Life is good.
As you would know dear reader, I take off across Canada very soon. Today in fact. I head off to Laurel's family's trailer (read giant Caravan) this evening for 4 days of drinking, swimming, boating, and drinking. I have been looking forward to getting out to their trailer at Sicamous in British Columbia since my birthday on the 2nd of July as we had originally planned to get up there for the Canada day long weekend. Unfortunately there was a massive flood due to a huge amount of rainfall in a very, very short period of time - houses were washed off of their foundations and the lake itself was contaminated with septic water. So the entire camping area was off limits up until a few weeks ago. On monday evening I begin heading east for my trip across this amazing country.
The only downside is the goodbyes. It is incredibly bittersweet. Apart from saying goodbye to Laurel, it is the rest of her family that have truly welcomed me into their lives and have shown me such amazing hospitality, love, and friendship. Each and every one of them have made such a big impact on my life, not just on my time in Calgary and dealing with the various challenges that I have gone through. I have said this to "the family" (as I refer to them) many times, but to travel to a foreign country and be invited in and considered as part of such a close knit family has been incredibly humbling and touching. Laurel's brothers, Thomas & Rob, are easily 2 of my best friends; Laurel's sister Kori is like a sister to me; Laurel is the original friend with whom I have shared so much and of course her parents Tim & Donna have always ensured that I have been included in family gatherings and have provided advice & guidance like the de facto parents that they are. I'm packing extra packets of tissues. I'll need them. But, this is definitely not goodbye. This is see you later. Beginning with a random meeting in Italy, I've made friends to last a lifetime. Ones that I will surely see again. I will make sure of that.
On a different note, I think getting out of Calgary will be very good for my health. I have never partied so much in my entire life.
I happily moved out of the house I was living in with the neurotic fat bitch who treated her housemates like boarders and moved in with Thomas. An excellent move - I was paying almost half the rent as I was previously, it was right by a train line and had everything I needed close by. Plus I got to spend a whole lot more time with Thomas - we've basically been joined at the hip for the last couple of months. I will miss him dearly.
This move also meant living in what was essentially, a party house. I got on very well with Thomas' friends, but not so much our other house mate who would invite people over most nights during the week and keep partying even though both Thomas and I would need to be up early for work. That was frustrating, but the socialising on weekends was very enjoyable. Being the foreigner who talks funny, I was often the centre of attention. Vain, yes, but I will miss the popularity.
The weekend following my birthday was the start of Stampede. Some readers may be aware of this Western Canada festival, but put simply, it is what the locals call a "shit-show" - it's essentially a big, classy carnival that includes huge country music gigs, wall to wall vommitting, impressive firework shows and cultural displays. For those in our age group, the drinking is a pretty large part. The start to Stampede was very, very cool.
My boss gave me the first friday of stampede off which I really appreciated. So as I got off the train close to home on the thursday evening, I was caught in a huge hail storm. I sought refuge in the local supermarket close by. It hailed very strongly for about 30 mins. I rang Thomas to see if he was on his way home and if he could collect me on the way through. He replied that yes he was on the way home and that we could use the hail to cool a whole lot of beer he had in his car. WTF? So Thomas got home and started shovelling the hail to collect on our doorstep. His idea was the stick it all in the corner and put all the beers in the mound just like an esky. A very cool idea.
After a few hours and six beers, there was a knock on the door. Someone wanted to interview me. Wait, what? I went to the front door - a camerman from the local tv station who had been taking some footage of the hailstorm saw the cooler on our doorstep. Thomas then told him a visiting Australian was in the house so they wanted to interview me for the evenings news. Suffice to say it was pretty damn cool. I simply expressed my surprise at a hailstorm in the middle of summer, how I'd never seen hail used to keep beer cold and that I usually try to avoid such weather. Hopefully at some stage I'll be able to get a hold of the footage - they even made mention of my Megadeth t-shirt! Awesome!
More to come......
