Words by this guy, Mr Daniel Salfield, now in Canada
June 15, 2011
So we pick this story up somewhere in the middle of the plot.
The lead character has had an epiphany, he has been around the world and back and fallen in love. His love has since come to him and spent the summer in his town. Life has been good – a summer in Byron of beaches and beers at the ‘beachie’. If only it could last forever…the days grow colder, a visa expires and a girl returns home. The boy sits and stares at her beautiful face illuminated on the LCD screen of his computer, her image pixellating and cutting out mid sentence. This is no way for two lovers to love. A ticket is booked and the Byron bubble is burst once again. Our character is in Canada for the summer, on Vancouver Island and he has some stories to tell.
I arrived on Vancouver Island three days ago to reconnect with my Canadian girlfriend and pick up the pieces of a long distance relationship that was going pear shaped quickly. Of course I could hardly afford to be making the trip, and my credit card was still bearing the brunt of last years impulsive international adventure. Aptly enough the culmination of which was the birth of the current relationship. It made sense that the investment already made should not go to waste.
My first couple days exploring the city of Victoria reveal a bohemian landscape, framed by the sea to one side and snow capped mountains to the other.
What I have noticed interestingly about this trip is the suddenness with which my first real bout of homesickness has set in. When you have traveled enough I suppose it becomes ingrained in you the instant you tuck yourself in to an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room (even if you are lucky enough to have your nose nuzzled into a familiar shoulder and be inhaling a familiar scent) that you are far from home and everything is different.
It’s now 2.30 AM and sleep was short lived. I am scouring the Internet for a free stream of the State of Origin game 2. The maroons are expected to take an unprecedented 6th straight victory. Mentally I am really teleporting myself back to the frothing sweating humanity currently gathered in watering holes all over Byron and preparing for battle. My jet lag is still at the chronic stage and proving to be very beneficial when staying awake at the silly hours.
Rugby league is not such a big deal in Canada and over here everyone’s attention is on an event over 12 hours from now involving the 10 men in ice skates, using a small round piece of hard rubber as an excuse to beat the crap out of each other. Vancouver is in the final of the Stanley Cup – the penultimate game of the Ice hockey season. It will result in a loss and massive riots all over the city. Police cars will be flipped and burned, the opposing team fans will beaten to a bloody pulp for having audacity to be from a city with a slightly better team and the city will be left shamed and broken.
Back to the game of rugby league in Australia and even though New South Wales will win, in a few weeks time Queensland will most likely win the series for the sixth year in a row. The reactions by the New South Welshman in bars around Byron? Most likely a few drops of spilled beer and some coarse language. I’m glad we don’t take our sport quite so seriously.
For more writing and honest ramblings, visit Daniel Salfield’s blog.