Road Trip Day 3: Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay

I did not want to get up this morning.  By the time I fell asleep last night I only ended up with about 6.5 hours of sleep before the alarm went off.  It was not enough.  I’m one of those people that needs 8 hours sleep.

Maria proved just as hospitable in the morning as she did last night.  She had fresh fruit, orange juice, cereal, and toast all laid out for us.  It was wonderful.  She was such a great host.  I really hope we were able to convey just how grateful we were.

Shortly after leaving the Soo I lost service and continued to have no service until we reached Thunder Bay. It was kind of annoying, mostly because I could not use the map function.  On the other hand it was also kind of nice to be off the radar.

Also not too long after setting out I was making Barb some crystal lite and I was juggling two water bottles.  I was not so successful.  I managed to dump a bunch of water in my lap.  It felt like I had peed my pants.  Thank goodness it was only water and not the crystal lite mix.  That would’ve been worse.  Having a wet crotch for most of the morning played tricks on my bladder.  I ended up having to get Barb to pull over so I could pee in the woods.  I’ve now joined Barb and Sarah in the “pee in the woods club.”

Besides that water-spilling incident today’s drive was the nicest one yet.  It wasn’t warm out but it was sunny and that’s all that you really need when driving.  The area we were driving along was quite beautiful.  From the Soo to Wawa the highway followed pretty closely along Lake Superior and passed by many small lakes.  There were times that it reminded me of BC, just without the mountains.

The lakes we drove by had the strangest names.  My favourite were three lakes called Mom, Dad and Baby Lake respectively. There were also Pancake Bay and Old Woman Bay, which I thought were kind of amusing.

We stopped at Old Woman Bay to stretch and took some pictures.  It was nice.  While Barb used the washroom Sarah and I checked out the beach and put our hands in the lake.  It was freezing.  Sarah, who had been sleeping up until that point, really enjoyed her first view of Lake Superior.

For lunch we went to Wawa.  As we were driving into the town there was a giant statue of a goose, which I thought was strange.  I said as much and Barb quickly shut me down by explaining that wawa is the Native word for goose.  How did she know that?  Well she spent the first years of her life in Petawawa so she must of figured it out at some point.  I find it funny that she used to live in “Pet a goose.”

After grabbing coffee at Tim’s we looked for a decent place to eat a picnic lunch.  The only place we could see was the visitors’ center by the big goose but it was closed and barricades blocked off the parking lot.  That didn’t stop Barb from finding a way through the barriers.  We pulled out our cooler of food and sat down at a picnic table.  The sunshine was nice but the wind was cold so we ate fairly quickly and then grabbed a few pictures with the goose before continuing on.

Past Wawa the strangely named lakes and roads continued.  Some that stuck out were Desolation Lake, Fungus Lake, Yellow Brick Road, and Dead Horse Creek.

In White River we stopped at a Winnie the Pooh statue to take some pictures.  Apparently Lt. Harry Coleburn purchased the black bear cub he named Winnie in White River.  I hadn’t known that.  I love Winnie the Pooh!  It was cool to learn something knew about the history behind A.A. Milne's stories.

Between White River and Thunder Bay we didn’t stop much besides coffee/pee breaks and to take pictures of a waterfall just past Terrace Bay called Aguasabon Falls.  As we got closer and closer to Thunder Bay the more tired I became but I felt like I couldn’t sleep in case I missed something. 

For a little while we got stuck behind a couple trucks and going up the hills at times we were going as slow as 20km/h.  That was kind of frustrating, especially since we were used to going around 100km/h.

Just as we were arriving in Thunder Bay the gas beeped that it was nearly empty.  We filled up before heading over to my friend Aranka’s house.  To fill Stan from empty was nearly 70L and cost us $97.  I knew to expect it to cost a lot but being someone who generally hates paying for gas it hurt a little to see that big a total.

When we arrived at Aranka’s her mom had dinner all ready for us.  It was very nice.  She had even gotten gluten free flour/bread crumbs for the fried chicken to accommodate Barb’s gluten allergy.  Their house is rather small - the perfect size for 3 people – Aranka, her brother and her mom.  With the three of us over we doubled the occupancy so at times it seemed a little cramped but we managed ok.  Aranka and her family have been so hospitable.  I am very grateful they let us stay with them.

