Friendly Manitoba - I mean really who chooses that as a slogan

Friendly Manitoba, home to the Friendly Winnipeg. Turns out the slogan is pretty accurate...everyone I spoke to was really friendly. Even on the 17hour train ride it was hard not to start chatting with the assortment of people on the train. Behind me was a young lass, who just started chatting, and opposite me a middle aged gentleman who was rather excentric...but quite a good bloke. Have I mentioned that 17hours on a train is a long time? Just in case I haven't i'm going to reiterate, 17 hours on a train is a long time. I mean the country side between Edmonton and Winnipeg was beauitful, fields of white snow, interspersed between forested areas of snow covered firs, which is great ... for the first few hours after that you start thinking to yourself, have I seen that tree before. After following the advice of the Excentric one who I later found out was John, I managed to get a decent amount of sleep, it was dodgy sleep, but still 6 hours of broken sleep is better than 2. Mid morning the train finally arrived at Winnipeg, I'd managed to watch a couple of movies, (thank you WEM). With my last walking experience fresh in my mind still, (the nightmares still linger), I decided to take a cab to the hostel. Turns out I could have quite easily walked it, being it was only about 4kms, and it was fully paved the whole way. Oh well, I got there dry, another novelty.

A quaint little building housing roughly 40 beds the Ivy House has to be one of the best hostels I've stayed in, but not because of the building, or the coke fridge, or the location, but because of the people I met there. I hadn't been in my room more than a couple of minutes before a real character walked through the door. His greeting was "Hey Bloke, how you going? I'm Bruce." Now I assumed he was putting on the accent, but he wasn't. Not overly surprised that I'd met another Aussie, this is Canada after all. Given it was still pretty early I headed out for a quick walk around town. It was freezing...so It didn't last overly long, had lunch at a burger place...Lonely planet suggested it, had a chat with one of the servers, about Australia, and Canada, and how not to go into the shopping mall across the street because dodgy people go there... Fair enough I thought. I'll go and check to make sure he's not lying. He might have been, he might not have been, I don't really know, but I walked out with all my belongs, and all my limbs so they can't have been to bad.

Got back to the hostel to find John standing at the front desk checking himself in, with both took a double take, before smiling and cursing at the same time. He had walked. The common room had a few people in it by this time, Bruce, another Aussie Lass Tara (hope thats the right spelling), and Ross, and ex military man from Saskatoon. Quite a few beers under already, they always seemed to be drinking. I usually check the board to see whats going on during the week, nothing usually worth doing, but in Winnipeg that all changed, they had free rock climbing at a local outdoor sport shop. I was stoked. Didn't get much enthusiasm from the other in the common room, so I headed over myself. It started at 6 I was only a couple of mins late, and the only person there, sweet...more for me. I've only done rock climbing once, and hadn't done anything with any sort of overhang, and that was all they had here. Was great to be doing something physical, only got 4 climbs in the end, quite a few people turned up soon after. Somehow I managed to be convinced that I need to said a couple of pairs of socks to someone, because they liked the ones I was wearing, not sure how that happened. Nice lass though, quite a character really. I'd arranged to meet up with Bruce at the Elephant and Castle after the climb, apparently these pubs used to be all over Canada, but they are becoming fewer and fewer over time. Had a couple of beers with Bruce, and had what must be the best Yorkshire pub I've ever had. Had it again the second night too.

Day of of my excursion in Friendly Manitoba was a very quiet one. Was miserable weather outside, so just sat in the common room and chatted with a few of the locals, Bruce had made friends with the owners of a local burger shop, the "Wannabees", so Ross, Bruce, John and myself headed off for a burger and fries. I learned something new in this burger store, I ordered the Chilli burger expecting a normal burger with a chilli sauce on it. Nope...I was a normal burger with a huge spoon of Chilli con Carne on it. And they don't peel the skin off their fries either.

