Small world, yes, but this is ridiculous

Last night after work we headed to the Wa-Bar, a 'western style' bar where you can find some of your most treasured beers from home. Running in to other English teachers on the street, they would tell us that this was the place to go on Friday nights if you just want to chill and speak English at a normal pace. (After 5 days of "What.. colour.. is.. the.. house?" it can be really nice to talk like a normal person again.)

Anyway, we weren't there terribly long before some teachers came up to introduce themselves to the 'new people'. One girl came over and joined, and I asked her where she was from.

Her: Canada
Me: Okay, where?
Her: Ontario
Me: Okay, where in Ontario?
Her: (pause) Well, where are YOU from?
Me: Port Elgin
Her: (freaks out before yelling that she is also from Port Elgin)

Here's why this is particularly weird. Port Elgin has approximately 6000 people. Everyone knows just about everyone's business, and you recognize and say hello to everyone you pass on the street. Occasionally you'll still find people you don't know, but it's rare.

So we get chatting, realize that we look familiar to each other, and start talking about the people we know... and then it dawns on us that our brothers are best friends.

So 14 time zones away, in a mediocre 100,000 person city in South Korea, out of 15 foreigners in town I manage to find someone else from my home town.

This replaces the friend of a friend working as a bartender in a random backpacker in Mozambique as the weirdest 'small world' story.

I love flying on someone else's tab

The best flight is a free flight. I don't care where you're sitting or what they feed you, if it's free, it's awesome. Incidentally, if you can pick which airline this free flight is on, I highly recommend Korean Air. It's awesome. And I flew it for free.

That is all.

It's a small world after all

On our recent road trip to Halifax we had many interesting conversations to pass the time. Stupid games of 'would you rather' had us debating about the benefits and pitfalls of vomiting marbles and sweating cheese, and most of our discussions were similarly bizarre. One question that came up was about what one person you would punch in the face if you could. We got some very entertaining answers, laughed it off, and that was the end.

Until the next day when we arrived at the game, only to find my one person - someone who none of us had seen in 2 years - sitting 20 feet away. Terrible. It's amazing how you can travel and find the most unexpected people as you go. It's also good that I didn't give in to the 'you wouldn't do it's and 'now's your chance!'s.

"When's your flight?"

This past weekend 11 hardcore Laurier football fans headed out east from Waterloo, Ontario to Halifax Nova Scotia to see the Hawks pummel Acadia's Axemen in tha Uteck Bowl. Many other Laurier fans also made the trip, mostly parents and players' girlfriends, and we were asked one question time and again - "when's your flight?"

Then we got to see their reactions when we told them that we had not flown but instead rented an 11-seater van and driven the 18 hours and 1,882 kilometres to see the game. That's right. We actually spent more time in the van than we did in Halifax. Everyone thought we were nuts, but I think this is another step in the direction of the revival of the lost art of the roadtrip. These days it is far too easy to book a discount flight and get anywhere you need to in a couple hours. Now don't get me wrong, it's great that it's so much easier (and inexpensive) to travel these days, making it a lot more convenient to get to far-flung destinations. But there is something to be said to the old adage that it's not the destination, but the journey that really matters. As we were leaving in the very early hours of the morning the day before the game, one of us summed up the trip as 'this is either the best idea or the worst idea ever', but he was deliriously excited while he said this, making it clear which side he was on. We were quite lucky that the 11 of us managed to not get on each other's nerves, and in the end I think that the time we spent in the van ended up being more fun than everything else in the whole trip. From jumping curbs, having pylons thrown at us, and realizing that for all the time we spent in Fredricton, NB (where we spent the nights), we would never actually see it in daylight, the entire weekend was hilarious.

While it's true that everyone who flew out east had more time to spend at the actual location, and clearly spent much less time getting there, I wouldn't have traded that van ride for the world.

Pictures, courtesy of everyone who had cameras

The Perils of Online Bookings

Tomorrow I head out of Canada again. Having previously booked a number of trips over the internet, it seemed only logical to do so again. Everything was going quite smoothly until we moved and our ISP has for some reason had a ridiculous amount of trouble connecting us at our new address. Two weeks later and a day before we leave, I'm finally getting internet access (although I'm at work so probably shouldn't be using this right now). Anyway, we're now scrambling to get our booking confirmations ready to go.

Lesson learned: print right away...



...and don't trust your ISP. Whatever they tell you, they're lying.