Good Bye Banff

Time is cruel. It makes the worst moments, the worst days, drag on, painful minute by painful minute, and the best days and times slip through your fingers all too quickly. Although there were so many points during my time at Banff I was ready to leave, when the moment came two days ago it seemed like too much too soon. 1 year and 6 months, I spent in that small mountain town waking up surrounded by the Rocky Mountains. It's hard when you've made a home and a place for yourself somewhere, not to leave part of your heart behind.

So here I sit on my bed, with part of my heart broken, but packing to go off on my next adventure. In one month I will have travelled to Vancouver, Whistler, Banff, Las Vegas, and Frankfurt. I'm spoiled, it's not a bad life, I can't deny that. January 13-17 I went to Whistler and Vancouver. Then the 21st was my last day of work (!), on the 22nd I was back home on a visa run since I found out last minute I had to switch over to visitor status since my work visa ended. Back to Banff on the 25th for one last week of snowboarding, except Banff decided to have summer and all the snow melted, and back to Las Vegas on February 3, and finally, off to Frankfurt on the 8th....and then to Bangkok on the 16th.

So if you haven't managed to keep up with that, I'll summarize: I am a very busy little girl.

But expect updates, because I have some lengthy travel times ahead which I will be hopefully using to update everyone on my whereabouts. On that note, for one last time, here is one final photo of Banff. My home, my heart. 2013-2015. Thank you for everything you gave to me, and all you taught me about myself.

Good Night Banff- 31 December 2014

Top 20 of 2014

It’s funny the differences in culture from Canada to the United States. If you look on my Facebook you’ll see a difference between my friends from the United States and my friends I’ve made abroad. My friends in the States are posting about their office jobs, husbands, and kids. My friends here in Canada and abroad are posting about the perks of travelling, photos of their latest adventure, and where they’re off to next.

I’m not saying one is better than the other. When I was little I told my mom I wanted to travel around the world, but I then that idea faded like most childhood fantasies. Then I grew up and I thought all I wanted was to settle down and raise a family in a nice little house in the suburbs.  But by accident I changed.  I never planned on being on my own, but last year I set off by myself for the first time just to take a few weeks to think about the current state of my life and I never went back.

My mother keeps saying I need to stop and settle down. That I'm Peter Pan. I'm not though. In my previous life I was spoiled and I never did anything on my own including pumping gas or paying a phone bill, not because I have a rich family, but I was sheltered. I'm more grown up, fearless and responsible now than I've been in my entire life.  One day when I settle down, I won't have the freedom or the ability to do what I am doing now. And when my last day and my last breath comes will I regret all the places I never saw, or be thankful for all the beauty in the world that I did get to see? Option number two please.

It is all of this that came into mind on my walk to work today. My mind is a battlefield of in which on one side I want to be home to give my mommy all the things I promised when I was 10, such as a stone house by a river and a house full of grandkids vs. seeing and experiencing the world. Remembering what I've managed to do in one year though reminds me why I'm just not ready to come home yet. So here is my year summed up in 20 highlights.

1. Snow tubing

Mt. Norquay, Alberta

 

2. Dog Sledding

Canmore, Alberta

3. Walking on rivers and lakes 

Lake Louise, Alberta
 

 

 4. Hockey games!

 

5. Montreal, Quebec

It's a spa, on a boat!

 

6. Quebec City, Quebec

 

7. Vancouver, British Columbia

 

 

9. Working on a lavender farm and winery

And learning how to mow the lawn and ride a tractor

10. Tofino, British Columbia

Seeing whales, riding on a sea plane AND attempting to surf.

 

11. Hiking

 

12. Drumheller, Alberta

Where the dinosaurs are

13. Canoeing  

 

14. Camping

And got to hang out with horses

 

15. Petted wolf dogs

 

16. Columbia Icefield, Alberta

And stood on the Athabasca Glacier,
and rode in the only snow coaches available anywhere besides Antarctica

 

17. Toronto, Ontario

 

 

18. Ottawa, Ontario - The capitol of Canada!

 

 

19. Niagara Falls, Ontario

 

20. Went snowboarding

 

 

429 Days

A majority of my blog is about the amazingness of traveling. The easy part is when your feet are going, it's when you stop moving that things become hard. 416 days ago I came to Banff. Nowhere to live, 1 friend, no job, no clue about what to do. And then I built myself a life here. Year one was amazing, everything was new and magical, I made so many friends who quickly became family, and I learned so much about myself and became stronger than I ever knew I could be.

