Canadiana Backpackers Blog

We get a lot of of bicycle travelers coming through the hostel each summer on their way across Canada headed for the Pacific Coast. Most are in excellent physical condition but it takes more than just conditioning to challenge this vast continent – a lot more!

I always wonder just how many manage to stay the course and manage to ride all the way to Vancouver. The North American continent is vast and the terrain is varied.

Andy from England left the hostel two days ago on a planned route that will take him along the wooded hills of the northern coast of Lake Superior. As he rode away, Andy remarked’ “I think I’m a bit overloaded.” He knows what he’s talking about.

That sounds like a real “rookie” mistake; but Andy is no novice when it comes to long-distance cycling. He has ridden around Europe (several times) and crossed Australia where the temperature reached 50C! So I think it was his last trip that is responsible for his overloading.

Andy’s last adventure took him to South America where he cycled south of Santiago along Chile’s rugged and dry Pacific Coast before crossing the still snowy Andes into Argentina and on to Buenos Aries.

It’s a rather poor, sparsely inhabited and very rural region and supplies were often difficult to find. I don’t imagine it’s something one would easily forget.

In the Chilean spring the mountain roads became virtually impassable and Andy was forced to carry his bicycle uphill and over the High Andes through snow three-feet deep! After enduring trials such as that, crossing Canada should be a snap for Andy.

A tough lad from Sheffield, England. Ex-British Army Andy likes to push himself and, in doing so, ? finds peace.? On different trips he’s cycled across Australia, across both the North and South Island of New Zealand, and from Santiago, Chile to Buenos Aires, Argentina going? through the Andes, and Patagonia (this was his favourite trip,? it took three and a half months). He’s going to send us? a photo once a week of his trip? across Canada with his Canadiana T-shirt on. We have our fingers crossed everything goes well.? Stay posted.

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As yet I have not met any person who could lose the keys to their room so often!!!!!!!

That’s Maria, and I have to admit she hasn’t lost her keys for at least a week(actually she lost them just before I posted this blog).

Maria is a beautiful, young and very funny (and sometimes a bit messy) girl from Germany. Maria came to Canada with her friend, Janine, over time(and Maria has been here on and off for a long time) her friend left to go back home but Maria stayed and we are so glad she did!

We have really watched Maria grow up before our eyes, in the beginning she stuck close to her friends from home, and not long later she meet a nice Irish guy, but as travellers go, everyone went there own way… including Maria for a while.

Maria went to Vancouver for a couple of months and worked at Cafe Crepe while saving money to discovering what Vancouver has to offer.

Vancouver is known for its rainy winters so Maria came back to snowy Toronto to await summer.

During her time in Toronto Maria worked at the clothing store, Hollister, folding clothes at night. Maria became the ‘job finder’ for many hostellers and slowly, one by one, around half a dozen people were all recruited to do the same job.

Maria is no longer folding clothes at Hollister, and now works around the corner at the Crepery, she has mastered the art of crepe making and many passer by’s stop to watch.

Your smiling face will be missed Maria. Have a great time relaxing for a while back in Germany.

Lesley

Canadiana Staff

On Wednesday nights, we ask questions here at the Canadiana hostel – a lot of questions! It’s “QUIZ NIGHT” every Wednesday evening.

The quiz consists of about four rounds of 25 questions testing your general knowledge. For instance, “Who is singer Paul Hewson better known as?”*or “Which was the first country to grant women the vote?” ** Easy stuff like that.

We play the game for both prizes and bragging rights. We played four rounds last week and the overall winner was our Australian trucker Amanda (see earlier blog entry: Bye Bye Gender Bias). Amanda won two of the four rounds and ended one round with an impressive 20 correct out of 25! (One of the highest scores ever!).

Amanda won a free boat cruise around Toronto harbor aboard the tall ship “Kajama”. (It’s actually a “Booze Cruise” but you get some spectacular views of Toronto’s skyline.

Unfortunately, Amanda had to move onwards to explore western Canada before she could take her cruise so she generously donated her prize to Steve from Jamaica, a fellow backpacker she met? at the hostel.

