Day 15 - $720.77 – One Heart, One Soul, One Love, One Goal.

Folks, across this great nation of ours, I’ve run into some fairly wacky characters. I’ve met the dude at the bus station in Quebec City who woke me up by stepping on my face. I met the grandmother who wanted to drive me around Thunder Bay but couldn’t because she had to get home to feed her cats. I even met some incredibly large men who dressed up in kilts and threw around large tree trunks for fun in Fredericton.

And yet, everyone pales in comparison to Vincent.

Vincent, you see, is a rapping preacher. He travels the country preaching and trying to convert the homeless population of Canada to accept a life filled with Jesus and all sorts of other nonsense.

And he tried to convert me. Because he thought I was homeless. Why? Just because I happened to be sleeping in a park. Geez! Can't a woman just fall asleep in a park anymore? Where’s the love, people?

So, the story is that I arrived in Saskatoon around lunch time, and was so hungry. I could hear my stomach growling and I’m pretty sure other people could too. So I walked around until I found a restaurant that I wanted to try. It was medium price range, but the portions were huge and my sandwich was delicious. It’s what I would imagine a BLT to taste like, if you substituted deep-fried angels for the bacon.

After lunch, with my full belly, I wandered around Saskatoon downtown, and ended up walking along the waterfront of the South Saskatchewan river, which was gorgeous. And I noticed a few office drones sitting on the grass, getting their daily allotment of sunshine, so I figured this was a place to see and be seen. I plopped down on the grass and set to reading my guide book. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I know, I’m being tapped (hard) on the back and I hear

“Wake up! You don’t need alcohol!”

Vincent, it seems, had found me. He believed that I was drunk and sleeping it off in the middle of a park, and wanted to make sure that I was ok, and also that I was alright with the big man upstairs.

I was a little confused, understandably, which didn’t help matters, because everyone sounds a little drunk when they first wake up. Our first exchange went something like this:

“Wake up! You don’t need alcohol!”

“Wha…?”

“It’s ok, young lady. Everybody falters. But if you have Jesus in your life, you can follow a true path without alcohol.”

“Wha…?”

That’s when he started rapping. Seriously. I don’t need to expand on that, it’s best if you just picture it yourselves. I’ll wait.

See? It’s everything you wish it was and more. Anyway, I finally convinced Vincent that I a) wasn’t drunk, and b) was just fine with the Dude. (I figured that starting the whole ‘I’m an atheist’ conversation just then was probably unwise.)

I’d love to tell you more about the rest of Saskatoon, but it really pales in comparison to my run-in with Vincent, the rapping preacher. I will say that Saskatoon is very pretty and I liked it a lot. I really enjoyed walking around the downtown area. I found everything to be very central, and the people were super friendly. It’s a place I would even consider living.

But only if Vincent could be my neighbour.