Perth is a really pretty city. It has the benefit of being on a river and on the ocean so there are waterfronts everywhere, beaches right next door, and a constant cool breeze. It has a very urban feel to it while still feeling like a small town to me. Probably because it is a small city as far as cities go. And that it’s the only city on the Western side of the country.

Perth is the most isolated city in the world. The nearest city, Adelaide, is 2000 and something kilometres to the East across a plain of nothing. Even the name of the plain tells you there’s nothing: Nullarbor. All those Latin speakers will know that that means “No Trees.” But more on the Nullarbor later. Right now we’re still in Perth.

Preparing for a night out. In the laundry room.

We arrived in Perth just in time for a friend’s 18^th Birthday. Kristen had been in Australia for a week or two but in a smaller town to the south. We had promised to arrive in time to party for her birthday and came prepared with alcohol from the duty free shop in the Dubai airport.

The results of a night out in Perth.

The thing about Kristen is that she seems to know, through a friend of a friend of a friend or some other weird connection, at least one person in every city and major town in Australia. So for her birthday she had a guy who had come to our home town in Jasper for a school exchange and his cousin to take us out. And take us out they did. I gave in at two or three in the morning and headed back to the hostel. Miranda and Kristen came stumbling in at around five or so.  Perth nightlife definitely has a city feel to it, not small town. I’ll give it that.

Have you ever gone somwhere that you’ve heard, seen, and read so much about that when you arrive it all seems like you’ve been there before? New York is like that for me.

We arrived in New York early, having taken an overnight bus from Toronto. A huge, double decker overnight bus filled with adults who acted suspiciously like children. Antics on this ten hour bus included:

• Taking up two seats with feet, bags, and other things and then complaining when someone needed the seat.
• Stealing other people’s seats during stops.
• Tattling to the bus driver.
• Claiming a seat was yours when it wasn’.
• Being sent back to original seats with the bus driver watching.

So it was just like being on a school bus. But for ten hours.

But we made it and once we got off the bus and started walking to our hostel, all I could think was “Huh, New York looks just like it does in the movies.”

And the more we saw of the city, the more familiar it seemed to me.

We did all the typical touristy stuff. We went up the Empire State Building, to Times Square, to Macy’s. We didn’t got to the Statue of Liberty, partially because we didn’t have a whole lot of time. But also because now we have a reason to go back. Besides, we saw the M&M version. It’s sort of the same thing. Sort of.

We also did some not so touristy things. We went M&M World (Okay, this one is pretty touristy but what you usually think of when you think of New York. Did you know they make coconut M&M’s? They do and they taste kind of odd. We had dinner at Olive Garden and smuggled as many breadsticks out as we could. We walked the length of Broadway. That was interesting. But New York was fun and I will one day go back.

Another Photo Courtesy of Google

We may be on an extended vacation, but the rest of the world still has certain obligations. Which is how, on one of our days at Jordan’s we ended up helping to craft a bulletin board at the University of Waterloo. It’s not like we had anything else to do, though. And it was interesting to see another University. Coming from a very new university (Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton), it’s interesting to see how different campus’s are set up, especially such a large campus. I would have been lost in seconds without Jordan.

One Big Happy Dick Street Family

Apparently they don't own knives that work

We also got to help cook and enjoy a nice Dick Street Sunday dinner before we left. It felt very homey and it was nice to get a hearty, home cooked meal before heading off to enjoy whatever cheap street food we can afford on the other side of the globe.

And so it was after a nice and relaxing few days we said good-bye to Jordan, the other Dick Street Chicks, and Waterloo and headed back to Toronto and onward to New York City.

Oh, and Dick Street photos courtesy of Jordan (Hope you don’t mind!).

This is not a photo pf the Dick Street Jordan lives on. I forgot to take a photo so this is courtesy of Google

After Toronto, the next location on our itinerary was Waterloo, Ontario. An odd place to visit, yes, but our good friend Jordan goes to school there and we’d promised to visit. Not that visiting was a hardship or anything. It’s going to be way too long of a trip to pass up free accommodation.

lives in a decent sized house on a street named after a sexual organ. Or a man named Richard. Either way, it makes for some good jokes. Maybe it helps balance all the hormones from her four female roommates?

