June 2017

Latest From The Road

Tearing It Up In Las Vegas, Part Three

IMG_20170619_035908.jpgEDC Meeting place.

Don’t forget to read Parts One and Two!

Chilling at the pool.

The forecast high for our last day of partying was supposed to hit 45ºC, but we had a great plan to stay cool.

Adam invited us over to the Bellagio to chill by the pool and hang out. So, after waking up at around 1pm we changed into our bathing suits and headed over to the hotel. 

I had never met the guy, so this was a good opportunity for me to see what Lauren was gushing about. 

We wait by the elevators for him to come down and meet us. The door opened and I had to raise my gaze up. Way up. The 6’11” (211cm) figure strides out of the elevator wearing bowling shoes and some sort of housecoat kimono thing. 

This guy is fucking cool.

We head to the pool, find some chairs under shade and shoot the shit. Every now and then taking a dip in the pool to wash the sweat off our bodies. 

It’s at this time I get a text from Emily:

“Hey Blake!!! It’s Emily from last night! I am heading out for night 3 tonight, if you you guys want to meet up at some point let me know 🙂 I’ll be with my friend Chris ❤️”

Perfect! Learning our lesson from the previous night, I coordinate with Lauren and Adam on a meeting time and place. There is no excuse of us not to party together for our last night in Vegas!

Adam and Lauren

We say goodbye to Adam and head back to the AirBnB to get ready to head out. We’re meeting everyone at 11pm. 

We get to the venue, and that’s when I realize that I told Emily to meet us at the wrong spot. Fuck! (Turns out the carnival ride on the map wasn’t where it actually was).

This is also when we learn that Adam is going to be late and the new meeting time is 12am.

Our well laid out plans are quickly falling apart!

Well, we can still meet Emily and have enough time to head back to the carnival ride to meet up with Adam. So I send Emily a text message:

“I gave you the wrong meetup place. Meet us under the Electric Avenue sign instead!”

My phone replies with “Failed to send, retry?”. Daaaam you technology! I repeatedly hit retry, over and over again.

“Message Sent!”

Ok, now we wait. Tick-tock. 11:05, 11:10, 11:15. 

“Don’t worry, she’ll find us!” Lauren says. 

EDC Meeting place.

I spot Emily’s curly red hair from a mile away and scream out her name. Sweet. We all say hi and head over to the VIP area at Kinetic Field. One down, one to go.

We decide to get some drinks, and that’s when Chris (Emily’s friend) realizes that he lost his wallet!

I’ve heard of stories whereby someone has lost their phone twice at the event and someone returned it to the Lost & Found both times. So there is a high chance that someone would have returned his wallet.

Emily & Chris leave us for the Lost and Found and Lauren and I head to the carnival ride to meet up with Adam. 

“I don’t think we’ll be seeing Emily again” I say to Lauren.

Adam and his gang show up on time we head to one of the food stands to grab something to eat. Lauren and I haven’t had dinner yet. The three of us look back and realize we lost the rest of the gang.

We order some burritos and this is when I realize I don’t wan’t to be the third wheel. 

“Hey Lauren, I’m going to go see Markus Schulz, meet back at the Electric Avenue sign for 3am?”. I ask.

She agrees and I’m off! 

This is when I get a text message from Emily saying she’s on her way back to the Kinetic Field VIP area alone. Chris is stuck in the Lost and Found line for an hour or so. 

I bee-line it to Kinectic Field to meet her and we spend the next few hours or so tearing up the dance floor. 

At 3am, we say our goodbyes and I head out to meet up with Lauren. The last night is proving to be the best night and I really don’t want it to end. So when I propose the following to Lauren and Adam:

“So, I’m thinking we head out at 6am?”

The look on Lauren’s face wasn’t what I was expecting.

“How about 5am?” She replied. 

I think for a moment: “Well, it’s better than leaving now.”

“Sure!” I reply.

 

The entire trip we spent most of our time at the high energy stages. So it was time to “clean our pallet” (as Lauren put it) and head to Cosmic Meadow. This stage plays more ambient and down-beat music. It’s set up so that you can chill out on some grass and “get away” from the madness. We chill out to Chet Porter for a bit when I get a text message from someone back home.

My buddy Shawn has been following EDC all weekend on the live stream. So he tells me that they’ve announced the special guest artist as being Kaskade (one of my top DJs). He’s been playing since 3am! By this point I only have an hour or so to see him before we head out.

I leave Adam and Lauren and try to find my way to Kaskade’s stage. It’s at this thing called an “Art Car”. It’s a decked out car that roam around the festival playing music. I’m frantically looking for this one when I see a staff member and ask her where it is.

Dawn over EDC
Kaskade playing with the moon in the background.

