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.

Christmas in Europe 2012, part 5 - Switzerland

I'm still awake and in a writing mood, so let's knock off another chapter. After my time in Poland and Lithuania, a logical next destination would be...Switzerland. What? That makes no sense, you say? I know, I'm weird like that. In all my travels around Europe, I still had never hit the land of neutrality and yodeling. So while I would have loved to spend the rest of my time exploring places in Eastern Europe, I needed to cross this glaring omission off my travel map once and for all.

Plus I heard it was kind of nice.

I flew into Zurich after a four-hour connection in one of my favorite cities ever - Riga, Latvia. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go into the city, but I was pleased to to see that the airport was packed to the gills with Latvian supermodels. I firmly believe that Latvia is tied with Sweden for having the most attractive women in the world. This is vital travel information, folks. Write this down. Google this shit.

Upon arrival in Zurich, I was slightly disappointed that Priceline had steered me wrong for one of the first times ever, sticking me with a hotel about 4km outside of the city center despite their claim that this was "central". My reluctance disappeared when I got there though. It was a ridiculously nice hotel - so nice that I got two glasses of champagne while I waited to check in. And they upgraded me for making me wait less than 10 minutes, to a room that was fucking unbelievable. Does a hotel room with one bed really need two huge bathrooms? I didn't care, I used them both just to say that I did.

Still though, a 4km walk into the center through a drab industrial area didn't sound like much fun. I thought my only other option was their commuter rail, but a nice waitress in the hotel bar (shut up, of course I went there first) told me that the trams were way easier. Generally I eschew public transportation because...well, I don't like it. But I was willing to give this tram thing a try, and I'm so glad I did.

Switzerland is obsessed with time. They are well-known for their watches and clocks. But I had no idea how much their obsession helped to make the country the most efficient place in the world in terms of transportation. Everything is exactly on time. EVERYTHING. Trams, buses, trains, boats...their schedules are all perfectly calibrated to provide a dream experience when it comes to exploring a country. Of all the things I loved about Switzerland, this is what I loved most. It made walking pretty much obsolete, as strange as that sounds. With a schedule in hand and a two-day pass, I was able to explore every part of Zurich I desired, and never worried about waiting long or getting lost. It was awesome.

Unfortunately though, as much as people hype Zurich as one of the most liveable and beautiful cities in the world, I really wasn't all that impressed. It was certainly pretty, but it was clearly a business city and lacked big-ticket attractions. I think it'd be way better in the summer when it's a lot more green and the boat trips would be more rewarding. Unfortunately I was there in winter. And on New Years Eve to boot.

One of my best finds was (surprise!) a pub. Called the Oliver Twist. This is the name of my (recently closed) local pub at home, and I found it hilarious that Zurich had a pub by the same name. I enjoyed a nice NYE talking to the multi-national staff about living in Switzerland while watching a gaggle of English people get so drunk that they turned into...well, English people. Songs were sung, shit was broken, vomit made an appearance or two (not mine, obviously). Just a typical night in Ibiza...sorry, Zurich.

After another day of sightseeing and marveling at the efficiency of the place (and racking up a 250 dollar tab at the hotel somehow - Switzerland is expensive!), I headed off to do something I had never done before. A rapid-fire look at a bunch of places. I generally explore cities for a day or two, but not this time. My marathon train trip for the day would stop in three major Swiss cities before ending in a small town called Fribourg. The next day would hit one more before my final destination, Geneva. It turned out to be one of my best travel decisions thus far.

My first stop was Lucerne, about an hour south of Zurich. People, go to Lucerne. It was one of the prettiest cities I've ever seen, and I was immediately kicking myself for not stationing myself there instead of Zurich. The setting was amazing, on the shore of Lake Lucerne and surrounded by mountains. It was classically Swiss architecture-wise, and featured the Kapellbrucke (a covered wooden bridge across the river that wades into the city). The bridge is full of cool paintings in each arch, and it's something I've wanted to see since I read a book that included it when I was a kid. Yes, I'm a nerd.

I'll explain that book one day. It changed my life.

Alas, I only had 2 hours in Lucerne, and was pretty depressed when I had to leave. The next leg of my train trip helped me get over that quickly though. I was totally transfixed by the Alpine scenery outside as we climbed through snowy remote villages with strange Swissy-German names - Giswil, Kaiserstuhl, Lungern - each more amazing than the last. As beautiful as Canada is, I've never seen anything like that.

The older Swiss woman sitting next to me even commented on the sustained look of wonder on my face, despite us not sharing any words to that point. "I've seen this a hundred times or more, but it makes me feel very happy to see how much you are enjoying it". I actually asked her if I could write that down and use it when I inevitably told my story, because it was great in so many ways. She laughed and agreed, and I spent the next hour torn between the amazing view outside and the compelling stories my new friend had to share about her time in the mountains. Old people are cool.

Eventually we stopped in Interlaken, which is at the center of a big valley and surrounded by the biggest peaks Switzerland has to offer. The Jungfrau has three peaks over 13,000 feet, but I fell victim to a regular occurrence around here - fog and low cloud. So I couldn't see a god damned thing. The little town was nice, but I wasn't exactly heartbroken when we set off for Bern.

Bern wasn't what I expected. I think I had really high expectations based on my research, and while it was certainly nicer than 95% of the places I've been to, I felt a bit let down. I was impressed by the clocks and crazy underground businesses though. But it had been a long travel day, and I was anxious to get to Fribourg to get some rest. Fribourg was certainly nice as well, despite being built on a big hill. The town sat right on the line between German Switzerland (where I had spent all my time thus far) and French Switzerland. From now on in, things were pretty different.

I woke up the next day refreshed and ready to tackle one more Swiss city before Geneva. I had to climb the stupid Fribourg hill to get back to the train station though. That sucked. After a really cool trip through some more hills and valleys, we arrived in Lausanne. I could see that it was built on a hill that I was at the bottom of, and thought "it'd probably be smart to take the metro to the top and walk down".

For some reason I ignored that gem of logic though, and paid dearly.

