Australia/Hawaii 2013 - The Finale

In the last edition, I detailed how goofy-looking animals terrorized the Tasmanian countryside. After that stressful and hilarious experience, Rob and I headed down to his "shack" on the water. It's basically either a big cabin or a small house, I'm not sure. But it's pretty nice, and only about 100 feet from prime fishing territory. And that's what we were here to do. Of course though, it's never that easy.

Rob had to back his truck out onto the beach to launch his boat, and we managed to do that successfully even if the sand was pretty soft. An omen of things to come, foreshadowing, whatever you want to call it. The area was beautiful and we managed to catch a few fish - weird looking flat-headed things with big spikes in their mouths. It all went sideways when we tried to get the boat out of the water though.

Rob backed his truck up a little too close to the water, and I guess when you combine the tide coming in with a boat and some wet sand, your truck is going to sink a little bit.

Unfortunately, it sank a LOT.

The back end was pretty much totally submerged right up to the top of the wheel well, with water filling up a lot of the back of the truck. We tried a few different ways to get it unstuck, to no avail.



Finally Rob walked out to the street and found a chick with a truck and a winch that was working at a construction site or something, and she pulled the truck out. Rob's wife Merrin brought some beer up to the shack to give to her as a thanks. Rob wasn't amused - after all, it was his truck - but I thought it was all pretty funny. But then again, I'm an asshole.

After all that, Rob was still nice enough to cook up the fish for us too. And they tasted great!

I wish I had more time to spend in Tasmania because it was great, but the trip home was about to commence with a flight north. I had a great time in Hobart and at the shack though, and I hope to get back there soon. Thanks Rob and Merrin! Tasmania reminds me of the Scottish Highlands, but with more trees and critters.




I only had one day in Brisbane, and I didn't really get time to do much of anything other than walk around and check out a few things. I did drink beer in the hotel bar and bet on rugby that night though. The only reason I mention that is because I was stupid enough to take betting advice from some drunk Aussie next to me and lost 85 bucks. Dammit.

I headed back to Hawaii the next day, and it was one of my favorite flights ever. It was basically half full and there was no one in the last six or seven rows. I had booked an exit row seat in the middle, but she said if I wanted to go to the back I could have a row to myself. On a 10-hour flight, that's a bonus, so I did. But after ringing the call button a couple of times, she wasn't a fan of coming back to fetch me beers.

So she just showed me where the beers were in the back galley and told me to help myself, since all the flight attendants were hanging out up front.

Holy shit.

I think I had like 12 tall cans, at least, in the 10 hours. I watched movies. I drank. I laughed at comedy shows. I drank. I peed a lot. I drank. It was glorious. Hawaiian Airlines is the best!

Waikiki was the usual - fun as hell. I got to live an entire day twice due to the time change, which is always worth it. I got there right in time to watch Houston melt down and blow a 20-3 lead to the Seahawks with a bunch of people from Seattle. After chatting with tons of different people all day, I finally ended up at a bar near my hotel with a New Yorker bartender that was a huge Rangers fan. We bullshitted hockey and laughed at drunk customers for a while until it was pretty late. 1am or so. Closing time.

"Really?" I said. "You guys close this early? I figured bars in Waikiki would be open until 4am or something."

"Sir," he stated. "The only things open at 4am in Honolulu are women's legs and hospitals."

A fitting end to a great trip.

Australia 2013 - Gold Coast and Australia

And we're back. Two blogs in short order? What the hell? Well, I'm still drinking at this bar so I figured I'd just keep writing and get one trip out of the way at least. I'm cool like that.

I left off in Melbourne. Rob and I left that day to go to Gold Coast, which is the resorty beach paradise in Queensland. Ever heard of Surfer's Paradise? Yeah, that's in Gold Coast. It was like five minutes from our flashy upscale hotel.

Unfortunately, I hate beaches.

Rob vacations up there with his family when he can and he's a big fan of the beach and water. I'm more of a fan of bars and well, anything that has nothing to do with sand. While he went swimming or boogie boarding, I either hung out or walked around. It's certainly a nice area, but not really my thing. It did turn out to be entertaining though.

The best places to chill during the day along the coast are beach clubs. But they're the old-fashioned kind of places that you actually have to sign into if you want to get served, which I found very odd. Nonetheless, we stopped at a few and I even won 60 bucks on a pokie. Go Tim. We did hit a few other bars in town at night, mostly featuring drunk old chicks. One bar had a bunch of pool tables at least, which was cool.

We hung out at one bar for a while simply because one of the creepiest dudes ever was there. He went and sat next to these women he didn't know and tried to chat them up, to no avail. They got up and moved. So did he. And repeat. He followed them everywhere. Oh, and he was so drunk that he made no sense when he talked, which made it even more fun. Finally the women came and sat with us, hoping he'd figure it out and move on.

