Hi Danielle. How are you doing?
Good, how about you?
How are you enjoying Mahoney's? It's awesome. I love it here. It's a good environment. You just started bartending?
Yeah.
How's that going for you? Pretty sweet.
Money's good? Yeah.
I like bartending.
Were you bartending in Edmonton?
Yeah.
Was that more of a nightclub type situation?
Yeah.
More a nightclub, like, country bars and everyone's drinking and stuff like that. Like country music and dancing and the whole bit?
Yeah.
Dancing and. yeah.
And how is that different than working here.
I don't know, here it seems a little bit more laid back. Everyone's out just to, I don't know, people still party, but more people come out to just have like a couple of beers here. Well, I guess Mahoneys' is more of a sports bar. Yeah.
And a little more relaxed I guess, with the patio.
Yeah.
Well, tell me what it was like working in Edmonton. I mean obviously a fast pace and probably a partying crowd.
Yeah, total party environment, party crowd.
What kind of people came to the bar?
Every type of person really, just like... Lots of cowboys, hats? Lots of cowboys. Not like everyone wears cowboy hats or anything like that, just like, I don't know, lots of people have their different styles too in Edmonton, I guess. Would these be like real cowboys, or just sort of like urban cowboys?
Yeah, yeah. You get real cowboys and then you'd get like the urban cowboys that like try and pretend that they're cowboys, get all the gear, but they don't really know what they're doing. They're not out roping and riding? Yeah.
I'm assuming there's no mechanical bull or anything like that. Oh yeah, at Izzy's there's a mechanical bull. Really.
Yeah, and you can ride it.
Did you ever ride it?
No, but my brother likes to ride it.
So it's... They just set up like a ring where they just have like this, I don't know, it's like a rocking horse kind of seat thing, that like has padding on the floor and you just like get on and try and ride it and see how long you stay on. Do they have big contests, like on a Saturday night, who can stay on the longest?
Yeah, it's not really like contests, it's really just like anyone who wants to step up and show off I guess, show people... Sounds like that John Travolta movie. Was it Urban Cowboy, or... I'm not sure. I can't remember what it was. Yeah, it gets to be pretty funny. Like some bars, they'll have 'em just like for a certain night or whatever, but, yeah. Why did you leave Edmonton?
Just a change of pace. I've travelled, I went to South-East Asia and Australia and met a lot of people from Vancouver and I've always wanted to live here, so I thought, no time than., no better time than now to move, 'cause I'm young and I don't know if I want to live in Edmonton my whole life, so I figured I'd come some place new and see how it goes. How's Vancouver treating you? Pretty good, so far.
You making lots of friends?
Yeah, I've made lots of friends here, like I've had, made friends travelling here, so it's pretty easy to start new, with friends, and then everyone at work here is really good. Do you find the people in Edmonton different than the people in Vancouver?
Yeah.
Not so much, I don't know, not so much friend-wise, but I guess just goal-orientated. They are here, or they are there?
Yeah, it seems people here are more... I don't know there's more stuff to do, so people don't. it doesn't seem like you're stuck, I guess. In Alberta, like in the Prairies, I think a lot of people get like stuck in like the same like kind of routine and stuff like and then just end up not really doing anything or just not going anywhere.
Alberta's doing pretty well, the economy's doing pretty well, isn't it? Yeah, totally.
And that's why everyone stays at their jobs and stuff. But, I don't know, it's just not what I'm ..... You just feel Vancouver's maybe more progressive? Yeah, totally.
People's attitudes? Yeah.
Did you ever get any sort of celebrities or anyone like that in the bar?
In Edmonton?
Ah, a couple times. in Juice they had some WWF guys come in.
Really, what were they like?
Pretty funny.
Were they good people or....?
Yeah, yeah. Well, hamming it up and everything like that but .... Were they big drinkers? Yeah.
So... that would be funny.
Was there ever any trouble at the bar?
Yeah.
Like, at least every weekend.
