Just quickly...

...as I only have 3 minutes left on my internet credit!!!

Haven't been able to find any decent coffee here in Canada. They mostly taste like day-old dishwater. yuck. However, we managed to find a few cafes that serve real coffees, so not all is lost!

Our hostel is overrun by Aussies. They are everywhere.

Niagara Falls was awesome. Freezing though.

Memories of Toronto

Wow, can't believe that i've spent 4 days in Toronto already. It has all whizzed by - there's just heaps to do here. The hostel here is also the friendliest that I've encountered on this trip, and possibly has the most Aussies in all of Toronto :P There are Aussies working at the front desk, in the kitchen and even around the hostel doing renovation work. Just can't get away from them!

Toronto has been mostly awesome. Saw a musical on Sunday, called "Wicked". It's based on the Wizard of Oz, but from the witches' perspective. Susie and I took our chances on trying to score cheap last-minute tickets - we lined up at the box office two hours before the show started and entered our names into a lottery for discounted box seats (the ones off to the side of the stage). Winners get to purchase those tix for $25, which usually for for $99 (!!).

And we won!!! Yayy!!! It was an awesome way to pass a Sunday afternoon.

Went on a pub crawl on Sunday night - needless to say, half the group were from Oz. I think the words "pub" and "crawl" just draw any Aussies within earshot, like moths to a flame. Was pretty interesting - we went to a few different kinds of pubs and bars (the names of which escape me now), and at the last one we saw some live music too.

I have hardly been able to find decent coffee in Canada. Until the day I came across this one (photo to come). It sat unassumingly next to a nut and candy shop, and after the first, slow, anticipatory sip - I melted with the smooth, somewhat nutty, espresso-with-soy-milk flavour. Couldn't help but tell the guy behind the counter "Do you know how long I've been searching for good coffee around here parts?!" - or something to that effect.

Photos to come! (If at all. You know how lazy I am).

Woohoo! You can now view Toronto pics here.

In Montreal at the moment, after 3 days in Quebec City. Have ditched air travel in favour of trains, which was a good move cuz the seats are waaay comfier and the trip more pleasant. Although we did fly from Calgary to Montreal, which took 5 hours. Then another 3 hours on the train to Quebec City.

Quebec City was awesome. So, so beautiful. Wish I could post pictures right now, but the stupid hostel 'puter won't let me >;-[ Vieux Quebec, the old part of the city, is a quaint walled city which looks someone moved a part of Paris and placed it in North America. Narrow cobblestones streets, houses squished together, winding staircases, cafes serving steaming bowls of cafe au lait, artisan bakeries...add to that the fact that everyone spoke French, and I totally did not feel like I was in Canada.

If Banff was all about nature and wildlife, then Quebec is all about food. All Susie and I did, in between walking on top of the city's walls (which cover 4.6km around the city) and exploring the streets inside the walls, was eat. We did not have a single bad meal in Quebec.

I find that you can get by quite easily in Quebec and Montreal with English, although an attempt at speaking French doesn't hurt. Even if the most you can say is "bonjour" or "merci" or "parlez vous anglais?".

Oops, just checked my internet credit and I have 3 minutes left! So guess I'll have to save more Quebec stories, and Montreal, for later...

Random thoughts...

...on the US of A.

LAX is a miserable, depressing place. It is grey, unwelcoming and univiting. It feels like the airport that God, or avant garde airport architecture/infrastructure, forgot. This is from what I saw anyway - there could be another glitzier terminal where travellers are not made to feel like cattle.

Starbucks in the US is all about sugar. All they sell are sweet pastries, cakes and danishes. Heck even their soy lattes are made with sweetened soy milk. I'd probably OD on sugar and bounce off walls if I finished that banana nut muffin I bought to snack on.

The Burger King at LAX only has three sizes for its combo meals - medium, large and extra large. I ordered a Junior Whopper meal (six hours in transit makes you do stupid things) and could not even finish the drink and the fries. And we wonder why America has an obesity problem.

US baggage inspectors are great :) Sure, they went through my bag and probably every single piece of clothing I own, but heck, they re-packed my bag better than I did! They even managed to fold my Kathmandu jacket into one small piece and squish it into the bottom of my travel pack. Aah, to have your bags professionally packed...