If you’re reading this Amanda, well done and thanks from Steve! Everyone misses you heaps and wishes you a safe and happy journey!

*? ? Paul Hewson = Bono? ? ? ? ? ? ? ** New Zealand (1893)

Quiz Night on the patio.

She speaks impeccable English with? the sort of mid-Atlantic accent so favored by the BBC. Your first impression of Eri is that among all of the attractive women in the hostel, she stood out as being the most cultured and smart as a whip as well!

We were sitting on he patio speaking with Eri – an ethnic Korean born in the UK; at least, that’s what we thought! Her calling card tells us she’s a PhD. candidate at the London School of Economics. Pretty impressive academic credentials.

During our conversation, Eri blurts out, “Hey! There’s a waschbaer!” Wash Bear?

“Waschbaer”, it turns out, is the German word for a raccoon.? And she was pointing to one that? was busy trying to tear up our trash bins. You see, Eri wasn’t born in the UK, she was in fact born in Germany and German is her mother tongue!

Eri was here for a major conference of Psychology doctoral students to give a dissertation on the subject of her doctoral thesis. Eri really liked Toronto and partied hard with us the night before it was her turn to deliver her speech to? a prestigious gathering at York University.

It was quite a night. Let’s just say we had a few celebratory refreshments. Eri managed to lose her day pack along with her cosmetics, return ticket and power point presentation of her speech! Did she panic? Heck no!

After only a few hours of sleep, Eri? found her backup copy of the power point presentation and set off to deliver her speech – a little tired and slightly hung over!

When she returned that evening we asked her how it went, “Not, too well.” was her reply! That is “not well” by her standards! The adjudicators saw it somewhat differently. It wasn’t until days later that we discovered that she had in fact won “Best Presentation” for the entire academic conference!

We get a lot of smart people here at the Canadiana hostel. But Eri has set the bar pretty darned high!

What’s it like when you’re just 20 years old and are about to make decisions that will change the course of your life? There ought to be a law against having to make such tough choices at such a tender age.

Although “Youth Hostels” are no longer soley for youths, the fact is Backpackers are getting younger and younger. Today, it is not unusual to find kids as young as sixteen traveling alone for months at a time.

We had a lovely young girl from Adelaide, Downunder in Oz (Australia) staying with us for a few weeks. She was checking out our fair city. And I think she liked what she saw.

She has been living in Raleigh, North Carolina for the past three months with her fiance – a U.S. soldier whom she met in Australia while he was traveling on leave. He is leaving the military and they are both looking for a place to settle and Toronto is on their shortlist.

Both Renee and her intended are young (very young) and are both about to tackle some very mature issues. They plan to wed, relocate, finish their education, and start new careers on a limited budget.

The truth is the odds are against their success – they both know it as well. She told me that herself. But that’s the way it seems to be so often these days. In the fast paced world of the 21st Century it’s a mad headlong rush into life.

We can’t help but wish Renee and her man Matt success and hope against hope they will somehow conquer the odds. We’re glad Renee has decided to consider Toronto as her possible future home and happy she chose to stay with us here at the Canadiana.

They say the best view of Toronto’s skyline is from the Toronto Islands; a chain of island parklands sitting in the city’s harbor a few kilometers off shore. Best view? Not quite.

The best view, by far, is? from the deck of? a ship as it sails through the harbor and between the offshore islands. You get an ever changing perspective of the skyline.

The hostel arranged for a trip through the harbor on the three-masted, tall-ship “Kajama”. The views of Tornto are greatly enhanced by the mere fact that the Kajama has a cash bar on deck, which just might add to the enjoyment of the view.

The Kajama is also an “armed” vessel, being equipped with a two-hundred year-old cannon that is fired during the cruise. The cannon is a relic of the days when sailing ships used a gun as a warning device before the advent of fog-horns.

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The Canadiana group in front of the tall-ship Kajama

Every so often there are? these amazing travellers that cross my path and they make me think… “Thats the kind of traveller I want to be.”

