The 1000 Day Holiday

From and including: Sunday, 1 January 2006
To, but not including : Sunday, 1 November 2009

1400 days could also be counted as:

• 3 years, 10 months.
• 120,960,000 seconds
• 2,016,000 minutes
• 33,600 hours
• 200 weeks

The funny thing? I actually have some work to do today.

Resuming normal life…

A funny quote I just came across:

“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, the car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.”

Ellen Goodman (1941 -) via BrainyThoughts.com

I find it impossible to verbalise the Burning Man experience.

I can say it gave me insane dreams for two weeks post event!

This photo slide show shows a lot of the adventures to be had.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Burning Man 2009 - Slideshow

01. Feel the rhythm and watch medieval sword fights at the Tam Tams every Sunday afternoon at Mont-Royal
02. Have a picnic and give free hugs with electronic beats and funky DJ`s at Piknik Electronic, Sundays at Jean-Drapeau
03. Bike along the 14.5Km of Lachine Canal and catch the wonder of the old Port
04. Grab yourself a Beaver Tail, 127 de la Commune E
05. Join Cat’s Corner’s LARGEST PUBLIC SHIM SHAM for a free swing dance and free Charleston classes. Look for the big crowd of Lindy hoppers dancing in the streets of Blvd St Laurent!
06. Salsa it up with Salsafolie at the Old Port on Saturday afternoons
07. Have fun being green by renting a bike free in the summer at Mont-Royal metro (Desjardins info booth right outside the exit) or Bixi-ing around town
08. Jazz it up at JazzFest in the summer!
09. Walk Plateau-Mont-Royal and Village and discover shops, cafes, culture.
10. Head over to Schwartz`s on St-Catherine for a deli and smoked beef sandwich experience like no other (the cherry cola goes down real well too!)

Read the rest of this entry »

After many hours hunting the best bargains on the web I’ve got the following itinerary:

all costs are in $CAD

14/9: San Francisco – via Atlanta – Dublin $271

21/9: Dublin – London $31

6/10: London – Kuala Lumpur $334

20/10: Kuala Lumpur – Melbourne $148

27/10 Melbourne – Newcastle $62

Total Cost: $843CAD / $752USD / $933 AUD / 514 Euros / 448 GBP

Want to find some super deals like this? Hire your own Travel Gopher.

Canadian Moose were introduced to NZ in 1910. Thave haven’t been seen in more than 50 years, assumed to be extinct.

Now theres scientific proof they are still alive. Check out the article below.

Note: click the fullscreen link, then at the bottom you can zoom in…

Killing Ants – The  African Definition: A seemingly crazy exercise where white people go to new places to see whats there.

After eight months in Vancouver. The itch, has become a scratch,and its time to start killing ants.

This week: Calgary Stampede & hitch hiking around in BC

Next week: Back to Vancouver for the Folk Festival

21st July: Fly to Montreal. Explore and then find some way to get back to the West Coast. (hitch hiking 5000km in 2 weeks?)

31 August – 7th September : Burning Man.

September: Flights to Anywhere:

Dublin: $375, then Europe -> Asia $130GBP

Aussie $750

Loving the return of travel option-itis.

The 17th of February brings the 3 month anniversary of being in Vancouver. This is a big milestone for me. Prior to this, 2 weeks was the longest I had been in one location since 2005.

It highlighted for me what I had noticed with super long term travellers/vagabonds.
You start to get a little strange, as time goes on with no real home, short term friends etc. For me it was a way to keep things interesting. By adopting Baby, I created a new type of interaction mechanism.

A few travellers I met that had been gone 5+ years were rather strange, and they checked my desires to be gone much longer.

Having a home base allows continued interaction with a core group of friends that you can actually maintain. Otherwise friendships that you look on as being close, you realise are 3 years stagnant. You view the friendship as current, but the people on the other side have moved on and replaced whatever role you had in their lives. Sure you can pick up where you left off, but 3 years is a long time in peoples lives to have missed.

I recall a discussion with another long term traveller, way back in Africa. We agreed that 3 – 5 months is the ideal length of time for a trip. It is long enough to disconnect completely from your normal life. Become established in a new location, or explore an area in depth.You don’t run out of steam, or have any chance to feel like you’re in a rut.

Then you return to what you had before with new insights, feelings, goals and desires. You can step back into your ‘normal life’ and carry on with little disruption.

Theres a foot of snow outside

The back deck

The marina is completely frozen over, with islands of snow forming on top. (before we came through in the ship)

Frozen Marina

Fountains don’t go no more…

And everyone in Vancouver rants about how nobody in Vancouver knows how to drive in the snow.

When the money runs out, you sign up for medical experiments.

Such as psychosis studys where they give you MRI’s and ask you

“if drinking a glass of pure water will let someone else gain control of your thoughts?”

and
“Do the voices tell you what to do?”

Post 1000 Day Holiday MRI from Craig on Vimeo.

Canada doesn’t pay very well. $8 – $12 per hour being the going rate for most jobs.
So unless youre getting tips or perks, that pretty much blows. ( I wish I still wanted to be a geek!)

The strip club job didn’t eventuate. So it was time to come up with a new venture.

SCAM #1
I’m now a Mystery Shopper.
I eat and drink in nice restaurants, fill out a form (its actually rather long.. but such is life). And effectively get my meal/drinks free with maybe a few extra dollars left over.

Now if you work it out how long I would have to work for the Dinner in a normal job. ($9/h pre tax)
For the $33 Lunch I had yesterday I would have had to work 4 hours to pay for it.
4 hours! That’s half of a days work!

Just to extrapolate the living costs here on that kind of money.
Income: $330/Week or $1431/Month
Rent & Utilities: 550 – 650/Month. (and that’s a cheap place!)
That gives a rent to income range% of 38-45%. Any financial planner will say that’s waaay crazy!

Spare a thought for those living in Whistler: Where rent runs ~$1000/month
That makes the rent as a % of income: 84%@$8/hr to 59% @$12/hr OUCH

Which brings me onto the Scam 2

SCAM #2

Live in a large house w 10 people. Kind of like dossing in London, but with a lot more space. We have a basketball court in the back yard!

Ive got the room which was the Garage at a whopping $45/week or $180/month. (14% if income @ $9/hr).

SCAM #3

Work at the skifield to score a seasons pass. Not so much a scam. But when youre earning $9/hour.. the things we will do for snow time

I start at Mt Seymour on Sunday.

I start bar work on Saturday. Bring on the tips!