Canada IS a great country!

Yesterday I got roped into moving my brother out of University. Not normally a tragedy in any sense but I had other plans I was eager to get to so this mammoth move (it took us almost 12 hours to get everything loaded and the flat tidied up) I was ready to get home and then head back out.

This didn’t exactly happen as on our drive home the right wheel of the trailer behind the van decided to lock up and we had to pull over.

No matter what we tried (we drove both forwards AND backwards!!) We couldn’t seem to make this stubborn wheel turn, so we were just resigning ourselves to our fate and getting ready for a long walk to the closest phone when a friendly stranger and good Samaritan (both the same person) pulled over in their pickup truck and lent us his phone to call for a tow truck. As it turned out this helpful gentleman happened to hail from Caistor Centre and only a hop, skip and a jump (and perhaps a final lunge) from where I’m situated. We only chatted briefly but during this time I excused my appalling geographical knowledge of the area by saying that I’d been away for a long time and was just coming back.

After we’d called the truck and our new pal had driven off we were all sitting in the van chatting about how fortunate we’d been to have him stop, when who should come driving back towards us but the man himself. He got out of his truck and walked up to us and said something along the lines of . . .

“As I was driving away I was thinking. You said you just got back, and that probably meant you don’t have a job yet. Do you want a job?”

I of course accepted, shook hands and exchanged information before he headed off again. It’s a landscaping position which is good because I’ll get to be outside, doing different stuff all the time, getting to travel to different areas, and it pays well enough that I’ll be able to save up some money during the work season and then bugger off again once the season turns.

Cha Ching!

Mr. Murray

Thanks! (for all the fish)

Rome was nice!

Okay, so I've been neglect. Big whoopidy do! I've been doing other things!

Anyway, for everyone who was anxiously awaiting pictures from Morocco you're going to have to wait 'till I'm back in Canada. (Don't worry, I'll make a slideshow and invite everyone to their own private screening in my house . . . wherever that ends up being. Don't get too excited!)

Things are going great! I'm still having a ball but I'm a tad conflicted about returning home. I'm going to miss my current lifestyle, the friends I have over here, the way of life, everything. Then on the other hand I'm really looking forward to being back in Canada, with friends and family, familiar surroundings, and being able to just relax for a bit.

Regardless of how I feel, I'll be back in Canada on April 14th (good thing I checked! I thought it was the 15th!) after I find a way to get to London to catch my flight, and I'm expecting to be bombarded, immediately upon my arrival, by invitations to dinner, teas, pints, clubs, farms, cities, beans, eggs, salad . . . ok, I got a bit carried away. I'm a tad hungry!

40 hours on a bus

That's how long it took me to get from Saharan Morocco up to Barcelona. It was direct, but LONG and now that I'm in town I have nowhere to stay tonight and I'm a bit tired and hungry.

Anyway, Morocco was great, and I'm sure Barcelona will be too! I'm characteristically running out of time, so here are a couple of pictures to keep you up to date-ish.

No I won't the computer won't let me access my drive.

Another time dear readers, another time.

Not just another list.

Often when I post a list of sites it's not just I think other people might benefit from them, but also because I don't want to forget them myself. (Other times it's just something I think is funny in the moment, but I'm not going to worry about that one right now)

I found these sites recently and thought that I'd share them with everyone and keep them in a place I'll be able to find them later.

The first 2 are about volunteering in South America . . .
http://www.travellernottourist.com/index.HTML
http://www.volunteersouthamerica.net/

The nest one is about doing worthwhile things all over the world . . .
http://www.idealist.org/

And this one is about trading your clothes with strangers . . .
http://www.rehashclothing.com/

Have a look, be inspired, and send me a new jacket!

Thank goodness for saving drafts!

I almost forgot to post this!

I heard about this guy from a Dutchman who met him. He's a cool spoken word poet that pretty much raps the entire Canterbury Tales. You can find some cool fan stuff done on you tube too if you like what you hear.

http://www.myspace.com/bababrinkman
http://babasword.com/writing/rapcantales.html

I guess it's not very Valentine's Day related, but neither is this . . .

A little more information for you.

Okay folks, I've been in Portugal now for 5 weeks and have posted only that last (and let's face it) shitty post, so now I've got 10 minutes to turn this whole thing around and post a mind blowing entry that people will be talking about for centuries!

Seeing as a picture is much more expressive than I can possibly hope to be in 10 minutes let's start with a few of them.

These first 2 pictures are of Lisbon where I spent 4 nights couchsurfing in a hostel and hanging out with a friend from the Netherlands that I met on the bus and a couple of Brasilians, a Texan, a Norwegian, an Estonian, and others that I know I'm forgetting and having a whale of a time in the scary little streets in the old city.

These next 2 are where I spent all those cold nights in January and the first week of February. It's called Paradise in Portugal and I stayed at the resort expense free and met people from all over the world.

This is a dude on his way . . . somewhere. I snapped the picture (I asked him first) on the way back from Santa Clara with the groceries for the Quinta.
This was about an hour and a half ago in Faro. I was in a park reading a book when all these Peacocks (and Peahens to be inclusive) walked out from behind the bench I was sitting on. I fed them some crumbs to get this picture.

Any of the really good ones from Portimão are on my friends camera and he's going to mail a CD of them to me in about 2 weeks. I won't get it 'till I'm back in Canada though, so you're just going to have to be patient.

And now dearest friends, you know a little more about what I've been up to these past few days during the terrible silence that befell my blog. And e-mail correspondance. And Facebook. And phone calls. ANYWAY, I'm still alive and still having a ball.