family, crapastoric park n the death of a husband

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Current mood: exhausted


where to start?

i guess an update of where i am would be helpful to those who dont know...im spendinga week n a half exploring Alberta! wooh!

on the 4th of july we bussed it to Vancouver n stayed at the HI which was much nicer than samesun over the road. ( i plan to stay there when i fly out of canada in september) we watched the movie 'The Waitress' which was really sweet, except i got lost in the cinema and couldnt find the theatre my bad, i swear im getting dumber as each day goes by n my sense of direction is appalling!

we flew to Calgary on the 9th which was awesome coz it was only a 2hr flight. it had some amazing views of the rockies but i didnt get any photos coz i had an aisle seat. omg the weather was so hot that day i nearly died walking to the b'n'b. it didnt help that i was wearing my hugeass backpack and i walked down 11th avenue instead of 11th street... confusing much? we went n had lunch then i walked to the bus depot to book my ticket for edmonton the next day. from there i walked to prince island park (or what i thought was the park.. turns out i was disoriented again lol) and read my book in a public place instead of a nice secluded foresty area coz a bum followed me n freaked me out. after id been reading for awhile he came out of the path in the bushes where id been, walked past n said "have a nice day sweetie" i didnt even look up, i was like arrgh! save me! lol

next day we were up at 4:30am to catch the 6:30 bus to edmonton. the bus ride was ridiculously long at 4 hrs n my back was hurting something chronic by the time we got off. We caught a taxi to the West Edmonton Mall which is the largest shopping centre in the world. it has a couple of theme parks, a wave pool, hotels, etc. Basically a shopaholics dream... i thought it was kinda over the top. after about 2 hrs here i caught a bus to 100th st n walked to the Edmonton Queen river cruise. i met a spritely old lady called Ann. She'd always planned to do the trip with her husband but he died last week. 😞 so her son Gary took her on the cruise instead. i felt so bad for her but she was taking it well and made me laugh heaps with her criticism of the captain n the security guard named Raj who kept coming over to talk to us lol. it was really comforting to have someone caring about my safety once again n warning me about walking around by myself. the conversations i had with her n her son really put me in a contemplative mood. ive come to realise how important n precious my parents are. i love them for everything the have done for me nwho they have made me. i cant wait to return home n spend some time with them as a daughter but also as friends.

Day 3 saw us heading to the stampede. i checked out the indian village, a bit of Nashville and the ag area. i hav to say that the agriultural building was lacking for a renowned rodeo fair. the stampede seemed a lot more like the gold coast show just on a huge scale. we got to see the rodeo though which was awesome! i cant wait to go to the Warwick rodeo in October!

Today i woke at 6:30am unable to sleep any later coz ive been sleeping on the floor on a blanket lol as a result i constantly have a headahe from my neck n back being out.. awesome huh?! its not too bad tomoz ill have a bed yay! so today i went to the historical village.. it was so cool! there were people dressed up in the houses lighting the wood fired ovens n stuff. i had so much fun! but i didnt get to spend much time there (like only just over an hour) coz i had plans to meet nadine at the zoo at 11:30. we walked around the zoo n got some pretty cool pictures of weird animals. i loved the monkeys, they were adorable! but omg they had cane toads in the Australian exhibit! it was disgusting. ive got no idea why they've got them there, they're not Australian and they're a pest...idiots! other than that the zoo was awesome. although, they did have a prehistoric park that i was really looking forward to coz i have had a bit of a thing for dinosaurs since preschool, but i was bitterly disappointed. the dinosaurs looked ridiculously fake n there was little information about each one 😞 thus, it was crap as.

ill leave it there coz the blog is too long. its 7:15 now n the sun wont go down til 9:30pm but im ready for bed.. wat am i meant to do for another 3 hrs?! gah! actually i should probably pack, we've got an early bus to Lake Louise tomorrow...

xox

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