Nope.

He sat next to us and alternated between grunting and staring at Rob and I, apparently wanting us to burst into flames. The only time he made sense is when the bouncer finally hauled him out of there - "Please, no mate! I LOVE HER THOUGH!" Go Aussies.

The bar the next day featured a drunk guy who explained his political views as "reluctant fundamentalism". Sure. Why is everyone so weird?

Finally it was time to head back to Rob's adopted homeland - Tasmania. He had lived in Hobart for a few years now with his wife and two children, and had a cabin (he called it a shack) on the water about 45 minutes away. We spent a couple of days at both, and went to the funniest zoo ever as well.

Rob has turned his basement/man cave into a Vancouver Canucks shrine, which is pretty cool. He also has an old-school bubble hockey machine which was a lot of fun to play and brought back some memories. After a day/night of just hanging out and chilling, the family and I trudged out in the rain to go to the zoo. It's out in the middle of nowhere, but it was incredibly entertaining.

First off, there are real Tasmanian Devils. Lots of them. They look all cute and fuzzy, until the zookeepers fed them. They were tearing whole chickens apart and even eating the bones because they like the marrow. Yikes. No more ideas about Tassie Devils as pets!
The rest of the animals were tamer, sort of. You can walk out into a field full of kangaroos and wallabies with food, and they just hop up to you and eat out of your hand. They don't even mind if you pet them, though one clearly wasn't a fan of me being taller than him and looked like he was on the verge of drop-kicking me to the fucking moon at any second. I quickly found new kanga friends - fuck that tiny-marsupial syndrome shit.

I also found out that deer and meerkats like me, but black swans still hate my ass. They wanted to kill me in New Zealand too. What did I ever do to them?

The most fun part of the whole thing was the bus tour of the different enclosures. You get bags of food and hand them out to the animals. Seemed simple enough. The first stop was kangaroo town where everything was pretty chill. One took a whole bag from Rob's young son, which scared him a bit. No biggie though. Nothing compared to what was coming up.

Stop number two was emus. Holy shit. Emus are scary as fuck even if there's a fence between you and them. Imagine 20 of them running after your bus with murder in their gigantic stupid eyes. Rob's kids were in tears before they even got near us. I was alternating between laughing and trying to quickly write a will on my phone. Once they actually got to the bus, it was bedlam.

The emus swarmed, their goofy heads darting in and out of all of us looking for food. The kids on the bus freaked the fuck out and just threw their food over the side, or worse - on the floor of the bus. This raised things to Emu Defcon 2 - full-scale assault. They ripped bags of food out of the hands of whoever was stupid enough to still be holding onto one (ie. me) and basically hunched over and pecked our feet to shit looking for food on the bus floor. They bodychecked people with their necks, they bit an arm or two. Zero emu fucks were given. It was a good day to die.

Thankfully, the bus driver eventually had enough of the emuvasion and drove out of their enclosure and onto the final stop. The fact that there was another stop after this, after these emus destroyed the childhoods of Tasmania's future, amazed me. But there was. And it was a different kinda vibe. It was all love. Uncomfortable, creepy animal love of the humped variety. Not that kinda hump - get your mind out of the gutter, heathens.

We entered the camel enclosure as a group of broken people. One of the few individuals that seemed relatively upbeat still was a teenage girl next to Rob, probably 14 or so. Now, camels are huge animals. When they popped their monster heads into the bus looking for food, they were less threatening about it. Actually they were almost lazy. They just used their gigantic tongues to sweep up whatever was remaining, and that was that.

Except for the teenager.

One camel sidled up next to her and rubbed his neck on her face and arms. Aww, cute. Camel's being nice. Animal Planet shit. But then he kept doing it. Hard. Rubbing as much of himself (herself? I didn't check) on as much of her as possible. Then another camel started doing it too. They had her surrounded to the point that her own father, who was sitting beside her, couldn't even reach her because there was so much camel in the way. Understandably, she started to cry. I probably would have too if it was me.

It was incredibly funny but incredibly weird at the same time. Finally the bus pulled away and the camels disengaged, but the damage was done. The girl was understandably freaked the fuck out. And her father was very annoyed at me laughing and pointing, but whatever. I'm foreign. It's cool.

So basically, a fun trip to the zoo just ruined the lives of a bunch of children. Go Tasmania!

I'll complete the rest in one more separate blog tomorrow, since it's hard to top emus and camels breaking the spirits of the locals.

