whatever. It was good as the tour was free and so was the beer. They gave us a glass to keep as well. While we were in the tasting room a young chap (who apparently was by himself) sat opposite Sarah and I. He seemed to be somewhat inexperienced in beer pouring though. Now get me wrong, if you open a bottle of beer and it stats to spray everywhere, by all means, stick it in your mouth and get loads of grief from your mates for looking like you're performing sexual favours to your beer. BUT if you can't poor a beer and some froths up and spills over the table, do not under any circumstances slurp it off the table. That's what our inexperienced beer pouring friend did. Delightful.
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on July 4, 2007 from Boston, United States

A city that never sleeps
New York, United States
There seems like so much to do in New York, and there really is! Cliched, sure, but true all the same. We arrived in to the bus station sometime in the afternoon and were aghast at how stupidly and insanely large this joint was. About 87 gates for buses. Buses EVERYWHERE. As we've already discussed the general clientele of Greyhound USA, I think you can probably appreciate why I superglued my wallet to the inside of my underpants. Strangely, for being so large, NYC is actually rather easy to navigate. The subway isn't quite as handy as the tube, but it's pretty impressive and it does run 24 hours! Broadway is every bit as movie like as you can imagine. I did look in Central Park for the pigeon lady from Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, but I couldn't find her. I can never remember if it's Streets or Avenues that go North South?
Our hostel/hotel was rather pleasant and on Broadway, which by the way is a VERY long road. So we got in, settled and went exploring. I can understand why they made Central Park so massive. They have so many people that don't have gardens or anything, all jammed into this city, so they need somewhere for them to play baseball, and somewhere to take their dogs. So it is rather community friendly and the ambience quite unique. The hot dog venders were a bit of a disappointment to me though, I was expecting thick NY accents and barrels of attitude. Sadly there wasn't any NY accent (more central asian) and they were extremely helpful and friendly! I'm not complaining, but I am surprised! We walked all the way from our hostel to times square on the first night and ended up in Toys'R'Us. I wouldn't ordinarily mention this, however, there was an INDOOR ferris wheel. That's crazy I hear you say, well wait there's more. They also have a full size(ish) Barbie fun house. I was kinda impressed and disturbed at the same time that there is Oktoberfest Barbie. By the looks of her, she'd have trouble carrying a dozen steins of pilsner in a beer tent, but she would be popular with the lads. Sarah said that people would look at me funny if I kept wearing the Optimus Prime helmet in the store, so I took it off. I didn't buy it either. But I did keep pressing the button that made the helmet say "Megatron must be stopped!". Sweet. I hope Santa reads this.
Unfortunantely it feels like we really didn't get to do much stuff while we were in NY, there is just so much to do. We did manage to get to the Met Museum of art though. I don't know anything about art, but I'm reasonably sure that if you take a piece of canvas, stretch it over a funny shaped timber frame, paint it deep blue and call it "Blue Canvas" you're not an artist, you're a knob. That said, there were some absolutely stunning pieces of art.
With so much history as well. My favourite part was the arms and armour section, they had suits of armour that were hundreds of years old, with the most ornate and intricate metal work I have ever seen. They did look difficult to get off if you needed to evacuate your bladder mid-battle. Much to my dismay they had taken the handles off some very old and beautiful Japanese swords. I meant to ask why they did that, but I forgot and/or was to lazy. After about four and a half hours of walking around we'd seen nearly a fifth of the entire place, but our legs were getting a bit tired, so we called it a day. We did leave feeling more cultured than when we walked in, that's for sure. I think I'm going to make strange shaped canvases, paint them one colour and sell them for a million dollars each, anyone interested in purchasing one, please feel free to email me through this site.
Other fun things that we did included: going to Staten Island to go past the Statue of Liberty, Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on foot (more fun than it sounds), and uhmm.... eating lots of bacon cheeseburgers from the fast food joint around the corner from the hostel, and going to Wall Street. Got the American Psycho feeling from the place though... Wasn't nice. But a very pretty building.
Next week join us for London!
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on July 5, 2007 from New York, United States

