Canada: Lucky #13

Below are my verbatim journal entries from the three days I spent in Canada as a gift to myself for my 28th birthday. It was my first experience with solo traveling, my 13th country to visit abroad, and far more than I ever expected.

23 September 2018, Sunday

Today was my first day as a solo traveler. I’m in Vancouver, BC after taking the eight hour Amtrak ride after work yesterday afternoon. I got into Canada late last night, so today was day one in country number thirteen, my favorite number. I started to question if this was a good idea when I began packing on Friday night. I didn’t have any set plans for my next three days after deciding to go against my usual nature of planning out every detail for a trip, so packing was extra anxiety inducing. I didn’t know what I would be doing, so I wasn’t sure what I needed, and I’ve always hated packing anyway. It stresses me out so I always wait until the very last minute, avoiding it as long as possible. Work went fast on Saturday and the train ride was pretty smooth. I read and colored and text a dude from Tinder even though I knew better. He didn’t respond, but again, I’m like a velociraptor constantly testing the perimeter that encages me. Oh, you’re still ignoring me? Just checking for the third time this week. I like to push things to their very limits, just to be sure of where those limits lie. It’s this cute little quirk I have.

I have full cell service here, so it’s more like visiting a big city in the States than it is being in a foreign country. I decided to wing it with public transportation getting from the Amtrak to my hostel in the dark and was pleasantly surprised when I handled it without any issues. I arrived to my room after midnight and unloaded in the dark. I felt like a jerk and realized I had no idea what hostel etiquette was, since this was my first time staying in one without booking a private room. That thought vanished very quickly in the morning as all three of my bunk mates rose and showered before 8am and the man above me crinkled a plastic bag next to my face for five minutes while he rooted through his suitcase amid all of his shit being strewn into my personal space.

I went down for breakfast thirty minutes before closing to find that eight different kinds of toast and bagels were all that remained. What the fuck is pumpernickel, anyway? It was my first thought of I’m doing this wrong and I should have gotten up earlier. I was worried this would be a thought pattern for my first independent international endeavor. My travel plans and pace have always been a reflection of my last significant other. I had my ex on a pedestal with his fancy frequent flier miles and Global Entry and I’ve traveled to more countries than I am years old bit. I was worried that there would be a devil on my shoulder telling me if I wasn’t doing it his way the next three days, then I was doing it the wrong way. I pushed the thought aside and ate my bagel at a table with three random dudes who didn’t speak to me for the entire duration of my meal. Really warming up to the strangers, I thought. I came back to find my room smelling like weed with bag boy staring up at me doe-eyed. Smooth, kid. Real smooth.

I showered and sat down to plan out my day. I had anxiety about choosing what to do, as though there was a right and a wrong way to spend day one—a specific and most effective choreography of where to visit and when. I left the hostel around noon, which was a later start than I was aiming for. I got advice on my way out from the front desk about the best way to get to the University of British Columbia and then altered my route to reflect their advice. It was a brisk morning and the pavement was wet from the night before. The weather forecast called for sunshine all three days of my visit, but I regretted not packing a precautionary raincoat. I grabbed a day-long transit pass from 7-Eleven, exchanged $30 to Canadian currency, and then hopped on the first #4 bus I saw, skipping the coffee my body longed for. It was almost an hour long ride across town, and the first bus I was on broke down after about a mile, causing everyone to disembark and grab the next one. I took the bus to the end of the line and then walked an additional twenty minutes across UBC’s campus toward their Museum of Anthropology.

The woman at the ticket counter was sweet and spotted me a free quarter to lock my purse in a locker, since I didn’t have any Canadian coins on me. My traipsing through the museum was self-guided because I didn’t have the time or the attention span to do an official tour. Overall the museum had great artifacts from across the world, but they were poorly archived and labeled. For example, there was an entire glass case labeled Tibet, with notes like “cup” next to the artifacts. No description, date of origin, or more specific geographical information. Knowing a little bit about Buddhist history in Tibet, I thought it was a disservice to the cup in front of me to overlook that it was actually a skull cup—made from the cranium of a human skull, and used in rituals to honor that death eventually comes for us all. But here, in the Museum of Anthropology, it was just a cup, sitting next to other things labeled “figurine” without noting who the god was or what the statue was made from. I was a little tired, a little hungry, and my feet were killing me when I looked up to see a magnificent Buddha statue staring at me, causing me to remember that life isn’t so bad after all. I threw up a little silent prayer of gratitude to the universe, thankful to be pulled back into the present moment. Next to the stature were a dozen hanging tree trunks hollowed out and carved with different elaborate designs. After seeing signs that said “Please don’t touch,” all afternoon I was delighted to read, “Please touch gently.” They were drums, and they were magnificent. When I began tapping on them people nearby started to notice and became interested after they had overlooked the pieces. My drum beats were arguably more pleasant than the toddler screaming in the next exhibit over.

