VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 4: Halifax, NS

VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 4: Halifax, NS

Halifax actually reminds me of Edmonton quite a bit too much. This is another kind of a laid-back capital city filled with nice strangers who always go with, โ€œHi! How are you? Have a nice day!โ€ sort of template within daily conversation in grocery stores or anywhere else with customer services. People say thank you to the bus driver even though theyโ€™re exiting from the back door that is a few meters away from the driver upfront, strangers smile at each other when their eyes accidentally meet, the bus drivers smile at each passenger that come aboard, and so forth.

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VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 3: The Ocean Train

VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 3: The Ocean Train

I remember perfectly the very first thing that came to my mind once I dragged my eyes out of my laptop screen to the moving window of VIA’s the Ocean train that evening was one of Robert Frost’s world famous poem.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

I imagined, our train from a bird’s view would be meandering intrepidly along the railway that goes through a thick forest of pine woods, and only pine woods. Green and mighty, lush and tall. Fearless and unstoppable. And us humans inside, busy with each of their own universe. Some were wandering to the dream land, some were venturing into the imaginative universe through their laptop or tab screens where other humans mimicking lives we all never had, some dwelled into worlds of words made of ink, and others were just having cozy conversations with the person next seat. I was the second group, watching Emily Blunt catches daily glimpses of other persons’ lives from behind a moving window of a train.

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VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 2: Toronto, ON

VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 2: Toronto, ON

On my third day after departing with the Canadian train from Edmonton, I finally made my arrival in Toronto. It was the second time I travelled to this city, with the first one was when I made a short vacation to Niagara Falls and the newest Uniqlo store in Canada with a couple of my friends from UofA’s International House.

I always knew I wasnโ€™t going to be a fan of Toronto, but nevertheless, this second visit actually turned out much better than the first one. This time, I stayed at a friendโ€™s place whom I never met in real life but has been texting with for the past year because we started our school in Canada at the same period, hence together we had to figure out a couple things before moving in.

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VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 1: The Canadian Train

VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 1: The Canadian Train

By the time I wrote this post, up until this point where youโ€™re reading this, I have only finished Edmonton-Toronto round trip and not yet done the Edmonton-Vancouver part which should be the greatest part of the entire Via Rail experience. However, surely updates will be posted soon once I get to try that bits of the utmost Via Rail journey!

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VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 0: Full Itinerary

VIA Canada 150 Trip Part 0: Full Itinerary

The possibly best summer in my life that I had been very much looking forward to has finally come! Iโ€™m happy to admit that I had been very fortunate to have come and lived in Canada this year, for this year the country is celebrating its 150th birthday meaning amazing once-in-a-lifetime deals of tourism are lining up. What everyone had foreseen since last year was that the entrance to all national parks are becoming free for this entire year, but one thing that came as a great surprise was that: Via Rail offered a 150$ Canada 150 Youth Pass which means with 150$ you could basically travel to anywhere across Canada using Via Rail train service, for the entire July 2017. How cool was that?!

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Oh What A Week

Oh What A Week
  • Calgary went nuts from 28oC yesterday to 2oC and snowing today, continuing with the craziest rain I’ve ever witnessed in Canada by far which has been ongoing endlessly for the past 7 hours. I brought no jacket from Edmonton because it was a frickin’ burning 25oC when I left the city, so today I had my first experience of running in the midst of a heavy rain of 2oC trying to reach home.
  • I randomly went to Google Maps street view only to view my house back at home. Darn I miss people and my comfy upstairs bedroom with a view. (And all those beautiful small showers next to the washroom’s toilets.)
  • Impulsively bought two planters of tropical plants.. Because we got lots of those back home. I think I just need to be convinced how close I am actually to home.. Although it involves buying two planters in Calgary which means I’d have to carry them all the way to Edmonton.
  • Just yesterday I spent literally one crazy burning hour after shopping groceries in Safeway, to confusedly look for a Western Union agent that Google says should be around a half km-ish outside Safeway, only to figure out that the place is actually INSIDE Safeway all this time. Time is money, and my sweats are even more.
  • Been missing home more than ever. Thinking of purchasing a flight ticket to Jakarta, but the thought of my thesis haunts all the time. Should I or shouldn’t I?
  • I’m getting way more skeptical towards people who often fake their opinions by saying, “I’m so happy for you!” “I’m so excited for this!” while all humans of all races in the world know that those things they refer to are actually just as ordinary as white girls wearing Lululemon leggings. Basic.
  • I woke up two hours late today, and figured out that the reason was that I was dreaming about my old friends, we were hanging out playing some childhood traditional games in a place that looked very much like my neighborhood back home. So I thought maybe it was actually my unconscious self who told myself not to wake up because the dream was literally better than the reality.
  • Being homesick actually lands me to a new goal: working as a lecturer in my past university (ITB). So that I could stay home with my family in Bandung, while probably with some luck Ade will successfully make it to ITB as well so Bunda, Ade, and I could actually go to work and come home together every single day. Care for an amen?
  • Found lots of interesting quote about homesickness today. I shared some of them on the other post, but here’s another one that goes as my favourite: “I never realize how much I like being home unless I’ve been somewhere different for awhile,” from the movie Juno.
  • Care to keep a little secret? This has been the song I listen to the most this year, lol.