Lundun innit
London, United Kingdom
Moving from New York to London presents no significant problems. The cities have much in common, although they are of course nothing alike. Something that truly did my head in at JFK however was that there is no outbound customs. Completely different from Australia where the friendly customs service send you off with a smile and “look forward to seeing you again soon”. Nope, just check in, go through the frisking process (which I quite enjoyed) and sit in the departures area at the gates. How bizarre. I was happy to be wearing flip-flops as I always get funny looks when I’m wearing my steel-toed boots on the planes. Usually the X-ray people raise their eyebrows.
Anyways, London is much as I remembered it, full of foreigners. I think had it not been for staying with Matt and Jo, we might not have actually met any English people what so ever! Jo was spectacular and picked us up from the airport. We had purchased some duty free including Bombay Sapphire Gin for Matt and Jo and two litres of Bacardi for ourselves. Sadly the Bacardi was never to make it into our blood stream. We accidentally left it on the baggage trolley in the car park at Heathrow. This was distressing for a few reasons. First of all, we forgot our booze, which would be enough in itself, but when you consider the state of terror alert at airports is quite high, and they insist that you don’t leave ANYTHING un-attended anywhere in the airport, we had pangs of guilt about leaving an unmarked white bag on a trolley. I had visions of an S.O.19 firearms squad surveying the car park, guns drawn and ready. Secondly the though of the bomb disposal robot teetering up to the trolley and safely detonating our Bacardi. What is more likely of course is that come chav trolley boy got his nightly booze action for free. How annoying.
Jo and Matt live quite close to Heathrow, so it was only a short drive til we got in and Jo looked after us sensationally. Fed, boozed and amused. Brilliant. As for the usual tradition of the Hardies getting me to the point of being sick from booze, it did not eventuate on this time around. Trevor the cat did introduce herself (yes, herself) during the week and we were all too pleased to pay out plenty of attention.
As for London activities, well, we popped to Manor House, which is where I used to live and had a Kebab at the best Kebab house in Britain, Yayla. In true kebab form, mine was sick all over my crotch. Garlic sauce on blue shorts, just near the flies, in the middle of the day looks incriminating for so many reasons. Sarah was entirely amused until her kebab was sick on her as well. Fortunately it was not quite as sick as mine was, so she was spared the embarrassment of garlic sauce on the crotch. We also took in the usual sights, Trafalgar Square, Oxford Circus, Picadilly Circus etc etc. The weather was decidedly not English so we managed to get somewhat of a tan, which was a pleasant surprise. We also made the pilgrimage to Belushi’s in Covent Garden where the Corona’s are always two for one before 8pm. It’s quite easy to over indulge in the heat with cheap Coronas. There were however no nudie runs, much to my dismay.
Sarah left for Edinburgh for job interviews and house hunting four days later and I pretty much exhausted Sky+ at Matt and Jo’s until I moseyed on up behind her. Tell you about that next! Big thank yous to Jo and Matt for everything!
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on August 5, 2007 from London, United Kingdom