I decided to grab an Earl Grey latte and a chocolate croissant to quell my hanger before checking out the outdoor exhibit of totem poles. I saw a black squirrel as I walked around to the backside of the museum and got way too excited about it. To be honest, more excited about it than I was about the totem poles. So goes my life. I decided that my next stop would be Bloedel Conservatory and the Queen Elizabeth Gardens but I wasn’t sure what time they closed and I was worried I wouldn’t make it. I took the #68 bus from the museum back to the main bus stop on campus, because my purse was too damn heavy and my feet hurt. Waiting for the bus, a man asked me for directions, and when his wife turned the corner he said excitedly, “This lady says it will take us back to the main bus stop!” It felt weird to be addressed as “this lady” and to suddenly be in charge of their method of transportation. They were in their mid-60s and from Australia and they lagged along behind me as we cut back across campus after the first bus dropped us off. As I stood at my bus stop they stared at the transit map bemused, and I checked in with them, ultimately giving them further directions on how to get back to downtown. It was my first instance on this trip of acquiring travel karma points, but certainly not the last. Apparently something about my face says, “I’m approachable and I also know what I’m doing.” This happened like six more times over the next three days, and I generally knew what I was talking about. Fake it until you make it, kids.

I took a different bus across town to get to the gardens and in the meantime forgot about getting lunch. At a stop light I unabashedly stared at the beautiful human waiting to cross the street and he looked up from his phone just in time to catch me eyeing him. I was totally busted, but he smiled and winked at me, making me laugh and blush unapologetically. The men are noticeably better looking here than in Portland, but he looked like he had a wedding ring on his finger. Unavailable continues to be my type—go figure. I transferred from the bus to a train and then walked the rest of the way to the gardens, which were gorgeous. The sun was shining and I was so happy. It was great to know that the shameless selfies I took captured a real smile, and not the fake bullshit I usually see looking back at my photos. I hiked up a small hill to the conservatory and the view of the city from the top was amazing. The bird conservatory was equally good and I spent two hours talking to Victor, the retired policeman who now spends three days a week petting birds, and Rudy, the smartest parrot I’ve ever met. I loved being on my own schedule and I was blissfully happy, even knowing that most people my age would be bored out of their mind watching birds for two hours.

In the meantime my phone died and I navigated getting back to the hostel with ease. On my walk back to the train station I came across one of those standalone library boxes people have in their front yard. The door to the “take one, leave one” masterpiece was clearly painted by a child and said “Mr. Worm’s Library,” except the worm depicted was clearly a dick, embellished with stripes. I laughed so hard, upset with the universe for giving me a dead phone in a moment when I so desperately needed to capture a photograph. Alas, Mr. Worm shall live on only in my memory. I found a sushi joint close to the train station and ravished some excellent rolls. When I finally got back to my hostel I decided I needed ice cream, so I walked across the street only to discover that the Cold Stone was closed for the season. I decided a Guinness would be equally good instead, and walked into an Irish Pub called Doolin’s.

I was entirely content sitting there by myself and watching the NFL recaps from the day. There were four boisterous people to my right, two guys and two girls, and I wrote them off as couples, not paying much attention to them. But eventually the man to my right turned towards me, introduced himself, and invited me to hang out with his people. He was a Detroit Lions fan out celebrating their defeat over Tom Brady (a cause worth celebrating for anyone, honestly) with some of his friends after work. His name was Alan and his blue eyes were a stark contrast against his black hair. His Irish accent was so thick and the background noise of the bar so brash, that at several points in our conversation I had to ask him to repeat himself, because I had no idea what he had just said to me. He spoke of his roommate’s adorable dogs (cell phone pictures included) and the one time he talked to Oprah Winfrey on the phone in his own backyard, still hungover and shirtless from the night before. He had been in Canada for six years on a work visa after living in several different countries after moving away from Ireland.