It's year two that is starting to become a struggle. My adventure at the beginning of summer was amazing, but coming back to Banff afterwards has been difficult. Few stay in Banff for more than a season, and all of my friends left at the end of the last one. Settling into a normal routine where nothing is fresh and new like it was the first time around makes it hard, and realizing that if you had to sink into normalcy you'd rather be at home, makes it even harder.

I went home recently and cried for 3 days about leaving back to Banff to finish out my contract. It wasn't until I was home that I realized I missed a lot of the comforts of home, but mostly my mama. If I could have it all I would, but unfortunately you can't be a backpacker and bring your mommy with you everywhere.

So why do it then? Why stay away from home? These are questions I ask myself from time to time. These are questions that make me doubt myself and consider going home. There are times when I am sad to be away from home, away from my family. But then I realized how blessed I am to be living the life I am living. If life's journey hadn't taken the paths it did, I may have stayed in a small town in Midwest for the rest of my life, never travelled anywhere for more than a week, and never taken half of the chances or opportunities I have had since I left on my solo journey in Canada, 429 days ago, on 2 August 2013.

There will always be times that I will be sad, I will be homesick, I will miss my mama. But there are beautiful moments where the sun is shining and I look around me and realize that I am the luckiest little girl in the world to have this as my backyard and to have all the opportunities I have, and I am entirely grateful for it all.

Sulphur Mountain, 3 October 2014

Living in Banff

Banff would already be unique on its own as it is known for being a ski/snowboarding town, but add to that, that this is also a national park, and it is a whole other ballpark. Life is different here in many aspects, here are the top 10 reasons why:

1. In and Out: Who your best friend is today, will probably be gone tomorrow. People are very transient in town. Most of the workers love snowboarding or on break from school and seasonal workers, or on 1 year visas and eventually want spend the rest of North American time exploring both Canada and the U.S.A. It makes for an atmosphere of quick bonding, but also a bit of loneliness when your friends keep leaving you. 

2. Mode of Transportation: More people will have a bicycle than anything else due to affordability, and because as transient foreign workers it seems pointless to buy a car. Bikes are a faster mode of transportation around town most of the time due to the fact tourists coming in will block the roads for ages.

3. Commuters: Don't worry about your fellow commuter in the early morning being someone tired and cranky who is trying to drink coffee and apply makeup in the car next to yours. You will catch deer just walking through the middle of town in the early hours, or just hanging out in someone's yard. Just stroll by and say good morning. 

On my way to work in December of last year

4. Wildlife: While the deer may seem gentle as you stroll by them, they, like the rest of the animals in town are wildlife, emphasis on wild. It's important to be cautious if you see or learn of a bear warning or cougar sighting in town. The cougars although rare, are dangerous and out to kill. The bears are mostly just there to protect their young, and where people go wrong is they don't exercise caution or head warnings and provoke the bears. You hear stories around town of people asking what time the animals are let out, or tourist trying to put their baby on a deer. These animals are not in cages and not domesticated. It is an honor to live among them and we need to respect it. 

5. Racks: In the summertime you will have bike racks outside of most shops, in winter time these are replaced with snowboard/ski racks. 

6. Rules: As in no rules. Maybe it's because we're all kids, or kids at heart, on our own with no family or ties to the outside world in our bubble. Combine that with a heavy drinking culture and, well, life is just different. There is a lot that goes on here that wouldn't be okay anywhere else, but it's just part of life in Banff here.

7. Air Conditioning: Is limited and valued. Most houses will not have it, and hotels will only be allowed a certain amount as this is a national park and it is important to maintain air quality. If you're hot during summer, go get a popsicle. 

8. Food Prices: Food is priced for the tourist, not for the locals. Sometimes it is cheaper to go out for a meal, rather than get all the ingredients for cooking up something. Mr. Noodle is the best friend for a lot of people as you can find these dehydrated noodles with no nutritional value at Safeway, on sale for $0.40 a package.

9. Water: No one buys bottled water here because our tap water comes from a glacier. You can't get much fresher than that!  

10. The Views: Probably the best part of living in a national park are the views you wake up to. Not too shabby. Not too shabby at all. 

At the top of Sulphur Mountain

Overlooking town from Mt. Norquay

View from the bridge.

Greetings from Banff!

So after all those adventures I headed back to Banff, and got a job. The adjustment from traveller to office employee was a bit difficult after 7 weeks of freedom. Getting the job was the easy part. I arrived back in Banff on a Sunday, had an interview Monday, and was hired on Tuesday. The two weeks of sitting around until my start date were a little bit hard. I had gotten use to being in new places every few days and exploring, to sitting around in a town that every street corner was already engrained into my being, and it was hard to not find the familiarity boring.

