Rockin' my new hometown

So, Smithers is actually pretty sweet.  I was homesick for about the first 24 hours, but I was also exhausted beyond compare, and emotions are never real things when I'm that tired.  See previous posts about long plane rides as proof.  Also, my cell phone service in Telkwa is terrible - if you really need to contact me, I recommend adding me to Skype, or texting me.

Speaking of Skype, plans for traveling are underway, and I now have Skype on my phone, so hopefully I can use that to keep in touch, via wifi hotspots.  Here's hoping, anyhow.  Because of crazy travel things, this will likely be a convoluted, confusing, and contorted blog post - my brain is in ten different directions at once, I'm in the middle of packing for Asia, and I am ridiculously full - I've eaten way too much food today.  But plans for Asia are neither here, nor there, and this post is supposed to be about SMITHERS:

...so here we go. 

 

Smithers is awesome.  It's little, and quaint, but it has two fitness centres, a climbing gym, a bunch of cafés and a bakery, a small used book store, and a few bike shops (imperative, really), and a ton of outdoor stores.  There are some things I will need to adjust to, like the fact that there are two grocery stores, and neither of them are branches I'm used to shopping at.  Safeway, and Extra Foods.  Finding some of my more...exotic...produce will prove difficult, and I'm going to have to learn how to cook slightly different things.  Like sprouts: where the hell are the sprouts? ...Safeway is expensive, but I don't find the prices at Extra Foods to be too bad.  Soy milk is even $0.50 cheaper than in the city.  There is (thankfully) a natural foods store, so I can still get all my gluten-free, fancy flours, or whatever little organic thing I fancy.  There's a sewing store - but no art store that I've been able to find.  I guess buying canvas is something that will have to start occurring online from now on - paints?  Maybe I'll stock up during visits to Vancouver.

 

 

 

Apparently, there's a music scene - small, but present.  I haven't seen it yet, but I'm excited to get to know this aspect of Smithers.  There's not really any ethnic restaurants, beyond a Mexican place we ate at today, and a few sushi bars.  My lack of Thai, Indian, and Greek restaurants will have to be compensated by actually learning to cook those things myself. 

I apologize for the lack of fluency in this - I am unaccustomed to writing posts about my daily, normal life.  Frankly, I find it boring, and therefore not worth writing about, but I figured until I settle down, and little things like going to the ski hill become commonplace - this is the best and easiest way to keep in touch with the few scant people in my life who actually read this.  Besides, I'm still somewhat in 'tourist' mode.  There's stuff out here to see, and I haven't seen it yet.

Damon and I have been looking at a few places in the last couple of days - nothing really worthy of catching our eye.  I guess it doesn't really matter right away anyhow, as he goes back to camp in a few days, and I leave for Asia.

We've done some fun things too, amongst the scramble to find a place, change my number (which failed), and packing for Asia.  Today, we picked up his best friend, Byron, and drove up to the ski hill with summer tires on (and in case you're wondering, there has been snow for two days now) ...we made it about halfway up, got stuck, and had to put chains on.  Attempt number two was more fruitful.  We just hiked around on the top of the hill, and played in the snow - and got pretty wet:  I think at least once, we all pile drived each other into the snow, and in some places, it was up to our knees.  It was fun though, and the view from the top was very pretty.

 

 We even went for Mexican.  IN SMITHERS!  I took a photo of the inside of the place.

 The rest of my time here has been pretty blasé - just normal, living-my-life stuff.  I cooked a French meal for Damon's family last night, complete with wine and bread (a staple, really).  Tonight and tomorrow are for packing for my trip, and then at 1:45am on Sunday, I hop on a Greyhound to head back down to Van.  On the 15th, I'm off to Thailand.  In less than a week, I'll be rockin' another continent.

Yeah, it's baller.