Australia 2013 - Sydney and Melbourne

It's been over seven months since I wrote a real travel blog, and I'm woefully behind. I apologize for my lack o' writing. I'd like to blame it on something like work or volunteering at the SPCA or some shit, but it wouldn't be true. I'm just lazy. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but still. It is kind of funny that I ended the last blog saying it'll be "six months or some shit" until the next one. I know myself better than I thought, apparently.

Anyway, I'm currently sitting in a plush hotel bar in Panama City, and I'm going to do my best to catch up. By my calculation, I'm only five trips behind. Maybe six? Aw shit, this is gonna take a while. Buckle up shitbirds, let's roll.

The last place I left off was in Hawaii, where I was about to depart for Australia. I explained the wheres and whys in the last post, so I'll just get into it. After a 10 hour flight to Sydney where I hit up the flight attendant for so many beers that she eventually just stopped coming when I hit the call button, I took a shuttle to my hotel...right across the street from the red light district. Okay, sure.

I've never seen rain like I saw in Sydney. I live in Vancouver, a place where it rains a lot, and Sydney blew it away. It came down like a waterfall for 13 hours straight, and it was so windy that umbrellas were useless. I witnessed this from the comfort of the hotel bar of course, because I wasn't fucking with that on day one. I'm not stupid (shut up, I'm not!)

The next few days were dry though, and I got a lot of Sydney exploring done. It's got some quirks - three packs of beer, pubs being called "hotels", lots of loud drunks playing the bar slots (pokies), etc. One drunk guy was being asked to leave a bar and responded by yelling "you're gonna need an ambulance to get me outta here!" Magically it only took a big dude and threats of barring him for life. Go figure.

Another guy on the street confused the hell out of me by yelling that he knew who I was. I was wearing a Ray Lewis jersey and jeans, looking pretty North American. He was pretty Australian. He said he knew who I was about four times before I finally asked how. He yelled "you're number 52!" and walked away. At that point, I was considering the idea that almost everyone in Australia was retarded. I'm still not sure.

That wasn't the only Ray Lewis interaction I had either - I had at least three other people come up to me during my trip and ask if he's "the football player that murdered that guy". Yes, yes he was.

My time in Sydney was pretty entertaining - I saw the sights and spent too much money on nine dollar beers. But it was time to head down to Melbourne to meet up with my high school buddy Rob.

Rob (or Piker, if you prefer) lives in Tasmania (I explained all of this seven months ago in my last blog, duh) but came over so we could  go to an AFL game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, or McG, a world-famous stadium that seats 100,000 people.

He also showed up as sick as a feral dog, but toughed it out.

We went to the game, and it was one of the best sporting experiences of my life. It was a playoff game, which just added to the atmosphere. The Hawthorn Hawks were playing against the Geelong Cats. I knew nothing about the AFL going in, but the atmosphere was amazing. And Geelong usually owned Hawthorn, beating them a bunch of times in a row before this night.

We were sitting in the Hawthorn section, which I didn't really understand at first and it could have potentially got me killed. See, I'm a hockey fan. A Canucks fan, to be specific. And as a Canucks fan, one of the teams I hate the most is the Chicago Blackhawks. In fact, Rob and I were talking hockey, and I loudly blurted out "FUCK THE HAWKS!".  Right away, everyone in the section was staring at me with hate in their hearts. I had no idea why until Piker cleared it up for me.

 "Man, we're in the Hawks section! Don't say that!"

Unintentional near-death experiences at their finest.

I actually decided to become a (Hawthorn) Hawks fan after that because it was funny, and they were the underdogs. They ended up winning a very exciting game, and after Rob explained the rules I really got into it. To the point that I bought a Hawks toque and still follow the AFL at home to this day.

The rest of our time in Melbourne was great - Fitzroy Gardens is super nice, St. Kilda is awesome (we got a gigantic three-foot jug of beer but I forgot to take a picture - Go Tim), and the trams are extremely efficient. I understand why it's constantly listed as one of the most liveable cities in the world.

Our last night there was amusing as well. We could have gone to an NRL (rugby) game, but decided to hit a pub and watch the other AFL semi-final instead. There's a Canadian player on one of the teams and when he scored a try, both of us stood up and started singing O Canada in unison. Loud. Until we were mercilessly booed and someone stole my hat and threw it across the bar. Fucking Aussies, no sense of humor.

In the next edition, I'll get around to me hating sand in Gold Coast and animals stealing the souls of children in Tasmania.

That Night I Got Arrested On My Own Lawn

I routinely write about the stupid situations I get myself into. I do this because I find it funny, and I hope others find it entertaining as well. But this is something that I'm sort of embarrassed about, and that's why it has taken me this long to get around to it. If it happened when I was 23, I'd be okay with it. These things happen to you when you're 23.

