The Last Hurrah

After getting to Toronto, I knew it was only a small matter of time until I could actually get to Guelph, and I could say a thankful goodbye to the confines of a bus seat.

First drive through Guelph on the bus, and I was very impressed. As I’d said before, this side of Canada certainly seemed a whole lot more like England. The general landscape was rolling and green, and was definitely reminiscent of Norfolk. The actual town of Guelph was pretty similar to a typical English town, complete with a proper old looking church and English style parkland.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect for my time in Ontario. I knew that my friend Claire who I was staying with had taken the week off as some of her annual holiday, so I had a feeling we may have a fair amount organised, and we sure did!

Almost as soon as I’d got off the bus, I was whisked away to Claire’s house, and with a quick turn around (Just time for a shower – aaah, my first wash after 3 days on a bus!) we were out the front door again and heading down to the local bar to meet up with some of Claire’s friends. This was the first round of introductions in what proved to be an amazingly sociable week, and it was almost overwhelming meeting so many people, especially cos a fair few were drunk as skunks (Especially one guy whose name I can’t remember, but I seem to think he was Afghanistani!). Luckily everyone I met were pretty cool people, and so it wasn’t too much effort to fit in and get on with them!

It really was a pretty crazy week as it turned out. I knew I had relatively little money left, so it was a case of trying to get as much done for as cheap as possible. Luckily this entailed lots of stays at friend’s houses, and thankfully little money changing hands.

It was quite a different experience this week, compared with the time I’d spent in Whistler. This time it really felt like I was “travelling”. In Whistler, I was there, I was working and I felt like a local, whereas here I felt I was doing what is expected of you as a traveller – meeting lots and lots of new people, and sharing random experiences, such as watching people you’ve known for only 2 hours snort cocaine from a cd case, share a boat ride and a fishing lesson from people you’ve only known for a similar amount of time, have huge slabs of meat cooked on a bbq, sit round a bonfire, surrounded by the smoke of the wood and the numerous joints being passed round, be a guest at someone’s birthday party who again you’ve only know for a few hours, and have a genuinely fantastic night out, listening to an accomplished but unexpected reggae band!

I think in a way it was quite good to round the trip off in this way. When leaving Whistler, although I was obviously excited to be heading across the other side of the country and meeting up with Claire again, I almost felt I wished I could just head straight back home, so I could just settle down and get some normal living done again! However, I think this would have been a little bit of a waste, and I’m glad I had the chance to carry on experiencing new things right up until I left. After meeting so many people in this last week, and just seeing a different part of Canada, it rounded things up nicely, and at least me feel like I had seen the country, rather than just visited one place and stayed put there.