I'm thinking of country bar having those..... At least every weekend. Like I wasn't working at a country bar, sort of say, but it was in the Mall and like everyone gets ..... In the West Edmonton Mall? West Edmonton Mall, yeah. I learned. that was the first bar that I worked at, and like there would be fights, like, weekly there'd be at least one fight there. Huh.
Yeah, and then like for like the cowboys bars, yeah, there was at least, there was probably fights there a lot.
And hopefully you never got whalloped.
No, no.
I don't mean to embarrass you obviously, but when you're working in a nightclub like that, do you find, do you get "hit on" a lot? Do people try to pick you up a lot?
Yeah.
Well especially 'cause like the type of dress that you have to wear, the attire, which leads to..... Which was....? Like low cut shirts and short skirts and stuff like that.
Was it ever a problem?
Not really. There's lots of bouncers and everything around, so if anyone ever gives you hard time, just tell them to get lost, but..... Did people give you a hard time? Not really, you just have to be sort of forward if you don't want them to make their move, but obviously you want to sell drinks, so you can't really..... It's a bit of a fine line? Yeah.
'Cause I notice, I know here that obviously you get a lot of people that have maybe had too much to drink, and see them saying silly things.... Yeah, and you just have to go with the flow I guess. Know.... What kind of ..... go ahead. And just know where the person stands and like where you stand.
Do you get any of that feeling here?
No, not really.
Maybe not yet because you just started.
Yeah, but like you always have the people that are really talkative and want to like, you know, want to, like, talk to you, and. You know, you have to sort of just like smile and you know..... Well I guess that's just part of the job. Yeah, totally.
Totally part of the job.
Are you going to school at all?
Not right now. I'm probably going to sign up for some writing courses, because I came here and writing is something I want to do. So I started writing a book.
Really.
And that's one thing that I want to focus on when I'm here. What kind of book? Can you divulge that little bit of information? A little teaser? You can put in a plug for your book right here.
Well it's, sort of, it's not about my life, but it is about my life. It's sort of a semi-autobiographical thing about like just life in general, growing up as a woman in this day and age, and all the different experiences that you can come across, and how you deal with them, and just sort of insights into... So your life has been that exciting? Is it going to be a thick book?
Um, I don't know. I've had a lot of stuff happen to me in my life and a lot of people that I know that can sort of get the story rolling, so it will be a ..... Like what kinds of things? Any - I mean you don't have to tell them bad things, but give us a teaser? Well. A teaser. Well I don't know, it's a little bit more deeper. I don't know. There's not that much happy stuff that I have in it yet, so it's more of a like... yeah. A little bit deeper, I don't really want to go into it. Oh, that's Okay. We'll have to wait for the book. Do you have a working title for it?
One title, that I sort of have is um, "Thoughts Of A Far-off Land and Everything In Between". Sorry, Thoughts of..... "Thoughts of A Far-Off Land and Everything in Between." Okay, and how far have you gotten into it?
I have like the first couple of chapters. And then notes and stuff like that.
How long do you think it would be?
I'm not sure. I think it will be, I don't know, a couple of hundred pages, maybe. And then obviously you have to go to around and look for publishers and all that stuff.
Yeah.
When I was in Edmonton I was taking some creative writing courses at the college, so I took a Writing Women's Lives course, and Getting Your Book Published, and stuff like that, so I'm hoping to take some more courses like that out here. How long does it take to put the book together? Normally?
I guess it depends on the person, really. Like you have to, like, set up like how you want to write it, right. And then you have to write it. And then I guess you can get it finished before you send out any of your manuscripts. But usually when you're going to write a book and try and get it published, you're not going to send them your whole book finished, right. So you send them like, I don't know, the first couple of pages, and see if it, if they're interested. And when do you start doing that? Like, can you start sort of doing that now?
I could probably start doing that right now, but I'm not really right there right now. So I still want to go through it a little bit more and touch it up. but then I guess you have to get it edited by the people that publish it for you and stuff like that, so it's probably a long process. It's just something that I want to do, like at least for the next five years, so, it's a long-term goal. So that's your, like, your main focus. That's my long term goal, yeah. Okay, so you're not.Okay. Not sort of going after being a doctor, lawyer, anything, at the moment.