But I'm 36.  And when you get arrested on your own wet lawn when you're 36, it's not all fucking sunshine and puppies. Not a unicorn in sight.

I just looked it up - it was 38 days ago. Let me set the scene. I was at the bar. I got drunk. I came home.  I know what you're thinking - damn Tim, you paint a vivid picture. Why haven't you been hired by Lonely Planet yet? Your attention to detail is second to none! Fuck off.

So I get home. I walk up to the door and confidently check my pockets for keys. Nyet. That's okay, I've been key-less plenty of times. I have legitimately lost 19 house keys in the the last 10 years. 19. The fact that 9 of them were found when the landlord removed the huge bush to the side of the front door isn't important right now. The point is that I've been in this spot before. I know that I just need to borrow the neighbor's ladder and set it up so I can jump into my bedroom window on the second floor. I've done this at least 10 times, it's just been a while. Ain't no thing.

I could have just rang the doorbell a bunch of times until my dad woke up, but I felt like I had done that one too many times. So, ladder it is.

But I guess I forgot to account for the fact that when I was 26, I'd steal the thing  at 2:30 in the morning. I'd jump inside, come out, and put the ladder back. No one was the wiser - I was quiet, and it was the middle of the night.

I'm now 36, so I'm a loser and tried to steal a ladder from my neighbour at 11:15pm. And I wasn't even remotely quiet about it. Shockingly, they were still awake and heard me. And called the cops because they just saw a drunk ogre in their yard stealing their shit. I didn't notice that at the time though - I was too concerned with the job at hand.

This is where it gets dumb.

I set up the ladder the wrong way so it's not sideways along the frame of my window, it's facing my window. So I got to the top and thought 'wow, the window seems so much further away than usual'. I was unfazed though, because I figured white men can indeed jump after 11 Stiegls or whatever. It was only a couple of extra feet. I had this. I was the white Kobe, minus the whole missing 25 shots a game thing. I busted out my screen and managed to clear off the table right inside my window from the third step, intending to jump through the window from the top step and onto said table. After I got that done, leaning inside, I suddenly heard bad sounds. Bad, bad sounds.

"GET OFF THE LADDER RIGHT NOW!"

Ruh roh.

I still don't know how I didn't hear them roll up. Even without sirens, I live in pleasantville. It was dead silent outside and they parked the car, got out, closed their doors, and walked right up to the ladder without me even noticing. Go beer, I guess. They did scare the bejesus out of me when they asked me to get off the ladder though. And "asked" is being polite.

After I hesitated at this official intrusion and said "what the fuck?" to no one in particular, I was unceremoniously dragged off said ladder and thrown onto my lawn, face down. My cold, wet lawn. I started yelling "THIS IS MY HOUSE, IT'S MY HOUSE!" in the process, but that didn't seem to matter to officer cholesterol and his anorexic sidekick.

That would normally be the funny part, but my own idiocy is apparently more entertaining. I'm not a fan of any of this, I was stressed out and it was stupid, but it did happen and some of my friends think it's hilarious. So, this is a transcript of my interaction with said officers, after I was lying face-down on the lawn.

Cop - "Let me see your ID."
*give them my ID that expired in 2008 - pic is from 2003. Fuck you, you looked different 11 years ago too*
Cop - "This is your ID? Why don't you have more current ID?"
Me - "I do! My passport is right inside that window you just pulled me out of! If you'd let me back up the ladder I could get it! Or go up it yourself! This is my..."
Cop - "No, why don't you have BCID newer than this?"
Me - "I owe money on seatbelt tickets, I don't want to pay the fines so I can get new ID."
Cop - "What? Really? Anorexia (not his real name - duh), hold him."

He cuffed me. Fuck that guy. I actually deserved it when I got cuffed the other couple of times when I was a kid. But this was fucking dumb. I even omitted that part when I explained the deal on twitter that night because it bothered me so much. It still bothers me.

Either way, my own stupidity made the cop go back to his car to run my name in the RCMP computer and made him think I needed the bracelets. So it's on me.

Anorexia had questions too, holding me down on the wet lawn:

Skinny cop: "This is supposedly your house, eh?"
Me: "Yes? I live here with my stepfather. This address is on the ID I just gave your boy! I tried to ring the doorbell but my dad's 85 and his room is in the back corner of the house and he clearly didn't hear it. (I didn't, but it sounded good at the time). I lost my keys."
Skinny cop: "Where did you lose your keys?"
Me: "If I knew that, you wouldn't be holding me down while that guy was running my ID in your car right now."
Skinny cop: ...
Me: "I can try the doorbell again if you'll..."
Skinny cop: "SHUT UP SMARTASS!"
Me: "Okays."

