Let the people know: I’m no stranger to money management or camping. In college, I had champagne taste on a beer budget (newsflash: nothing has changed). I worked at the Fine Jewelry Counter at Neiman Marcus with a 30% discount which is very similar to a cocaine addict working at a cocaine counter with a 30% discount (not feeling the analogies right now). I loved all things shiny- but I also needed a place to live. After careful consideration on how to allocate my limited funds, I made the decision to take residence on the floor of a bedroom I shared with a friend in an elderly duplex at the bottom of a hill where eight other girls also lived. I owned no furniture- much like camping. Sleeping on the floor next to my roommate (who also slept on the floor due to lack of funds/ furniture) was a small sacrifice because I allocated my funds towards a FABULOUS closet, enough jewelry to warrant an insurance policy and the most beautiful leather Chloe bag you’d ever seen (google it).I also had chronic back pain and BF who for some reason put up with all this.
This was home sweet home.
This really has nothing to do with anything. Other than it’s a good short story to tell in order to ensure people know I know how allocate my money effectively and camp. When Molly and I planned our trip to Canada, we decided that we’d spluge on experiences, and save on hotels/ cars/ food. Small sacrifices people. I know how to make them.
Molly was one of the roommates with whom I co-existed blissfully in the duplex and this is the story of how we ended up in Canada with our friend Rachel.
Per Usual: The Flight Story
I’ll start this entry with the way it ended- a piss poor flight from United Airlines per usual. I suppose in some way, I should thank them. Because without their collective inability to communicate effectively or provide even the most basic level of customer service- I might not have half of anything to write about, ever.
We got to the airport for our flight at 430am in Calgary. I don’t care who you are- 430am is terrible and ungodly. And I think I’ve made it clear how I feel about traveling and looking janky so that means a 330am wake up time for high-maintenence people like me.
We were promptly not told that our flight was delayed due to “inability of staff members,” aka, “our crew partied too hard last night and called in this morning.” This meant a missed connection in Denver. After a long discussion with a gate agent who literally told me to go sit down, we found a flight from Calgary to Austin that connected in Denver that promised a small chance of getting us back to Texas in a mere 14 hours. Perfect. Trvaveling for 14 hours is my favorite.
I’m traveling with Molly and Rachel, and Molly did not get the memo on my airport routines- which I’ve clearly outlined in previous blogs (maybe she doesn’t read this? I don’t know). One of my main rules is I do NOT for any reason wait in lines only to wait in more lines to get on a plane to breath recycled air and dry out the skin on my face while on the tarmac. I travel with only one oversized handbag, so I generally wait until the last possible moment to get on the plane. Molly travels with a brood of bags and handbags and backpacks and reusable bags and jackets and things and therefore has to board and compete for overhead space with other people who don’t pack effectively. And Rachel has been asleep since we got here ten hours ago.
Long story short- Rachel got put on standby. And then a UA gate agent was having what must have been an out- of-body experience that was genuinely out of character for anyone employed by UA, and felt bad for her and put her on our plane home. United Airlines must know how much I love to sit by bathrooms and all the babies because for some reason I am always subject to this. Meanwhile, Rachel is now sleeping in the luxurious, spacious, second row with ample leg room.
When we began to board our plane to Austin, I felt weary of our trip down a narrow hallway littered with sweaty luggage loaders and tarmac employees. That’s when I arrived in the ACTUAL OUTDOORS and boarded what looks to be a flying Mini Cooper for my two hour trip home. And that’s how I ended up here- one row from the bathroom- in a toy plane. Also, the captain sounds underage and potentially intoxicated. I thought this part of my entry might be best written in real time because I’ve been given the gift of 14 hours of airport travel and also this plane might crash, but my iPhone has a life-proof case on it, so I’m confident it will survive me to tell my story.
Molly entering our drone.
One might think this would be a walk to a private jet. Wrong.
The decision to see what the Canadians are up to:
We decided to go to Canada for two reasons. First, Molly follows (stalks) random people on Instagram who travel and has fallen in love with one named @joegreer. Very “You’ve Got Mail” 2014 version. Very Instagram is the new Match.com. Very “i’m not stalking, i’m admiring.” She’s admired his feed of travels and I’m pretty sure she was secretly (not secretly at all) hoping she’d run into him on a mountain top somewhere and make out with him. Second, I had picked up a copy of National Geographic lately while in line at Whole Foods and feeling particularly outdoorsy and saw Canada and decided I needed to see what was going on up there. Rachel ended up coming along five days prior, and thank God she did, because she’s a true outdoorseman and works at REI (and therefore has an ungodly amount of hiking props) and probably was one of the main reasons we lived through the week. She stashed Cliff Bars like a squirrel.
Rachel in all her gear and glory.