Here at last...

I've finally made it to Canada!!! Yayy!!!

My flight from to Los Angeles took about 16 hours, plus a 2-hour transit in Taipei. I then had a 6-hour wait in LAX before my connecting flight to Calgary. By then I was just running on pure delirium and not much else O_o

Am now in the hostel in Calgary. We just got back from two nights in Banff, where the Rocky Mountains are. Banff is a beautiful, beautiful place. The view is amazing and there's plenty of outdoor stuff to do. I managed a 5.5km hike up Sulphur Mountain, which took me about 2 hours and abit (versus an 8-minute gondola ride!). It was a steep, upwards trail ALL THE WAY - my knees are hating me for it today! *ouchies* But, whatever pain it caused, the view on the way up was well worth it. Got some cool photos, will try to post them later cuz this internet terminal doesn't have a USB port.

Despite Susie's travel guide saying that there is nothing to in Banff at night, there is in fact plenty of bars and restaurants to go to. We managed to check out a good variety of bar "genres" - we started off at the Rose and Crown, an Elephant and Wheelbarrow type place with pub food and a rock cover band, then moved on to Aurora, which is like a cross between Next Blue and Frostbites (eww). It's one of those places where everyone just sits there and looks at everyone else until they get drunk enough to dance :P The music wasn't too bad though - a mix of top 40, hip-hop, Latin and doof. We finished off at the Devil's Gap - a heavy metal bar! Unlike its name, it was actually a pretty chilled-out place, the kind that people finish up at after a night of dancing.

Haven't been updating this blog as much as I would have liked. The lack of a laptop has made accessing the internet a lot harder...I can't use the free wireless internet that most acoommodation here in Canada offer. Boo!!! I have to either look for an internet cafe or wait to use the hostel one, which is cheap but doesn't have a very user-friendly operating interface. Ah well, one can't complain.

Heading off to Quebec City tomorrow via Montreal. I've only heard good things about those places, so can't wait to get there. By the way - Calgary is a hole. More on that later...

Finally!

I'll try to make this a short one, as I have a flight to catch in about 8 hours!!!

Yes, I've finally sorted all my stuff out, and at this point things are set on "Go!" for the rest of this trip. Yayy!!! I'm now flying to Calgary via Los Angeles, at 9.40am Malaysian time (or 11.40am Melbourne time). It's now 1.25am in Malaysia, which means I only have a few hours of shut-eye before I have to head off to the airport. I'm not too worried - there will be plenty of sleep waiting for me on this 19-hour flight!

Got all my visas done, including my Australian resident visa *huge sighs of relief all around* If it weren't for Mom and Dad, I don't think I could have gotten things done this quickly. I think this has affected them more than it has me - my mom was having sleepless nights over this! I feel bad for involving them, yet I am _so_ grateful for their help, support and love :)

Anyway, haven't been blogging cuz a) I was so busy running around trying to get things done and b) I wanted to be ABSOLUTELY sure that things were going ahead before I start putting them down - it's as if I fear writing them down lest they do not materialise.

Talk about being paranoid!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I have a long day ahead of me. A 19-hour flight to LA, then a 6-hour transit before my connecting flight to Calgary. I'm going to be a tired mess when I finally arrive in Calgary, but a happy one :)

May all things go well from here on! *fingers crossed*

Hope everyone is happy, healthy and safe! :)

And now we wait...

These last few days have been hectic. Finally got my passport back - yayy!!! One hurdle down, 984 to go... O_o

I had to re-apply for my US visitor visa, which meant making an appointment online, rocking up to the embassy and attending an interview with a Visa Officer ("no, sir, I do not intend to blow up the country with a bottle of Coke and a tube of hand cream"). I got turned away the first time because I haven't paid the USD100 application fee, even though it stated on the embassy website that applicants would be exempted from paying if the visa needed to be re-issued through no fault of the applicant. Well, apparently that only applied if an error had been made by the US visa office. As long as it was not their fault, one had to pay.

Well. Rushed off to the bank. But not just any bank. US visa payments here are only accepted at one particular bank (unlike in Oz where I could pay at any AustPost outlet). Found a branch, only to be told that it was the wrong one ("this is only a sales kiosk" - well then, WHY did it say on the front door that you were a licensed bank?!!??!!), and was sent down the road to a "full service" branch. Grrr.