The conversation was easy and the laughs were free flowing, and before I knew it I had his business card to the bar he managed down the street and we were Facebook friends. When I pause and look back I’m amazed at how that even unfolded. As a person with walls higher than China’s and an irrational fear of strangers, he crept into my interior with ease and without effort. He was kind, and funny, and completely unassuming. Here I was, making friends with the locals at night after eating breakfast in isolation earlier that morning. He said he used to date a girl from Portland and that he had a guys’ trip planned in December to check out a Trailblazer’s basketball game. When I left for the night I told him to hit me up when he was down in my city, and he responded, “Hit me up over the next few days!” and left me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. That kiss lifted a Guinness induced fog and stirred something inside of me. Maybe it was the lone beer that I had. Maybe it was being called darlin’ in an Irish accent. But on my walk back to the hostel I tweeted, “After weeks of listening to Celtic Thunder in my car, my Gaelic dreams have been granted. Tonight was the night I got kissed by an Irish bloke over a pint of Guinness in a pub. Stick a shamrock up my ass and say Sláinte.” Admittedly, it was arguably my proudest moment on the internet to date.

I returned to the hostel feeling high on life and asked the Aussie at the front desk for advice on how to best see Stanley Park and Chinatown tomorrow. He promised me fascinating wildlife within Stanley Park like raccoons, telling me that, “Australian people love that shit. You know, animals that can’t poison or ravage you.” And then he said that he preferred to see Chinatown at night. So all in all, I’d say that day one went pretty alright. It had a great flow and I found a confidence I didn’t know I had. I was talking to strangers, giving out directions in a brand new city, and even got kissed when I was dressed like a faux-lesbian in flannel with zero make-up on. I’ll chalk that up as a win, any day.

24 September 2018, Monday

I decided to skip the carb-loaded complimentary breakfast this morning for some additional sleep time. Upon waking, I drew a tarot card, like I’ve done every day this year, asking the universe what I needed to know for the day. I drew the 10 of Swords. The card depicts a person lying face down with ten swords stabbed in their back while they bleed out of their head. What the fuck, I thought. I’m on holiday! I slept in! I was in a great mood. It was a sub-optimal card to draw on vacation, no doubt. I got ready and took the bus to Stanley Park. I meant to rent a bike to ride around the six mile perimeter, which is a big commitment, because bikes fucking terrify me, but the bus dropped me off inside the park rather than outside where the bike rentals were. I figured I’d just walk around a bit and then rent a bike later if I felt the need. I didn’t make it around much of the park, because my foot was beginning to bother me again, but I did make a point to sit down on a park bench for a while staring out into the ocean and contemplating life. I even saw a sea lion, but no raccoons.

I made the long trek back to the bus and made my way over to Chinatown. It was wonderful, and they had a free garden to explore. The shops were great and I spent hours just wandering. Eventually my hunger caught up to me and I made my way over to Gastown, the oldest part of the city. I came across a taco joint but decided to take a stroll around the block to see if anything else caught my eye. While I was looping around, Sara called me, and we ended up chatting for a while. I doubled back to the taco place and sat under a tree in the alley behind the restaurant to finish my conversation with her. There was a woman sitting on some stairs by herself who looked homeless, and near the end of my chat with Sara, I looked over to see this woman shooting up heroin, elastic bicep tie and all. This was new for me to witness, but I left her alone, wrapping up my conversation. I kept glancing back at her, and about five minutes later I watched her slump over as the high hit her, and before I knew it she went flaccid, falling down five stair steps and smacking her head on a beer bottle at the bottom. There she lay, lifeless, pale, and bleeding from her head and face. I told Sara I had to go, because I was pretty certain this woman was dead.

After making a few strides toward her I found her pulse erratic and her eyelids fluttering as she struggled to breathe. A couple of college kids were walking down the alley and stopped in shock, and I immediately set them to the task of calling for the police. They stared back at me, frozen. “This woman needs help right now!” I shouted. “I need to know if you’re willing to call 9-1-1 with the address of this location!” They shook out of it, and called for help. To be honest, in that moment I didn’t know that the Canadian version of 9-1-1 was still just 9-1-1, but they got the point. I held the woman’s hand, told her that help was coming, and told her to just keep breathing. Eventually the 9-1-1 call got transferred to me, and I took the kid’s phone and explained the situation I had witnessed. The dispatcher asked me if I had a Narcan kit and instructed me to ask around the alley if anyone else had one. I set the college students off to go profile other homeless people that might be users and ask for the life-saving drug. It wasn’t my favorite idea, but the woman in front of me was starting to decline. I monitored her breathing until it no longer became sufficient and then the dispatcher asked me if I was willing to perform CPR on the patient. I looked around, searching for something to use as a barrier between her mouth and mine since I didn’t have a CPR mask. She had track marks on her arms, chapped lips, and teeth that hadn’t seen a dentist in over thirty years. She was bleeding, clearly an addict, and I had no gloves or anything to protect myself from possible blood borne pathogens. Amid my silence, the dispatcher asked me again, “Are you willing to perform CPR on this patient?”