The most incredible things tend to happen when you have no plan- I’ve found. I’ve also found that having no plan is potentially catastrophic and causes type A people like me to have heart palpitations while receiving directions from strange canadians roadside. I went into this trip with lots of confidence around my ability to camp (see the story about me living on a floor), paired with a new Camelback/ backpack thing from Academy that I had packed like a game of Tetris with flashlights, a compass and a cute Lu Lu Lemon pull-over that I was sure would photograph well. None of this was practical or useful at all and if I could go back and do it all over again I would just put Goldfish and diet coke in my backpack. Oh and a raincoat…def a rain coat…I was soaked the whole time.
Canadians don’t mess around with security/ Freak Hail Storms:
This was another one of those instances where I was feeling particularly spontaneous (that never works for me) and we set flight to Canada with no car or hotel reservations. When traveling abroad, (aka Mexico), I am accustomed to being greeted by “security agents” who celebrate your arrival with ATV tour guides and tequila shots. Canada was not so similar. The whole “blame Canada” situation has really gone to their heads and they aren’t fond of Americans. I was grilled by the security agent and I think I broke out in a cold sweat/ hives during my interview with her thanks to her undue pressure:
“Why are you in Canada?” She said without blinking.
“Um, because I want to see it.” I said, respectfully. And I couldn’t tell her about @joegreer and my first NatGeo Mag purchase- i’d risk looking like an amateur.
” Where are you staying?” she barked.
“Don’t know yet.”
“Do you have a car?”
“No, not yet.” I responded, growing more and more uncomfortable.
“What are you doing while you’re here?”
“Well, we’re driving to Montana and then Wednesday we’re coming to Banff.”
” So, you flew to Canada only to hopefully drive back to the US today?”
“Um, Yesssssss.” I said- quickly rethinking why I was in Canada in the first place. “Do you know if rental car companies allow that?” I quickly retracted remembering she wasn’t a tour guide.
“Why are you coming back to Cananda on Wednesday?” She said, monotone.
“Picking up a friend.” I said. It was becoming SUPER apparent she thought I was smuggling drugs or a human or produce or something and I could see why. And I was getting shifty.
“So you know people here?” She said, getting irritated.
“Not that I know of.” I responded. She proceeded with the interview, asking, what I did for a living, where I lived in the US, etc. You get the point. It ended in her giving me the middle finger with her eyes and telling me, “Um, good luck with all that. It’s not smart to travel with no plans.” Um, thanks mom.
I am a cat and I can land on my feet in any situation. We got through security only to find that a freak hail storm prompted all Canadians to leave their cars out in the elements- therefore totaling them- therefore creating insurance claims- and therefore renting all the rental cars. After multiple $30 international calls, I found one car in downtown Calgary for the renting.
Enterprise “picked us up” (clever). I was pleasantly surprised by the tiny gay man with a pinky ring that picked us up in a mini van with techno music playing softly. I thought this to be a “welcome to Canada” gesture. The man sharing our van thought it was just weird.
We were able to flirt our way through multiple discounts by flashing a AAA card, name dropping Spurs Players/ George Strait and acting somewhat helpless (hey, gotta ditch feminism for a discount once in a while). Once we got our sweet, sweet, Hyundai Elantra (hey, it’s no hatchback), we were on our way.
What people are eating in Canada:
Oh, the answer to that is nothing. Or maybe they’re cooking for themselves? Unclear. Miles after driving our Elantra around and forgoing opportunities to do donuts in it (since we opted out of the insurance), we found ourselves starving. We were driving without an iPhone’s GPS so we were having to use our brain, which many of you know can cause an onset of hunger more quickly than usual times when you’re equipped with a brain-numbing smart phone.
Our only find was Dairy Queen, and thank GOD. We were able to take photos and remind all of our friends that Dairy Queen exists outside of Texas. After ignoring the voice of my trainer in my head, I promptly asked the server for a hearty bowl of thick,white gravy with my chicken strips, duh. She looked at me dumbfounded, and said, “Um, we don’t have that here.” WTF. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll take brown gravy if I have to.” “We don’t have that either.” She said, surprised I was asking. “Ummmmmm. Okay.” Remain calm, I thought. Everything is going to be okay. There are other solutions to this problem. “…..I’ll have ranch then.” And she handed me some milky substance that was not Hidden Valley and I ate my strips bare and felt bad about it.
You should know that there is no Canadian fare. The only thing they’re serving is American food at a lofty price. This brought me to order burgers for three days of the six I was there (again, ignoring the voice of my trainer). We attempted to order a burger “rare.” “Rare” is code for, “give me a long blank stare when I say this word and do the opposite.” And we got nearly burnt burgers every.single.time. In our last restaurant, I said, “do your best to make that medium.” And then….burnt.