Let's all eat haggis and lard
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
After a nine hour bus ride, I step into the town and instantly feel like I’m at Hogwarts. Considering I caught the bus as opposed the Hogwarts Express, and considering that Hagrid wasn’t there to meet me obviously I was wrong. This town (well, the old part) has turrets, battlements and all manner of old type things that make you feel like you’re in the middle ages somehow. Personally I love it! Only a short walk to the hostel and there were all manner of pointy monuments and stone buildings. It’s truly is beautiful here. The weather is possibly not what I had expected for Summer, although we are quite far North and according to the locals it has been a rather mild Summer. No more tanning, sure, but that’s alright, I think I’ve reached my optimum brown anyways. Although it is fading.
So, for the uninformed, Sarah is working for Scottish and Newcastle, who happen to be one of the largest brewers in the U.K. Although she did apply to the product development section to be a taster, she has found herself working for the accounts people. The number bods required her accounting skills. Testers are apparently not in short supply. Not to worry. Reception at the site where Sarah is working is in fact a bar. It took me quite a while to get sorted with work. After about a week of handing out resumes and people guaranteeing to get back to me via telephone and them not I was lucky enough to score a job about 200 metres from our flat. Oh, by the way, we’re staying in a place called Stockbridge, in the North West of Edinburgh. So I’m back in a bar, which is proving to be a great deal more interesting than staring at a file room for three months, although the hours are slightly less regular! Not to worry, the people and the venue are brilliant, so it should be great fun. I am looking forward to getting down to visit the family, although I think that by then I will be well knackered. Thing is, not working for nine weeks and then going to a job that is all on my feet is proving to be a killer!
The Edinburgh Fest has started this month as well, we’re looking forward to hitting up a few shows. I am most looking forward to “One Man Starwars”. We’ll see. As a total nerd and fan of the franchise I’m interested to see how this chap pulls it off. I mean how can you go from being Yoda to being Chewbacca in one go? I don’t know either, but I’m interested to find out. Also, I’m hoping to find out where he gets his light sabers from, I could do with one “just in case” you know.
Disappointingly I haven’t managed to embarrass myself to much recently. I did launch a small bottle of sparkling mineral water at a customer yesterday. She was very understanding and I didn’t draw blood. They even tipped. Imagine if I hadn’t been so clumsy. I guess we’ll never know.
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on August 6, 2007 from Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Respite from blog
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Just a very short note to say "Thank you" to everyone for reading thus far! We have settled in Edinburgh and will be here for some time. Around 6 months at the moment. This does however mean that the updates are going to be far far less frequent/interesting.
The usual mailing list victims will be notified of any updates if and when they arrive.
Until that time photos may be added at random intervals, or you can find them here:
http://boriscam.deviantart.com
Take care everyone!
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on August 16, 2007 from Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Back on the blog trail
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Tip Jar
Well. So long since an entry. I'd like to say that there has been an awful lot of news, but alas there has sort of been a minimum. What have we been up to? Well, Sarah has been working extremely hard for her brewery people. I think it is appropriate that the reception area at her office is a bar. But. Believe it or not the alcohol intake of this couple has been severely reduced in the last two months or so. Saving up has been a sober experience, that's for sure.
Crosby, Gormley's men
As for myself well. I've been learning all sorts of interesting things while working in the bar. It seems that things don't really change based on where you are in the world in terms of the job of being a bartender. The bar that I work in is one of the busiest bars in the "suburbs" so we have an interesting time. Coming up to Xmas though we've been a little quiet. I guess people are trying to save up money for all those Xmas presents of the screaming kiddies.
We're heading to Norway for Xmas with John and Kath, so watch this space!
Leith Demolitions
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on December 2, 2007 from Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Snowboarding requires your fly to be done up
Lillehammer, Norway
First things first.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and all that! I trust everyone had a nice time and will get nice and messy on NYE.
So, as per the plan that we made nearly 12 months ago, we ended up in Norway for Xmas. There was however a twist to the story. Rather than spend our time in Oslo, the capital, John and Kath had the idea that it might be nice to go to the snow for Xmas. Having never seen snow on Christmas Day before and not wanting to miss out, we were quick to say yes. Now, being the snow it was necessary to do some kind of snow activity. In my case it was learning to snowboard. Sarah is a very competent skier so she was fine. Mine however was a tale of injury and aching joints!
The train ride to Lillehammer from Oslo is about 2 hours. We were fortunate enough to have an old type train carriage with compartments rather than the new ones that just have seats everywhere. Immediately we commandeered an empty compartment and the hilarity began. I can't really explain what we were giggling about or laughing hysterically for, but it had something to do with a story involving a man being bonked on the head with a plank of wood by his Mrs while she shouted surprise.
Anyways, back to Lillehammer. The little town that we stayed in was called Hafjell, about 20mins out of Lillehammer and John had very kindly organised a 3 bedroom apartment for us. Smashing little place and plenty of room in the fridge.
Second day we went and hired our gear for the snow, one snowboard for me, two skis for Sarah and a pair of boots each. The man in the shop asked Sarah "what size skis do you want?" Sarah replied "I don't know". The man in the shop than said with a rather confused (concerned?) look on his face "you don't do this very often do you?". I on the other hand sounded like the consummate professional as I requested a 154cm snowboard with "ratchet bindings please". It's important to point out at this point that I had never before been snowboarding.
John and Kath were extremely helpful in teaching me. Of course, no amount of teaching makes anyone any good at anything unless you learn something. I was learning the hard way. I did however perfect my technique of giving in to gravity, whereby I would simply throw out my arms and land heavily on my back/butt. I don't care what anyone says. Snow is made of ice. Ice is hard and hurts when you fall on it. The hurting was ok for a while. I did start to get a bit cold though. Of course it wasn't until later that I realised the reason I was getting cold was because the zipper of my snow pants was undone. So everytime I fell down (about 5 or 6 times a minute) snow would get in and make me cold. This took me about four hours on the mountain to figure out. whoops.
So the rest of the trip we spent in our little snow house, getting a bit boozy (it was Xmas after all) and nursing our wounds.
Overall a smashing trip to Norway! John and Kath both spectacular snowboarding teachers and tour guides!
Cheers!
written by  haveyouseenmypassport on December 29, 2007 from Lillehammer, Norway

