I didn't manager to get to sleep until about 1am. I went and used my telekey hoping I had some messages to listen to. There were none. I ended up reading nearly every brochure in the hostel, trying to find CBC Radio 1 and then eventually getting to asleep.
I awoke this morning quite early to the sound of everyone getting up and moving around. I eventually gave in to the noise and got up at 8:45am. I called Aaron having a shower and talked to him for a while.
We went out for breakfast and I had my first Kaiser bun. After that we basically explored a small part of the city. We walked all the way to Anne Hathaway's replica cottage, it seemd really fake and then over to Beacon Hill park, stopping at the Parliament buildings on the way. We also saw the oldest house in BC, some Totem poles and ate at the Cheesecake café.
Tomorrow we are probably going to Butchart gardens and hopefully get hold of Clare. I hope I sleep better tonight.
Tuesday 7th October
We got up quite early and organised to go to Butchart gardens. I checked my Telekey but there was no message from Clare. We got the bus to the gardens after much stress at the bank for Claire because they wouldn't cash her cheques. We used our British, feminine charm to get info half-price $7.50. The gardens were nice but we weren't that impressed. I bought Aaron some seeds in a postcard for outside his shack. When we got back from Butchart I checked my Telekey again, this time there was a message from Tanya telling us Morgan's address and phone number so now we had a meaning for our afternoon. I called her but got completely blocked when the answerphone cut in so I hung up. So we walked to her apartment. Either she wasn't in or her intercom wasn't working. As we headed back down her street wondering what to do we saw a woman walking the other way. She looked a lot like Morgan so we stopped and spoke to her. It was Morgan and we had a chat, she was too tired to go out that night but said we should go round tomorrow to Munroe's bookshop where she works, and we can go out and stay the night. So we decided to keep on hoping that Clare would call and go to a cheap, Tuesday, cinema showing. We decided to go to the 8pm showing of "The Full Monty" but it was full so we went to the other cinemas but we missed those showings, so we went back to the first place to buy a ticket for the later showing. We still hadn't booked in the Youth Hostel for the night. We were still hoping we would hear from Clare. When we turned up at the cinema Clare was there. It was amazing we just met her. She invited us to stay at her friend Scott's place but first of all we went to the Swans pub with her, Scott, 2 friends and some others. We stayed there for a bit, a live band started playing Jazz which was cool. We then went back to the film and joined a queue full of UVIC students. The film was really funny and very British, everyone really seemed to enjoy it. Only 1 joke went over their head and that was a football joke. After the film Scott's friend drove us and picked up our rucksacks and then back to Scott's. We sat around for a bit and then there was a knock at the door. 3 more people came to sleep on the floor. One Australian bloke and 2 girls from Alberta. So we ended up sharing the one bedroom in the apartment.
Wednesday 8th October
We got up really late and went for brunch at an amazing place. We all really stuffed ourselves and then we left Scott and Claire and went to open our bank accounts. After a lot of hassle a really sweet guy cashed our cheques for travellers cheques which is exactly what we wanted in the first place. After this episode we went to the tourist office to find out about Salt Spring Island, Powell River and Nelson. We then took this information and went to Chapters bookstore to veg and read about Canada. We were looking for inspiration as to where to go next but didn't really come up with much. We sat there for 2 hours reading books, magazines, papers etc. We left to go to Munroe's to meet Morgan at 5:15pm. When we got there she was still working so we waited and then she disappeared. We asked if she was still there and they said she'd gone home. Well, we didn't know what to do? We waited until 6pm and then I called her. She said that she couldn't come out tonight and therefore couldn't stay. There was no apology or anything and basically we were homeless and we didn't get to see the view and everything else we were supposed to do with her. We also had to walk back to Scott's and beg to stay another night. He was cool about it and we went and got beer, subway for dinner and then to Steamers in the evening to play pool.
<these are extracts from my diaries written whilst travelling and working in Canada and the US in '97-'98>
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