Lausanne is worse than fucking San Francisco. After about 15 minutes I thought I was gonna die. I managed to make it most of the way up to the cathedral, which was quite an accomplishment for me. I seriously considered just rolling back down the hill, or stealing some kid's sled. Instead, I trudged back down in the ice and slipped a couple of times. I'm still not sure why I didn't take the metro either way. Oh wait, I remember. I'm a stubborn retard.

I eventually made it back to the train and completed the trip into Geneva. Most of my research said that Geneva was a business city without much to see and was pretty sterile overall, so I had one set aside one day/night for it.

What a mistake.

Geneva turned out to be amazing. For one, it's beautiful. The architecture is great, the Old Town is walkable and interesting, and it has the same awesomely efficient transportation system as Zurich. In fact, anyone who checks into a Geneva hotel with a foreign passport is given a free transport pass for every day they're in the city. How smart is that? It just invites people to explore and keeps some cars off the road. I wish every city had the financial means to do this, because it's brilliant.

Despite my aversion to public transport, I definitely made the most of that pass. I saw everything in the city, and even ventured far out on the (awesome) tram system to far-flung places like the Palace of Nations and CERN (on the France border). I couldn't get into either, but both were amusing to check out from the outside either way. The Palais featured a gigantic chair missing a leg. CERN featured the angriest "don't use our wifi" message of all time.

Upon my return to the city, I went down to the lake and ended up mesmerized by the Jet D'Eau for a while. It's just a thing in the lake that sprays water about 500 feet in the air, turning the docks near it into a water park. I wasn't in the water zone, but it was remarkable. Unlike anything I've ever seen (Full disclosure - I had stopped at a pub on the way there and had a few beers, so that might explain my love for the thing (and the sixteen videos on my tablet that all looked exactly the same).

Overall, what I saw of Switzerland was amazing. Generally if I spend a few days in a country, I don't feel an overwhelming need to go back. Especially with so many undiscovered countries left for me to go to. But I would go back there in a heartbeat. Maybe not Zurich, but I'd love to spend more time in Lucerne, Geneva, or a bunch of the places I didn't get to go. It's an absolute gem of a country that every Euro traveler should take the time to see. My only regret is that I bypassed it so many times before and didn't see it till now.

But Switzerland hasn't seen the last of me, that's for damn sure.

Christmas in Europe 2012, part 4 - Lithuania

So, I didn't manage to write any more blogs while I was in Australia. I was traveling with one of my best friends from back in the day (Rob Pike) and was usually too busy/inebriated to write anything legible. I'm home now, and I just happen to have some Vitamin P and time on my hands. So let's get back to this so we can finish it up.

Leaving Gdansk, Poland was incredibly simple. I generally try to head to airport early in case anything goes sideways in the process, but it certainly wasn't necessary here. There were like four other people in the whole airport, and three of them worked there. My next destination was one of the last outpost-type places that I always get strange looks for when I mention where I'm going. This place was Vilnius, Lithuania. And it definitely didn't disappoint in terms of being out of the way.

I've hit the other ex-Soviet Baltic states (Estonia and Latvia) already, and thoroughly enjoyed them both. Lithuania was purported to be the least Western of the three, and that turned out to be mostly true. The first thing was the inevitable taxi ripoff. It was like 5km to town from the airport, but they were charging the equivalent of like 30 bucks. I have no idea why I stressed over this since money wasn't an issue, but for some reason I was determined to not pay 30 bucks. I thought about it for days before arrival, and now it was time to earn my stripes.

So after much negotiating, I somehow paid...32 bucks. As a world traveler, you'd think I'd be better at this by now. And you'd be wrong.

As usual when I first get to places, I go for a long walk around the hotel area to get a feel for it, then find somewhere to eat/drink. Travel guides all mentioned various English/Irish pubs (fuck off, I integrate slowly) in the Old Town, but they were all shut down. Apparently the ex-pat community in Vilnius is so small that these places never get any business and inevitably close up shop after a few months.

So, I had to bust out my stellar Lithuanian skills at a regular bar to order. And by stellar Lithuanian, I mean pointing at stuff and adding "ski" to the end of every word. Obviously that backfired.

Tim: "Pleaseski? Beerski?'
Bartender chick: "I speak English."
Tim: "Oh. Sorry."
Bartender chick: "Try that first next time. This not Russiaski."

Vilnius 1, Timski 0.

I woke up the next day eager to explore since it was my only full day in the city. It was around -10, but anyone that knows me that I'm weird and I like the cold so I thought it was great. I set off to check out the biggest tourist sites first, which were a cathedral and the adjoining area. I was amused to come across three different wedding parties in the large square. On December 28th. Did I mention it was -10 outside?

The funny part to me was that all the guys seemed to have parkas on, and all the women in the wedding parties were just standing around in their dresses freezing. And visibly angry. Welcome to Lithuania.

I explored the entire Old Town (one of the biggest in Europe), and it was a strange mix of beauty and neglect. I'm an architecture nerd and loved a lot of the buildings, but there would be 62 graffiti'd garbage cans in front of them, which obviously spoiled the scene somewhat. There were other weird things too - like putting a gigantic domed bouncy castle right in front of one of the nicest-looking buildings in the city, which completely obstructed the view. Nice to see they still had that backwards Soviet spirit in spades I guess.

Food and beer were cheap though, so that was much appreciated. Overall it was a very walkable city, with a nice river running through it and stuff to see on both sides. There were lots of open, inviting squares and some small parks interspersed amongst the old town and residential areas. It was also a lot more chic that I expected, with fancy shopping areas and high-end restaurants all around my hotel. And my hotel itself was brilliant. The people are standoffish, but that's standard for this part of the world and I've always appreciated it. It's just part of the makeup. No fake smiles here, that's for sure.

Overall, I liked it. Riga and Tallinn were much cleaner than Vilnius, which is probably why most tourists like the other two Baltic capitals better. They're also much more tourist-friendly. But I grew to appreciate Vilnius' odd charm despite my short time there. Unlike places that totally rely upon tourism, Vilnius gave me the distinct impression that it didn't give a shit if I came to see it or not, it'd be just fine either way.