When officer cholesterol came back, I got the bracelets taken off me and he treated me like a real person for once. He asked if this was really my house, and I repeated what I said to officer anorexia. He said that they got called by the neighbors because someone was in their yard, and when they showed, they saw me next door on the ladder. As mad as I was, that actually made sense and I laughed about it. Not a good idea. After a lecture about ladders and responsibilities and the Ukraine/Russia conflict or some shit, they asked me to ring the doorbell to wake up my dad to at least prove that I did live in the house. That would normally be the end of the story, but you don't know my dad.

After ringing the doorbell for five minutes, my old-ass dad finally emerged from his room. There's an opaque window to the right of the front door, so I was elated when I saw shimmering light, then his shadow coming down the stairs. He yelled "IS THAT YOU TIM?" "YES! I'M SORRY!"

My 85-year-old dad answered the door in his tighty whiteys and nothing else. As soon as he saw me, he just said "AGAIN!?"...and turned around and headed up the stairs back to bed. Thanks pops.

Officer cholesterol, who was standing behind me at the bottom of the steps, straight cracked up laughing. Skinny cop wasn't as amused though. As I started in the door, he yelled that I wasn't going anywhere yet. I had to take the ladder back to the neighbour first. Fair enough. With that done, RCMP's finest set off to go catch a donut or play 2048 or something. 

The most confusing part was my dad saying the AGAIN thing. I've never had the cops bring me home before, so it made no sense. I asked him the next day, and his reaction was pretty funny.

"WHAT? There were cops with you? What the hell did you do?"
"Nothing! I just tried to get in my window! Wait, you didn't see them behind me?"
"No! The outside light is burned out. All I saw was you, mumbling about how sorry you were. I just said "again" because this was the third time this year you've had to wake me up to get in the house."

Guilty as charged.

Hawaii/Australia, Part 1 - Honeymoon Crashing

As you've probably figured out by now if you've ever read a damn thing I've written (that isn't about MMA), I'm obsessed with traveling. About 9 months ago, I got back from a short trip to Salt Lake City (weird) and Las Vegas (drunk) immediately looking to go away again. Partly because of my addiction (the scientific term is wanderlust) and partly because I pocketed a bunch of cash in the Orleans casino over two days.

But where could I go? The options were unlimited, but a few messages that an old friend sent me a few months beforehand made the choice pretty simple. His name is Rob, and we had been good friends since high school. In 2003 he decided to travel on his own and went off on a tour of Europe. It was there that he met his future wife, and he decided to move to her homeland the next year. I had been talking about coming to see him for a long time, but it was about the furthest place in the world from Vancouver and it didn't seem feasible.

The simple ringing of a video poker machine changed all of that. And I was on my way to Australia two months  later.

The timing worked out very well and very badly at the same time. Rob had a few days off in September so we could go check out a couple of places. But it was right after my nephew Danny was getting married in Florida, and I wanted to go to that as well. Unfortunately I was unable to combine the two for logistical reasons, but a weird coincidence helped to alleviate some of my guilt about missing the wedding.

Rob lives in Tasmania, and I decided that the last few days of my trip would be over there. The time he had off beforehand would be used up in Melbourne, where the AFL (Aussie Rules Football) playoffs were taking place. And in Gold Coast, the sun-loving beach resort area in Queensland. Before that though, I had 36 hours in Honolulu and a few days in Sydney.

The reason for the Hawaii stopover is simple - I'm a wuss. It's a 15-hour flight from Vancouver to Sydney direct, and I think I would go on a homicidal rampage if I was stuck in a plane seat (literally) for that long. Instead I could fly 6 hours to Honolulu, chill for a day, then do 10 more to Sydney. It seemed like a reasonable solution, and it's fucking Honolulu! I've been there before and I loved it, so another night of carousing in Waikiki bars certainly didn't sound horrible. And it worked out to be an awesome decision.

The nephew that I previously mentioned, Danny, married his girl Heather a few days before I got to Honolulu. I didn't even think of asking where they were going on their honeymoon until I saw a Facebook post after the big day about them going to...you guessed it, Hawaii. It turned out that they were staying a half mile away from me. I'm not a big fan of crashing anyone's honeymoon, but Danny insisted that it was cool and I met up with them for some drinks right after I landed. It was great to catch up with both of them, and as much as I missed seeing my other nephew Ryan (and his girl Katrina) and my sister Kim at the wedding, I felt a little better about the whole situation by getting to meet up with Danny and Heather. They're awesome.

I then went back to my odd hotel and...well, drank more beer. Then I got a few hours of sleep before heading off to the southern hemisphere for the second time in my life. It turned out to be just as interesting as the first time, maybe more.

Stay tuned for part two in the next six months or some shit.

