London Calling

London has been much as could be expected. Lots of drinking and partying and riding the tube like rawkus idiots. Thursday started out some place Ben had heard about with one pound vodkas. We got messy and all lost each other. Friday we went out with Sam, Shirley, Tim and Jared to Tiger Tiger. I had always heard so much about that place and never got a chance to go last time. It was pretty decent really. Damn expensive, but I would quickly discover that is a bit of a theme with London. Ten pound cover charges no longer surprise me. In fact they come as a pleasant surprise.

Saturday we went to school disco. It's a big party at the forum (same venue as the Church) where everyone dresses up as school kids. Good times. Once again things got messy but at least Ben, Jared and I made it home together in one piece. Albeit I have sustained quite a few unexplained cuts and bruises over the course of the weekend.
A new drinking game has settled in. Less focused on drinking, it's more just a fun social event before we head out. Pirates. If anyone has seen Pirates of the Caribbean 2 they will have seen the dice game they play. Actually my Dad first taught me this game when we were in Meribel back in 2004. Each person starts with a certain number of dice (depending on how many people play) and needs to guess how many of any given number are on the table in total. Hard to explain, easy to learn. I highly recommend checking it out.

Yesterday I made my mandatory stop at the Walkabout in Shepherd's Bush. The most famous of Australian bars in London. Good quality Aussie rock and lots of snake bites (Beer, Cider and Ribina) Once again we got separated and I got a little lost. Actually that's an understatement. I actually got completely lost and had to walk for close to 5 hours in the rain. What can I say, London is a big city. I was a little cold. Actually that's an understatement.

To The Motherland

As with much of my time in Montreal, it has been a week of heavy drinking and much partying. The weather has improved dramatically and it is a wonderful sunny day as I get ready to leave. Since we got back from camping days/nights have been occupied with some gamecube, some cooking, a bit of football/hacky sack and of course; beerpong. It has gotten quite ritualistic in fact.

Beer pong is reasonably simple. Two triangles are set up; one at each end of the table consisting of partially filled cups of beer. You then either play one on one or team up to throw ping pong balls down to the other end of the table attempting to get them into your opponents' cups. At first it is quite an easy task but as the cups begin to disappear it becomes increasingly difficult.

Simon and Richie are a pair of idiots. On our way out they were throwing themselves into couches, traffic cones, piles of boxes and just plain trash. Wrestling with each other in the street and generally scaring the hell out of people walking past. Poor souls. To make matters worse, when we got home I passed out on the couch and they covered me in shaving cream, marker etc. Then started throwing mattresses at me and wrestling with me, Sie and Richie like complete idiots until the police were called and had to break it up. Personally I think it was Richie's laughter that caused the trouble. Damn that boy is loud.

Which reminds me, the night before when we got home, Sie decided to cover Aurelien's bed in stuff, starting with his cupboard and finishing with every single thing in his room. While he was doing all this, the girl in his bed passed out. Way to blow it Sie. Good stuff.

Today I'm flying off to London for a couple of weeks with Ben Dyer followed by my trip to Sweden. A trip that is looking increasingly unsure as finding work looks like a tricky task.

In a hungover daze I left my Ipod+speakers in the hostel in Seattle. The past few weeks have been occupied with attempts to contact them and get postage organised. Lately it has looked certain that it wouldn't arrive in Montreal before I flew out and I had resigned to the fact that I would have to pay for more shipping and mess around with it in international transit. I couldn't believe it when my ipod arrived mere hours before I had to leave for the airport. I was certain that it was lost in transit for the time being and that I would have to make alternative arrangements. I am pretty damn lucky sometimes.

I am having mixed emotions here; not knowing what to make of my situation. I have had a crazy year here in North America and I am sad to leave. It's been "a rollercoaster ride of emotions" as Rico so eloquently put it and I hopefully I have some good memories that will last for ever. I suppose I should try to take stock of some of my shinanigans; obviously being drunk and stoned didn't help me much but I really couldn't get much of a string of stories together for the campfire when requested in Ontario; felt rather empty at that moment.

Powerhouse Weekend

A lot to cram into this one so I will try to be brief. Our weekend started out with a wild drive to Dan's cottage in Ontario. A good 6 hours of shinanigans fueled mostly by Simon. Funnily enough he was in another car but still managed to be a nutcase.

When we arrived at the cottage it was a mere 2 hours before the heavy drinking started, music, football and of course plenty of beer pong. How refreshing it was to play real beer pong instead of Beirut. Bring on the paddles. And of course where there are paddles there is Simon's ass. The first of many damaged goods in the house. Including my back as part of Simon's revenge.

