A traveller's budget

Vancouver is a pretty expensive city to live in. It’s not that I don’t have a well paying job…well, it’s not exceptionally well paying, but it’s ok. The problem is that the cost of living is higher and the wages are lower than what I was used to in the last city I lived in, Perth in Western Australia. Now, I am tempted to cry recession, and I guess that's part of it but, as I was told when I first arrived here, living in Vancouver is a lifestyle choice. It’s a fantastic place to live, and this means rent and everyday things are more expensive, and it doesn’t have the higher wages of a bigger city like Toronto. And, of course, I am saving to go travelling – the story of my life. Whenever I get on my feet in a new place, I almost immediately start saving to leave it. It’s not that I don’t enjoy where I am, but I know I will leave at some point (especially when I am only on a one year visa) and I enjoy the lifestyle whereby I live somewhere for about nine months of the year, and then spend the other three travelling. It's worked out pretty well for me the last five years.

I have recently decided that I will most likely leave Vancouver when my contract ends in November and travel round Canada, South America, Mexico and Cuba for a few months. I say most likely because I constantly change my mind, and I am a big believer that situations and circumstances can affect decisions, so things are never certain. What this means however, is that I have to try and stick to my budget a bit better than I have been. I’m usually pretty good – I get out in cash what I have to spend for the week, I get groceries for the week, try and eat dinner at home as much as I can and I take my lunch to work. I’ve been saving since I started working in Vancouver, but it’s always been a bit of a struggle and I often end up dipping into my savings, or spending money for the following week when I run out of cash, especially when things like weekends away or un-missable events pop up. Last week I decided to see if I could make it ten days and only spend $30, which was what I had left in my wallet. Today is Day 9 and I think I’ve done pretty well and haven’t been bored at all. I’ve discovered there is a lot of free stuff to do in Vancouver. Here are the highlights:

Day 2: I discovered that Carousel Theatre, a theatre for young people, was putting on a free outdoor production of Macbeth on Granville Island. Now this required me to buy dinner but I got some pretty tasty sushi and popped the change from $10 into the donation bucket for the Shakespeare performance as I was very impressed. Well done Carousel Theatre teens – you rock.

Day 3: I was invited to a barbeque at a friend’s place. I made a salad with stuff from the fridge and the veggie garden to take.

Day 4 (Friday): I arrived home from work to find my roommate preparing for a last minute dinner party, which she promptly invited me to join. I ate an amazing dinner I didn’t have to cook (complete with dessert) and enjoyed excellent company. Since I didn’t contribute anything edible, I washed up after. Thanks Amanda!

Day 5 (Saturday): I baked muffins with ingredients from the cupboard and the blackberries from the huge bush in our driveway. In the evening, I bought a 6 pack of ciders ($14) and watched a downloaded movie with some friends.

Day 6 (Sunday): It was a beautiful sunny day, I had a coffee in trendy Yaletown ($3) and a wander round. The café I went to had free samples of all their muffins – score! Then I rode my bike around the waterfront for a few hours in the sun, and even packed my lunch.

Day 8: Home sick from work. Got sunburnt on my patio. Had a potluck dinner with my roommates - more good food and excellent company.

Day 10: I've been invited to a taco and decoration making night at a friend’s place – the decorations are for a party we’re all going to on Saturday with a Martian theme.

And then Day 11 is pay day….and I can go a tiny bit nuts.

Other free activities I amused myself with - watching downloaded tv episodes, organising my ipod, Skyping and speaking to various friends overseas, used the free gym in my office building, research for my trip and reading. I even had a free movie ticket I didn't get around to using! Ok so maybe I cheated a little bit. I did buy $40 worth of groceries to get me through the week (a girl’s gotta eat!) and I might’ve put some new hiking shoes on my New Zealand credit card (they were half price and I need them for the Inca Trail)….but I reckon I still did pretty damn good. Yay for sunshine and free times in Vancouver!

Picture source: M. Fuller

Facebook

Ok, so I love Facebook. I am the first one to admit it. My network of friends and family spans the globe so, for me, it's an easy way to keep in touch with everyone. It's also a great time filling activity when I am bored at work- much like this blog. I wouldn't call myself a Facebook addict per se (I can stop anytime I want, I swear!) - I don't usually update my status more than once a day (it's not Twitter and I don't pretend that anyone is THAT interested in what I'm doing) and it's the only social networking site I belong to. However, there are some things about Facebook that bug me.

The people that have 1,814 friends. No - you don't. I am pretty selective with the people I add on Facebook and consider them all to be actual friends, hence why I don't have anything close to that number. If I get a 'friend request' or I'm considering adding someone to my 'friends', I ask myself "Would I get together with them, if we were in the same city, for a catch up?". If the answer is no, then they're not really my friend - and why would I want them to be able to see things like my personal photos? I find it a bit weird when random people I went to school with, but hardly knew, add me just because they want to see what I look like now, or want to know what I'm up to. Don't get me wrong, if they want to reconnect, then great - but sometimes you know it's just because they're being nosy.