“Yes,” I said curtly. Of course I was. Of course. She started to instruct me on opening up her airway, but I interrupted her and told her I used to be an EMT and had it handled. She asked me to count my chest compressions out loud and I began, using my hand as a barrier between her mouth and mine while my other hand pinched her nostrils closed. Fortunately as I began I heard the sirens in the distance, and I only had to perform two rounds of CPR before the paramedics arrived. As I was doing CPR a random passerby came along and started collecting the patient’s things, putting them in a bag for her. She then grabbed the woman’s coat off of the stairs and draped it across her legs to keep her warm. “Help is on the way, sweetheart,” she said before disappearing into the crowd that had gathered. The paramedics arrived and set her up on oxygen and gave her a shot of Narcan, and it was like watching someone be raised from the dead. Truly. One minute she was lifeless, and the next minute she was sitting up, looking around herself in shock. The paramedics told me I did a great job as a first responder and set me loose, stating they didn’t need any kind of formal report outside of what I had told them orally. I found the college kids, thanked them for making the call, and apologized for getting so brisk with them. “No, you’re totally fine. We didn’t know what to do, so thank you for taking charge. That was really amazing to witness.” I thanked them again, and then walked next door to cash in on the ‘Margarita Monday’ sign that had originally caught my attention an hour ago. I asked for an outdoor seat so that I could watch the situation unfold.

I used the restroom, washing my hands and face thoroughly, and when my tacos and tequila arrived, I found that my hands couldn’t stop shaking. Halfway through my meal the medics had her sign a release declining care, and she was free to go. When the scene cleared out, she sat back down on the stairs and lit a cigarette. I asked my waitress to watch my table and I got up to go speak to her. I wanted to let her know that I was the one that called and to check in to see how she was doing. I knew this was an unnecessary step, one most people might not take, but I felt compelled to witness her presence. When I introduced myself her eyes got wide and she asked for permission to hug me. I spread open my arms and as she curled into me she said, “You’re an angel. You’re my angel. Thank you for saving my life.” It was a surreal sentence to hear someone utter. It hadn’t really set in yet. I was just reacting, doing what I was trained to do, unable to ignore the woman before me so clearly in need of help. And here she was, alive before me, thanking me for what I had done. We talked for about twenty minutes, and her words broke my heart. She said she used to use heroin a lot more frequently in the past, and didn’t realize how the dose she took tonight would affect her. She was from Eastern Canada originally, estranged from her family, and supporting her ten year old son on her own after her child’s father had been shot to death a few years ago. She said she became a sex worker to support herself, and got addicted from there. She spoke of many things, many of which I didn’t hear amid her soft, raspy voice paired with the cigarette still dangling from her lips. But I just listened, because I felt like she needed someone to listen.

“Why does it feel like someone stomped on my chest?” she asked. I explained to her how forceful chest compressions are in CPR and I told her that if she was sore for more than a few days she should go to urgent care for a chest x-ray to rule out a rib fracture. She saw a pair of policemen coming down the alley behind me and stated quickly that she needed to return home. She grabbed the black trash bag next to her, exclaiming how grateful she was that no one had stolen her salmon while she was unconscious that she had purchased from the market earlier that day. She asked me to hold the dead fish bag for her while she gathered the rest of her things, and I obliged. She told me her address and said I was more than welcome to stop over for dinner any time. I told her she was a beautiful person and I hoped she would make a point to take better care of herself. I told her I’d pray for her, and she said she’d do the same in return.

I finished my tacos and walked back to my hostel in a fog about where my night had taken me. I was grateful, so incredibly grateful, for being in the right place at the right time. In situations like that, most people want to help, but don’t know how. In emergency situations I’m always fast to act and clear of mind, but it had been seventeen years since I’ve been in a situation like that. I was a kid when I almost accidentally killed my brother in a farming accident, and even as an EMT for four years I never had to do real chest compressions on anyone. It was insane to know that if the front desk man hadn’t mentioned how beautiful Chinatown was at night, or if I hadn’t decided to take an extra walk around the block, or if Sara hadn’t called me—how that woman’s night could have ended much differently. A ten year old could have sat at home alone, waiting on his mother and dinner, never knowing where she was and why she hadn’t come home. I was grateful to be exactly where I was, precisely when I was supposed to be there. But it was still just wild.