The next day we all got into a solid session of football. I am absolutely elated that my knee survived it without so much as a hiccup. Awesome. After we built up a serious sweat we hit the lake; ouch that was cold. Seriously. I have never seen a group of grown men scream so much. "My Balls!!!" "Ahhhhhh, ahhhh!"Night two was much the same as the first. Except a very powerful new drinking game was invented. X-Bus. If you've ever played ride the bus then just add extreme to it and bingo. The next day we made a pretty late start. But is anyone surprised? After a lot of driving around, getting permits, supplies etc etc We finally got the canoes in the water around 2pm.

At the permit office they had mannequins set up promoting correct paddling technique- kneeling on pads rather than sitting. I took note and carried on. Everyone else sat in their seats and paddled away, while I stood tall on my knees- back to that in a bit. Alex and my canoe - known as the C-Bomb - was the definite powerhouse. Albeit a pretty wobbly powerhouse as I haven't had a lot of experience in the stern; we covered at least twice the distance of everyone else and still remained up front. After about 3 hours of paddling we picked our camp site and set up the tent, the fire and the vodka.

Mass drinking ensued. We got through 2/3 of our supplies in one night. Saks was the first to fall in the lake and pretty much everyone else followed suit eventually.

Later that night Saks and Sie were discovered back to back in the middle of the woods out cold. No one knew why. I woke up wet, naked, no sleeping bag and ridiculously cold. No one knows why. To give a rough idea of how cold it was, my wet clothes draped over some trees by a mysterious helper were frozen in the morning. That cold. Sie was worse for wear and doused the tent with a few rounds of churned up wieners. Those with any sense at all moved outside, whereas those of us too drunk/cold to know where we were stayed put and cuddled. The next day we all got up and I suddenly realised I couldn't walk. Turns out while much more powerful, the kneeling thing has it's drawbacks. Here I sit almost 4 days later and still my quads lock up from time to time. That sore.

We decided to give ourselves a change of scenery and moved campsite to a much better place. The next night was more of a relaxed atmosphere but Richie and I still managed to put a solid dent in the last 1/3 of our alcohol supplies. Who has their priorities straight? That day we had some issues with our food supplies; being too wasted to take care of them they were ravaged by wild animals. Most likely seagulls. Too hungry to care; the food was eaten. Along with that comes a story about puke bags and ketchup sachets but I'll save that for another day.

Tired, dirty and sore we made our way back on day 3. Last one in was to buy the first round of steaks. The powerhouse was once again way in front, having some technique that came with practice Al and I managed to maintain a straight line for most of the trek. But the appropriately named Cheeky Boat struck with a sneak attack at the last second while our defenses were down.
The shame.

We parted ways and Sie and I hit KFC with a vengeance. 18 pieces of chicken, the mother of all fries, 2 coleslaw and a mountain dew hit us hard. We didn't make it all the way through but by god we tried. We then quickly passed out.

This weekend's catch phrases: C-Bomb, X-Bus, diarrhea mouth, Jenna

Packing Up

Montreal has been much as I had expected. Good chill time with my boys, catching up with Felix and Myguel, plenty of partying and drinking. I actually got up to a bit of touristy stuff. Going to the Tam Tam's in the park, climbing up Mont-Royal; all much more cultural than I had expected really. The view from up there was pretty impressive. Walking up a hill for 40 minutes reminds me of how unfit I am after almost a year of partying. Speaking of which. In just under a week it will be exactly a year since I left Perth. I think this requires some sort of celebration.

Yesterday a car randomly caught on fire. It was quite strange really. Parked on the sidewalk it started smoking and we all smelled something strange. Simon stuck his head out the door; "Fuck guys, fire, there's a fucking car on fire!" Simon likes to swear a lot. Fire trucks came, hoses were used. How eventful. Apparently There was a car accident a few hours earlier but I was far too deeply asleep at that stage.

Today we're all packing up and getting organised for our trip. Headed to Algonquin park in Ontario for a few days of camping/canoeing. Our buddy Dan is one of those people you always want to plan a trip with. He does everything so efficiently and thoroughly. I'm sure things will run smoothly with him on board. I've pushed back my flight a bit from here; flying to London on the 23rd of May, stay there for just over a week and then it's Sweden baby. This second year is going to be a weird one.

The Boy is Back in Town

James is back in the city many refer to as James' second, if not one true home. Back in Montreal that is. It was good seeing the boys again and our first night out was spent in a pool hall with pool, beer and foosball. I don't think anyone expected to get that drunk that late. That was just the warm up for the first of 3 with the boys and then the 4th night spent with my house mates from Whistler; Felix and Myguel. So strange seeing those boys again. They really come into their own in their homeland. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I have been out and spoken exclusively French. It's hard to understand with all the club noise but I got by, it was good practice and ultimately I had a great time!