Sometimes on Facebook, you're gonna see something you don't wanna see. Exes will turn up in pictures, friends will tag you in embarrassing photos, pictures of a friend's trip to some exotic place will make you sick with jealousy and someone will think it's funny to post a photo of one of their friends, drunk and with their genitals out. And sometimes relationships can be affected by what people decide to post. Thankfully (so far), I've never had a boyfriend 'do' anything horrible on Facebook but this article talks about the very thing. In saying that though, I think you'd have to going out with an asshole to begin with. Either that or someone very paranoid.

Why do they have so many things you can 'become a fan' of on Facebook? Obviously I get that there are fan pages for bands, celebrities, television shows and the like - these are normal things to be a fan of. But the option to become fans of things like sunshine, naps, sex, flipping the pillow over to the cool side, cuddles and getting paid? I mean, who is not a fan of those things?And what exactly is discussed on these pages? Yes, you like it. There's nothing else to say people!

Facebook, I love you really. Check out this video about the realities of Facebook by Idiots of Ants and this website about having your parents as friends on Facebook. Mum and Dad - please don't comment on this.

Picture source: www.8ball.co.uk

Man on Wire

I watched an excellent documentary last night. Man on Wire tells the story of a French street performer, Phillipe Petit, who, in 1974, illegally strung a cable between the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York and walked across it. The film is about the planning and lead up to the walk, the various people involved, and the execution itself.

Very interestingly, most of the footage was filmed in the year prior to the walk (it wasn't made clear in the documentary who actually filmed those parts) and the rest of it is interviews with Petit and his friends who assisted him, and some who betrayed him, with a little reenactment.

I really enjoyed the film, however it definitely left me wanting to know more. It's presented as a heist film, and ends with the walk, but I found myself wanting to know what happened to Petit and the others involved afterwards. It's no secret that Petit didn't fall to his death in the crossing, seeing as he is featured in the interviews right from the beginning of the documentary, and he's a fantastic storyteller - very animated. However, he does come across as somewhat blind with passion - he says at the beginning that he was in a dentist's office in 1968 when he saw a magazine article about the construction of the World Trade Center, and decided then and there that he would one day walk a hire wire between the towers. It seems as though his judgement may have been somewhat clouded by his vision.

There were definitely some emotional scenes in the film, which I wasn't expecting, and a strong focus on the relationships between Petit and the friends who assisted him. One thing I found particularly interesting is that there is no mention of 9/11. Although many online discussions seem to wonder why this is, I think it's entirely appropriate - one has nothing to do with the other - this incredible (albeit crazy) feat needs to be seen in it's own light. I'd also to know why the film was only made last year, almost 25 years after the event.

This film has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which means all 141 reviews of it are positive, which is pretty incredible, and it won an Academy Award last year. I would definitely recommend seeing it - it's certainly thought provoking and something to be discussed afterwards.

If you've seen it, let me know what you thought.

Picture source: Alan Welner (www.msnbc.msn.com)

A long weekend away

It was BC Day here on Monday. Know what that is? Me neither, but it means I had Monday off work. I also took the Friday off and went camping in Tofino on Vancouver Island.

Tofino is a small town on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It takes about an hour and a half by ferry from Vancouver, and then it's another three hour drive to Tofino. Tofino itself only has 2,000 people so it's pretty small, but there are heaps of beaches all along the coast and it gets pretty busy in summer.

Today I am going to share with you with some pretty interesting stuff I discovered on my trip to Tofino.

Among the wildlife you need to be aware of are wolves, bears and COUGARS - yes, cougars. This means you have to animal proof everything and not leave any food or smelly items in your tent or at your campsite, this includes stuff like soap. And apparently gray buckets. Not sure why that is but apprently they attract bears. It can get confusing though because if you're attacked by a bear, you shouldn't maintain eye contact, but if you're attacked by a cougar, you should. Now in the event of any such attack, I am pretty sure I'd get them mixed up. Luckily, the closest encounter I came to any of the wildlife was getting stung on the finger by a wasp.

I watched an interesting video at the Wickaninnish Interpretive Centre called 'The Intertidal Zone' - does that sound like an action movie title to anyone else? The following day I walked around Schooner Cove at low tide to check out the creatures that habit the in between tide period - there was definitely a lot of action going on! So many star fish and sea anemones in amazing colours.

Tofino is a well known surf spot - one of the best in Canada. The weather and the swell weren't good enough to brave the waters so I didn't surf while I was there, but it was cool to watch the surfers. I also suspect the water was pretty cold too, as most of them were wearing full body wet suits.

Coombs, a small town just outside of Nanaimo where you get off the ferry, features some goats that live on the grass covered roof of the market. Awesome.

Although the weather in Tofino itself wasn't great when I was there, it was perfect on the first and last days when I was heading to and from the ferry. On the way to Tofino, I happened upon a perfect river for swimming and on the way back to the ferry, went for a swim in the very warm Sproat Lake. As far as tourism slogans go, British Columbia's one is pretty accurate - Super, Natural BC

Oh and Big Daddy's Fish Fry in Tofino has some of the best fish and chips I've had in ages!

Cougar picture source: http://www.travel-vancouver-island.com, all other pictures are mine