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.)
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.
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
