Spain and Canada with everything in between

Hello and well met fellow humans, 

This blog will be of some of the things I got up to in my last week in Spain as well as my adventures from Spain to Canada.

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First off I would just like to do a quick movie review for a movie that I went to see with my lovely family as a farewell event. 

Dios Mio Que Hemos Hecho (My God what have we done)

This is a french movie about a family of four girls who each marry a guy from a different culture, so in the end there's a Jew, Muslim, an Asian and a Black Dude. 
As the story goes it is hard to say anything without being racist, and how the final blow is struck with the parents when the youngest daughter announces she is engaged to be married to a Black guy.
Overall a great movie I recommend seeing it, I laughed a lot and cried a little, but overall a great ending and coming together of the family.

Good bye events
In my final week in Spain I had a few good bye events organized by my work colleagues photos are as follows; a work lunch during the week, also later on my last day drinks after work, and on my final day in Spain a man-free brunch of churros and chocolate with two of many of my new nurse friends. 
 


 

  
In quick summary I have had the privilege of working with an amazing lot of super friendly and smart people, who I am going to miss as I move on in my travels, as a quote from Tim Cahill goes,

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill

 

As a final note to the right is a photo that was taken after being surprised by the team with a bunch of good bye presents, although from what they got me I think they were just feeling sorry for me - going to my almost certain death by freezing in Canada (they got me an assortment of keep warm gifts).

 

For those of you who were in on this and are reading this, you are all so much wiser then me as I would definitely not be as prepared and would be a human popsicle by now (but you all knew that anyway).

Moving on now to the rest of the trip, but one final shout out the my Spain friends...

 











The trip to Canada

I think it is important to say that the trip to Canada started two days before actually flying out. 
It started with having to pack my entire life once again into a suit case, however the biggest issue was that in coming from Australia to Spain I was allowed 30kg of luggage, but for the flights from Spain to Canada I was only allowed 23 kg... so not only had I bought things during my stay in Spain I faced the problem of having to wear all of my clothes or to face the fact that I was going to have to take two suitcases. 

To cut the story short I took two suitcases and at 5am (Spain time) on Monday morning I was whisked away to the airport.


I was met at the airport by an entrepreneurial young African guy who covered my dodgy bag with plastic for me and helped me take me to my check in desk. 

The check in was easy and I was off from Madrid to Frankfurt in Germany, there I changed flights, the transfer between flights in Germany was huge/a long walk I felt like it took 30 minutes from disembarking my flight to walking to my next flight.

Before boarding the next flight to Calgary we had to have our documentation checked and the eventually we were allowed to board the plane. 

This flight was about 9 hours but seemed so much longer. Once we landed in Calgary I had 40 minutes to clear customs and pick up my bags then check them into the next flight and clear security this was close to say the least! Luckily there were a few of us in the same boat so they waited a little longer for us.

Finally I made it to Vancouver, got a taxi to the Backpacker hostel where I stayed and due to jet lag I wrote this portion of the blog at 5am.
It was my first time in a backpackers and it was very lovely. I hadn't met any of my room mates as I passed out at 5pm but they were all very considerate as they came in. 

Then on Tuesday the important day, I had to run around Vancouver getting all my documents sorted out. Apparently I did this too efficiently and was recommended to hire a bike and spend the rest of the day riding around Vancouver, but more specifically Stanley park. (refer to map below)

 
The idea of riding around the park was a good one, however on the day that I was there it was about 3°C and it was raining as you will be able to see in the following photos.

By the end of my ride I swore I was going to have to get half my extremities amputated from frost bite. In retrospect I am glad I did it and the following photos are initially from around Vancouver and then from my ride.

Sulphur I believe, which is not a good thing as sulphur is toxic, and it seems that it was raining onto the sulphur and into the bay  O_O

Above: This is a close up of the photo to the bottom, i'm not aware if this is a normal thing for this area, however it seems that there has been a mass die off/ feeding of shelfish. 
 

Finally here are some panoramas from around Vancouver

The next part of the journey was to catch a Greyhound bus for approximately 9 hours from Vancouver to Vernon which is the town closest to where the Silver Star mountain is.

The bus departed from Vancouver at 12 midnight so it was a long and tiring wait as I was still partially wet from my bike ride earlier in the day as well as suffering from jet lag.

Finally though I did arrive in Vernon on the 24th of December just as it started to snow, I was pickup by the manager of the hotel that I have been working at.

We were then taken to a local grocery store where we were allowed an hour to do any shopping that we needed to do for the week. It was there that I was reunited with my lovely husband, at first he looked different and it was weird but we soon settled back into routine.
The following photos are from Christmas on the mountain, where it was most certainly a very white Christmas.
 

Coconut whipped cream, our Christmas tree and Kyran with his Christmas morning Churros and Chocolate that we made, thanks to Tia Ester for the Churro maker and teaching me to make them.

 Another one of Kyran and his Churros, Kyran standing in our living quarters on the mountain and a photo of the local surrounds.

 

 

 

 A loaf of handmade bread I made for Kyran for Christmas with raisins, and my Christmas present from Kyran, those of you how know me well know that this was a perfect present, now I need to get my hands on some good wool around here.

 

  The Bulldog Hotel, where Kyran and I are currently working. 

Kyran is one of the night auditors and I am supposedly the laundry Nazi, meaning that I am in charge of keeping to laundry moving and organized.

Well that is all for this entry, I hope that you have enjoyed it from whereever you are in the warmth and comfort of your own home, apparently today it is around -20°C and over night it was as low as -27°C. 
It certainly is cold, but for the most part it usually stays above -10°C so it's not so bad with the right clothes and common sense. 

I have learned two things;

1. Your eyelashes can get frosty and freeze together.
2. The mist version of snow is a magical glitter that floats around the sky.

Alrighty well that is all folks, thanks for tuning in to this blog, the next one will be after New Years so I wish you all a good year and I hope you have some good resolutions. 

My philosophy for this new year is.

If there were more people like you would the world be a better or worse place? what impacts are you having on the people and places around you? what could you change?

Also a shout out to my Pop in Australia, it was his Birthday this week and I hope you didn't eat to much birthday cake! 

(I know it was probably 1 sugar free, fat free, vegan cup cake)

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I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something.

-Neil Gaiman-