It's all Greek to me...

As you may guess from my cliché title, Shannon and I are currently in the middle of a fourteen day holiday on the Greek island of Crete. Due to Crete being the most southern (and largest) of the Greek islands, it is stupidly hot here. The Beaches are not only fantastic; they are a necessity with so much cheap and tasty food hiding in all the restaurants.

I've broken the mould as it were, and this particular excursion is a...package...holiday. Yes, I know that goes against the Lambert family motto of "Thou shall not book in advance", but the deal we got was too good to pass up. Since the Kids in the UK are going back to school, it was the same price to go for two weeks as it was for one week. It's not even an all-inclusive; thank bob, but having Flights, bus transfer, and accommodation all sorted in one go is like the backpacking equivalent of heroin.

Anyway, the Accommodation turned out great. Our Hotel-ish thing is in Stalis, a smaller town in between the party resorts of Malia and Harkelion on the north coast of the island. Most of the time we have spent the day swimming and then hunted for the different food at night. There are also tons of bars along the main strip, and the drink specials are super cheap, every thing comes with two free shots. We also found a Karaoke bar, and I watched yesterdays F1 race (The Turkish GP, with commentary in German) in an outdoor bar.

We have ventured out of town to Crete's Capital, Harakilon, to visit the archeological museum there. We also wandered down to the docks, which has a 15 century Venation fort as part of the break water. In the rocks on the breakwater, there is a colony of wild cats that like to sun themselves on the rocks.

Anyway, off to the beach...

PS: This is the first dial-up connection I've used in years!

A long time in the making...

What a month, and it's not even over yet.

As I type this, I'm sitting on a train bound for Wool, in Dorset, with all my possessions. I checked out of Budget Backpackers this morning, ending my six month occupation of Edinburgh's best hostel. I can't believe all my stuff managed to fit into my three bags, and I'm even more amazed that I can carry it all.

LOCATION: Ten minutes outside Edinburgh. This post is being written while travel, these blurbs should help explain my state of mind from paragraph to paragraph.

Since there is quite gap in the blog since my last update, I'm going to be filling in the last four weeks from memory. A memory I might add, that has experienced those very same weeks, and thus may not be 100% accurate.

We begin our tale today with our fearlessly dyslexic hero out of work, but looking forward to Canada day, and the two parties ahead:

The first of July was a very hot Saturday in Edinburgh, and so we started off with a very nice backyard BBQ at a No-Knee's place, the girlfriend of fellow hosteler Mitch, and also an ex-hosteler herself. Half of the people at the BBQ were Canadian, with most of us being from BC, and four Islanders! Canadian pins and stickers were every ware, in what we saw as quite a show of patriotism.

As the party began to wind down, Shannon and I set off by bus for our second gathering of the night, a house warming for Kat, another ex-budget backpackers resident (anyone starting to see a pattern here?). The apartment was in the new town, just a five minute walk from Edinburgh's botanical Gardens.

LOCATION: thirty five minutes outside Edinburgh, and the train is passing through some scenic Scottish Lowlands. I have two seats to myself.

With in ten minutes of our arrival it become quite clear that Kat was a little inebriated, the plumbing burst and a three way patriotic debate had broken out. The argument was discussion about whether Ireland, or Scotland had been more oppressed by the English, and to what extent the "Irish troubles" had affected everyone in the kitchen. I played the Canadian card, acting as the house party's one man UN peace keeper, while Shannon had the thankless job of minding Kat. Kat's major contribution to the conversation I might add, was to drop a bottle of wine in the middle of The kitchen floor.

The sad truth was, the entire argument was my fault: a member of the Sottish contingent had noticed the Canadian flag pin I had acquired at the previous BBQ. Remarking that he too was quite patriotic, he enthusiastically started removing various articles of clothing to reveal all his Historically linked tattoos. Stupidly, and with only a passing thought that I was, at this moment, the envy of Japanese tourists through out Scotland, I revealed that it was Canada day. He paused as if slapped, then asked and I quote "Ya meens ta tella me that allya dooin for your nash-y nal day is wear'in that wee pin??!??!?!"

From that point on everyone in the room fell over themselves to inform me as to what they would be doing if they were Canadian and 8-10 thousand kilometers from home on their national day. It was like a bad parody of the Monty Python skit in which the three old rich men try to out-so each other with stories of whoa from their child hoods:

"I'd knit the Largest Canadian flag in history and break into Edinburgh Castle to fly it from the roof!"
"Well I would kidnap a member of every Canadian NHL team and force them to play an Exhibition game on the Scottish Parliament Lawn, which I would have frozen over for the Occasion!"
"Ha! I would hire a crack team of demolition experts to blow up Arthur's seat in order to leave it's face scared with the worlds largest Tim Horten's sign!"
"That's nothing: First I would import as many breeding pairs of Canadian beavers as possible, thus providing me with an unlimited labour pool with which to dam the Forth river..."

LOCATION: Carisle, and the train has just suddenly filled up to the brim! No Seats!

We were all saved full contact hostilities when Nelly Foutatado's "Man Eater" came on in the living room, and half the potential combatants were dragged off by their respective partners. All I can say is that Canada's peace keepers sometimes move in mysterious ways. I had no idea that Ms. Furtado was a sleeper agent.

We ended up walking home at four am, and the streets were packed with more people then I've ever seen past midnight! The air temperature must have been nearly 30 degrees and insanely humid, which explained why we walk up too torrential rain the following mourning....well, all right the following afternoon.

We spent Sunday shopping at H and M and thus when I checked my bank accounts on Monday, it turned out I was broke.

