Second Half Of My Trip

So my trip back to Winnipeg has come to an end.  I write this from my room in Edmonton.  It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time!  It was great.

Hung out with Ashley again.  She was feeling under the weather so I offered to bring her some chicken noodle soup.  We ended up going out for lunch instead, then she was feeling a bit better so we went to the mall and just joked around as we looked at stuff.

Also got to hang out with Nikki.  We didn’t get a chance to hang out before I left for Edmonton the first time, so it was good seeing her.  Andi and I went to her place and Scott made us Chicken Burgers.  It was fun.  The next day Nikki and I went clothes shopping.  We both bought some pretty nice stuff.  We were going to hang out for New Year’s Eve but Brett, Linda, Tim and I went to a party one of Craig’s friends were having instead.  I hadn’t seen Craig or Lauren yet, so I wanted to see them before I left.

The New Year’s party ended up being a ton of fun.  Brett, Tim and I headed there first, but came back around 11:00 to get Linda.  I invited Kristina cause I knew she was down and no one should be sad on New Year’s!  Plus I wanted someone to kiss at midnight.  So we picked her up too, but with all the driving midnight hit while we were in the car, lol.  It was good fun though.

I ended up getting reaaaally tanked.  I had a lot of fun, and the pictures that came out of the night were awesome.

The trip ended with another night at the Lime Lite.  My trip was sorta book-ended by that place.  It was fun, my personal favourite moment on the night was Chad and I serenading the crowd with our Karaoke version of Whole New World from Aladdin, lol!

That was the last I saw of most of my friends.  I was finding the thought of leaving Winnipeg really hard to accept.  It was so good to be back, I didn’t want to leave again!  Brett wants to work on the rigs so the plan was to come with me for the ride, but somehow the concept that he was actually coming back to Edmonton with me didn’t really sink in, and I felt like I was leaving all my friends behind all over again.  Not easy.

The next morning I checked the weather channel and there were severe warnings against driving.  What luck, after good weather for months, a blizzard right when I come in to Winnipeg, then 2 weeks of fine weather, albeit cold, but then another Blizzard the morning I’m supposed to leave!

I decided to wait the blizzard out this time.  At first I was gunna leave the next morning, but that meant I’d get like no sleep before going back to work.  So we ended up leaving around 5:00 PM, enough time for the blizzard to pass and the roads to be mostly cleared.  Picked Brett up, headed to BK for some food and hit the road.

Oddly enough, this was my first road-trip with someone else.  2 weeks of road-trip in the summer, then to Edmonton and back, all alone.  Having company was a really refreshing change.  Someone to chat with, to point out cool sights to and to drive when you feel like taking a nap!  It was a fun trip.  We drove through the night.

I dropped Brett off at his uncle’s place about 40 minutes outside of Edmonton, then headed to my cousin’s, where I’m staying.  Didn’t get to sleep until 9:00 AM Edmonton time.

Sunday I drove back out and picked up Brett and we spent the day running errands in Edmonton.  It was surreal.  Edmonton had been an independent life, completely separate from Winnipeg.  And now I was driving down Elerslie with Brett to check out the shops in South Ed Common.  We went to Taco Del Mar for food, then back to my place so Brett could set up his new cell phone.  After that I drove him back.  It’s really cool having him out here.

Today was my first day back to work.  My alarm going off at 7:00 AM was hell.  But it was great being back at work.  Oddly enough, even though I’d been dreading leaving Winnipeg again and coming back, this time it feels good to get here.  It was good to see my room again, the familiar drive to and from work.  Saying hi to all my friends at work and exchanging Xmas break stories.

I guess Edmonton is a home to me now too.  I’ve never had 2 homes.  Two places that feel familiar, and uniquely me, yet somehow completely different from one another.