Lights Will Guide You Home

A Head Full of Dreams Tour

Quarter of the Century

My nonno was a Leo, just like me, so my mom would often compare my headstrongness to his. This always made me happy because he was a clever man who loved to create things, every thing, and I wanted to be just like him. (Except for the thick eyebrows, which my mom said I also got from him.) He'd draw and paint and always had room in his house for a stray animal. Most of their animals were strays, actually. I'd sit down and watch him tinker away in his workshop, or watch him make tomato sauce from his giant home garden, how very Eye-talian. At that time my attention span was short and it felt like he'd spend an eternity on the same batch of tomatoes. Of course he was a soccer fan, and he'd give me a toonie for every goal I scored when I had a game. My mom used to say that his red hair (later turned white) matched his fiery temper, and he looks like a proper mafioso in our old photo albums. But Leos are ruled by the sun, and the sun was what brought him down.

On the day that he died, he was ventilated and seemed to be beyond consciousness. (Years later I'd finally understand what "palliative" meant.) But when I held his burning hot hand, he squeezed back.

I wonder what he'd think of me now.

LIFE IN TRAINS: Montreal

Montreal was the last segment of our VIA Rail trip. We took it easy here because we were both exhausted from the previous trips; the month of July was basically work → travel → work, with no days off in between.

Basilique Notre-Dame

We ended up having a lucky trip. Apparently there was some sort of car race so the subway was free the weekend we were there! And wherever we went, it seemed like the long line-ups always started after us, thankfully. And then we wandered onto the Just for Laughs Festival, just by chance, and we saw a fireworks show on Saturday night (only partially obscured by trees).

Musée des beaux-arts

We also walked up Mont Royal rather than taking a bus like last year. Once I saw all the stairs, I immediately regretted wearing jeans... except we were up at the chalet before we knew it. I guess Vancouver prepared me well because those stairs were next to nothing. But I was still sweaty.

Juliette & Chocolat

After wandering Marche Jean-Talon, we were too tempted by all the cheese and charcuterie that we decided to have our own CHEESE NIGHT: camembert, limburger, some sort of cheddar, pate, salami, fancy jam, a nice baguette, and fancy French desserts as a belated birthday celebration (many thanks). Then we watched Friends, as we did every night we were there.

So basically we travelled all the way to Montreal to watch Friends on Netflix.

Lots of people travelled from west coast to east coast, which I certainly would have done myself if I didn't need to keep my job. But I'm pretty happy with the sights I saw and the ridiculous situations we always find ourselves in. The train ride was a journey in itself.

I'm really glad I got the chance to travel for cheap, because the next two years are going to be non-stop.

LIFE IN TRAINS: Ottawa

No offense to our nation's capital, but two days in Ottawa was more than enough.

This is likely because we had also visited Ottawa a few years prior to visit Ran and got a lot of the good stuff done then. This time, we didn't have Ran as a tour guide - she ended up guiding us around Vancouver instead! - but it was nice to have a short trip and see what Ottawa was up to.

Not much, it turns out. But the leisurely pace in Ottawa was very appreciated, considering the packed scheduled everywhere else.

LIFE IN TRAINS: Vancouver

The Chief

I've always wanted to visit Vancouver, hearing endless stories about its beauty and good food, but plane tickets from Toronto to Vancouver are known for being ridiculously expensive and it's hard to justify just the plane ticket when I have so many other things to pay for. With the Canada 150 pass, we get to brag that we got a round ticket to Vancouver for $150! Can and I figured that this would be worth being on a train for 4 days straight.

My coworkers told me that Vancouver would probably be a lot like Toronto, and it definitely was similar in a lot of ways. I always hear that Vancouver is so much friendlier and more polite than Toronto, but honestly the two cities seem to be about the same in terms of manners. The main difference I noticed is that because the city is so much closer to nature, there are many more nearby and free outdoor activities.

The second difference is that Vancouver wakes up late and closes early. We were having a surprisingly difficult time finding a non-chain breakfast place that opened early enough for us to eat with Ran before her work. We walked over for some ice cream only to find out the place closed at 10, much to our surprise, so we had to come back another day. I guess we're more used to Toronto's schedule.

The third difference are the flashing green lights. One of my friends quickly discovered that this is not an advanced green, like it is in the rest of Canada.

Lighthouse Park

Lynn Canyon Valley

Our to-do list consisted of "premium tourist" activities including biking along the Seawall, shopping at Granville Public Market, eating at Richmond Night Market. My personal highlights was my mini shopping spree at Daiso and eating gold leaf ice cream.

We tried to go to every park, trail or hike available to us. At Lynn Canyon, we watched daredevils jump off Twin Falls and dipped our feet into the clean, freezing waters. At Lighthouse Park, we traversed the Valley of Giants. And at Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, we wasted $40 on a ticket.

The most difficult hike was definitely Stawamus Chief up in Squamish, aka "The Chief". It took approximately 8 hours in total, but I can proudly say we managed all 3 peaks! As a beginner, this is a huge feat for me. The entrance sign even recommends hiking boots, so not Adidas Superstars, and an "adequate level of physical fitness". It was certainly something else to see all the old-growth forests and vast mountains.