80's action shot of frisbee! BRILLIANT

Sarah is grumpy cause she can't catch... women.

Amber, entertained by naked table top dancing monkey (off camera)

Bus riding! WOWOOO

Sarah tried to kill me with fire. She killed the book good too

The sun through polarised sunnies and clouds

Near the yacht club in Kits

Kits Beach Monday afternoon

Dinner with Dick and Mike! Brilliant!

Booze. Well, it used to be

Bye bye Mr. Hair

Kits beach. Twilight. Lovely

Me and Scare Bear

Mirror Lake... No mirror though

Me and Oreo, we're good buds

Nice shiny lake (possibly my best pic ever!)

Chateau Lake Louise

Rockin' out with Stu

Don't get any ideas Sarah

You know we need a lot of stuff

The dock at Emma Lake

Sarah wouldn't let me bite her

City Hall

Dreaming of falling?

Cows in Wall

CN Tower from U.T.

Whoa! Me and Oreo in Bronze

Is that a Queen hand movement?

Not sure what this joint is

Pretty photographer (I got her number)

Inside Sweet Brewery

Sweet Brewery

Nice Teev

University Street

Clever guy

Brave Spanish Carlos

Jump in this... yeah... right

Nice and tranquil

Look at my "piece" (not really ;) )

Everyone can afford the Greyhound, even Big Ted

Sleazy Street

Yo Yo Ma's Maypole

My favourite flower, music garden Toronto

Pinky flower, music garden

Yo Yo Ma's Purple flower

Waterfront, Toronto

green

Silly Boat Driver

There are two bits of falls?

Want to go to USA? Take this bridge

Famous bit of Niagara Falls

Lillies

The really secret Garden

Pesky Seagull

Secret Garden

Clean Birdie

More old Montreal, looking at city hall

Old Montreal

Church. Montreal

Old Montreal Port

Noodle fighters

This is my "Blue Steel"

Yep, sure do like statues

I think I like statues

Flower pot made of flowers

Quebec old building

Glasgow Necropolis

Top of Arthur's Seat

The path to arthur's seat

Comely Bank Stairs

Clumber Park Tree

Leith Demolitions

Hectors Alley

Rainbow

Tip Jar

George Street

Walking