Day One 1/10/09

Ok...I hit bed about 12-1am

Cannot sleep whatsoever. Just lying there and its doing my head in..thinking about home too much and its only the first freakin night! At this stage im sharing with irish,swiss & jap dudes..random and awkward at this stage.. somehow managed an hour or so sleep and then woke up 3amish wide awake. WTF! Jet Lag 1 Alex 0.

So got up..came into the 'common room' with kitchen, internet etc. Logged onto facebook got in touch with peeps at home.

So now wtf do I do....its like 4am...time to go for a wander. Ended up wandering down the street the hostel is on (click it to check it out! omg how cool). Noticed a few things..theres no traffic crossing buttons over here its all sensored..would of looked like the biggest idiot looking around trying to push something..sensors pickup ur there and stop traffic. Might skip the story about a random rat running around in a clothing store window I saw.

View of the street im in

Ended up finding a 7/11 and hit up some water and energy drinks. So that wasted a bit of time..still pretty early. After loitering and not sleeping, showered etc went downstairs for breakfast (jam toast & oj ftw). Met this irish couple who were cool and had breakfast with them. After breakfast had to hit some more caffeine and tried starbucks (one on every corner) which was quite filthy as expected. Also did some shopping..got a power converter in a kmart-like store called London Drugs (wtf!)

One of the roughly 30 different energy drinks they had. Energy city.

11am came round..Josh & I got picked up by Carly (cute canadian) who works for the travel/job co. We went the office to meet other support staff. Talked about a tour that im going to go on..7 day bus tour which heads through Jasper & Banff..sounds like a travelling party bus with a couple days in banff and jasper at some hostels. Wicked. Cant wait, thats Tuesday canada time so I guess im stayin in hotel for a few more days. I can then decide whether I work there or come back to Van Bc. So after sorting that out we head over and organise a bank acct (debit card on the spot, much more effecient than you Australia) and a SIN number (centrelink type job card).

Disregarding the rail line im bussing from Van > Banff > Jasper > Banff and back to van

Did some more wandering after that..weather was rainy yet so fresh and nice. Also some of the buses here are electric..wtf! thats so not normal..why not just have trams. Ended up going different directions all resulted in facing the bridge towards the airport..its one big loop much like Melbourne. Later that night it was a big one in the hostel..although not a big one for me because of my overtiredness, bed at 9.30 for me! (and a nice 8hr sleep) But before that watched some Ice Hockey (or hockey because its like calling soccer grass soccer apparently) with the local team Vancouver Canucks vs Calgary Flames?. It is actually quite good to watch even though I dont know wtf is happening half the time, if one player gets in the others way its on! gloves and sticks down all out brawl between these 2 players they even stop the game. Fantastic! the crowd loved it...also loved when Van scored because everyone went nuts..much like watching a big footy or soccer game at the pub. I think they lost 5-3. Boo-urns.

Thats all i can think of for now..will update in the next couple of days. Oh but the irish guy left yesterday so now im sharin with the jap & swiss dude and a new guy from toronto who is pretty cool. Guy from Japan & Toronto leave tomorrow, so it'll be interesting to see who comes in next..hopefully 2 hot french chicks =)