After dinner we took a tour of the marina.  Apparently it is quite controversial.  They spent or are going to spend $40 million on improving the area to attract tourists.  Sure the marina was kind of nice but I wouldn’t travel to Thunder Bay just to see it.  It’s not that nice.  The art they chose to art was kind of strange - teardrops that look more like sperm and granite balloon animals.  So odd!

That more or less sums up day 3.   I finished earlier than usual.  Wow for once I’m going to be in bed before midnight!

There is something not quite right about this art

The sleeping giant

Road Trip Day 2: Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie

 Waking up this morning and looking out the window my outlook on the day was as bleak as the weather outside.  I didn’t sleep very well and the pouring rain felt like it was adding insult to injury.

Sarah took the first driving shift.  It was not very pleasant. The scenery was grey and dingy, and the rain did nothing to help it.  We ended up stopping in for a coffee/pee break in a small town called Spanish.   We found the name somewhat amusing.  Sarah kept joking, “You know I’ve heard of French Ontario and English Ontario but you’d have known there was a Spanish Ontario too!”  She was also particularly amused by the accents she overheard.  She heard one lady say, “Oh gosh, oh geeze, I sure do love cheese whiz!”

In Spanish Barb switched to the drivers seat.  She was not pleased with my music selection at that point in time so I started working on creating a new playlist for her on my laptop.  It’s pretty cool how technology has evolved to the point where you can be creating playlist or even burning CDs in the car while on a road trip.  I was preoccupied with my music that I didn’t notice at first that Barb didn’t look so well.  It turns out her back went into spasm while she was driving.  How much would that suck?  I felt so bad for her.  She pulled us over on the side of the highway to so Sarah cool take over.  Thank goodness today was our shortest driving day - 4 hours.  Otherwise I don’t think Sarah would’ve been too pleased about having to do all the driving.

We reached Sault Ste. Marie, aka the Soo, by about 1:30pm.  Not before off-roading a little bit.  

Well not really but according to the GPS we were.

We decided to eat lunch at the Sault Ste. Marie Canal National Historic Site of Canada.  My friend, Ellysa, who I met while we were both on a Rotary exchange in Rouen, France, worked there for three years and recommended we check it out.  We walked around Whitefish Island, which had some nice trails and a view of Michigan.  Barb’s back pain had reduced by that point but she was still hurting.  She watched Sarah and I do some crazy stunts and didn’t complain.  Check out some pics below...

After our adventure at the canal we went in search of an Apple store.  Shortly after I made Barb’s playlist – a country mix – my computer stopped functioning.  It was super hot and I could tell that it was still running but the screen was black and it wouldn’t respond when I held down the power button.

We stopped at a nearby mall to see what we could come across.  Before finding out we had to head across town to the Future Shop we grabbed a bottle of wine for our host for the night, Ellysa’s mom Maria.  While we were there we saw a bottle of wine I thought my older brother, Will, might like.

Thought it was good wine for Will.  After all hippos are his power animal!

Once we got to Future Shop one of the tech guys fiddled around with my macbook for like a minute before he got it working.  Turns out it had overheated and spassed out.  At that point I realized that I had accidentally leaned it against the dash that is connected to the engine.  Whoops!  I won’t be doing that again.  It is all better now.  Yeah!

We had a little time to kill before Maria was off work so we ended up grabbing some Tim Horton’s and chilling in the van, in the parking lot.  Yeah we are just that cool.  While we were sitting there the wind picked up even more (it was windy all day) and it actually snowed a bit.  What bizarre weather day... Pouring rain, sun, and then snow!

Pic with the Elvis impersonator/Part-time waiter!

Dinner was absolutely delicious and Maria very generously treated us. On top of that she had cheesecake for us at her house for dessert.  Meg stuck around and chatted with us for a while and introduced us to her fiancé’s band, frank deresti and the lake effect.  His music was excellent so I decided to purchase his CD to listen to on tomorrow’s drive.