I like that.

Christmas in Europe 2012 part 3 - Poland

As usual, I'm ridiculously behind on these things. And again as usual, I've decided to try and catch up now that I'm actually on a trip. I'm writing thing from my hotel bar in Sydney, Australia, because I can't go outside. There's some sort of crazy storm going on on that is dumping rain harder than I've ever seen outside the tropics. But in the tropics, it lasts like an hour. This has been going for 12 hours. The city is fucking swamped. I've never seen anything like it, and my clothes are still drying in my room from my brief tour earlier today. But this hotel bar has beer and wifi, and that's about all I need to write. So let's roll.

Last time I checked in I was in some serious pain. I had a feeling what was causing it, but I wasn't 100% sure so I was super paranoid. Surfing the net for answers didn't help, as can be expected. I was pretty sure I didn't have a flesh-eating disease, but one or two of the symptoms fit. I wouldn't have really cared if it was that anyway - I'm huge. I would have had at least three months to live.

What I thought I had was a stomach ulcer. All the symptoms fit, but I had no idea about the kind of intense pain they can send into your back and shoulders. When I got to the Munich airport to fly to Warsaw, I went in to a drug store there and just decided to ask a pharmacist chick. She confirmed that it was an ulcer, and gave me pills to completely stop the production of stomach acid. That apparently requires a prescription in Canada, but not in Germany. And they were 10000% successful - within 3 days I was feeling perfect again. But those three days in Poland were kinda rough. Especially the first day.

I arrived at Warsaw and was scooted off to my plush hotel by a cabbie that ripped me off. Shocking, I know. I didn't care though - I just wanted to lay down for a bit. I picked one of the nicest hotels in the city because Poland is cheap. To give you an example of how nice it was, you could order bottles of Cristal to your room. And they had a pet menu for room service.

I was struggling, but I had only had one day there so I was determined to check out as much of the city as possible. The Old Town area is super nice, a lot different than I had expected. It was also packed to the gills with people. I guess the Polish celebrate Boxing Day? I dunno. Anyway, I walked all over the place in the snow and the sea of people, using my tablet as a camera because I had already lost my regular one. Go Tim. Is it embarrassing to use a fucking tablet to take pictures? Slightly. When I got home, Danny christened it the "plywood cam" because that's exactly what it looks like. This is why I hate the Portuguese.

After walking through a massive construction site, I happened across a pond full of ducks. Is this interesting? Not really I guess. But I was amused, because they were the most forward ducks ever. They had no problem walking right up to me. And ON ME. They were like squirrels in Stanley Park. I had no food for them, so all for my trouble was dirty jeans because they were all sitting in a fucking mud puddle before I came along. One of them actually jumped up onto my lap and attempted to take my hat. The plywood cam was their kryptonite though - they scattered like *insert racist comparison here* and I never got a good pic of them bothering me. Come to think of it, that was the most action I got on the whole trip. Whores.

After a nice sleep in my uber-comfy bed, I was starting to feel better the next day. I was on the move again, to Gdansk. No, that's not a typo. Yes, that's a real place. And it's awesome. After not getting robbed by a cabbie for once (he said straight up that he thought ripping off tourists gave the country a bad name and refused to do it), I got into the heart of a fucking beautiful city. It's on the Baltic Sea in the north of the country, and has a nice river running right though the middle of the central area. The walk down the river was super nice (even though it was about -10) and the old town is one of the nicest I've ever seen.

I think I liked the city more than other more popular ones because it wasn't packed with tourists. In fact, there weren't any. My hotel was practically abandoned, and everyone went out of their way to do all they could for what seemed like their only customer. Food and beer were cheap in restaurants and bars, the service was great, and nearly everyone spoke English. It's also a port city, which I think are my favorite cities in the world. I guess it comes from growing up on the water, but for some reason I just like port cities because they tend to be a bit grittier than your average tourist haunt. Gdansk was ridiculously nice, but you could tell that it was a bit rough around the edges too. The vibe was awesome.

I still have 2 weeks left in this Australia trip, so I'll try to catch up as much as possible. This trip wasn't full of ridiculous stories or anything like some of my prior (or more recent) ones, but I got to see a lot of stuff I hadn't before so it was one of my favorites. Lithuania was all kinds of weird, Switzerland was amazing and dumb, and Paris was...odd. I'll get to that soon. Then we can get back to me passing out on the floor of my hotel room after rapping with a dolphin (Mexico), or winning a large amount of money and getting followed to my hotel room by a old-ish married woman with fake boobs (Vegas).

Christmas in Europe 2012, part 2 - Munich

I reluctantly left England to head out on the rest of my trip, and my first stop was Munich, Germany. I just happened to be arriving late on Christmas Eve, which meant that the city was all kinds of dead when I got there. After an odd train trip into the city, I just decided to stick to what works and drink at my hotel. And oh boy was that the right decision.

First off, the bartender chicky was a smokeshow. Easily the hottest woman I saw until I got to Paris 10 days later. She was grumpy at first because a bunch of kids were causing drama in the lobby, but she warmed up quickly. We were both amazed by a Russian dude that did an elaborate ceremony for his drink, with 2 glasses, a straw, and a lighter. Apparently it was a Flaming Sambuca, but neither of us (me and hot girl) had ever seen one before.

The Russian dude didn't speak much English, so it was a chore just setting it up. I had to google it on my tablet and show it to her so she could figure it out (with the Russian dude pointing and saying "Da! Da!"). She thanked me for the help with a couple of free pints, which was nice since I fucked up when I first got there and ordered a Radler/Shandy (beer and lemonade) without knowing any better. She laughed at me for it later. She was awesome. But this is one of my stories, so obviously I went to my room alone.

The next day was Munich exploration time. It was amusing because it was Christmas Day, so pretty much the only tourists out on the street with me were Asians. And there were a lot of them. I didn't even attempt to go into the biggest Munich beer garden because it was FULL of Asians. That was odd, but whatever.

