Current activity: Travelling round Nova Scotia
Current favourite thing: Canadian trains
So here I am in Canada. The reality has not yet hit that I’m actually living here now, and so I still feel like I’m just on holiday for a few weeks. Though as holidays go, so far I’m having a pretty awesome time and can’t quite believe I’ve only been here for 5 days.
My three days in Toronto were lots of fun. I had two lovely couchsurfing hosts who really looked after me and showed me around. Highlights were a great gig on my first night, an awesome walking (and beer) tour of Toronto on Saturday daytime, and a brilliant club night in a church on Saturday night (yes, I brought out the pink wig and glitter – I knew I brought them with me for a reason). I failed to see any of the big tourist sights (sorry CN tower), but I did get to explore a lot of different neighbourhoods, and made it to the Toronto institution that is Honest Ed’s (a massive block by block maze of a shop, complete with handwritten signs and pretty much anything you could ever imagine). Everyone I met was wonderfully friendly, from strangers on the tube to the friends and flatmates of my hosts. I’ll be passing through again later in the year so will have a chance to catch anything I missed then.
Honest Eds
My host Katie educates me about Canadian beer in the park
I really liked Toronto itself too – there’s a lot of really interesting areas and it’s also really easy to get round the central district ($3 gets you anywhere in the greater Toronto area and you can transfer between buses, metro and streetcars with that). However I felt a bit like I do about London – it’s a great city to visit but I don’t know if I could live there (too big and too expensive)...
On Sunday morning I jumped on a train to Halifax. Turns out Canadian train travel makes the UK network look like a bit of an embarrassment to be honest. First of all, I was able to check my bag in, so it automatically got loaded from the Toronto-Montreal to the Montreal-Halifax train. So no lugging heavy bags along station platforms for me. Secondly, the seats! Even on the Toronto to Montreal leg, the difference was astounding. There was loads of leg room, the seats reclined significantly, and they were just far more comfortable. On the sleeper, the train only had three seats across and even more leg room, resulting in a surprisingly good night’s sleep. The train also had several lounge cars, a dining car, and a viewing car at the back of the train with a glass roof and 365 degree views of the route.
And best of all, the journey cost me a mere £110, slightly less than it would have cost me to fly the same route. Compared to the £140 I was quoted to travel from Bristol to Newcastle (a mere 5 hours of travel), with the usual UK lack of guarantee of a seat, I know which seems better value for money to me.
I’m also a big advocate of slow travel. I’m here to see as much of a very large country as I can, and the train is a wonderful way to do this. This trip took me through four provinces (Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia) and beautiful variety of countryside along the route – forests, rivers, coast... It was a brilliant chance to see some areas I might not otherwise have seen and get a bit of a taste of the Canadian countryside.
The best part however was when an announcement came over the tannoy that there was going to be some entertainment provided by some musicians who were travelling on the train (turns out this is something organised informally by the Canadian train network – they get free travel in exchange for performing along the way). This turned out to be two young folk musicians by the names of Colin Easthope and Leathan Milne. They had travelled by train from Vancouver, stopping along the way to play gigs in Toronto and Montreal (as well as the regular train gigs). They played three sets during the journey, and it was a wonderful and slightly surreal experience, travelling through beautiful Canadian countryside on a train, listening to some amazing live music (as well as taking photos of their sets, partly for them and partly for me!)
Train gig
And now I’m in Nova Scotia for the next two months. I’m heading off on a 5 day trip round the south of the province and will report back on my return...
No comments:
Post a Comment