Vancouver

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I waved Mick and Lucy off at the bus station in Jasper and spent the next three hours alone until my train arrived to take me over to Vancouver. I think those three hours were the only 3 hours I've spent on my own since leaving New York, it actually felt quite odd not being with the others despite it literally only being for a few hours.

I saw a train pulling into the station an hour before I was due to board so I headed down to the platform to see if I could board early. I saw two lads with backpacks getting off the train and asked then if it was the train to Vancouver. They were from Switzerland and they'd just arrived from Toronto and were going to be staying in Jasper then heading across to Vancouver in a couple of days. They knew I was alone and had an hour to wait and so very kindly waited with me until I could board and bought me a coffee. In return I told them all they needed to know about Jasper. We swapped emails and they should be coming to the hostel here tomorrow.

So, I got back on the train, the train I was so keen to leave behind 2 weeks ago, for my 18 hour journey. It actually turned out to be a lot better than I thought it would be. I met a guy from Pensivalia who was a folk musician with a guitar, so we spent a good couple of hours up in the sky dome having a sing along which was really cool. The scenery coming through the rockies was unbelievable, and with the music playing, and being alone, it was a good time to reflect on the past few weeks. I good time to relax and switch off my mind. It was also actually very strange to see a river that was flowing having been in places where all water was frozen!

My train actually arrived 40 minutes early into Vancouver. I had no idea where I was going, only that I needed to get the sky train into Downtown. I walked into the station with a slightly anxious feeling inside, until I saw Mick walking towards me! He'd gotten up early especially to meet me from my train. :o)

I got to the hostel just in time for my free breakfast! That morning Lucy and I spent walking around Stanley Park. The sun was beaming and the grass was so green. We must have walked about 9km around the park then we trecked back to the hostel. We headed to the shops to buy pasta to cook, only to come back to the hostel to discover there wasn't in fact a hob, just a microwave. Plan 2...Sushi, and it was gorgeous! Later that night, Mick and I headed out of town to view a house that he was thinking about moving into. We took the bus full of weirdos, and I mean absolute psychos! It took about half an hour longer than we thought it would and we missed the stop. We grabbed a hot chocolate in starbucks and then realised it was 10:15pm and too late to view the room. You loose all track of time when you're travelling, especially when you don't own a watch! We got back to the hostel, fell asleep in the lounge and got chucked out by a really moody canadian.

This morning, a friend of mine who lives 5 minutes away from my hostel, picked Lucy and I up and drove us to Capilano suspension bridge in the temperal rainforest. It was really pretty walking through the trees but very expensive for what it was. We then had an invite to Paul's sisters house for lunch which was very nice too. We're all off out tonight to Granville Island for someones surprise birthday party, have know idea who the person is but still...should be fun. NOt quite sure what the plan is for the next three weeks, but Paul and his girlfriend are going away from Thursday-Sunday and have said I can stay in their appartment for free. I'll probably be going away for a few days to from Monday-Wednesday, possibly to Whistler, and then head back to downtown. Who knows!

I'm still having fun x

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