Mexico/Cuba 2013, Part 2

Alas, it was time to return to Mexico. My flight back was only 90 minutes late, and the Havana departure lounge was totally desolate. I think there were 20 people on my flight and no other flights leaving within five hours or so.

The bar was open though, so gooo Havana airport!

Mikey and Shannon were staying in a resort down the Riviera, so it was about an hour to get there via shuttle. I sat up front and the driver was cool, pointing out various weird "only in Mexico" things and laughing at my reactions to them. There were about eight other people in the shuttle too, a couple of families and some older ladies.

Why am I telling you about that? Because drunk Mike Daly introduced himself to every one of them when I got to the resort.

I guess I was two hours late, and he had been waiting at the front for me the whole time with two beers. But then he'd drink those two because he was bored, so he'd go get two more. That happened...a few times. So he was wasted when I got there, and the results were predictably hilarious. After doing a bunch of yelling and hugging and introducing himself to me and the people in the van, I went to check in. And since Daly had been harassing the front desk people for two hours (what else was he gonna do while he waited?), they were very happy to see me just so he'd fuck off!

I ended up with a first-floor room that looked out onto a big pool. I didn't think much of it at first, but this came into play later.

As you can guess, we did a whole lot of drinking the first night. Along with Mikey and Shannon, there was Mike's sister Susan and her boyfriend Dale, along with Shannon's best friend Andrea and her husband Will. Oh, and Mikey/Shannon's two kids and Susan/Dale's baby. Obviously the kids weren't drinking, I'm just doing roll call. Get your head out of the gutter.

It quickly became apparent that the resort was really cool during the day, but sucked at night. It had four bars, three of which closed at like 11. One was open until 1, but it was the one that was indoors. One bar out on the side of the resort was fucking amazing - right on the beach, big waves lapping up, swings and shit - but it was close to a condo building so they had to close early. Lame.

One thing that was pretty funny the first night was some older lady coming up to us at the bar and going "You're Mike! Mike Daly!" The look on Mikey's face was priceless. Turns out that his ex-girlfriend was getting married in the resort that weekend. Yeah, of all the resorts, at all the times...yeah. It was probably awkward for him, but the rest of us thought it was fucking hilarious. Plus the bride-to-be's little sister was kinda hot now that she was 21. Mikey helped her make a valentine when she was nine. Aww. I'm laughing at his reaction to hearing that while I write this. That was fucking funny.

Most of the time during the day, everyone just hung out on the beach. I'd alternate between that and a few of the bars, since the sun is stupid. The staff made it fun there though - this little guy that ran the aerobics shit went by the nick name "Rock Star", and he'd constantly try to convince me to give him one of my football jerseys. He didn't care that he was 4'6 and he could swim in it. He just wanted one. He was fucking funny about it too.

By the end of the second night, everyone was done pretty early. I went back to my room and ordered eight Modelos (they were free!) and sat on my deck. It was pitch black, but I could hear weird noises. Like 'EEE EEE EEE' animal noises. Right beside me. I opened the curtains to my room so some light could shine out on the patio and the pool, and....

There was a dolphin staring at me. Yeah.

He was great. He'd sit there and make dolphin noises at me and I'd talk to him. The Modelos helped with the convo, of course. He just hung out in my end of the pool for a while and chilled. I named him Steve (for the record, I name everyone/thing Steve, I have no idea why). Who else has their own personal dolphin to chill with? It was awesome!

The next night was ladies night, so I hung out on Mikey's patio while he babysat the kids so the girls could go out. We just bullshitted about everything under the sun till 4am, but playing with their kids was a definite highlight. I'm not much of a kid person generally, but I had tons of fun with them. Connor and I had a pillow fight that ended up lasting for two days, while Keira just sat there and laughed and ate cheerios. She never, ever got mad. You could just set up a pillow fort on a bed and give her some cheerios, and she was entertained for hours. It was great.

The final full day had a few highlights. First, we went into Playa del Carmen for a while and hung out. Andrea and Shannon went para-sailing while we sat at the bar and promised them we'd film it. But a combination of beer and distance made it hard to figure out who was who, so they (Mikey/Will)...filmed the wrong people. Which Andrea discovered when she watched the video on the cab ride home. Probably wasn't funny for the ladies, but I thought it was hilarious.

I wasn't laughing when I got back to my room though - there were four maintenance workers in it. I guess a pipe had burst in the bathroom on the floor above and my bathroom had flooded. They fixed it and mopped up the mess, but forgot to replace the soaked toilet paper. That was an adventure later that night.

Finally, there was Steve. I had gone to my room early because I had to be up at 6am to catch my shuttle to the airport, but I still decided to have a beer or two on the patio before I passed out. Things were normal, just a guy and his dolphin chillin...