Speaking of roommates, it seems like Jordan and her roommates all have pretty active social lives. One of the first things Jordan tells me after picking us up from the bus stop is: “By the way, we’re having an A.B.C.  party tonight.”

For those of you unaware, the A.B.C. stands for Anything But Clothes. To give you an idea of what, exactly, that means, one of Jordan’s roommates fashioned a skirt and top out of duct tape. Bright pink and purple duct tape.

When packing for our seven month trip, a duct tape dress didn’t really make the list and so me and Miranda had to make do with a towel, a sarong (which, yes, is technically clothing but no one called me on it), and a sheet.  With Jordan’s help, of course.  Jordan herself made some sort of outfit out of a gold toilet seat that I gifted her (Harry Potter fans might catch the importance there. As a clue, one of Jordan’s nick names is George), a scarf, and some sort of shorts-looking piece of clothing. The toilet seat was definitely the finishing touch, matching quite nicely with her boyfriend’s Captain Underpants get-up, complete with pillowcase underpants and cape.

Except for the fact that there was a party going on where we were planning on sleeping, it was an interesting and fun way to meet a lot of Jordan’s Waterloo friends. Everyone’s friendly when they’re drunk (all of Jordan’s friends are anyway). And we did end up getting a decent sleep because Jordan is awesome and gave up her bedroom for us to crash in, though in doing so she did abandon us at her place with people we didn’t know as she made a hasty retreat to her boyfriends place. I guess you can’t have everything.

An old coworker and friend of mine, Emma, invited us to stay with her while we were in the city and even gave up her bedroom to us so we haven’t had to pay for accomodation yet, nor have we had to brave a hostel.

We only really had one full day in Toronto so we didn’t do a whole lot of planning; I did get us into a screening of MTV Live in advance because Miranda really wanted to go. So what do you do with only one day in a pretty well-known city? Do you sight-see? Take pictures of the CN tower? Nope, you go to the Ontario Science Centre.

Emma suggested it as an off-hand idea and we ended up spending the whole day there. I mean, it’s Toronto; we’re probably going to be back  some day so instead of doing touristy sight-seeing, let’s just have fun. I mean, touristy sight-seeing is fun but we just wanted to have a pretty relaxed day.

The Ontario Science Centre is massive. There are something like five floors but instead of the floors going in ascending order, they descend. Does that make sense? Floor One is still the ground floor but the Floor Two is one floor down and Floor Three is another floor down.

There was an area set up as sort of a craft station with fabric scraps, cardboard, glue guns, tape, scissors and other various craft stuff with some shoe forms (stays?) and you were supposed to make shoes. So Miranda and I spent over an hour making shoes. What a way to spend a day!

These ones are mine. I’m pretty dang proud of them.

These are Miranda’s. She spend way too long making that heel structurally sound.

So that was Toronto for us. Quick but fun. And the next day we were off to Waterloo to visit Jordan and the rest of the Dick Street Chicks.

Me and my sister are packing up and heading out to see the world, one dingy hostel at a time. Okay, that’s not fair. I’ve stayed at some very nice hostels, but I’ve stayed at some pretty dingy ones as well. Dingy hostels or not, I’m excited. More excited than I’ve been since I booked our flights. Maybe it’s because we leave so soon. Ten days and we’ll be boarding our first flight. How did that happen?

I would have loved to have shared our planning process and let you know as we planned why we made the decisions we did regarding our trip, but I’ll share with you one of my biggest faults: I’m a procrastinator. I procrastinate so much it’s a miracle I get anything done. And that’s why this blog, which I could have been updating for the last three months, is only now being used. Oops?

On the topic of me being a procrastinator, is it really only ten days until we leave? I have so much to do! Packing is the most obvious here. I have a list – I’m not completely unprepared. But have I actually looked at that list in the last two weeks? Of course not. So, we might be saying goodbye soon (really, really, scarily soon), but am I ready to leave? Of course not. At this rate, come ten days from now I’m going to be shoving random things into my backack and hoping I’ve got everything. Typical.