I totally understand why Munich ranks so high on the most liveable city list though - everything is seamless, just like Vienna. Local transit is ridiculously easy. You can't get lost because signage is so good. And all the tourist sites and easy to find and readily accessible. Vienna is probably my dream city if I ever moved to mainland Europe, but Munich ranked second at that point. It's just so EASY. And so nice.

I do want to go back for Oktoberfest though. I feel like that's my destiny.

My last night in Munich ended in pain though. The crazy shoulder pain I experienced in England came back and completely ruined a good night's sleep. I had no idea what was wrong with me but I was actually scared, which is rare. Luckily I got the answer (and the fix) at the airport the next day on my way to Poland. Folks, Poland is awesome. And I'll explain in my next blog.

Christmas in Europe 2012, Part 1 - England

I had it all figured out. I was going to South America! Argentina! Chile! Uruguay! Maybe other places! I booked the flight for July 2012 and had 3 weeks to do it. I was psyched.

Then I wasn't so psyched.

I hadn't accounted for the fact that those countries were way more expensive than I thought, and I only had three months to save for the trip (and pay off the flight, which was booked on credit of course). I just wouldn't have been able to see all of what I wanted to see due to financial constraints. So for the second time in my life*, I made a radical flight change - instead of South America in July, it would be Europe in December. And the southern US in July instead, which was much cheaper (and documented in my last few blogs).

*The first time was when I booked a flight to China to check out Shanghai and Beijing, but succumbed to a free refund policy on Air China to go check out the Yucatan area of Mexico instead. Why? Well, why the fuck did I book a flight to China in the first place? It's China. That seems like a better question to me.

Anyway, I had 18 days in Europe over the Christmas holidays. My first stop was England to visit family, which is always awesome. Then it was off to Munich, Germany. Then two cities in Poland - Warsaw and Gdansk. A two-day stop in the capital of Lithuania (Vilnius) was next, followed by four days to traverse Switzerland. I finished up with a day in Paris and two more days to chill in London. Yes, that sounds rather ambitious. But it was fun.

This was the first time I had flown directly from Vancouver to the UK, surprisingly enough. There was a 90 minute delay, but I had a row to myself to so it was more than okay. I was staying in the Kings Cross area of London for a night before taking the train up to Leeds, and it was typically entertaining. I chilled at a few local pubs, ate some bangers and mash in a gigantic Yorkshire pudding, and laughed at the locals' hate of everything French until I finally passed out after being awake for 30 hours or so.

After waking up typically early and laughing at some English game shows (Golden Balls anyone?), I jumped on the train to Leeds. It's only supposed to take a little over two hours, but flooding had taken out a bridge so it was delayed for a while. I was surrounded by weirdos as usual, and that didn't change when I actually got to the Leeds train station. My nephew Ryan met me there. He's not weird, he's awesome - but we were surrounded by weirdos either way. 

We drank at the train station for a bit and were joined by the lovely Louise, a good friend of Ryan's mom Shell. But there was a dude behind on with a crazy glasses and a big sticker on his jacket that asked people to remind him when it was 6pm so he could go do something. Then there was a starer. You've all seen one - every time you look at the person, they're staring at you. They might not even realize it, but they are. And it's 100% creepy.

Anyway, the train station crowd got old quick so we hitched a ride with Louise and Dave to my brother's local, the Hope. Ryan insisted that he was going to go beer for beer with me back at the train station, and he wanted to continue it here. He's 19 and pretty ripped, but he's about 5'8 and I'd guess about 175 pounds. I'm obviously WAY bigger, so I knew how this was going to turn out. I warned him many times, but he wouldn't listen. As expected, it turned into hilarity not long after we got to the Hope. 

It's probably about 5pm at this point. We walk in, and Ryan is immediately surrounded by a gaggle of old ladies. Ryan's a singer, and apparently he had performed at some sort of event (I think it was a Christmas-related thing, but I can't remember for sure) at the pub the week before for these ladies. And they loved him. To the point that they all wanted to dance with him immediately. Here's a good kid, so he was down. 

Then they started molesting him.

I was playing a "Deal or No Deal" video game, watching Ryan get accosted by these ladies. They had him surrounded, and they were pulling his shirt up and showing his abs to the rest of the ladies, who took turns rubbing them and generally harassing him. It was all in good fun, but pretty odd. It was also so funny I couldn't even play the game. I was laughing so hard that I spilled my beer and ran out of time on my turn. I'd say that he owes me 50 pence, but the entertainment value of that was worth way more than the money I lost in the game (and let's face it - I was gonna lose the money anyway. I suck at British Deal or No Deal).

He had just managed to peel the senior's division off of him when his parents arrived. My brother Terry and his lady Shell have always been awesome to me, and I felt a little bad that their son was...well, kinda drunk. In fact, he passed out in his seat within an hour of them arriving, which I profusely apologized for. As usual, they just laughed it off. After a few more beers, we retired at a relatively normal time.

The next day was good and bad. We had planned on going on a train pub crawl between Leeds and Manchester, but the local flooding made that a problem. So we just went on a pub crawl in Leeds instead. That turned out to be good, because halfway through I developed some crazy shoulder pain, like nothing I had ever felt before. I ended up finding out what caused it a few days later, but for the time being I was totally confused and felt terrible about killing everyone else's good time. 

I was able to sleep it off though, and woke up a few hours later to find out that the party had just continued at their place. We ended up staying up till 5am - I drank cider; Ryan puked on purpose to make himself feel better, then got scared into insomnia by trying to watch a suspense movie in his room; Shell passed out for a while on the couch, then woke up demanding Jack Daniels (which caught up to her the next day); and Terry and I just talked about everything under the sun, just like we always do. 

As mentioned above, Shell was feeling pretty rough the next day. You'd hardly know it though, because she's always so chipper and upbeat. We just hung out for the day, watching all sorts of different stuff on TV and having a few drinks. Terry and Shell passed out relatively early (after midnight Christmas Eve shopping for Shell and Ryan, where he bought me a bunch of socks that came in super handy on my trip with a hole in my boot - thanks again man!), but I stayed up to watch an NFL game between the Seahawks and Niners. Ryan was still up and I tried to explain the rules since the NFL has little presence in the UK. He made me laugh over and over by just saying the same thing in response to my rational explanation of the rules:

"So it's just gay rugby?"