You can't get that in Toronto.

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

In our usual style, we meandered/took a detour/got lost quite a bit. But this always ends up being our most memorable adventures, not limited to soaring back from the Seawall like madmen and making a bunch of friends while hiking the Chief.

Vancouver was basically a lot of eating and a lot of hiking, which is how we justified eating. It felt like a whirlwind in the best way, subsisting on very little hours of sleep and a lot of coffee in an effort to cram as much into one week as we could.

We'd have 4 days to decompress on the train, anyway.

LIFE IN TRAINS: Escape from Toronto

Those of you in Canada probably remember the brief but insane stretch of days near the end of March when VIA Rail announced the 150 Youth Pass - for $150, you could travel an unlimited amount on any and all train routes all over Canada for the month of July. My friend and I were instantly intrigued, but apparently so was the rest of Canada.

By the next day, the site was down due to demand, and eventually they reopened their crashing site and announced a limit of 1,867 rail passes. It was a long struggle but Can and I eventually managed to secure a rail pass each at 3 in the morning. (I had gotten permission beforehand to call her in the middle of the night if I managed to get through.)

Understandably, a lot of people were upset about the newly instated limit of passes. But we weren't because we managed to get the pass one each, so...

█ ♥ █ HAPPY 150th BIRTHDAY, CANADA! █ ♥ █  

Because I had limited time off work, we couldn't travel the whole month of July, and because of limited train service, we couldn't stop off at the Prairies like we originally planned. But we tried to cram in as many rides as possible.

The longest trip by far was "the Canadian" - the Toronto-Vancouver train. Four days straight on a train, no beds, no showers... since it was the "escape fare", this was a bare minimum type of train ride. We packed a lot of wet wipes and instant noodles, I wrote, I drew, and I read books on my mom's eReader. The battery is still pretty good even though it's ~7 years old now. We got to stop off at every province we crossed for a bit, so I can now technically say I visited each of the Prairie provinces even if it was only for 15 minutes or so.

The train ride was full of (now amusing) mishaps and we managed to form our very own TRAIN FAM in which we proceeded to take a picture with every bear statue we saw. Extra points if you took a picture with an actual bear.

No one got extra points.

Being stuck on a train for 4 days also means there's not much else to look at but the variety of landscapes Canada has. We started out with forests and wetlands ("cottage country"), to the vastness of the plains (appropriately named), to the forests and mountains of the Rockies. I woke up with the sun every day, and it looked so different from one landscape to the next.

More to come soon. But for now, a preview of my travels.

Just As You Are

I recently got my mother's eReader working again - Google is miraculous and I willingly embrace our Google overlords - so what this means is that I now have unlimited books at my disposal. Okay, a limit of ~500 books. What this means is that I've definitely binge-read Bridget Jones's Diary up until the early hours of the morning, taking me back to my high school days where I'd feel so proud of myself because the librarian would congratulate me on finishing a book in a night.

Bridget Jones is one of my favourite movies. I don't like a lot of romcoms (or "romedies", as Valen calls them), but there's something about Bridget Jones that feels a little more genuine and legitimately hilarious. Or maybe that's the Colin Firth effect - he plays socially constipated but deeply feeling very well. Apparently Bridget Jones is loosely based on Pride and Prejudice, but that book bored me to death because I am an uncultured swine who cannot appreciate "the classics". I think this is also one of the instances in which the movie is better than the book. The book's still hilarious, but when you've watched Bridget Jones' as many times as I have, there are certain crucial moments ingrained in your head. This may or may not include the cat fight between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.

I'm not even going to mention the 3rd book.

I Love You A Latte

Despite the fact that I have my own cat, I like to visit every cat cafe I come across even though I'm basically just paying to play with cats I don't know. I mean, I definitely don't go there for the food.

Meow Cat Cafe is pretty good because there's no entrance fee and the drink prices are pretty reasonable. The drinks aren't anything groundbreaking, but basically I spent $5 for an iced latte and to play with unlimited cats (~10 cats?) for an hour. I can spend that much at Starbucks and there's no animals there.

Catpuccinos
(Technically lattes.)

Father and Daughter

After the end of every visit to a cat cafe, I want to adopt cats. Right now I have one, but that isn't enough. I think three is a good number of cats. But Vivian has a theory that that's how it starts, and then you think, "Oh, what's one more cat?" And then you have 46 cats.

High Park Bloom

It's always a frenzy when the cherry blossoms are in bloom at High Park. Luckily (?), we chose a rainy, gloomy day after a huge thunderstorm. The blossoms were mostly in tact and there was almost no one at the park, so we meandered about with our matching dollar store rainbow umbrellas and spent as long as we pleased with every tree.

BUCKET LIST ADDENDUM: See the cherry blossoms at peak bloom in Japan. I'm sure nothing will compare.

Coffee Tasseography

MERMAID: business and love success
FISH: career achievement
CRESCENT MOON: good luck

Turkish coffee tradition with Azeen. She read my coffee grounds and predicted good things.

And he calls me moonlight too.

Dangerous Woman Tour