Until a bunch of people walked up the path and heard me going' EEE EEE EEE!' to a fucking dolphin that decided to fuck with me and not make any noises right around then.

Probably 10 people stood around and burst into hysterical laughter while I just sat there, embarrassed. Yeah. Fuck Mexico. Fuck dolphins.

So, that was Mexico. If Mikey and Shannon go back in 2015, I'll faithfully tag along again. It's always fun.

But seriously, fuck dolphins. They're overrated.

Mexico/Cuba 2013, Part 1

For the second time in the last few years, my buddy Mikey and his wife Shannon were going to Mexico for a few days in April and asked if I'd like to come along. The last time I did this, I stayed in their resort for a few days in the Mayan Rivera, then took off into the Yucatan for a while. This time, I figured I'd hit a new country. And it turned out to be a very enlightening experience.

After a hungover 5.5 hour flight to Cancun, my first stop was Isla Mujeres. It doesn't exactly live up to the literal translation of 'Island of Women', but it's nice nonetheless. A quick trip from the airport dropped me off at a ferry terminal where I would take the quick jaunt over to the island for a two-night stay. Well, ferry is probably overstating things a bit. It was just a big boat.

The ride was smooth though, and we were entertained by a Mexican singer with a little amp and a guitar. Upon arrival, I...got lost. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever read any of my travel blogs. Despite this being a tiny ass island, I managed to take four sets of directions and an entire hour to locate a hotel a whole 200 metres from the ferry.

Technophobe travel note - The addition of a smart phone with a couple of trusty apps has been a massive help in this department over the last year. Go GPS!

It was hard to bitch though, since my patio looked out directly onto the wavy water. There was a footpath in between my ground-level deck and the water though, which was a bit awkward when people walked by or decided to hang out there. But that's what Dos Equis are for!

Speaking of them, the guy at the convenience store coming obviously saw right through this dumb gringo, since he charged me at least twice the normal rate for beer and I fell for it like a moron. But whatever, at least I had beer. Speaking of that, I could use one of those right now - I'm on a flight to Tokyo and I haven't had one in an hour.

Anyway, my time there was super chill. I just walked around and checked out different bars/restaurants. One place was great - it was huge and I was the only customer, so a bunch of the staff dragged me into a conversation about music. Only about half of them spoke passable English, but it was still a lot of laughs. Apparently Leonard Cohen is the best singer of all time. Sure guys.

That was not the new country I was referring to though, obviously. My main destination after that was an island about an hour off the coast of Cancun. A place that Americans aren't even allowed into (bonus!). A place with old cars, cheap liquor, and ton of history.

Cuba. Havana, to be specific.

My trip over turned out to be a nightmare though. I'd only ever experienced the super nice International terminal in the Cancun airport, and excuse me if I'm ignorant or something, but Cuba is another country so flights to there should go outta the fancy place right?

Nooooo. Mexican logic at its finest, as usual. Cuba flights use the domestic terminal. And that place is a sweaty shithole with no AC.

Then my flight got delayed seven hours. SEVEN!

Dos Equis and my unique hate of MMA fans kept me awake until we finally left, on a typically-ghetto plane. The flight was cool though - a guy named Ryan from Belize was bullshitting with me the whole way. He lived in Havana because he was going to medical school there, so he gave me some great advice about the city and even showed me the quick and easy way to get through customs at the Havana airport as a foreigner. Super nice guy. He did make one good joke at my expense though, as soon as I sat down - "Man, are you on The Deadliest Catch? If not, you should be!"

Unfortunately, it was midnight by now. And since you can't buy Cuban currency outside the country and the only ATM didn't work, everyone had to line up at the currency exchange to get cash (yeah, no credit cards either). That took a fucking hour. Yeah.

Cuba has two currencies - one for residents, one for foreigners. 1 CUC (foreigner dollar) = 25 CUPs (Cuban money). So Cubans were coming back and exchanging ungodly amounts of money into their own currency, which involved them carrying shoeboxes of cash out of the airport. It was really weird. And slow. Finally I got money and jumped into a waiting cab. And descended into weirdness.

Since Cuba has been suffering from a US trade embargo for seemingly forever, they've been unable to import vehicles from anywhere other than Russia (which is stupid expensive). So Cubans just manage to recycle what they already had  - American cars from the 50's. It's amazing to see these relics (some of which are beautiful cars still) fixed up and used everywhere. I'd estimate that every fourth car was a massive Buick or something. It was surreal at first, but you get used to it. Then after a few days, you go "how the fuck did I get used to THIS?" That sentence describes much of Havana life, come to think of it.