When Meg left I went through my old photos and found the ones of Ellysa and I in France, as well as, from Thanksgiving 2009 when I visited her in St. Catharine’s.  I think Maria enjoyed seeing the pictures and hearing some of my stories.  It was kind of funny... when I said hi to Meg earlier in the evening I said "Hey good to see you again" but I couldn’t remember if I had met her in France as well as in St. Catharine’s or just France.  She couldn’t remember either.  Well while I was going through the Thanksgiving photos I found some of us together.. Apparently we both have terrible memories.

SoI think I should leave it at that for tonight.  It has once again gotten really late.  I’m finding these posts are taking me much longer to write than I would like.  Maybe that will improve as the trip progresses…

Oh one last thing I want to mention.  Thanks Ellysa for helping organizing with your mom to host us!  We are very, very grateful for her hospitality!

Road Trip Day 1: Ottawa to Sudbury

I've finished school in Ottawa and I'm moving back to BC.  Since I'm leaving Ottawa permanently I figured the best way to transport all my stuff would be a vehicle.  Thus the idea of the "Road Trip Home" was born.  I managed to convince my older sister, Barb, and my good friend, Sarah, to join me on my adventure.  Then Sarah invited her friend, Cam, to join us once we pass through Winnipeg.  Planning it while in school was a little bit of a challenge, I'm not going to lie.  However, I think I managed pretty well even with the last minute alterations.


The map above shows all our stops over the course of 7 days.  They are Ottawa, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary, and finally Vancouver (Tsawwassen).  Of the 6 nights I managed to find someone I knew to stay with for 4 of those nights.  Staying with friends is much more cost effective than hotels.  The two nights in hotels will be a nice change though since I don't often get to stay in hotels.


Today was Day 1 of the road trip.  It began with Barb and I bussing to the airport to pick up our rental minivan.  Sarah insisted the van needed a name so we decided on "Stanley the Dodge Caravan" or for short "Stan the Van."  Picking up the van from was surprisingly easy.  It took less than 10 minutes to do all the paperwork and whatnot.


Our first stop was Costco to stock up on food for the trip.  We bought a cooler and a bunch of food to fill it.  To be honest I almost feel like we bought too much food.  Oh well the less we have to "eat-out" the cheaper it will be.  After Costco we made quick stops at Walmart and Bulk Barn for a few items unavailable at Costco before heading back to my place to pack up.


I was very pleased to discover that Stan's backseat folded down.  It meant that I ended up having more than enough space for all my stuff.  I was quite worried actually.  My friend, Mary, came over last night and I gave her a ton of stuff since I didn't think I had space for it.  I also promised my friend, Mark, my desk chair if it didn't fit.  Sorry Mark but it fit.


Packing everything up and prepping food was somewhat chaotic.  My brain had trouble figuring out the best order of doing things.  I'm pretty sure there for times I looked like a chicken with its head cut off, running from one task to the next and back again.  Barb can attest to that.


Before I knew it everything was packed, my room was cleaned and emptied, and we were heading back to the airport to pick up Sarah.  Sarah is super a trooper.  She flew 5 hours only to hop into a van to drive for 6 hours!

Now here's one of the funny things about this trip.. I planned the whole thing but National doesn't allow anyone under 25 to drive their minivans so I actually won't be driving at all this week.  I am the designated navigator and music coordinator.  It wasn't my intention for it to work out that way but I'm glad it did.  Those two roles suit me just fine.


With long days of driving Barb and Sarah have decided the best thing for them to do is switch off driving duties fairly regularly so neither of them get too tired.  I think that's a good plan.  The first switch of the day occurred in Renfrew, the place my friend Erika is from.  I'd heard mention of the "Frew" many times over the past few years it was nice to see part of it.  Even if that part was a Tim Horton's.


I found today's drive quite nice.  The scenery was lovely and I chose my 90's Chill Mix to listen to.  We followed the Ottawa River North-West for the first half of the drive.  Barb and Sarah needed to use the washroom when we were somewhere nowhere near much of anything.  So they go to take their first, of potentially many, pee breaks in the woods.  For Sarah, the season mountain guide, it was nothing but Barb was a little put-off.  It didn't help that this stop occurred not too long after Barb spotted a bear while we were driving.