Canadians also have dress codes at Restaurants that are not Dairy Queen. Hiking Gear and backpacks are frowned upon in fancy restaurants: weird. However, due to drastic under packing and a lack of protein bars (one was given to a very domesticated chipmunk) we were in desperate need of red meat and wine after a long day of hiking in Banff. Red meat is only available in steak form because burgers are cooked well-done per Canadian law (I assume). Enter: three hikers in hiking gear in search of a food STAT. “Seat us where you’d like.” Rachel said to the hostess. “How about over there in the dark?” She said. Tricky, I thought. Hiding baby in the corner just because she has a Camel Back on is not cool. So we ate our weight in overpriced appetizers, ordered three deserts, drank too much and closed down the restaurant in our hiking gear + food coma, in the dark spot in the corner. Yo’ welcome, Canada. And if anyone asks, we’re Euro trash, or Chinese. Whichever is more believable.
Because feeding Cliff Bars to a humanized chipmunk was so tempting.
A brief Summary of the Canadians we met:
I’ve never been somewhere where I felt like such an ignorant tourist. And with limited access to wi-fi or Google, I depended on the (coincidentally also gay) man and his sidekick hostess that served us breakfast each morning at the Holiday Inn for information. So chic, I know. Our breakfast conversations were littered with questions for him: “How do you know how much gas costs (metric system= totally over our head),” “Is there a president here? Who is in charge in this place?,” “Where’s the army?,” “Where did Canadians come from?,” “why DO people say ‘eh?,'”etc. He earned big tips and hugs because he politely explained these inquires and kept the coffee a-flowin’. I knew he liked us because we bought him a gift at the end of our trip and he almost cried while Snap Chatting it. #BFFL
We also met non-Canadians. Aka people from Asia doing a lot of this:
Just taking pictures of taking pictures of taking pictures of peace signs.
All the other Canadians we met can be summed up into one human being: People that are shocked to meet someone from Texas. There’s nothing I love more than someone who is as excited to hear about Texas as we are to talk about it. Long story short, I love me some curious Canadians, and we threw Rick Perry and Johnny Manziel’s ass under the bus in multiple conversations. #therumorstartshere
Peace, Canada.
Canadian Hospitality:
It is impossible to drive seven hours. I’ve done it before but its a blur. I was 20, and I specifically remember three out of the four people in the car getting a speeding ticket while driving along the way. Regardless of my previous knowledge of my inability to complete any sort of road trip, Molly and I decided we would try to drive to Montana anyways. Its like we were on a journey to a journey. We made it four solid hours and stopped in the closest National Park we could find- Waterton National Park (its on the Canadian border). We never made it to Montana or Glacier Park (FYI and attn: mean Canadian Security Agent).
Reason #1345924 we stopped the journey to Montana. I couldn’t stop looking at this.
In order to get a hotel room in Waterton I had to consider prostitution for a moment, but life took an unexpected turn and I landed us the last room at the park- a gorg cabin surrounded by Christmas trees (FYI they grow like weeds in Canada) next to a store that sold ice-cream on the right and a store that sold wine on the left. Jackpot. I am a cat- I told you.
I have athletic asthma (self-diagnosed, obvs), and Canada exists at nine million feet above sea level. But everything was so beautiful that it was worth sacrificing bits of lung function that I couldn’t stop myself. I mean really:
A Pisces does Canada/ when water backfires:
I pay a lot of attention to horoscopes. My Catholic mother would call it the Devil’s work but its one piece of literature I’ve been reading consistently since I could get my hands on a Cosmo Girl magazine approx 15 years ago. I am always working on developing my ability to be better at watersports, because I am a Pisces and our symbol is the fish, duh. Being gifted at all things water is an expectation and I’m trying not to let my other symbolic fish peers down. I let them down in Mexico because I got scared of parasailing because I didn’t realize it would be so high up- and I have a quarter life onset fear of heights. That, and I had a dream about being dropped into a cesspool of sharks below #toomuchsharkweek.
In Canada I decided I would kayak a lake that the very attractive guide said would take us to the United States if we could get to the other side. This plan failed quickly. My love for water actually backfired because it began to rain and our kayak was crooked. Long story short: Molly saved me. And this wouldn’t be the first time. See: my attempt to water ski.
Per usual, my love of water backfired on me multiple times. First: in the form of dehydration. Canada is nine million feet above sea level and I was unaware that I needed to be drinking ten times my body weight every day. You can imagine how this ended.
However, I still managed to achieve one of my life goals via the water: being in two places at once. And that was ironically via boat driven by a professional (and not myself), covered, in the comfort of a rain jacket, between the US border and Canada. Bucketlist: check.
We managed to explore four national parks and all the lakes within them in the span of a week: Waterton, Banff, Jasper and Yoho. We got up at the crack of dawn, only slept a few hours each night, and rehydrated with ample amounts of wine (which contributed to dehydration).
The meat and potatoes of Canada:
Um, these pictures are real. I really took them, with my really awesome iPhone, and I really did very little editing with my instagram filters. And all of this should show you that Canada is beautiful and breathtaking and everyone needs to go there. Bam. If these are not proof that everyone can have a “Lost in Translation” moment and lots of “I love life” feelings thanks to the world’s overwhelming beauty, then you’re heartless and cold and there’s no saving you. Canada= highly recommend.
Cheers, eh?
Lindsey
lindseyeverafter 