COLD

Edmonton is a very cold place. A very, very cold place. Yesterday we had a maximum of -9 degrees Celcius. Very, very cold place.

I've been having lots of weird dreams lately. Really not sure why, but I woke up this morning dreaming that I was back home and we had suddenly aquired a lot of pets. Including a giant komodo dragon that was furry and liked to hug (reminds me of Snugglepuff off Sesame St now that I think about it).

He could climb fences too, so I couldn't escape.

Yeah, maybe I'm slightly disturbed at the moment (or always am).

So, since I last told you anything, which would've been last Sunday. Monday I went shopping in Vancouver. 'twas quite pleasant, walked into some posh store somehow, tried to buy something, and walked into the ladies' clothes department (it was right next to the table with all the gift goodies, I swear!).

The saleslady looked and me and was like "err... can I help you?" and yeah, I wanted to buy something. She also said "you just want to get out of here don't you?" and I said yes =P And then some other saleslady came over and asked if I wanted to join some kind of members club - to which the original saleslady said no =P I said I wouldn't be shopping there again. (And then, I did clarify that that was because I was from Australia. After which the original saleslady said that I should check out the men's department downstairs... I was a little confused).

After all of them, I managed to walk out with a nice bright pink bag to carry around town for the rest of the day.

Monday night I got a shirt signed by lots of people in the house. 'tis quite nice, although I managed to spoil the surprise by walking in when they were signing it, but oh well, a very nice shirt, something I will treasure forever, etc, etc.

[And despite that sounding unsincere, it wasn't =P]

Tuesday was the day I left, which it turned out I had a lot less time than I thought I did. After getting 5 hours sleep, I was running around the place, trying to get things organised, and trying to cram everything into my bags. I then had to rush to get out to catch the bus to get to the train station.

As I was on the bus, I realised I didn't know exactly where the train station was, which made it a little hard. I did have a general idea though, and it worked out well enough in the end.

The train was quite nice, a lot of legroom, and plenty of space. I managed to get my backpack on the train (without having to check it in), by separating it into two piece, thus making the larger one just smaller than the allowable hand luggage size (although technically it was just larger, but they let me on with it).

The train journey was quite comfortable. Some guy who had gone through a lot of jobs, and had a doctorate in Forrestry sat next to me, he had travelled lots, and lived in Brisbane fairly recently.

It took forever to get comfortable to sleep though, with all of the adjustable footrests and sliding chairs and stuff. But it was alright in the end. I slept a lot on the train ride - there wasn't a lot else to do. We were travelling through the moutains which were quite pretty - covered in snow and what not.

We stopped in Jasper, where I managed to withdraw some cash (stupid idea to get on the train without any), and had the most wonderful dinner on the train on Wednesday night (it was quite possibly the best meal I've had on this trip). It was a really nice roast, which almost melted in my mouth.

As a side note, I found that they've got tax included in the price on the train, and in that posh store I went to before. Interesting, no?

As it turned out, despite leaving on time, we got to Edmonton 4 hours late. Not only that, but the train driver managed to shoot straight past the station. Noone noticed, until we started going backwards. That was a little weird.

Anyhow, got to Edythe's place, and yesterday went to the city for a bit. Today I'm doing the same, probably look at the art museum.

Hmm... pretty hefty post. I've got internet here as you can see =P I'll try

[PS The rest of my pictures decided to disappear. I'll try to fix that up later... sometime...]