No. I'm just travelling and writing. Like I'm planning to go to Chile next year. So.... Where have you been then? I've been to South-East Asia and Australia. Whereabouts in South-East Asia?
Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
How did you find that?
It was awesome. When I went travelling at first I didn't expect to go to, like. I expected to go to Australia and Malaysia, and then we met up with people in Australia who I know from here, and we had the same ticket, so we just decided to go backpacking through South-East Asia when we got there 'cause it's really easy to get around, like transportation-wise, and fairly cheap, so.... Was it a bit of a culture shock? Definitely, culture shock. But I liked it though. It was good. It was an eye-opener to. as what the world has to offer, and like how lucky we are to live in Canada. Everything here is basically a luxury. Not... like three quarters of the world doesn't live in the state that we live. So.... You mean they live much... Not as well? Yeah.
Not as well off. But not to say that there's. yeah, we're just like really lucky to be where we are. What did you like most about it? Did you work over there?
I worked in Australia.
Doing what?
I bartended in Australia and then I worked at a hostel changing beds and.... Ew. Yeah.
It was pretty sick. And doing barbecues. So it was pretty cool. We got to stay there for free for a month, and just work like two days, two nights. We worked on the weekends. So Saturday and Sunday mornings we, like checked people out and then cleaned, like changed the beds, and then Saturdays and Sundays we also did the barbecue. And then.... That must have been pretty fun though. Yeah.
It was totally fun.
I mean a fun group.
Yeah, it was totally fun and laid back and everything like wasn't, like of course cleaning the beds and rooms and stuff, that was just like, pretty sick 'cause like all, it's all backpackers right. And like you get a room full of like four or five guys and after like a weekend of drinking, like everything just like smells in their room, so it's just like you wake them up in the morning and get them out of there. It just totally stinks like booze, so, and change their sheets and stuff.
What about working in the bar down there?
It was pretty funny. It was... I liked it.
Was it different than here?
It was different than here. The bars there are open 'til like five at night, or five in the morning, so, and the last call, well where we were, the last call was like right at five. After five nothing went behind the bar, not even water. So.... So you would work 'til five? Yeah, 'til five in the morning and then we'd have to obviously close and everything, so like, I don't know. What time would you start?
Um, if you - depends if you open. Like if you open and if you had the good shifts, like.... When do they open, eight o'clock, and then...? Yeah, it was a restaurant and then a nightclub upstairs, and we worked in the nightclub. So like our shifts would start at like, when we started getting the good shifts and lots of hours, we'd start at like, I don't know, nine or so, and then 'til close. So they were pretty long shifts. But it was good, we got breaks and stuff. And..... What was the.....? But like everyone there drinks like Bourbon and Coke, Bourbon and Coke like.... So are people pretty drunk by, I don't know, three, four, five o'clock? Yeah, but I don't know, I guess it's different here, they pace themselves more, but you get like the odd.... They pace themselves more here? No, in Australia it seemed like they paced themselves more or else they can just drink way more. But they do like throw them back and like..... What kind of bar? Like is this a disco type pub?
Yeah, like a disco, like nightclub type bar upstairs. Like classy. They played like Top 40 and then dance music. It was like an older crowd. Like they had a restaurant downstairs, but in Melba's it was in, like an office complex sort of thing. So they had a lot of like office people and stuff come in there, and then like. yeah.
It's a little different than the cowboy bar. Yeah.
Totally different. Yeah.
It was pretty classy, I really liked it.
So there weren't fights breaking out.... No, no. But, like it was really, when we worked there, like management and stuff, was like really strict, like everything had to be like a certain way. Which was good, so like it totally like helped my skills I think, got them better.
Gotcha.Are you working tomorrow?
Yeah.
What time?Tomorrow night?
Six.
Alright well we'll see you then. It's the busy rush. Oh I guess we have the big soccer game tomorrow night.
Yeah.
Totally.
Alright, well we'll see you then. Okay.
Thanks a lot.
Yeah.