Unfortunately I had to set off the next day to continue my trip, but Terry and Shell accompanied me to the train station for a sendoff beer. Just like every other time, they were awesome hosts and I owe them a ton. Thanks again everyone! From there, it was off to Munich.

Trip to the Southern US, Finale - Charlotte

I'm not gonna lie here, I came to Charlotte as the last stop on my southern US trip for one reason - it was the cheapest city on the east coast to fly home out of. It's known as a business city without a ton of tourist sites, and that turned out to be true. But it was still nice and I found out a lot about it from a few different kind locals.

My hotel was on a university campus, which was a first for me. The staff was made up of hospitality majors at the school who were all extremely eager to help out with whatever because their work experience grade depended on it. I had to laugh when a front desk girl asked me to ask her about local restaurants just so she could tell me, even though we both knew I didn't care. She was cute though, so I obliged. She then told me "off the record" about a good bar up the street. THAT I cared about.

I checked out the bar the first night and had some food after a long wander around. I had to cover a UFC event though, so it was an early night back at the hotel for me. The next day was when I really learned about Charlotte.

Upon return to the bar early on a Sunday afternoon, there were but two other customers in the whole place with me. My attire once again drew attention (just like Atlanta in my last blog), but it was my Canucks hat this time. One of the guys there was from Detroit and was a massive Wings fan. So it was hockey talk on this occasion. 

Turns out the other dude was from just outside Buffalo and a Sabres fan, and the two guys were roommates. They both worked for Bank of America as mortgage brokers, and explained that probably 10% of the Charlotte population worked for the bank and none of them were from NC. They seemed to find NC amusing but a bit backwards, which turned out to be pretty spot on.

After a few beers there, they explained that they had nothing else to do so they were going on a "college girl pub crawl". Did I want to come along? Hell yeah I wanted to come along!

While we went to a couple of bars that weren't that busy yet, they explained their self-professed "preppy white" perspective on Charlotte. According to them, it was one big culture clash. On one side were the outsider rich kids that had to live there for work (ie. them). On another side were white southerners, who were generally "poor rednecks". On the third side were African-Americans, who sit in an apparent precarious position on the northern edge of the south. I don't know if any of this is actually true, I'm just relaying their explanation. I didn't see much of the culture divide in my one day there, except for the music in bars. 

We finally got to a busy college bar. It was only about 2pm on a Sunday, but everyone was drunk. It was kind of weird that all the guys were on one side and all the girls were on the other, like a seventh-grade dance, but I didn't really care. We all sat right in the middle of all the chicks, which worked for me. Pretty soon there were girls dancing on the bar to country music in front of me, which certainly had my attention. They were dumb as rocks when I talked to them, but who gives a shit? They were underdressed, drunk and they had accents. And they thought I had one too. Touchdown!

My serenity was quickly shattered by a dude at least as big as me who tapped me on the shoulder and demanded my attention. I wasn't sure what the deal was right away, but I've got into fights for less than hot college girls and I was drunk already, so whatever. But it turns out that he wanted to talk to me because he saw my Canucks hat (sports gear again!). He was at the bar with his college lacrosse team, and over half of them had traveled to lacrosse camps in Vancouver over the past five years and loved the city. He tried to drag me over to his team, but I pointed at all the girls and said they should come over here. He agreed, they agreed, and the party kicked off.

The Bank of America guys were clearly a bit put off by the gathering of lacrosse meatheads suddenly surrounding them, but everyone was friendly. I had all sorts of drinks bought for me, which was great. The girls were obviously enjoying the attention too, and all started dancing on the bar. But the music was ridiculous.

Since Charlotte is pretty far north for a "southern" town, I guess this bar was out to accommodate everyone. So a country song would come on, then two hip hop songs. Then country. Then old school southern rock. Then hip hop again. Everyone had their favorites, which made it odd. One genre would be on and 1/3 of the bar would go nuts. Then another would come on and a different 1/3 would lose their shit. That went on for two hours, and I was thoroughly confused. But I was happy as long as college girls were dancing, of course.

I know what you're gonna say, and yes you're right - Timmy magically failed with the college girls. I felt every single one of my 33 years of age at that point. and a damn college lacrosse team hanging out with me didn't help my chances. I'm used to that happening though - that's just how I do. It's all good. I was more amused by the Bank of America guys failing though. 

They actually thought they deserved every girl in there because they made 60k a year or something, and getting shot down made them mad. When we finally left, they were super bitter. "Whores," they said. "I wouldn't want any of them in my condo anyway. They'd never leave."

Sure, guys.

I returned to my hotel after about eight hours of drinking, but I wasn't really done yet. So I went to the hotel bar and met a super cool bartender lady named Cathy. She was about 45 or so, but she was the epitome of the sweet southern belle that you see on TV. Which is odd, because the only other real southern girl I've ever known was named Cathy as well, and she was just as sweet. But this lady had liquor to give me, so she wins this round.

Over the course of a few hours, she explained her thoughts on Charlotte and North Carolina in general. I don't know why, but I always pictured NC as a pretty progressive state with big business and big universities. But she explained that most of it was very rural. She was from a rural part, a town called Havelock, which was apparently next to a big military base. She talked about growing up there and how the tensions there aren't that much different than they are in the "big city she is forced to work in to make money". 

It was about 9:30pm at this point, and the bar was dead. I asked if I was imposing, and if she could close and go home if I left (she commuted 45 minutes each way). She laughed and said that I was the least of her worries. She then explained that a ton of Bank of America people from out west were about to arrive, like they did every Sunday night. They stayed in the hotel during the week, and, "they're all assholes". She had been extremely proper to that point, so that made me laugh. 

But she was 100% correct. 