Anyway, to cut a long story (or whinge) short, I got through the rest of the process without any major hassle. Although I did shed a tear or two while waiting for my interview. Mostly out of disappointment that things haven't gone according to plan, and also out of frustration that working to recover my travel documents and rearranging my travel plans have been *SO* hard.

I have been trying to see the positive in this situation, and to not wallow in my own misery and self-pity. It has been hard as I have been planning this trip for the better part of the year, and having to cut it short is disappointing. And having _all_ my stuff stolen was traumatic.

But...

I have become closer to Mum and Dad - without them and their support it would have been twice as hard.

At least it happened here in KL, and not while I was halfway through my trip and stuck in a foreign country far far away.

I can't dwell on shit that has already happened. I have to learn from it and move on. Whatever doesn't kill you can only make you stronger.

And it'll make for a killer story to tell at dinner parties... :)

Oh so now you tell me...

Well. It's been a couple of days since The Incident. I'm still in mourning over the loss of my stuff and the fact that I am stranded here for now. There are so many hurdles left to leap over before I can even get on that plane to the US. I've had moments when it just seems all too hard. But...I have to keep moving forward.

What has struck me over the last couple of days was the fact that EVERY person we spoke to about my experience has either been through it themselves, or know someone who has. On the night I went to lodge a police report, there were two other people at the station reporting similar thefts. That is saying something about the crime rate of this country.

Apparently there is a syndicate of professional thieves who go around breaking into people's cars, mostly to steal laptops. Apparently they have some device that "scans" or "detects" the presence of laptops (and possibly other electronics, like mobile phones) in the vehicle. Now I must have been living under a rock, cuz when the hell did they come up with something like that?!!?!?! If I had known that such "devices" exist, I would have taken my laptop with me. Of course, now that it's happened and there's nothing I can do about it, everyone I talk to starts telling me about this recent spate of laptop thefts and gives me advice on how to avoid said thefts.

Yeah. Great. Now you tell me. Grrr.

Disaster!!!!!! :~(

The worst possible thing that could EVER happen has. And my trip hasn't even begun!! Flew in to Malaysia today on a short stopover before heading to New York City. Mom and Dad picked me up from the airport, and we decided to grab a quick bite to eat. So we went to this busy shopping strip. When we got back to the car afterwards, we found that some bastard had smashed the backseat window on the right hand side of the car, pulled down the seat and STOLE MY DAY PACK. Yups, the one with *MY ENTIRE LIFE* in it. By ENTIRE LIFE I mean my mobile, laptop, ipod, camera, travellers cheques, cash, passport and various other belongings. Hell, they even took my Lonely Planet travel guides. Not bad for a night's work, huh?

DAMN THOSE BASTARDS TO HELL!!!

Needless to say, I am now stranded and shattered beyond belief. I HAVE NOTHING. I can't leave the country, as all my visas are in my passport. I have no money and no passport. I have no phone. All my memories and stuff of sentimental value are gone - mostly photos (a lot of photos!) and my personal journal. So now some total stranger will know what's going on inside my head. They have photos of me and my friends. They have my address in Australia. They know my date of birth. It's scary and weird thinking that some unknown, faceless person will have such intimate knowledge of me. But not like they care. All they care about is how they can sell off all my stuff, and spend my cash. If I see some dude walking down the street with a Black Wolf backpack over the next couple of days, I'll risk getting charged for assault and bash him over the head first. Hah.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!?!?!?! I keep wishing that it was all just a bad dream. But no such luck. I mean, what are the odds??!! The ONE time I decide to go on a major trip, this happens. I don't remember ordering a big portion of stress and despair to go with this big adventure.

To put this in perspective, at least it happened in Malaysia and Mom and Dad are around to help me out. I still have my ID and credit cards, as I had my purse with me.

But...

My new mobile phone!!! My new ipod!!! My new MacBook!!! See, that's what happens when you get a whole bunch of new toys at once. They make some petty thief's day. I feel bad for Mom cuz she has to replace a whole window. And I'm not sure if I can still make it to New York/Canada anymore, as I don't have my visas. Hopefully they can give me some sort of emergency documentation *fingers crossed*

This sucks. Big time.