Anyway, I was staying at a government hotel. Why? The government runs all hotels, of course. This is a communist country after all. But they know how to ball, that's for sure. I got, without a doubt, the biggest room I've ever stayed in. Ever. Bigger than every apartment I've ever had too. It was fucking unreal. Full of antique furniture, huge bed, massive minibar, you name it. I even had DirecTV and four ESPN channels somehow. But there was Cuban government propaganda on half of the other channels, somehow starring the Castros and Danny Glover of all people. It was fucking crazy.

Since it was already 1am and everything was closed (but people were still sitting on their stoops everywhere in the dark), the cabbie (who was super nice and spoke great English) said I should probably just chill indoors tonight and start my exploration in the morning. So I had to settle for the minibar. 1.50 a beer! 16 of them in there?!? Hell yeah!

Needless to say, I slept in the next day. Then it was Havana exploration time. And Havana's fucking awesome.

I never would have guessed how much there was to see, despite studying up beforehand. Huge churches, a beautiful malecon (walking path along the water), music everywhere, and just a really cool vibe. It was gritty for sure, and you could tell you weren't in the proverbial Kansas anymore, but I loved every second of it.

My favorite part was probably the huge imposing fort across the bay. It's massive, intimidating, and beautiful. Like me! Shut up. But the best part is the ferry you have to take over to it. It's only a five-minute ride, but it has airport-like security to get on. Why? Because it's been stolen twice in the last 10 years by overzealous Cubans that wanted to go to Miami. The coast guard almost had to shoot at it one time. I still laugh at the idea of that.

I spent the first two days just walking around, popping my head into places, and checking out a few bars. My hotel bar seemed more interesting than any other one though - they'd show all sorts of sporting events, everything from the X-Games to a Champions League soccer match - and it would be absolutely JAMMED with people. Kids, adults, elephants, everyone. Out on the street, around the corner, you name it. They loved anything they could watch. Why?

"None of them have TV's!" said the bartender.

Fair point.

The class divide was obvious though, even if the race line is very blurred there. I was wandering along the malecon and dodging the usual touts when one dude came up and said "You're from Canada, aren't you? This statue right here is actually an ambassador from Quebec." That got my attention, so I talked to him.

His name was Jose, and he walked along the malecon with me for a while, answering all my questions and telling me what it was like as a Cuban not born into privilege. He made 300 bucks a month as a carpenter. That's in CUC's though, so it was really 7500 CUPs. Not much of a living, but I'd find out later how far CUPs really go. His dad overdosed from huffing gas when he was 10, which is a common pastime there for poor people to get high. And he hated life under Castro, wanting more than anything to escape to Miami.

At first I thought it was the usual song and dance touts use. My life is hard, give me money, etc. And it probably was, to a degree. But there were a couple of things that stuck out for me. The first was him pointing out the secret police as they drove up, saying "they're going to arrest someone right now for no reason, watch". And that's exactly what they did - they just grabbed some guy that was getting out of his car and arrested him. The guy was totally clueless, and it was an obvious shakedown for a bribe.

The second was just how honest he came across.  He told me straight up that most people do Havana in tour groups because people are intimidated on the street. And that if I wasn't a big guy, there are a lot of people out there that would absolutely rob me. He made me laugh when he said he didn't have it in him to rob a tourist for 100 bucks, but he'd "rob a fucking bank any time!"

He also took me to some peso stalls, which was insane. This is where Cuban people use CUP's to buy street food. Foreigners aren't allowed to use CUP's, but I had exchanged 5 dollars' worth (125) just to see what they were like. With Jose doing the talking, I got 2 slices of pizza and 4 beers for 20 CUP's - 80 cents! Then, Jose wouldn't even let me pay and covered it himself.

After some more walking and listening, I finally decided to head back to the hotel. I have no doubt that Jose was going to ask me for money, but I beat him to the punch and gave him my CUP's and 5 CUC's (250 CUP's total). He thanked me profusely and all that, but I learned more in those couple of hours than I have in a lot of other full trips. It was worth every penny, and I'm glad it went to someone that could actually use it.

He probably used it on a fucking bag of gas to huff, but whatever. Maybe he could afford unleaded this time!

I saw a lot of what I wanted to see in three days, and chilled in my hotel bar for a Barcelona/Bayern Munich Champion's League game the last night. The entire bar was just blowing up over everything, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. And cheap - 9 beers, 4 mojitos, and a Cuban Sandwich came out to 22.50. So awesome.

Overall, Havana is a fucking amazing place and I recommend it to everyone (except Americans - ha!). I'm sure the resorts in Veradero are great and all that but if you go, do yourself a favor and get to Havana for a day. It's absolutely worth your time. I can't wait to go back.