Currently, I feel in a state of limbo. Since early December I’ve had my head down, working long hours to save for my cycle ride with my brother, Tom, from Vancouver to Mexico. It’s been a long time coming. We’ve been talking about cycling together on-and-off ever since Tom left our family home in Middle England in 2007, and finally I can see a small ray of light peeking out at the end of the rather winding and lengthy tunnel.
A few months ago I started off with the wild idea of working at a local ski resort for the season, and somehow finding enough extra money to give up work for a couple of months and cycle with Tom. Well, pretty quickly it became abundantly clear that this wasn’t going to happen. Unfortunately, working at a ski resort basically gives you enough money to “get by” – and little more. Coupled with doing it whilst living in Vancouver, rather than in an actual resort meant that it wasn’t the experience I was looking for. I realised that if you want to really do the ski resort thing, you should live there. Three weeks into the job I was off. I’d managed a few free days snowboarding, but enough was enough. I gave up my season pass and said goodbye to the job.
Fortunately, fate lent a hand a week later. A friend recommended a job working at a large Canadian Cable TV company, so a couple of weeks before Christmas my outrageous natural flair and charm paved the way to a job there – as part-time to start with. The money was good, and it also paid commission, and another stroke of luck hit, and again that outrageous charm and flair reared it’s outrageously charming head, and I bagged myself a full-time job to supplement my part-time income. This was working for a large business software company – not the most outrageously, errr charming of jobs, but the weekly pay-cheques definitely were outrageous, and the jobs were a block apart. Charming.
There were obvious downsides though. I was working 11-12 hour days. On Mondays and Wednesdays I’d leave the house, bleary eyed and usually in need of a shower, at 7am. The other days would be the slightly more civilized 8am, but still not ideal. I like sleep. Never was I home before 9:20pm, giving me roughly an hour to eat/relax/read/watch TV/anything else I might do, before needing to board the train to sleepy time. I did this for a number of weeks. The money was, as I said – outrageous (especially compared to what I have been used to in Vancouver thus far), and I had little time or inclination to spend anything. I saved up a good amount, and Friday evenings would come as a welcome break. Myself and one Mr J. Daniels, who hails from Lynchburg, Tennessee, became great friends during those weeks. Fortunately the part-time job has recently come to an end, so I have “just” the 40 hours a week to work. It’s better, I can chill out. Me and Mr. Daniels are now more casual acquaintances.
This has come as a timely change too. My parents are in town. This is their fifth trip to Vancouver, and it’s always great to see them. They love Vancouver, and having covered most of the usual tourist haunts on their previous visits we’ve thus far just relaxed and not done a lot, basically wandering around the city from coffee shop to coffee shop and acting terribly British.
This trip, however, they’re only in town for a week. Why fly 7,000km for a mere week you might ask? I know I’m a truly fantastic son, so am obviously worth the jet-lag, but that’s not the only reason. My parents, ever the international jet-setters, are off to Maui for a week after that, followed – for good measure – by a quick island hop to Oahu for another week (oh, and then popping into San Francisco for a couple of days on the way home – as you do). Fortunately, I shall be making my merry way to Oahu to keep them firmly in check – a great opportunity to unwind in the Hawaiian sunshine for a week.
My plans whilst I’m there? Aside from meeting Mila Kunis working as our hotel receptionist (wishful thinking perhaps), I’ll make my second attempt at surfing – this time on Oahu’s world-famous North Shore. It’s highly unlikely I’ll be pulling off any totally radical gnarly cutbacks on the 30ft swells like those off-the-hook surfer types there do, but I’ll give it my all. Also I’m planning on doing some hiking, drinking a few piña coladas, and trying to avoid donning any psychedelic Hawaiian shirts that look like someone has freshly chundered all over them. That’s the idea at least.
So what of Tom? Well, he’s touching down in Vancouver on April 3. Naturally I’ll be picking him up from the airport, but unfortunately I fully expect to spend most of that afternoon sitting in the arrivals lounge alone. Tom, meanwhile, will be subjected to a full-bore rubber-glove cavity search in a darkened room with a spotlight shone in his face, and scary looking men in uniforms with taser guns and baseball bats will be asking him questions such as “why do you have a one-way flight to Vancouver?”, and “why do you have visas to Iran/Syria/Sudan/any-other-place-that-might-be-kinda-sketchy in your passport?”. I know England isn’t in quite the shape it was but it’s not bad enough to flee from, is it? Having said that, Canadian customs aren’t generally too scary, but we shall see (or rather, he will). He’s already sounded this concern to me, and I’ve responded with the utterly reassuring message that this is in fact exactly the treatment my friends Luke and Felix were welcomed into Canada with a few years ago without a return ticket (they were driving down to Central America). I’ll be bringing a good book, and perhaps a duvet, to the airport.
Providing Tom is granted entry to Canada we’ll most likely spend a week in Vancouver and the surrounding area, before setting off on our travels. I naturally plan on showing Tom around the city, take him on some outdoor adventures, as well as showing him the delights of Whistler. Tom’s never been to western Canada, so it’ll be great to show him where I live, and hopefully I can convince him to eventually move here with his wife, Tenny. Vancouver is awesome, and convincing people to uproot their whole lives and move continents is pretty easy and not a big deal. I mean I did it, right?
So, the next few months should be pretty exciting. Tom and I haven’t really spent any length of time together since he went off to University more than 10 years ago. This is mainly down to us usually having vast bodies of water between us. It will be great to catch up. As well as this, we will be providing regular coverage of the trip here, and on Tom’s website, with the additional attraction of a forthcoming film project, to compliment Tom’s recently-completed documentary feature, Janapar.
