Camino 2023

Flying over the Rockies between Vancouver and Calgary

Breakfast of today I met a cohort of young folk who had partied hard the night before and had had to call an ambulance for one of their number who had drunk 18 shots (and goodness knows what else) before passing out, vomiting and unable to move. He was kept in overnight suffering alcohol poisoning. The conversation was around how much they could drink, when they could start drinking again today, just a question said I " I'm sure you all know the units of standard drinks that are safe" .. No they said, is there such a thing?? hehe!!

One of the young people, Kaitlin, is from Rotorua, well not originally, she is Scottish first, went to NZ as an 8 year old with her parents. and now travels between NZ and other places in the world for summer all year. She works on the Zip line and I promised to take my grandchildren there when she's back in October for a free ride. (right tui)....what a coincidence!! I also met Valerie who thought she'd like to be a psychologist, I think I may have talked her into a second choice, along with the other young folk of course...to think about being a flight attendant as she said she just wanted to travel??

You just have to laugh, honestly. The other thing about Vancouver is that marijuana is legal and is smoked out in the open, on the streets, and I'm sure I got a bit dizzy walking to the station (maybe psychological but still a strong feeling), I was appalled, children exposed to the smoke, it is a different world entirely. I was also shocked at the amount of street people encountered all along the main street, hands in rubbish bins filling black bags with cans to sell. One guy I met on the bus had a huge garden bag full and as we chatted I asked him how much he might get for this bag, $30 possibly was the reply. "It will buy me some cigarettes and a beer for the day." He said he was too old to stop smoking.
Ah well, I left for my 5 o'clock flight at 1 p.m. only to find when I arrived that I was to travel domestically to Calgary first before getting another flight to London. The flight was only an hour, but the sight of those Rocky mountains was something else to behold, just stunning then Calgary came into view in a flat flat foothill square city, sandy sandy and brown from the air, not much green at all, I had another two hours before my flight to London. Sat in the bar/restaurant and had some dinner - no meat burger and chips....that'll keep me going for sure.Leggi altro