Although I wasn't looking forward to ending my journey, just like Wendy in Neverland, it was time for me to head home. I had done the journey from Vancouver to Banff last year on a 13 hour, overnight, Greyhound bus ride, but I opted to pay double the price, and double my days getting there, on the Moose Travel Network bus, a youth backpacker tour. It started out slow and little quiet as we all got onto the bus a group of strangers, but by the end of the second day we were best friends. The tour stopped at sites I didn't know existed in between the two provinces, we saw waterfalls, beaches, I swam (for a whole 2 seconds) in freezing water, saw dinosaurs, and took a jet boat and house boat ride.

The Log Cabin in British Columbia

I was just a lot of bit jealous when I got off in Banff and the tour continued on around Alberta. I saw their photos on Facebook and wished I could have continued on with them, but all the places they visited were places that I can go to for the weekend. Also I had to go back to being a real girl.

So my in-between play and work time was spent watching the fireworks on Canada Day, July 1st, to going camping in Whiteswan park in my favorite province, British Columbia! To watch the fireworks, instead of sitting in the park like the average Joe, my friends and I took part of a mass march of about 50 or so people, up the side of a mountain in the dark. Don't worry mama, we had headlamps to help us get down.

View from the top of Tunnel Mountain

The following day we packed up the truck and headed to B.C. I spent the majority of the weekend itting around in my swimsuit because it was so hot. Whiteswan is known for it's natural hot springs, the Lussier Hot Springs, but as there were two groups of us, we had to wait for the other group to arrive, and then have dinner. By the time we headed down to the hot springs it was midnight. So we hopped in the truck bed, pointing out constellations to each other, which were easy to spot as it was the clearest sky you've ever seen, and drove down to the springs. There were a few people there already, and everyone brings tea lights down. The water was almost unbearably hot, so I spent a majority of the time with just my feet in the water. The five of us piled into the canoe for a quick float, but the canoe dipped dangerously low into the water, so afterwards we went in twos. The boys went fishing, while the girls laid out in the sun. We smelt like eggs from the sulphur in the hot springs the night before, and I was the first one to brave the waters and dip in the lake for a rinse. The other two girls followed shortly after, but our movement was limited as we tried to find and stay in warms spots.

Gone Fishing- Moose Lake

After soaking in the sun, I headed off to work the next day. Although excited to be bringing in some five dollar bills (Fun Fact: The smallest bill in Canada is $5, $1 and $2 come in coin form called 'loonies' or 'goonies'), the first few weeks of wearing a uniform and sitting in an office, have been a bit slow for me. I have to wear socks even with ballet flats, and I accidentally left my pants in the dryer a bit too long so that now the bottom hem hangs two inches too high above my ankles. 

After having orientation, I started to drink the brand Kool-Aid though. The new company I work for does have really great benefits and I get a free gym and pool pass, so I have no excuse not to be in the best shape of my life. Also during the tour I got to see that there are views like this around my new place of employment:

View from the top, no PhotoShop needed

And with a view like that, how could I not fall in love with Banff all over again?

#Banfflife

It's been 3 days since I left Banff in the early hours of Monday morning as the early morning fog enveloped the mountains and the sun tried to rise above the. All I could think was, thank goodness, I'm finally leaving.

Banff has a way of holding onto you. It's a sort of Neverland in the middle of the rockies. A place where parents lose their children, and the children never want to leave, because in Banff there are no rules, you never get old, and you never have to grow up.

It's its own world. It is a bubble which you don't realize until you've gone out in the world and come face-to-face with the realities of the real world. There are things that are okay in Banff that wouldn't be acceptable anywhere else, but we sum it up with the phrase #banfflife, because for locals it is the best way of explaining why it makes the things that happen here okay.

It's easy to get overwhelmed with such a small town where everyone knows your business and there's more drama in an hour than in an episode of Real Housewives. So sometimes you need a break. Will I miss it though? Yes, of course. Banff is a beautiful place to live. You're surrounded by mountains and nature. It's normal for a deer to be hanging out in someone's yard as you make your way to work. You can look at the snowcapped mountains surrounding you, while you're sitting in shorts, soaking up the sun on a rooftop bar. Everyone drinks water straight from the tap because it's glacier water and tastes better than bottled water. When you wake up and look out your window and see the sun shining above the mountains, it's hard not to be impressed and feel lucky to live here. Even though Banff and I are going on a break for a bit, I'll be coming back soon enough, because even with all of its flaws, I still love it and it's my home.

View from Banff Ave, May 2014