Originally I had planned for us to only drive as far as North Bay today.  But when we got there we felt like we could manage a couple more hours of driving, especially since we are spending tonight in a hotel and it didn't matter when we arrived.  So we continued on to Sudbury.

For the last leg of the today's drive I chose to listen to some Stan Rogers, one of my Dad's favourite musicians.  One line from his song "Watching the Apples Grow" for some reason particularly stuck out to me.  "Your scummy lakes and the City of Toronto don't do a damn thing for me.  I'd rather live by the sea."  In some ways I feel like that sums up how I feel about my experience living in the Ontario landscape.  Sure I like lakes but I much prefer the ocean.  Growing up in Tsawwassen, a town surround by the ocean on three sides, and near Vancouver and the mountains does tend to spoil a girl.  Who knows maybe when I see the rest of Ontario I might change my mind!  I kind of doubt it though.

Well I better head to bed.. Barb and Sarah crashed a while ago.  I don't want to be the exhausted one dragging them down tomorrow.  Although if I wanted to sleep in the van I probably could.. But then I'd miss the Ontario scenery.  I'll just have to leave sleeping in the van until the Prairies.  From what I hear there isn't much to see there..

Day 1: Ottawa to Sudbury

Anna Karenina

In span of the last two and a half months of commuting to and from school on the bus I have managed to read the great Russian novel, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, in its entirety.

How is that Anna Karenina became my “bus” book?  Well at the beginning of the January I discovered the Kindle App for my iPhone.  I ended up downloading a bunch of the “classics” that Amazon was offering for free and Anna Karenina was one of them.  I had heard of mention of the book but to be honest I didn’t know much about the plot line.

Believe it or not Anna Karenina was the perfect “bus” book.  The story has no real climax or peaks.  This made it great to read on the bus because you could easily start and stop reading without feeling like you were yearning to find out what happens next and without really needing to have what already happened fresh in your mind.  Another thing is that it carries on for 1170 pages in more or less the same tone and pace.  This is why most people find it difficult to finish because they get bored.  So the fact that I would read it half hour snippets twice a day made it manageable.

I don’t really want to do a full summary of the book.  This isn’t a school book report.  Instead I’m just going to make a few comments.

Never have I been glad when one of the main characters in a novel commits suicide.  That is never, until I read this one.  Anna, for whom the book is named, kills herself near the end.  I am slightly ashamed to admit it but I was overwhelmingly relieved when she died.  She was annoying me to no end.  After leaving her husband for her lover Vronsky she totally changed.  She gradually became completely insecure, bitter, and mean.  Her insecurity got to the point where she started to cause fights because she doubted Vronsky’s love for her.  It was ridiculous because it was so obvious that he loved her more than anything.  He gave up everything to be with her.  He even shot himself once when she had broken it off with him earlier in the book because he was so in love that he didn’t want to live without her.

One of the things I liked about this book was that it followed the lives of many characters.  I really enjoy books where the lives of many characters are intertwined and the story is told from various points of view. My favourite couple in this book was Levin and Kitty.  I was rooting for them from the beginning.

I think that is all I have to say about Anna Karenina.  I’m glad I read it.  Now I have to find a new “bus” book.

Time

Time is such an interesting concept.  60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 52 weeks in a year…  It goes on and on.

I find it particularly fascinating different peoples’ views of time.  Our views of time have been distorted by common phrases that have crept into our daily speech like “Yeah sure I got a minute” or “Oh just wait two seconds.”  When we say things like that we don’t meant that we literally have only one minute and two seconds is nearly the amount of time it takes to say wait two seconds.

I believe that if a person deems something important enough then they will find the time to do that thing. 

Taking two students in the same program in University as example.  Theoretically they have the same amount of work to complete.  Yet student #1 is able to do their course work, hold a part time job, play on an intramural soccer team and participate in two volunteer clubs, while student #2 only does their course work.

