Work Canada Diary
University of Sunderland Journalism graduate Graham Reid, 21, from Northamptonshire flew out as a participant on the 2007 Work Canada programme on 14th November. Find out what he gets up to in Canada - watch this website for his regular diary entries!
3th August
With my new job now meaning I get up at 6:30 every morning, I'm finding it harder and harder to drag myself to the gym, or to embark on a decent escapade every weekend. I leave it down to events to make sure I get out of the house, as opposed to lounging around the apartment catching up on sleep.
I still haven’t stopped, because in Vancouver, summer never stops. Every five minutes there is a new festival or event.
Finally, I had have completed the infamous Grouse Grind. Many travellers I have met had said it was a good tourist day out. With holiday season well under way on the West Coast, Vancouver’s closest mountain was awash with foreign families and friends.
First thing I did when I got there, was to go and see the wolves. I did this by mistake, just finding a track that
looked like the beginning of a trail. It ended rather abruptly, but I was treated to North American timber wolves.
Another native of the continent to tick off that I had viewed.
When I eventually did find the start to the Grind, two minutes of traipsing up 'Nature's Stairmaster' I was sweating buckets and wishing I had taken the gondola to the top. In all, the trail took about 1hr15mins, and it was glorious reaching the summit. The views were fantastic too; if I looked hard enough I thought I could see Victoria Drive.
The top was a haven for day trippers. There were bears, an eagle show, a lumberjack performance and, once again, the Canadian delicacy ‘Beaver Tails’. Before I knew it, it was late evening, and my feet were killing. I took the cheat’s way down (the gondola) which offered more great views of the city.
The last couple of weeks has been the ‘Festival of Lights’; a firework competition between Canada, China and USA. It is of epic proportions. I have heard that over a million people descend on English Bay for each of the consecutive Wednesday and Saturday night shows. I have made it to both the Wednesday nights (Canada and China) and have been bowled over both times. This isn’t amateur fireworks, it is a choreographed masterpiece.
At English Bay, you are closest to the firework launching boat (out in the water), but you cannot breathe! It is a fantastic atmosphere, but can become a bit claustrophobic. Also, if you don’t arrive with hours to spare, you will find yourself without a comfortable spot for the main event.
All this action aside, my new job is very enjoyable. There are loads of travellers employed by the firm, through the same agency as me. We have all gone out a couple of times, and had a good laugh. The work is fairly tedious, but with all the friends I have made already, the hours tend to wile away pretty quickly.
Lastly, I’ve booked a skydive for the end of August, and I am terrified! By my next entry, I will hopefully have visited Whistler (a landslide prevented me getting the bus up there this weekend), and I’m sure I’ll pack in some other fun!