Sure enough, the bar was half-full by 10:30. And all of them (men and women) were extremely demanding. Nothing was good enough - their drink didn't come fast enough, it wasn't stiff enough, the food sucked, etc. She was right, they were assholes. I said that to her, and she just shrugged. "At least y'all from Canada are sweet. You being here make it easier to deal with all them. If you wanna stick around for a while longer, your drinks are on them."

"On them? How? I mean, I'll stay either way, but that's pretty funny."

"Don't worry honey, I've been doing this for 15 years. I know how to make it work," she said with a wink.

That happened nine months ago and it still makes me laugh when I think about it. I think I had nine beers, a shot, and a pizza. I paid for 2 beers. That's it. 

So Cathy is my favorite person in North Carolina. College girls ain't got nothin' on 45-year-old southern belles with connections, yo. Thanks again ma'am!

Trip to the Southern US, part 3 - Atlanta

My one-hour flight from Cancun to Havana is delayed seven fucking hours, so I figured now was a good time to catch up on some travel writing since I have fuck all else to do. So some Dos Equis and I will guide you through the last half of my Southern US trip last summer. I'm only nine months late writing this one. That's pretty good for me.

It was a hot summer's day in the south. And I only started with that line because it's so cliche and cheesy, by the way.  I woke up with a pretty nasty hangover after spending July 4th in New Orleans, which should hardly come as a surprise. On tap for July 5th was a quick flight to Atlanta, which didn't seem too bad. It turned out to be pretty easy, but my hangover was definitely getting the best of me despite my attempts to drink my way through it at the New Orleans airport.

Upon arrival in Atlanta, I quickly figured out two things - holy fuck was it hot, and holy fuck there was no way I was taking public transit when it's 104 degrees. An air-conditioned shuttle it was, even if it was a bit pricey. I would have just gone for a taxi, but I couldn't find one. Go figure.

I eventually arrived at my hotel, and it was unreal. The Hyatt Regency in Atlanta might not sound very glamourous, but it was pretty sick. It's basically 3 buildings surrounding a massive lobby, with these space-age looking elevators going up in the middle.  There's also a pretty cool bar right there, which ended up being my home for a while on both nights because...well, that's how I do. 

I was actually supposed to (briefly) meet up with a friend from ATL that was heading to Vegas that night, but my hangover was still kicking my ass so I never saw her. Sorry again Katie! After having a nap, I went for a walk around the hood but it was still insanely hot. To the point that I couldn't get very far without thinking I was gonna die. But I am the one that came to the south in the summer and didn't pack any shorts. I'm pretty fucking dumb sometimes.

After a trip to a local bar for some food and the final kick to the hangover I was good to go. The only problem with that was that I had no idea what to do. Everything I wanted to see in Atlanta was already closed, so...bar time again. Specifically the hotel bar. And the place was pretty funny.

Since it's in the middle of the hotel, the area is quite busy. And one side of the hotel is shaped like a pyramid, with open-air floors...meaning that if someone wants to walk out their door on the 20th floor and yell at the lobby, they can feel free. And you'd be surprised how many people took advantage of that. Full-on yelling conversations took place between people in the bar and people on the 3rd, or 11th, or 23rd floor. It was extremely odd. And fucking loud.

Anyway, I went down there to do exactly what I'm doing right now - catch up on travel blogs. I was paying 7 bucks a Corona, which was pretty steep, until the bartender chicky asked me I wanted something better. She suggested a beer called Three Philosophers, which is 9% alky, as opposed to the Corona since they were the same price.

SOLD!

I can't say I remember the whole night, but I did have to completely edit my travel blog the next day because it didn't make any fucking sense at all. I'm pretty sure I didn't see any purple aliens the last time I was in Mexico, for example. But I do remember the hotel had a foodstuff shop where they sold the best chicken pot pie of all time. I know that for sure because I had it the next day again and it was amazing. 

Speaking of the next day...not much happened. I didn't really check out a whole lot other than Olympic Park and the area around that. It was way too hot. I feel kinda bad that I didn't see more, but it ain't no thing. I'll just go back. I did have another amusing night at that hotel bar though, which shouldn't surprise anyone.

When I went back down that night, I was wearing my Hines Ward Pittsburgh Steelers jersey. I vaguely remembered that he played for Georgia in college, but didn't think much of it. Well I should have, because I quickly became the most popular guy in the hotel somehow. Everyone wanted to know why the Canadian liked Hines Ward so much. 

To be honest I do like the dude, he was an awesome player. But I just got the jersey from my boss. It didn't really mean a lot to me. But I've learned from experience that people love to talk if they find something in common with you, and wearing sports gear is a great way. For example, I'm in Havana right now and some hot Brazilian girls have a friend that's a diehard Canucks fan somehow....they took a pic with me to send to their friend, just to show that there are hockey fans everywhere. Works for me.

Anyway, back to ATL. Everyone wanted to talk football with me. In the elevator, in the lobby, on the street, everywhere. It was kinda funny because I have an old beat up Mike Vick Falcons jersey (which my friends still tease me about), but no one brought up the Falcons once in my convos even though I was in ATL. College football is king, and Hines Ward was my ticket to acceptance. I got drinks bought for me, people wanted pics with me, the whole deal. I thought it was great. 

As I said, this continued into my second trip into the hotel bar. All four bartenders knew me on sight, which was kind of confusing. And right away, one mentioned that I wore a much better jersey this time around (the night before was a Cards jersey - Larry Fitzgerald). One dude came over and asked if I was writing again. I said yes, but how did he know that? He explained:

"I asked to read a little bit of what you were working on last night after you told me it was a travel blog. We all ended up reading it because it was so funny. You don't remember that?"

"Whoa really? No, I don't remember that."

"Really? Bro, you do a good job of hiding how drunk you are then, and I'm a bartender. You were completely with it the whole time, despite drinking us out of Three Philosophers."

"Wait, how many did you have?"

"I think we had 8 left? 10 maybe? We have none left though....you were going to ask for one, weren't you?"

"Heh, yeah I was."

