Vancouver I, Salt Lake City I

Vancouver and by some miracle correctly found the hostel by just getting off at a random busstop (happening to be the closest) and asking random people (happened to have a map with my hostel marked on). The hostel, the Samesun, was big and lively and so I bought pizza and then went and sat on the balcony and read a little and then talked to some people, including the woman I met in Portland. Did I mention her on the blog? Can't remember. Could I find out? Yes, easily. And will I? No. You will have to supply imaginary details if I did not.

Then I went to my bed and slept and then the next day I spent a good portion of on the phone to Orbitz trying to rearrange my flights and then rearranging my flights. My Only free time was spent hunting for a place to eat (no burger places! literally couldn't find one for half an hour. This is clearly not america) and then in the evening, visiting the free section ($8.50? you must be out of your incredibly sagacious minds) of the chinese garden and staring for ages at a hypnotic pond full of lillies underneath a willow tree. There was a little turtle swimming about - I was thrilled by this, enormously. AND THEN later later on there was an Open-mic night and I played a little guitar and earned a free beer. I talked to some excellent austalians all evening, and we sang along to big hits positively racously.

Okay and then the next day (this the third) I decided to move on due to time restrictions and money coming from my english account and lots of the money being spent on too-tempting beer and also Vancouver wasn't blowing me away. So actually the day became incredibly stressful when it turned out there was only one bus a day and that in less than three hours, I still needing to find somewhere to stay, check out, and my having no canadian money left (in order to de-stress I went book shopping but there were so many and so cheap I bought four more books and this became an additional cause of stress and self-reproach) eventually remedied by the hostel changing an american $5 kindly. Anyway it all somehow came together and I got the bus with about 90 seconds to spare and without leaving anything behind.

You do not need to hear the details of the 29 hour bus-journey I just enjoyed (I actually did. I read all of Naked Lunch by William Burroughs and watched a blossoming romance between two strangers, one of whom I knew had a boyfriend... this pretty exciting). Anyway I'm now in a small and tidy but unfun hostel in Salt Lake City (this is the world capital of Mormonism, as I've heard a hundred times already (I also have learned (against my will, courtesy of an old man on the bus who actually wept with passion during his explanations) Mormonism is more properly called 'the church of the latter day saints' and was founded when a boy (14) called Joseph Smith saw what is referred to as 'the first vision' in what is referred to as 'the sacred grove' in 1820. I did not wikipedia this, it is genuinely and worryingly stuck in my head) - noone seems to have mentioned the two things I know about Salt Lake: that Joe Hill lived and died here, and the world record for surviving underwater without breathing was set here by a baby).

There, that crazy parenthetic rant should keep you all occupied until I get round to blogging again.