“Oh, they move around, the last time I saw it was near the Upside Down house”. 

Shawn giving me tips from 5,000km away.

My frustration grew.. but after 30 minutes I finally found it.

The place was packed and I couldn’t get as close as I wanted to.

I enjoy the show for about 25 minutes, when I get a text message from Shawn back in Toronto:

“This guy Billy Kenny at Cosmic Meadow is awesome!”.

I look at the clock, I need to leave soon anyway and Cosmic Meadow is on the way to the meeting place. So I ditch Kaskade to see Billy play.

It’s 5:03am and I now have a choice. I can be an asshole and not meet Lauren at the agreed time. After all, I’m having a blast. What’s an extra hour anyway? She can wait. Or I can leave now and put an end to the adventure that has been EDC.

I look around and notice everyone is still going hard and enjoying themselves. It’s dawn, but the sun isn’t anywhere near full force yet. I think for a moment, then make my decision…

Latest From The Road

Tearing It Up In Las Vegas, Part Two

IMG_20170618_031348-01.jpegYeeeeaaaah!

Be sure to check out part one!

The weather forecast was showing increasing temperatures as the week wore on. So we decided to go hard on day two, worried that night three would just be too hot.

Lauren checking out the fireworks.

We both really wanted to see Duke Dumont (who killed it by the way). So as soon as we got inside, we hit the VIP area to settle in.

Me, Lauren, Emily, Chris

This is where we met Emily and Chris, who we ended up spending the most of the night with. Pro tip: Bring a bubble machine. Lauren did and everyone loved it. An awesome ice breaker when meeting new people. 

We continue to dance the night away, taking breaks every now and then to drink some water. It wasn’t until after the festival did we learn about its casualties.

Around 1090 people needed medical attention, 15 were taken to hospital, and one person died.

Even before you enter the gates, you are handed free bottles of water. Which you can fill for free at the many refill stations inside. There really is no excuse to not stay hydrated. 

However, when you mix in alcohol, drugs, and the heat, people just go overboard. I remember seeing two or three festivalgoers get hauled out in stretchers over the course of the weekend. A sobering reminder to to be smart about my water intake.

Taking breaks from dancing was also part of our “don’t die” strategy. This meant taking advantage of the huge ball pit available to all VIPers! Most people say the dedicated air conditioned washrooms are the best part about VIP access, I disagree:

 

Meanwhile, Lauren was trying to meet up with Adam,  a guy she met at Marquee earlier that day. When you jam 150,000 people in one place, your cell phone struggles to function. Mobile data doesn’t work and text messages are severely delayed. So trying to coordinate a meet up is virtually impossible. A lesson we learned that night.

Getting some “shade” under Daisy Lane

As the clock rolled over to 4am, it was time to head home before the sun came up. Number 1 rule for me: Leave before the truth revealing sunlight ruins your night.

We went hard on day two, we were smart about it, and came out unscathed.

Driving back to our AirBnB, Lauren was working hard on our strategy to beat the heat on day three…

Latest From The Road

Tearing It Up In Las Vegas, Part One

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I decided to kick off the 2017 festival season by hitting up Electric Daisy Carnival. A mainstream rave that started 21 years ago in Las Angeles. 

Lauren and I on Day 1 at EDC

The three day electronic music festival is hosted at a racecourse just north of Las Vegas. As soon as the tickets went on sale, I scooped up two VIP wristbands back in November. At the time I had no idea who was going to go with me.

As the event date drew near, I started going through my list of friends who I wanted to party with. Each one of them turned me down. I have no issues going solo and selling my extra wristband would be a piece of cake. But I really wanted to go with someone.

As I went through my list Facebook contacts, I remembered meeting someone last summer that I think I could have fun with.

Lauren and I met for the first time at Hanlan’s Point in Toronto, we became friends on Facebook and didn’t end up hanging out again after that. 

Naturally, I was a little apprehensive at first, but I decided to let her know that I had an extra ticket to EDC and if she wanted to go. She jumped at the idea and said she would love to party it up with me. Awesome! I’m always down for an adventure. Spending four days with a complete stranger is always a good time, right?

Our flight to Vegas departed from the Toronto Island Airport and headed east to Montreal, where we would catch a connecting flight south. As we boarded the plane we hear someone called out her name: “Lauren!”. I turn and it’s one of the flight attendants! Lauren and her went to school together.

We make our way to our seats and both look at each other with smirks on our faces.

“Free Booze?” I inquire. 

“Maaaaaaaybe!” Lauren replies.

We’re not even in Vegas yet and the possibility of getting comped booze is high!

About half way into the flight, her flight attendant friend comes over and asks us if we want anything to drink. Score! We enjoy some free wine and plan out what we’re going to do over the next few days. 