"Hold on, I got something else you might like at the other bar. In the meantime I'll get you a shot on me for the entertainment last night. And the jersey. Great jersey."

"Sweet!"

I spent the rest of the night talking to all the bartenders and all sorts of customers that came and went while I wrote some more. Everyone was incredibly nice and I learned a lot about a bunch of different places. The ironic part was that I was in a hotel in Atlanta...but I really didn't learn much about Atlanta.  All the more reason for me to return one day (hopefully in the the winter). 

I know what I'll be wearing as a conversation starter, that's for damn sure.

Trip to the Southern US, part 2 - New Orleans

After my brief stay in Fort Lauderdale, it was off to the Big Easy - New Orleans. This was undoubtedly the most anticipated part of the trip for me, mostly because of all the stories I had heard about the place. I had a vision of it in my head, and I wanted to see if the real thing matched what I came up with.

It didn't. It was even better.

After connecting through Tampa and finally getting to my hotel, I was amused pretty much immediately. The hotel is so big that it has a weird elevator system. Instead of just pushing a button, everyone getting on, and stopping 10 times before you get to your floor to let everyone else off, you go up to the big computer and punch in your floor number. It dispatches you an elevator, and voila - non-stop service to your desired floor. It sounds odd, but in practice it worked really well. It was probably the coolest part of a pretty underwhelming hotel overall.

After getting settled, I immediately set out to find a sports bar. This just happened to be the day of the Euro 2012 final between Spain and Italy, and there was no fucking way I was missing it no matter where I was. Luckily for me, New Orleans isn't exactly short on bars. In fact, that might be the understatement of the fucking century.

I found a bar just a couple of blocks into the French Quarter with a simple sign that "Soccer - back". Okay then. I went to the back, and...there was no one there. 'Well this is lame' I thought. Whatever, they had beer and the game. Who gives a shit if I'm the only one there, right?

As soon as I sat down at the bar, the cute bartender chick (a soulless ginger) from behind the counter said "You're not from around here, are you?" with a Fargo-type accent. I responded with "you don't sound like you are either". She laughed and said she had just moved there last week. We went on BSing for a bit while I drank my first Nawlins beer, an Abita Amber (awesome, for those that care).

I asked her why there was no one in the bar except me and one Italian couple, and she told me that it'd fill up for sure because a party of 30 had reserved a bunch of tables (the place probably only seated 45). Sure enough, right before kickoff they showed up. And they were all Spaniards. And they were all pretty drunk already. The Italian guy and his girlfriend looked like they were going to puke. It was great.

If you care about soccer at all, you likely remember the result - Spain absolutely blew Italy out 4-0. For the first two goals the crowd was going bonkers, but they were still pretty respectful towards the Italian couple, They couldn't help themselves after goal three though. At least 10 of them jumped up, joined hands, and danced around their table while singing some sort of celebration song. Finally the Italian guy lost it and stormed out, while all 30 of them chanted at him. It was fucking hilarious. I wanted Spain to win anyway, so I was having a great time. Two of them even ended up buying me a beer, which was very nice of them. I've learned this many times over the years, but drunk Spaniards rule.

After the game, I ventured further into the Quarter. It's about 9 blocks long and maybe 12 blocks wide. And there are HUNDREDS of bars, of all shapes and sizes. While Bourbon St. is the most recognizable area to most, I didn't really like it. It's really gaudy and over the top. Neon, touts, the whole deal. It was like the West End in San Antonio in Ibiza. I was already half cut and in no mood to be harassed by people of all shapes and sizes, so I checked out some other streets instead. At first I was a tad worried about security since NO is known as a dodgy city, but the Quarter was perfectly fine. I spent most of the night meandering between different bars and just walking around, taking in the atmosphere. It was loud, amusing, and didn't feel threatening. There were so many people everywhere that it would have been pretty hard to get robbed or anything.

After a good sleep, I set off to explore more of the city the next day. I went down to the water (Mississippi river) and walked along the banks a bit. Checked out the Harrah's casino. Walked up and down Canal St (the border between the Quarter and the Business District) and into the CBD a bit. All nice and chill. Then I decided I was going to go to a cemetery.

I know that sounds odd, but Nawlins might have the coolest cemeteries in the world for one reason - the city is below sea level. They can't bury coffins because they just get pushed back up above the ground (imagine the first person to figure that out - yikes). So all the coffins are above ground, set in massive crypts with crazy decorations and headstones and shit. I wanted to see a good example of one, so I asked my hotel concierge to direct me to the closest one. He told me the hotel had tours to Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1, just across Rampart from the Quarter. And the tour was 'the only safe way to go there'. 40 bucks. It was 5 blocks from my hotel. Fuck that, concierge. Turns out the place was really nice. Not unsafe. And free.

Later that night, I decided to check out a couple of bars behind my hotel. The same concierge from earlier told me that the food was pretty good at a couple of them, as long as I didn't "look too hard". I assumed he meant that the places were easy to find. He didn't mean that. At. Fucking. All.

I headed to the end of the street and popped into a bar on the corner. I didn't really look around since there were people on either side of me, but I ordered a beer (2 bucks) and a pizza (6 bucks off the menu). The bartender chick then took off to my right, which caused me to look in that direction.

And I immediately thought "Holy shit. I'm in fucking Cambodia".

I was looking into the "kitchen". Which wasn't a kitchen at all, it was just some big ovens with stuff hanging all over them, and a big counter full of all sorts of foodstuff. It was separated from the bar's front door by a flimsy cubicle wall. I have no idea how I missed it coming in. But I couldn't miss the cook as he walked past the bartender into this den of depravity. He was a little black dude with an apron, and he was singing. As loud as he possibly could.

I had two choices at this point - cancel the order and fuck off, or drink as many beers as possible until my food came and hope that might kill all the diseases on my pizza. My decision was made a lot easier by the bartender chick, who saw me staring into the kitchen and mainlining my beer. She came back and said "Food falls into two categories here - 'Are you willing to risk food poisoning?' or 'Are you a pussy?"." And walked away before I could respond.