We headed out for the night, John had already moved on again, back to Vancouer I believe, apparently he is semi retired, and just goes for trips on the train for kicks, like I said excentric fellow. Had another gentleman from Quebec join us this evening Frank. First we headed to the Elephant and Castle, seems Bruce was quite fond of the place. After another Yorkshire Pud, a couple of Kilkenny's and a whole bunch of chicken wings, Ross decided it was time to go somewhere else. Now none of us knew the place overly well, so we just walked along the main drag till we found something. First we found Shannons, and being out of towners we got in free, a nice little bonus, except nothing much was happening, so we quickly moved on.

...

I think the name was Garricks, A humble, sleezy, and downright scary pub. The servers all had those money belts that bus drivers used to have. the ones where you feed the coins in the top, and pull them out the bottom. First round of beers had begun, and Bruce was already chatting to one of the locals, and before we knew it the man behind the mic (was Kareoke Night) had annouced that a couple of Aussies were in the house. Every eye in the place turned and looked at us, and a free round came our way. Sweet free beer, no sooner had we sat down than someone had said something unsavory to Bruce, and he was off, back to the Elephant and Castle, we had a word to one of the guys behind the bar, who quite promptly had the offender out of the bar. Wow all this just because we come from Australia. Not wanting to be rude Ross, Frank and Myself all stayed to finish off the free round the owner had bought us. The guys tried to come back in several times, each time the server took off his glasses and promptly escorted them from the establishment again. Time had come for us to move on... hospitality aside we felt a little uncomfortable. Ross had no problems, military training etc, but the rest of us were a little concerned about the ejected fellows. So I headed up to the manager to thank him for his hospitality, but before we left he insisted I sing a song for them all. Oh btw when we walked in we wouldn't have changed the average age of the patrons at all, 50-60 i'm guessing was the average...but with only 3 of us we couldn't affect the average. I'm told that I was up there searching for a song for 2 hours, I've since negotiated this down to a mere 20mins. What can I say, most of the songs were twice my age, and thats being generous. Eventually I settled on desperado. A timeless classic which I preceded to masacre. Anyone who has heard my voice and survived will attest to its devastating force. One song was not enough. While doing my redidion he had found me another timeless classic or so I'm told, I think I've heard it a few times on a wednesday night at home, when dad had the men around. Wake up Little Suzie... Is there nothing else he couldn't have picked. With the death of two songs I new it was time to go. Amongst many cheers, and much clapping, we shook several hands, fearing to break them if I squeezed to hard. Who were these people...

We headed back to the Elephant and Castle to make sure Bruce had arrived without issue. He was quite happly chatting to some other people at the bar. Frank and I had a couple more pints before heading back to the hostel. Apparently the other two stayed out a while longer, and i'm not going to repeat the stories.

Day 3 and it was time to do some sight seeing, and I emphasize the Sight part, I could only really find one. The Forks, Situated between the join of two rivers the forks was the local family gathering place for Winnipeg. The river was frozen so they had ice skating, and ice hockey, and even curling. I haven't skated on ice for a long time. But its just like riding a bicycle isn't it. Hmmm, I made my way through the market to the most logical place to hire ice skates... The Mini Donut. Go figure. I slowly made my way along the river, being over taken by 75 year olds, and 5 year olds alike. I managed to make it all the way to the end some 1.2kms, with falling. Maybe it really is like riding a bicycle. I even managed to make it back to the starting point without falling over. Ice Hockey stardom here I come. Ha.

Had a quiet night in, put on Sin City for those in the hostel interested in watching it. Had a few Kilkenny's before retiring, I headed to Toronto tomorrow. Bruce was having dinner with a local food store owner and his wife. Hmmm, interesting. Anyway, stayed up till around two chatting with Tara, and Ross. Was up and ready to go on time, did the walk to the train, and grabbed subway for lunch and dinner on the way. Got to the train station a bit quicker than I was expecting. So wandered around the Forks a bit, got some grub for the train ride, it was 30hours after all.

Stay tuned for the next exciting Episode of ...ummm Narco's Travel Diary

Narco out