Experiencing Canada

    Every hostel I stayed at in Canada had some bizarre event tied to it.  In Jasper, it happened the last morning.  I woke up and looked at my watch, and noticed it was past 8:00am, but the lights weren't on yet.  I wondered in amusement if they would try and wake us up some other way, and sure enough, from upstairs, came very loud and ridiculously cheery accordion music! Needless to say, nobody in the hostel was asleep for much longer. 

    Jen and I bid farewell to the rest, and waited in the train station for the Canadian to arrive.  The moment we boarded the train was great! There was music playing (accordion again, as luck would have it), people were hugging and greeting and saying goodbye, there was just bustle all throughout the platform.  We were lucky enough to get a seat in the dome car on the way out of the Rockies, and we watched the peaks fade into foothills and forests, seeing the occasional wildlife from the train (as well as faking seeing wildlife to make the other people in the train look out the window... hehe..). 

   We got off to see Edmonton, where I almost got ran over by a plane landing at the nearby airport, and then a golf cart.  I'm not sure why the golf cart was there, but another tried to run me over later that night, when I got off the train in Saskatoon just to say I was there.  I ran all the way down the platform in my socks so I could get a picture of the sign that said Saskatoon- and I still have a bruise on my heel to remember it by.  I've never slept on a plane, or on a bus - but for some reason, even crammed into my seat because 40 band students got on in Edmonton, I managed to fall asleep easily on the train.  It's that infectious rocking motion I think...