Why is that one student is able to participate in so many activities while the other only has time to do their course work? Well it all comes down to the mindset.  Student #1 believes they can do their work and all the extra stuff so they do.  Student #2 is stunted by not believing in their ability to manage doing more than their course work.

So really if you think about it time is kind of relative.

Now to get personal... This semester, I was looking forward to “easy” semester as I only have three real courses – the other two consist of a mini-internship (8 hours/week at the NAFTA Office of Mexico in Canada) and a French proficiency course that consists of a written and an oral final exam. 

During January and February this idea held up.  I had next to no work to do for my three classes and I filled my “extra” time with reading books, watching movies, and taking fun trips.

*Side note: I still need to post about my Reading Break travels.  I will hopefully do that within the next week or two.

When March arrived I felt like I was bitch-slapped back to reality.  “Hey you, you’re in University! University is no cake-walk!”  In the last three weeks I feel like I haven’t stopped having work to do and deadlines to meet.  It was just one thing after the other and to top it all off in the middle of those three weeks I got sick for about a week.

Part of what has made March so difficult was that my time-management skills got a little rusty over the previous months.  Since I had had a plethora of time it didn’t when I did this or that or how long it took.  Now it feels like I have no time to do anything.  Oh you finished that assignment, ok now it’s time to prepare a presentation.  Oh your presentation is done, ok now you have to write your part of that group project and studying for that quiz/midterm.

Man it is stressing me out just thinking about it.

Stress + Me = Bad news.  I have never handled stress very well.  Some of you may find this surprising.  I’m do fine in stressful/high-pressure situations but if the stress causing thing last longer than a few hours or days I freak out.  My capacity to think coherently goes out the window.  Talk about an extremely annoying side-effect to stress when the stressor is an essay or report, which requires you to be able to process your thoughts and transfer them efficiently to paper.  Also when I can’t think coherently I usually resort to shut off my brain by doing something mindless, thus procrastinating, wasting time and stressing myself out further.  Like I said, bad news.

When it comes to academic writing I wish I possessed the skill of “bull-shitting.”  It would reduce my stress ten-fold since I would be able to complete my writing assignments in a fraction of the time.   As it is I spend way too much time trying to completely understand every aspect of every thing to do with what I have to write about.  This usually results me getting locked up inside my own head.  I may be able to figure it out in my head but I struggle to then transfer my thoughts from my head to the paper or computer.

I think I’m going to stop my rant there because I don’t really have time to continue.  I have to get back to my work.  I have 20 hours to prepare for my midterm/quiz in International Marketing and write my part of a group project on RIM vs Apple.

I just wanted to get these thoughts out of my head so I would have less to distract me.  Plus I’ve been feeling guilty for not finding the time post an update in the last three weeks.  Well now I’ve updated I can feel guilt free and get back to my work.  You’ll be hearing from me again soon... Probably.

My Future is Bright-on!

Today I received some excellent news... I will be completing the final semester of my undergrad at the University of Brighton!!!  England was my first choice so I am super excited!

I have opted to take the Fall semester of 2012 off school to work and save up before going on exchange so I won't be going to England until 2013.  That is what I did before my exchange to Sweden and it worked out splendidly.  The only downside is that I won't officially graduate until October 2013.

An interesting fact about the semester in Brighton is that it runs from February until June, which means I will be able to experience three seasons while I am there - end of Winter, Spring and the beginning of Summer.  Another cool thing is I get a 3 week break in the middle of the semester.  Talk about the perfect time to travel!

This afternoon I was unable to concentrate on my current schoolwork despite my best efforts.  Ok actually I didn't try very hard.  Anyways, I set to work searching the internet for videos and pictures of Brighton to gather a sense of what my next exchange is going to be like.  I found a really cool artistic video and another youtube video that I posted below.  Watch them and join in my excitement!

So far I've had about ten people already tell me they want to come visit me in Brighton, including my mom, my two older sisters, Barb and Kathryn, and my older brother, Will, with his girlfriend Darby.  Family holiday in England?  Sure sounds good to me!  I have a feeling after the rest of you watch the videos more than a few of you will want to visit as well.  Part of me still can't believe I get to go.  How lucky am I!?