We land in Vegas, grab our car, and check into our AirBnB. We’re both tired and crash hard. Day one, here we come!

“I want to shoot some guns!” Lauren exclaimed. She grabbed her phone and giggled at the name of the gun range: Strip Gun Club

I was a little nervous, which is rare for me. I’ve never held a gun, let alone shot one. We get to the range and the staff were super helpful and friendly. They handed us a menu with all of the guns we could shoot along with package prices.

I wanted my first experience to be easy, so I decided on 9mm weapons as a good introduction. The Glock 19 and Uzi. For my finale, I’d shoot the AK-47.

We were having so much fun. After each round we’d do a little dance because we were so excited to try out the next weapon. Our range master, Matt, was enjoying the show!

We were having a blast and any fears I had about this weekend being a bust quickly melted away, literally. Vegas was hot as daytime highs hit 45°C.

After shooting all of our rounds, and taking the obligatory photos, we head home and get ready to hit the festival.

Arriving at EDC for the first time, I was overwhelmed. This place is HUGE.

We spent the next 5 hours or so familiarizing ourselves with the grounds, how VIP worked, etc… Of course we got some dancing in as well! Tomorrow we’re going to party hard. Both of us were concerned with the heat though. Even at 4am, it was still 30°C!

We headed back home just before dawn to get some rest and prepare for the big day tomorrow.

Waking up at 1pm, Lauren worked her magic and got in touch with a friend who worked at Marquee. The day club for The Cosmopolitan Hotel/Casino. We wanted to cool off in the pool before we headed to EDC for day two.

In our beachwear Lauren drops a few names to the bouncer at the club, he checks a few things and lets us in without paying a cover. Yippee! I was excited to go because of Dash Berlin, the DJ spinning today.

The place was hopping, we grabbed a few drinks and spent the next 5 hours or so getting some sun.

So far, Vegas did not disappoint. Lauren and I were having a blast and we couldn’t wait to get to EDC to continue the party. Little did we know what we were going to get ourselves into…

 

Latest From The Road

Exploring the Dutch Amazon

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Suriname is a country that few know anything about, including myself. After spending a week or so in Guyana I figured I would explore their neighbour to the east.

My flight took me from Georgetown right into the Paramaribo City airport (Zorg En Hoop airport), which is handy considering their international airport is almost 60 minutes south of the city.

I took a short taxi ride to my hostel, Die Kliene Historie Guesthouse. They had just celebrated their one year anniversary a few months before I arrived, so the place still looked fresh and new.

Because I flew into the smaller local airport, I wasn’t able to get any local currency. So first things first: after checking in I grabbed my wallet and headed for an ATM.

This posed to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated. The entire country seems to only accept Mastercard. My wallet full of Visa cards meant that a cash advance from an ATM was out of the question. This is a travellers lesson that I’ve learned the hard way. My undiversified wallet meant that I might be cashless in Suriname!

Five ATMs later, I was finally able to take out some cash at the Republic Bank Suriname on Grote Kerk Street. The ATM there supports withdrawals on the Plus network. Phew!

An old Dutch mailbox: Brievenbus.

Suriname is a country stuck between two worlds. On one hand you have the old remains of the Dutch colony, the official language is still Dutch, and the colonial buildings have that European “feel” to them. On the other hand, you have a history of violence and civil war that has ravaged the country after their independence. 

Just before the Netherlands pulled out of Suriname in 1975, nearly one third of the population emigrated to the main land as they feared that the country would be worse-off after independence. They were right. Over the next thirty years there will be as many as four coups against the government, a dictatorship, and a civil war.

Today there really isn’t much to the country other than gold mining in the jungle and exporting bananas and rice to the United States and Canada.

That said, the capital of Paramaribo is a great example of preserved colonial architecture. The owner of the hostel I was staying at explained it to me this way:

“All of the buildings you see that are in great shape, new paint, bright colours, well kept lawns, are those owned by private individuals. The rest, the ones that look like they are falling apart; are owned by the government. They would rather spend the money on salaries.”

An example of a well kept building.
An example of a building that needs some upkeep.

If you can see past the derelict units, you can pretend that you’ve transported yourself back in time to when the Dutch still lived here.

The view from my hostel
Parbo Radler

I didn’t plan on doing anything else but hanging around the city and meeting fellow travellers in the hostel. As such, I ended up drinking way too much of their local beer: Parbo (a play on the name of their capital: Paramaribo). The radler is actually quite tasty. 

I was curious to know why there were so many Dutch people here. Turns out, this is a popular destination for the Dutch to escape the cold European winters. Wow! Unless they know something I don’t, Is flying 8 hours across the Atlantic to some poor South American country that happens to speak dutch worth it? I don’t think so. 