I got back to the hostel, kicked off my shoes, and decided that I needed more tequila. I grabbed the business card Alan had given me the night before, and made my way to the bar he managed, not knowing if he would be there or not. I was pleased to find him behind the bar, and when I relayed my day he poured me the smoothest shot of tequila that has ever passed my lips. I stayed there for the next two and a half hours, sitting at the corner of the bar, coloring in my tarot card coloring book with my 48 box of Crayola’s (because when you pack a backpack you only bring the necessities) and reading fortunes for his friends. I needed that mindless task, and I enjoyed sitting among his friends, quietly prying into the life of the man who kissed me on the cheek the night prior. When fatigue finally set in and I made my exit, he blew me a kiss from behind the bar and promised to message me when he got done with work the next night. It put a huge, shameless smile on my face.

Back at the hostel I informed my front desk friend about the disappointing lack of raccoons in Stanley Park and told him about my alley excitement and first hand encounter with Vancouver’s drug epidemic. After I finished my story he responded, “So let me get this straight. What I’m supposed to take away here isn’t that you’re a hero, but that you’re upset you didn’t get to see any raccoons today.” Yes, precisely, I laughed. As I crawled in bed, Alan’s proposition of hanging out for a third night paired with the adrenaline of my evening and the creaking of my bunk bed kept me awake nearly all night.

25 September 2018, Tuesday

I woke up without an alarm, unable to fall back asleep, and decided I should at least go down for breakfast. My stomach had felt weird in the aftermath of last night’s excitement. Again, I ate alone, bleary eyed and with my pre-10am characteristic resting bitch face. I returned to bed for a few hours, but sleep continued to elude me. When I finally got up for the day I decided to consult the tarot deck about the madness of my last twenty-four hours. It was then that the message from yesterday’s 10 of Swords hit me. The swords, the blood, the cloak resting over the bottom half of the body. The woman in the alley was the person depicted on the card. The swords were her needle and syringe, the cloak the same as what the passerby had draped over her to keep her warm, and the blood from her face and outstretched arm—all the same. It’s a card with dark shades in the forefront with the dawn and hope of a new day rising in the background. A chill came over me. Suddenly I recalled the card I drew on the Amtrak ride up, asking the universe what I needed to know for my three days in Canada. I had drawn Judgement. It depicts an angel in the sky playing a trumpet and raising bodies out of graves. It symbolizes a new beginning, a rebirth, an entirely new way of life. But it does so on a lighter scale than the Death card. You get a second chance at life without the pain of leaving your physical body with this card. A tall order for just three days in Canada, I had thought at the time. But then her words came back to me. “You’re my angel… You saved my life.” And here was a card with an angel raising people from the dead.

I immediately broke down into tears. Most people who aren’t familiar with tarot view it as black magic. I do believe that it is magic, truly, because it has shown me things a simple deck of cards could never know. But I don’t buy into the black magic bit, and I don’t believe that magic and Christianity, or any other religion, in fact, have to live in opposition. It has opened my heart and strengthened my connection to myself and with the Divine. I have love and compassion in my heart and that’s reflected in my tarot cards. I believe that good people invoke good spirits and that at the end of the day we’re all praying to the same god. And in this moment I cried, because I knew, without a doubt, that all was right in the world and that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. There’s nothing like that feeling. There’s nothing like being affirmed from the universe that you’re on the right path, leading your own way with an open heart, while being protected and watched over. I cried because I knew I wasn’t alone. I cried because I knew I was infinite. I cried because I had peace.

I knew that it didn’t matter what I did with the rest of my trip on this final day. I had already fulfilled my purpose. I ended up taking a shuttle to North Vancouver to see the Capilano Suspension Bridge and cliff walk, and while there the ticket lady gave me a student discount with a smile and wink, saving me $10. I wandered amid the canopy of the trees, filling in my lungs with the crisp, fresh air and singing out in gratitude. My spirit had been renewed. I went to Canada with the purpose of pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I took the trip in stride, far exceeding my own expectations about what to expect and who I would find out there in the world while alone with myself. That devil on my shoulder, that self-doubt, never again resurfaced after that first morning. I reconnected to my path, my joy, and my purpose. I had chuckled at the idea of my thirteenth country, lucky number 13, being something as benign as Canada. I went in search of my own limits and came to discover that I had none. I came home renewed. Reborn. Forever changed. And all it took was three days and a $115 Amtrak ticket.