That settled the point pretty damn well. The pizza turned out to be pretty good too. Not long after I finished it though, I finally clued into what the concierge said. He didn't mean "don't look too hard to find a place to eat". He meant "don't look too hard AT the place you're getting the food from". I followed that advice for the rest of my stay in New Orleans, ate some really good stuff, and I'm still alive. Go figure.

After seeing all the stuff I wanted to see in two days, I just spent the rest of the time in the Quarter or the bars and restaurants around the hotel. The French Quarter in New Orleans is, pound-for-pound, the most interesting place in the world to talk to people. Whether they're from there or not, they always have a story to tell and everyone's pretty...unique. To say the least.

After having lunch at a cool bar (gumbo? Awesome. Po' Boys? Fucking subway sandwiches with too much shit shoved into them), I headed to a bar someone told me about. He said it was an "Irish Dive bar", whatever that meant. Cool. When I got there, there was only one couple in there. I sat down and quickly laughed at the bartender, because he was pouring a shitload of Jamesons into his own coffee. Take a big gulp, pour. Gulp, pour.

"Rough night," he said at my laughter. "Want some?"

"Fuck no. Can I just get an Amber?"

"Suit yourself."

He talked to me a bit about Katrina and the other bars he worked at. He also kept screwing up the order of the only other couple there because he was already shitfaced. "Wine? You wanted wine right? No? Vodka seven? Wow, I was way off."

That went on for a while before a couple of dudes came in and immediately blew the place up. A black dude in his late 20's, and a white dude in his late 30's. The black dude was singing and dancing before he even got to the bar, while the white guy was telling an animated story to his oblivious friend with spastic hand movements and even some jumping up and down. And of course, they sat down right next to me.

"Awwww snap! We needs some jager bombs! My boy here's going to the UFC!"

Say what?

I couldn't help myself and had to ask if he was telling the truth. The white dude looked too old and too skinny to knock a table over, much less fight professionally.

"Man, it's great. I'm on my way! I finally got signed up for this kickass fight gym in Kenner today. Took like six months for me to get the bread together! Now I'm gonna train and fight in the UFC!"

The whole time he's saying this, the black guy is shadowboxing behind him, and ducking and diving behind his back and popping up over each shoulder, making faces at me. He was either the funniest dude I had seen in a while, or he was reaaaally high.

"He's gonna be the world champ! Awwww snap! And I'm his manager!"

"Yup, Tyron's got my sponsors and shit. He's the brains, I'm the...uh...fighter guy!"

I quickly found out that Tyron was from Guyana and was either a drug dealer or a "professional playa". And he started every sentence with "Awww snap!"

"Aww snap! You gotta take that back to Canada wit you, boy. That's how a playa talks!" I didn't have the heart to tell him that's how playas talked in 1989 and he was a tad bit behind the times.

And it turns out that Joe was his personal cab driver. He drove cab for a real company and all that, but was at Tyron's beck and call and would ignore dispatch requests if he was doing something for him. Since Tyron paid better. I can't see many cab companies being big fans of their drivers ignoring dispatches, but whatever.

After a while of bullshitting with these two characters, Tyron saw my tablet that I had brought with me. After asking me 10 times whether it was a phone, ("That bitch is bigger than the phone that white kid had on Saved by the Bell!") He snatched it away from me and proceeded to do about seven improv skits with it. It was a phone while he talked to his mama. Then it was a tray (he even put drinks on it, much to my dismay). Then it was the world's biggest pager ("Pagers for big bitches!"). I really thought he was gonna break the thing, but it was so fucking funny that I didn't care at that point.

I didn't think he could top that, but he managed to. In the midst of telling me and the bartender a story about living in Jamaica (he went from Guyana to Jamaica to the US apparently), he just stopped dead and turned his back on us in the middle of a sentence. The bartender and I just looked at each other with a WTF face, then heard noises coming from the door.

Four African-American ladies had entered the premises.

Joe tried to say something to him, but he just whispered "Shut the fuck up Joe! You don't know me! Don't look at me!" under his breath. Then moved down a couple of stools. It took me a few seconds, but I finally clued in - he didn't want to be seen by the black chicks hanging with a bunch of goofy, drunk white guys. And right as I came to that realization, he popped out of his seat, walked over, and went to work.

"Ladies! Mmhmm, some beautiful sistas up in here now! How are you this fine evening? Tyron would like to buys yous some drinks!" They turned him down cold. But like any good salesman, Tyron was persistent.

"Tyron doesn't take no for an answer when they ladies are this beautiful! You, barman! These ladies would like shots of your finest tequila!"

"They're 13 bucks a shot, Tyron."

Without missing a beat, he replied, "Barman! These ladies would like your finest jager bomb!"

Everyone in the place, including the ladies, were laughing at him by this point. So they graciously took his shot, and he sat there and worked his game for a while. We could overhear everything he said, and my stomach hurt so bad from trying not to laugh out loud because it was so fucking ridiculous. Finally after they got up and left, he came back to the bar, sullen and defeated. "Hoo-ers!" he yelled in a terrible English accent. Which cracked everyone up again.

I spent a while there getting more drunk with these three goofs until Joe decided they were gonna go. "There are 250 bars in the Quarter right? Tyron, I think we should go to every single one of them tonight."

"Aww snap! Let's do this! You're not driving though. Hey Saved By The Bell, you comin' or what?"

These guys were pretty wasted by this point, so I figured it'd probably be better to start over somewhere else with a saner crowd. After giving me shit for give minutes about the tablet again, we went outside and outta nowhere, Tyron ran up for a horse-drawn carriage and jumped in. Joe quickly ran after him. "Grab your own Saved by the Bell, they're ain't room for you in my chariot!"

I just laughed and shook my head and walked back towards my hotel. I thought I was free. But Tyron had other ideas. After five minutes or so, I hear clopclopclop and "Awwww snap! Saved by the Bell! We gonna follow you!" Fuck. The white chick driving the think just looked at me and shook her head, which made me laugh. They continued to yell at me until the end of the block, when they turned left and finally took off.

Just another night in New Orleans.