LOCATION: Penrith train station. Welcome to the lake district. Nice guy sits down next to me and appoints himself my tour guide for next two and a half hours. He is only thwarted in this endeavor by the train breaking down, at his own stop, and I am then loaded onto two connecting trains for Southampton. I am now going to have to wait for an hour in Southampton for the next train to Wool, and I was meant to arrive at Wool 30 mins ago. Oh, and it's been over seven hours since I started this location blurb at Penrith.

I was sitting in the dining room with Warren, bemoaning my lack of employment:

Warren: "Did Sodexho ever call you back?"

Me: "The temp agency you worked for? No they..."

Warrens face contorted in the way ones face does when you have set your phone on vibrate and you receive a text message.

Warren: "Dude, Sodexho just sent my this weeks shift list, ah, sorry..."

Then my Phone rang:

Phone: "Rory?"

Me: "Errrrr...yaaa?

Phone: "This is Susanne at Sodexho, would you be willing to do training tonight at Murryfield stadium?"

Me: "Yes!"

Susanne: "Great, Gate [mangled member of the alphabet], 6pm, don't be late.

So that very same afternoon I ended up orbiting the spiritual home of Scottish Rugby searching for the staff gate. I guessed wrong, and walked nearly the entire perimeter until I found the guard house and they took pity on me. Despite my lateness, I was welcomed with open arms and I set to work learning how to box tables, and perform snake service. The guy doing the training even managed to work a reference to Vulcans into a lesson on how to carry plates.

As soon as training was finished, I was offered a shift at the Perth Horse races for that Thursday.

The next day was a Tuesday, and so I was again invited to the Line clearing session at Halo, Warren's pub. It was also Warren's last shift ever before he and Chris was leaving for Ireland. The night was crazy, we did not make it home till 4:30am, Wednesday morning. Warren was in state to say the least. The boy ended up With his hoddie on backwards while we were in The taxi home. It took two of us to get him up the stairs.

Of course, because I had to work the next day at 7:00am, Chris and Warren (two of Team Canada's founding members) chose Wednesday night as their leaving party. Dropkick Murphy's is an Irish theme bar located in one of the arches of the George IV Bridge. The manager is actually from Ireland and there are three huge horse shoe shaped booths that seat 15+ people. I think Dropkicks two best attributes are the 2 pound drinks with a Hostel pass (and thus they have the cheapest Magners* in town), and the 3am late license.

LOCATION: Luworth Cove, Dorest. It's been four days since this post began, and it's going to take two more posts to bring you all up to speed as to where I am now. I have spent 8 hours in a car, attended a wedding, taken two more trains, the London Underground, and had a Sunday Roast near Waterloo train station. back to the past:

Anyway, all the things that made Dropkick Murphy's such a fantastic venue for a leaving party made catching a 7am bus to Perth a less then inspiring experience. Temporary catering work, to me, is like a strange combination of a School field trip and a marine battalion deployment. The people in charge have all done this before but for about 20% of us this was our first job. We all gathered like sheep in our black and whites at the far end of George St., woolly brained to match our appearance. It was 6:30am and it was already so hot that we were all fighting for The shady patches. Finally we were herded onto the bus, after receiving our assignments on a bit of paper with our name, job and a little map telling us what area we were in. Once we got to the race track, after hour and a half bus ride that I don't really recall, we were all given uniform shirts and asked to sign for our valuables so they could be kept in a storage room.

Since I was bar tending in the VIP marquee in the center of the race course, we were stuck where we where while the horses were on the track. I was completely winging it, as I had not really tended any sort of bar for over a year, and knew almost nothing about horse racing. Luckily I was assigned to work with an Irish guy who knew what he was doing, and who also turned out to be staying at the same hostel as me. By the end of the day I drifted into the role of relief bar tender, watching other people's bars while they were on their breaks. I got to watch the actual races too, as the bar is quiet while all the horses are thundering around the track. Out of the four sections in the marquee tent, our client won the most on betting and then tried to take the most expensive bottle of Scotch home with them at the end of the day. I fell asleep on the bus home and was very confused when I woke up in Edinburgh, as I had been dreaming that I was back in Canada, on the bus home from school.

I had most of the day free on Friday, but I had been hired through a separate company to work all weekend at T in the Park. Situated 45 mins north of Edinburgh, in the town of Kinross, T in The Park is a huge music festival that is held almost every year. So it was back on a bus Friday evening for the Journey up to Kinross. Just like Perth we all got our assignments on little bits of paper. The T in the Park compound was a huge sprawling temporary town surrounded by 15ft high metal barricades. If you have seen the movie Starship Troopers then you might remember the base in which the troops get over-run in. Imagine that base, only ten times bigger and with a giant ferris wheel in the center. We were all given colored wrist bands and then ushered through security to the Staff camping area. The staff camping was far superior to the one for the punters*, we had flat ground and a giant marquee tent in the middle, which was about to come in handy. While setting up the tent I had borrowed from my brother, I discovered that he had not been trying to mislead me when he said it lacked a fly sheet: it did. Lucky for me a Scottish guy called Ewan took pity on me since his tent had lots of extra space. As soon as I finished switching my stuff to a remarkably complete tent, the rain began to fall. I thanked Ewan profusely as we all (we had made friends with some Irish students by this point) moved into the safety of the marquee tent.

LOCATION: County Cornwall, the village of Tintagel, reputed birthplace of King Arthur. My parents and I are staying in an on-suite room above a pub. The crowd downstairs are yelling for an encore from the cover band playing directly bellow our room. The pub is of course called the King Arthur's Arms. This post is long enough now, part two will appear when I find some free wireless, or I travel at least 2000 miles. See ya in a few days. Ok..next month :)