These travellers that I am describing seem to travel so light that their packs seem to float on their backs.? They love a night out but never seem to be out of cash. ? They keep going, even when the news seems grim, because they know that if that’s as bad as things are going to? get, then things are going well, as long as they have their passport and a ticket to the next destination? in their pocket.?

Carefree, that’s? what it’s all about.? Isn’t it?? Realising that you have to love what this amazing world has to offer, even if? things do not seem to be going to plan or? going your way.?

Of course the worst can happen, and sometimes does, but it’s how you react to it that shows the type of person you are, and the ease you will have throughout the rest? of your travels.

Im not the traveller I want to be, I’m still trying not to pack for every crisis and not longer feel the? urge to take a parachute.

Lesley

Canadiana Staff?

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OK, so yes, yet another blog about the weather but just when I thought it could not get any hotter…. it did!

Right now Im looking at the weather icon on the computer, it says 34 degrees and with the humidity it feels like 45, and man it really does feel like 45!

I love it when it’s hot, everyone seems to be in high spirits and the streets and patios are full of people, Tim Horton’s(Canadas answer to Starbucks) has a line up of people waiting for their delicious ice cappicinos and Ben and Jerrys has a line up of people that you will never see in the winter time.

There is just so much to do here in the summer time and because the summers here seem to come and go really quicky I am trying my best to fit everything in.

Tomorrow I want to go to the Toronto Island and spend the day relaxing under a shady tree with a good book, maybe even take some pictures of the amazing Toronto city skyline.

The Taste of the Danforth in early August, is another great summer time festival. All the restaurant’s along the Danforth sell nibbles of the food that they offer in their restaurant for only few dollars, if you can bear the heat then go along.

Right now the event’s guy is organising a ‘Beach Party’ for later this month to be held on the back patio, I hear talk of Limbo and Palm trees.

I love the summer but… thank goodness for Air Conditioning!

Lesley

Canadiana Staff

Madders & Pearcey, they can’t get enough of that sun!

If you have been keeping up with the blog then you will know exactly who Pearcey is. He is one of the original ‘Lager Louts’ and then he left Toronto to follow an Aussie girl to Vancouver.

Pearcey came back to take over the job as the Canadiana’s events organizer and has been keeping everyone entertained ever since. He has so much energy and a gift for enlightening enthusiasm in others too.

Pearcey loves to have a good time, weather it be taking a crowd out on the pub crawl, being the chef on the BBQ nights or leading everyone over to Toronro Island Park for the day (if you can, check out the Canadiana’s events, Pearcey will be the one taking you).

The great thing about Pearcey is that no matter how busy he is he always has time for anyone who is willing, for a chat and a laugh.

When you come to stay at the Canadiana, look out for the loud english lad in the mirrored 80′s shades, possibly looking either slightly worse for wear after a big night out or getting a huge group organized for one of the daily events.

By Lesley

Canadiana Staff

Bjorn is from Denmark, in the six months that he has stayed off and on here at the Canadiana he has become a well known and friendly face to see around the hostel.

This time he has only been back for a couple of weeks as he’s been off on a huge adventure around some of Canada’s Provinces.

His trip started in beautiful Montreal with some friends he had meet here, then he went solo to work in Nova Scotia on the WWOOF program.

WWOOF(World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) offers free food and board in exchange for working on the farm, its a great way to learn about organic farming.

After farming Bjorn hired a car and drove through New Brunswick, Quebec and after driving over 2000km over gravel roads through Labrador(where he saw 5 black bears) only to find the road closed, he turned around and took the same road back. On the way back the car tyre exploded but thanks to some friendly people in a nearby town he was on the road again 5 hours later unharmed.

Then a visit to Newfoundland where he boasts seeing a record number of wild moose plus doing some amazing hikes around the beautiful countryside.

Even after his big adventure around parts of Canada he said that when he came back to the Canadiana he had the feeling like he was home.

Bjorn leaves us in a few days to go back to Denmark to continue his work as an electrician. We will be sad to see him go and of course his help with the coffee making in the mornings.

Thanks Bjorn for helping out, and goodluck.

By Lesley

Canadiana Staff