It was both a reunion and a birthday. Chloe, Felix's girlfriend was celebrating her 19th birthday. The bar we went to, like much of Quebec, had nice cheap beer of which I had my fair share. An excellent night with plenty of beer racing; my specialty. We headed back to Marieville with everyone and due to lack of space in the car and in order to fit squeeze me in; Felix was a perfect gentleman and lay in the trunk for the whole drive. About 35 minutes all up. You're my boy Fil!

Yesterday we had some good 'chill' up at the plateau. What a crazy atmosphere. Drum circles all over the place, people dancing and tight-rope walking, hackey sack, shisha, guitars, fire twirling... just about every hippie activity you can think of with at least two thousand people around. Insanity. But the piece de resistance was the sword fighting. What the hell. Seriously. The biggest display of nerd aggression you can possibly imagine. The best way to describe it was a scene out of Braveheart with rubber swords and.. well serious. People are actually trying to hit each other with these things.

This weekend we're headed to Ontario for a road/canoe/camping trip. A random surprise but it should really give me a genuine Canadian experience. Maybe I'll run into a bear, some moose or a yak. Quite looking forward to that.

The Bahamas

The next day we jumped aboard our ship; the beautiful Imperial Majesty. Words cannot describe this cruise. The people checking in... oh my god. If by some miracle they were under the age of 300... they were overweight, retarded or just plain hideous. I was borderline suicidal. It got better. After getting our gear into our cabin (admittedly it was kinda comfortable and in a nice spot on the ship) we headed out to the welcome session on deck. This was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. My thoughts leaped from searching the ship for rafters to hang myself from to sizing up points from which to throw myself to maximise the injury and minimise the chances of survival.

The music, the 'horse racing', the passengers, the staff...

We wandered around the ship a bit, took a shower, had a nap, lay by the pool. (I probably should have taken a picture of it; I have seen bathtubs bigger than this thing) 7pm rolled around and we headed down to the restaurant for our dinner. Tables were assigned and we took our seats. As we walked in the host said something a little strange "I have a very special table for you, I hope you can handle six" I had no idea what he was talking about... at the time. Starving... Vic and I tucked into some bread rolls. After a few minutes a couple of young Canadian girls sat down next to us. Then another couple of girls took a seat on the other side. A little older, maybe late twenties, from Michigan. Last to sit down were another two Canadian girls from Montreal. Tara and Candy. We got along pretty well and dinner was served. The food was pretty decent to my surprise, it could have been that I was just that hungry but I think it was a combination of that and it being half way edible. Pan fried sea bass. Yum. We all ate, talked about our common time share experiences and life in general.

Vic and I went back to our room to mix up a few drinks with the vodka we'd smuggled aboard and wait for the 'entertainment' to start. To save myself excessive redundancy just rest assured that all references to music and/or entertainment is a really crappy band with lots of cheesy sounding electric keyboard/organ music. I later found out the dancers are contracted workers from the Ukraine/Russia who live on board the ship full time and work 7 days a week. Viktoria; one of the dancers seemed to like her work. Despite being massively exploited, she did get the chance to go to the Bahamas every other day; but she loves her dancing so much that she, at least on this trip, chose to stay on board to rehearse! Is that dedication or dillusion!?

Once we had enjoyed the show we headed upstairs (with a couple of fresh drinks) to the Kareoke bar. Vic could hardly contain himself- this man likes his bad 80's music and wanted to share his passion with as many people as possible. I got up and sang a few tunes in between chatting with our host; Viktoria.

Tara and Candy came in while I was mid song and everyone seemed pretty impressed with, if nothing else, our ability to liven things up a bit. Vic had a few too many drinks and passed out on the bar and eventually disappeared. The girls, myself and a few other younger guys headed down to the disco cabin which, despite being basically empty, was good fun. I think I went to bed about 4 in the morning so I wasn't all that fresh when we landed at Nassau, The Bahamas.

The next day we were a little slow getting up. Between Vic's excess alcohol consumption and my lack of sleep... but we made it onto the island eventually. When we got out we realised just how crappy our ship was; the one next to ours was about 3 times the size and we could see a climbing wall on the top deck. A freaking climbing wall!

We took a sea taxi to paradise Island and raced around looking for some cheap food. It took us about 45 minutes but we got some Quiznos evenutally. From there we wandered around the hotel for a while. It's called Atlantis and it's pretty impressive - especially the giant manta ray swimming around the lower level.

We headed down to the beach from there - the water was incredible. I have never seen water like that, this brilliant teal colour washing up against beautiful sand - much like the sand in Australia funnily enough. We lay there for a few hours and I spread my burns to new and exciting locations.

