Three Months in and Still Loving It

---

So, everyone must be thinking that I'm a huge drinker over here in Canada. The funny thing is, you couldn't any further wrong. It's just that whenever there is something to write about, it seems to be an event that involves drinking. I'm sure you'd all get bored if I wrote about my nights that we all just sit around watching TV or movies or about going grocery shopping. The truth is, I really only have a drink maybe once a week, so no, I'm not an alcoholic, I am on a working holiday and not a drinking holiday as somebody asked me lol. I'm really only saying this cos, my next paragraph involves me drinking again.

My days off. I ended up having to work on one of my days off as Brian wasn't there, he took three days for his bachlor weekend, we went sturgeon fishing. Anyway, Thursday was supposed to be my days off, so he gave Friday and Saturday off. Elbie, Kim and I were gonna go White Water Rafting on Saturday, except we had no way of getting to the starting point. So both my days were spent relaxing, doing laundry, sitting in the sun tryng to get some colour and watching a couple of movies. I had my first encounter with a ghost on my second day off. We have a fridge and freezer in the common room of our house and we keep all our bread in the freezer. When I was making my breakfast, I walked down the hallway past an empty cupboard, as I walked past the door opened, thinking nothing of it, I pushed the door closed. I went to the kitchen and put my bread in the toaster then headed back to put my bread back in the freezer, walking back past the cupboard, it opened again and scared the crap out of me. After that, I was too worried about walking past the cupboard in fear that it would open on me again. After cooking my breakfast, I braved it and walked back out the common room thinking to myself that if it opens again, I'm gonna drop everything there and then and run out the door. Thankfully it didn't open again, now I'm just nervous walking past it all the time.

Potluck night. Kelsey and Ashley put on a potluck at their place, for those who don't know what a potluck is like me when I first come out here, it's basically a get together and everyone who comes brings a dish. It was really good, I made a potato bake, unfortunatly, I didn't have enough cream, and I'm not really sure if I had the right cream. I just assumed thickened cream would be the same as whipping cream. Oh well, it still tasted pretty good. Elbie made a South African dish called Groen Boon Betroon which is potato, green beens and mushroom mixed with sour cream and heated, that was really nice. Hiedi made a spinach dip which was really nice, we had pita bread with it though instead of it being in a cobb loaf. Chris made garlic bread, Nate bought three bags of chips, Jenn made a pasta salad with greek dressing, Kim made chocolate chip cookies, Danny made piglets, his creation of chopped up pork with dry spagetti stuck in them as tooth picks, Andy bought and apple pie then claimed that he made it. Kelsey and Ashley put in a beef and a vegetarian lasagne. Everything was really nice. To top things off, it was Kathy's birthday, we made a cake for her aswell as a card and a made up poem inside, which we volenteered Nate to read it to her, was pretty funny. Throughout the night, I drank a bottle of Mascato to myself, it was so nice and I didn't even feel tipsy from it. Randy, Kelsey and Ashley's Dad then started a fire and we all sat around it talking. It was a pretty good night, quite a few bottles of wine got drank.

Kathy was away for the weekend for her birthday, when she got back, Jenn, Danny, Nate, Hiedi, Elbie and I had a drink with her and Ken out by the fire. I spent half an hour out with them before heading back to the house and reading for a little while before bed. Everyone else stayed out longer til around midnight, some of them regretted it the next day lol.

Work is getting alot busier thank god, it was looking bad for a while with the weather being so cold and windy, sometimes even raining. It's slowly starting to get warmer, so we are getting alot more visitors. I worked out the other day that I know how to say 'how are you' in six different languages and it's from working here. There's obviously English, Spanish, German, Isreali, Japanese and French. So I think I'm doing pretty well, hopefully I'll learn alot more. The night before my day off, Jenn, Nate and Danny convinced me to have a couple of drinks with them, we ended up playing two different drinking games then ended up at the point having a fire pretty tipsy.

July 1. Canada Day. I had the day off and planned on havin an easy day with laundry and cleaning before going to Harrison Hot Springs for the fireworks. I woke up early even though I'd had a late night, so I made myself some breakfast and watched a movie. I then headed for a shower, I had music on, when I was drying off, I could here footsteps in the hallway then a door slam closed. I figured it was just Jenn as she had the day off too, but when I got dressed and came out of the bathroom, there was no one around. I automatically thought of the ghost. I was standing at the end of the hallway between the doorways of Elbie's room and the common room, when Elbie's bedroom door opened and scared the crap out of me. Thankfully it was Elbie and not a ghost. Apparently there was a bad crash at Yale, (about a 25min drive from where I am) it was a fatality involving a car and truck, so the road was closed from Boston Bar to Yale and no one could get through to Hells Gate, so they closed for the day.

