10001110100110101
[Wednesday, July 5, 2000: Future Trek.]
I woke up a little later than I had hoped today. The train was leaving at around quarter to seven and I had gotten out of bed just before six. I wasn't completely packed and I wasn't quite sure how long it would take for the cab to drive me down to the station (I expected around fifteen minutes) so I skipped breakfast. One of the longest (and hardest) choices I had to make (apart from bringing my suit and pillow - which I didn't) was deciding whether I'd bring along my rollerblades. On the discussion forum I mentioned that I was going to bring them along, but after seeing the amount of baggage I had already brought along with me (since the sleeping bag took up so much space), I decided to leave the blades in Waterloo.
The cab ride was pretty uneventful, and I got to the station with only a few minutes to spare. Sitting down, I noticed a couple of people (in their late teens or early twenties) to my left with a large amount of baggage. They started talking with each other asking if they were part of Future Trek. Apparently they were, so I went up and introduced myself. Then another person came up, and another, and another, until we had around a dozen people standing in the middle of the station jabbering about this and that. Everybody had to reintroduce themselves each time a new face showed up, and there were handshakes all around. Attaching names to faces was never easy for me, especially in this circumstance when there were so many new faces, and so little time to remember them all.
Getting on the train, I ended up sitting by myself, so I was able to catch up on some much needed rest before reaching Toronto. There, we were to catch a connecting train that would take us all the way to Ottawa (after a few stops along the way). At union station, we ran into a whole crowd of Trekkers on their way to Ottawa. There were a lot more people there than I had expected. There were more introductions and even more handshakes than the first rendezvous at Kitchener. I can't remember the last time I made so many handshakes in such a short amount of time (I don't think I ever had actually).
Boarding our train to Ottawa, I noticed that someone had vandalized the VIA Rail logo on the car we were entering. A couple extra lines, and the logo read
VIAGRa = il
I got a kick out of that.
On the train, I sat next to AP who, after a bit of conversing, knew CJF! Holy crap! What were the odds? There isn't much else to say about the train ride, we found our way safely to Millenium Village (which looked more or less like a glorified refugee camp) and got in line to get registered. While in line, I noticed that one of the guys in front of me was wearing a 1998 CTRL-A T-shirt! Geez Louise! What were the odds? I went up and asked him about it, and he seemed to recognize me as one of the (former) CTRL-A execs.
![[Registration line for Future Trek at Millennium Village.]](../Pictures/2000-05-14/2000-06-28.jpg)
This day marks the first day of my adventure in Ottawa during an event known as Future Trek. I actually took quite a number of pictures during my six days up at the Nation's capital. However, seeing as most of the pictures I took have people posing in them that probably do not want their mugs on my site, I have decided not to post these pictures. However, I do have this picture of the people lining up to get registered for the event.
I'm not actually in this picture, but there is someone here who's wearing a CTRL-A T-shirt!
I got my picture taken, and went to check out my tent (number 29). We were given a number of military/first aid style cots to sleep on, but we had to set up the cots ourselves. Let me tell you that that was not an easy job. No siree. The canvas was very dry, and didn't like to stretch all that much. Most of us made do with limp cots, which isn't too bad I guess.
There was quite a bit of time available before the Trekker "training" was supposed to start, so I joined in a game of soccer and threw the disc around for a couple of hours. That was fun, although I never did remember any of the names of the guys (and gals) that I played with. Also, I should say for the record, that I didn't see anyone there that looked like Squishy. However, I did see someone who looked awfully like HKL..
During our group introduction (where we met everyone from our tent and the adjoining girl's tent) we were told that there were only twelve showers available for the entire camp. Six for guys and six for girls. Also, the hot water isn't turned on until five in the morning, and it's shut off at one in the morning. Seeing as cramming two hundred people into six shower stalls in the hour and a half that's available to us in the morning is not exactly the easiest thing to do, I started taking my showers at night. We were also told that despite the hot and dry weather that we'd probably get during the day, nights in the village are usually cold and damp. Yay. I just love squeezing into my cold, moist sleeping bag at night. Also, since I didn't bring a pillow, I ended up using my jean jacket instead. Although the buttons bothered me in the beginning, I think I got used to it.
After a couple of icebreakers, one of the first things we had to do as a group was to come up with a group name. This was something our group was very, very bad at. Our group leader, Alain, first suggested "The Pansies" because our indentifying bandana was light blue and dotted with daisies. This name was quickly shot down. Then the "Tents With Introverted Talents" (TWIT) for short was suggested. This evolved into "The Flying TWITs", which I didn't actually mind. I was somewhat outvoted though. Someone came up with "The Trojans" which lead to "The Mighty Trojans". It didn't really fit with the designs on our bandanas, so someone suggested "The Flying Margeritas" which was mostly accepted, because it had something to do with flowers (apparently) and something to do with alcohol. In the end, we chose (to my chagrin) "Out of the Blue" as our team name. I was too apathetic, and time was too short, to argue. So the name stuck.
We were then told to write two or three things that we hoped that we would get out of this event into a piece of paper.
"Nobody will see them."
They said. Hmm.
We gave our sheets of paper to our group leaders and we were then blindfolded, and led into the middle grounds. There we sat down and waited in the darkness. After a few minutes of silence, the sound of drumbeats could be heard. Slowly growing louder as time progressed. We could hear and feel movement all around us, as if a wind came rushing in between us, around and around, and the drums got louder. Soon, a voice was added, the voice of the native peoples.
We were then allowed to take off our blindfolds and in the middle of our group, there was a wood burning stove like thing (I guess open fires weren't allowed in the park). There, we watched as our group leaders went up one by one and threw our sheets of paper, with our hopes and aspirations, into the fire. We watched as the dancers danced around us as the fire burned and the drums continued to beat. We stood out there for a good fifteen minutes before we were lead towards the lounge, where some weird native american music (with a strange synthetic component) was coming out of. One girl next to me muttered
"I'm scared."
As we were slowly lead into the darkened tent, the mood of the music slowly changed, and we were exposed to a strange, neo-aboriginal music. I can't remember much from that night anymore, but it was interesting to listen to, and continued well from the gathering just a few moments before.
I left after a little while. I noticed that the computers in the lounge were offline, and I wanted to make a couple of phone calls to see if people were available on Canada Day. Not much more happened of note that day, but it was definitely an interesting first impression.