After a decent period of reddening we headed back to the ship. On the way I finally found some shoes I liked - my others are beyond a joke. I was pleasantly surprised to find no tax on top of the price. Something I haven't seen since I left Australia.

Last night was much the same as the first; dinner (Mariana and her friend didn't show... no one knows what happened to them?) kareoke and then the nightclub. I sang one song that was so amazingly hilarious. I couldn't believe they had it there; it's a song from South Park about "Chocolate Salty Balls" - Considering most of the crowd were 40-60 it was quite controversial but they laughed it up good and proper. I saw Viktoria looking blankly out to see up on deck and went and chatted with her for a while. Her English is pretty undeveloped but we got the point across. Dancing in the disco again and another 5am bedtime. And what dancing session would be complete without James' trademark 'pick up'?

As we were getting off the ship they were trying to sell us pictures they had taken as we were getting aboard for $13- pffft. How about we just grab it and take a cheeky picture of it with my camera? Too easy.

And that's about it. I am sitting at Fort Lauderdale Airport right now pleasantly surprised to find free wireless internet. Something free in America?? What's going on? The whole trip has been characterised by people trying to get money from me in every way they can, its like its been one big scam - my lesson learned? NEVER get a package Holiday ever. Ever. Particularly if it is too cheap, turns out it isn't that cheap after all. I should get into Montreal about 7pm tonight for the big reunion. It's been about 7or 8 months since I've seen the boys and I am really excited.

Mainland Florida

Hullo kids, I know you've all been hanging off my every posting on here so I am very sorry not to have kept it updated more often. So lets catch up shall we?

My trip in Florida was colorful to say the least! Universal Studios was great fun; what we were told was going to be two buses turned into 5 but we got there in the end! Our hotel was in a pretty crappy part of town and we were pretty far away from everything. But we still had a blast at Universal; some of the rides are insanely designed. My favorite was the Spiderman ride. You hear 3d glasses and sit in a roller coaster ride. The visuals are timed with the movement of the rollercoaster so it feels like you its all real. It looks like Spiderman jumps on the front of the car, throws you around with his web etc. All this is combined with high powered fans, intense heaters and water spray to make all of it seem real. I was well impressed. After our theme parking was taken care of we met up with a friend of Vic's and partied with them for a couple of nights in a row. Good times.

From there we rented a car and drove down to Fort Lauderdale, fuelling ourselves with an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) breakfast along the way. I have been meaning to try that place out ever since Jessalyn recommended it to me in Houston, TX. Once we arrived we checked into the Ramada Plaza; again not the best spot for a hotel... would have been much better off staying at the cheaper, more sociable, on the beach hostel.

That night we took a $60 cab down to the beach front and had some quality American cuisine from Cheeburger. Not too bad at all - in case you hadn't guessed; burgers etc have been my staple diet here in the US due to accessibility and cost factors. From there we bought a couple of beers and strolled down to a place we heard was pretty happening - Los Olas. On the way we passed some pretty impressive properties. A network of canals and bridges linked these houses; most of which had various sized yachts parked out the front. One was in the vicinity of 30metres long. Personally I couldn't figure out how the drove it in there in the first place. But apparently they did. We got down to Los Olas and it was wild. I mean wild. Drinking everywhere, about 10-12 bars and clubs all on 2 blocks with people spilling out everywhere. It was incredible. After a few hours (we got there pretty late) and took a $25 taxi home. (notice any indiscretions in the pricing??)

The next morning we got up and headed to our 'free breakfast' that turned out to be some croissants and orange juice followed by a two and a half hour timeshare presentation; fun! The best part was when they were harassing us to buy, not quite understanding that as a perpetually traveling, poverty stricken, barred from working at the largest resort in North America snowboard instructor... I am not exactly in a position to be spending $48,000 on a time share
investment. No matter how appealing dealing with the same people who managed to rope me into this in the first place and then lumping me with all kinds of hidden costs and charges, presentations and crappy situations might seem.

A little shaken, we headed back to the hotel to hit the pool. I fell asleep in the sun and absolutely barbecued myself, painfully so. It now looks like I am a red man wearing white shorts; the tan line is quite pronounced to say the least.

That night we headed down to the Hard Rock Casino - we played some pool and had a few beers (noticing a pattern here?) but as it was a Sunday it wasn't exactly a cranking atmosphere, besides... a Casino with no Blackjack?? I don't think so.

And that's my time in mainland Florida. Not quite what I had expected/hoped for but I definitely had a laugh or two along the way. I would quite like to do Florida again without the package deal. A word to the wise for you travelers out there. Never get a packaged deal; pave your own way.