We were supposed to be going to Harrison Hot Springs for the fireworks, but as we couldn't get through, we had to work out something else. We all had a bit of a meeting with Ken and Kathy and organised to go for a drive up to Spencer's Bridge then across to Merritt then head back down to Harrison from there, it would take us the best part of four hours. So we all went to get ourselves organised, the met Ken and Kathy in front of their house. We all had our alcohol and were ready to go. We drove north up past Hells Gate where there were people out the front, with Ken having the company truck, we stopped. Apparently, they had witnessed the accident and headed back to Boston Bar. We continued up to Lytton, stopping at a waterfall on the way. We went into the small town of Lytton and got a group photo where the Thompson River meets the Fraser. After that, we drove to Spencer's Bridge, a very small country town where we had to turn around and go back to find Kathy, she had pulled off the road for a second time. She had Chris, Danny, Kim and Andy in her car and they did nothing but drink so she was forever pulling over for them to pee. This time, she had pulled over to buy the freshest cherries you'll ever try. I'm not a cherry person and even I liked them. Heidi, Jenn, Nate, Elbie and I were in the truck with Ken and we had the music blasting the whole way. So it was no wonder that I ended up with a huge puonding headache by the time we got to Merritt. The drive was really scenic and really pretty. Kathy had phoned ahead to see if anything was happening in Merritt for Canada Day and was told that there was a fair and would be fireworks so we were just gonna hang out there then head back home instead of going to Harrison. We turned up at 5pm, to find everyone was leaving. We asked someone if the fair was still going and they said that it was over. We got ourselves some hamburgers before it closed then headed to KFC as Elbie wanted it. We all ended up getting KFC, I got poutine, which is fries, melted cheese and gravy, tasted similar to potato and gravy. That was then followed by a Dairy Queen Blizzard with oreo, cookie dough and chocolate sauce. Yum!!!

We then decided that as there wasn't anything going on the Merritt, we'd head down to Hope as they apparently have fireworks there. So, back on the road again, we took the hour and a half drive to Hope and went to the Othello Tunnels. Danny and I had been there before, but the rest hadn't. We probably spent and hour or so there before heading into town to find out there wasn't any fireworks and it was too late to head to Harrison Hot Springs, especially seeing how Ken and Kathy had driven us around all day. They ended up dropping us in town for two hours where we all went seperate ways. Jenn, Heidi, Elbie and Chris all went to the park, Kim and Andy went to the Japanese restaurant for some dinner while Danny, Nate and I tried to find a drink. The hotel was closed for some stupid reason, the Gold Rush was too far away, so we ended up in the Blue Moose, fortunatly they sold beer and cold drinks. After the Blue Moose closed, we stood talking to Katelyn, one of the workers there, until Riley came to pick her up. We chatted with them for half an hour or so while we waited for Ken and Kathy to pick us up. As usual, they were late lol. We ended up climbing into the back of Ken's truck to try and keep warm. Eventually they came to get us and went home. Danny was a bit dissappointed with how his Canada went, but there wasn't anything we could do about it, I felt bad for him though.

My next day off, I slept until 11am. I couldn't believe it as I've always been up early since being here. It was a lazy day in front of the TV watching DVD's though, and doing washing, woohoo, clean clothes again.

Jenn and I decided to make up an exercise program after work each day. We've gained weight since being here, and I'm hating it. So we had our first training session of running up and down stairs, a bit of boxing and skipping, then walking home. I was stuffed the first day, but the second, I was a little better. We had a policeman come past work today, Brian asked hime to put me in the back of the car as if I'd been arrested lol.

Summer is finally here. It's only taken three months. We had a top 32 degrees yesterday, the hottest it's been since me being here. Kathy then took Elbie and I to the swimming pool after work while everyone else went grocery shopping. It was so nice in the water, I didn't want to get out. We then spent an hour or so at Gina's place, picking cherries out of you trees, yum! Free cherries whenever we want.

---

Photos

Me cutting Heidi's hair
She wanted a hair cut and didn't want to pay, so here I am with kitchen scissors lol. It did end up pretty straight, I must say lol.

Group Photo Lytton
This is where The Thompson River meets The Fraser River. If you look closely, you might beable to see the different colours of the two rivers.

Comments

[Jacqui Mooris]

Hey Stac you and i have the same elmo pj's there's that sister thing coming out in us again hehe

[stacy1503]

copycat lol