That said, this statue of one of their more prominent (non-corrupt) Prime Ministers during the 60s always makes me chuckle.

 

Johan Adolf Pengel was a prime minister during the 60s. Under Pengel’s government, the Surinamese infrastructure was strongly developed. Roads were constructed and existing infrastructure was strongly improved. The international airport is currently named after him.

It would only be natural to keep heading east and visit French Suriname. I decided to give that country a pass for two reasons:

  1. The main attraction in Cayenne (the capital) is the launch of the European Space Agency rockets. I missed a launch by one week.
  2. They are still under French rule, and as such use the Euro. Fellow travellers have told me that it’s quite expensive to visit.

So, I found a flight from Paramaribo to Belém, Brazil. The next month in this Portuguese country will test my strength and will power to continue on this world wide journey. 

Latest From The Road

Working The Streets of Toronto

uber-eats-bike-uber-singapura-divulgacao

It’s always a constant battle between your travel plans and being able to afford that next trip. There are a few sites out there (like workaway.info) that pairs up hosts and workers for free room in exchange for work. This is handy if you’re already on the road and wants to lessen the load on your wallet.

Working between 10am-2pm yields you a 30% bonus on trips.

However, I wanted to try something different and get paid in cold hard cash instead. With bike in hand, I decided to sign up to be an Uber Eats delivery boy. 

It works like this: Using my smart phone, Uber tells me which restaurant to pick up the food and which location to drop it off. Pretty straight forward.

Monday morning: 10:51am. My phone buzzes with my first pick up at Bacon Nation in Kensington Market. Hmm.. Monday brunch it seems! The app doesn’t tell you where you are dropping off the goods until after you put the food into your insulated bag and tap “start trip”.

Looks like I’m heading up to Church and Wellesley hood. Riding along I’m thinking to my self: “Who is this person? Shift worker? Late night partying last night? Unemployed and looking for work?”. 12 Minutes later I arrive at his apartment and head up the elevator. 

Knock, Knock. 

The door opens and a bleared eye man wearing a tracksuit in a blacked out apartment opens the door and reaches for the food. He blurts out a thanks and closes the door.

Delivery #1 done. $7.32 in my pocket. 

This goes on for ten more deliveries before I call it quits at 3:04pm. Total for day 1: $74.74 during 3hr 50min or $19.66/hr. Hmm.. not bad!

In the end, my week looked like this:

Day Payout Total Hrs. # of Trips Rate (/hr)
Monday $74.74 3.8 11 $19.66
Tuesday $122.45 5.5 18 $22.26
Wednesday $65.80 2.7 10 $24.37
Thursday $109.75 4.2 16 $26.13
Friday $38.72 1.8 6 $21.51
Saturday $85.73 3.6 12 $23.81
Sunday $0.00 0.0 0 $0.00

Things that worked for me:

Weather was perfect. Sunny and 18°C. Any bouts of rain where short lived and no more than 10-15mins long. 

I’m able to work any time during the day or night. So timing my shifts to coincide with peak times (30% bonus) means that I can maximize my earnings. 

I’m a confident douchebag that is always aware of the clock:

  • Heading straight to pick up counters at restaurants to pick up my order. Line? What Line?
  • Calling the customer while on the road if they don’t provide a buzz code to their apartment to come down and pick up the food.
  • Cancelling a run if the restaurant doesn’t have the order ready within 1 minute so that I can pick up a new (paying) order. 
  • Taking the stairs up five flights instead of waiting for the elevator in apartment buildings.

Things that worked against me:

The Uber Partner app is a piece of shit. It’s slow and it uses up to 3GB of data per month (WTF Uber!). It assumes that drivers are idiots (rightfully so) and defaults to giving you turn by turn directions instead of the address and major intersection. I always have to perform 2-3 taps to get the destination address up. 

Restaurants that don’t have their orders ready in time. This means that I have to cancel the pick up, which counts against me even though Uber suggests that I do. 

Pedestrians… They still aren’t used to seeing bikes in the road and are not paying attention. Case in point:(yeah, shitty portrait style video.. complain to instagram about that).

Uber allows you to select “meet you at the curb” or “deliver to door”. The curb-meeters are never there when you arrive.. So you end up waiting, or knocking on their door anyway.

Conclusion

I had fun. I love being outside and I’m getting paid to ride my bike and get exercise. Assuming the weather holds up and it doesn’t rain or get too hot.. working ~22 hours a week and getting $500 is a pretty good gig for someone who wants to have the time to still travel/see the city. 

The flexibility of working the lunch or dinner rush means that you can still have a plan for the day and have a social life to hang out or get your grocery shopping done, etc…

I achieved my goal of $500 for the week! Time to celebrate with a few beers on one of Toronto’s many patios.