Tuesday, March 30, 2010

New Beginning's

A dear friend told me recently that they are now living their life by "going with the flow". At first I couldn't grasp the idea. I love the adventure, I love the thrill of not knowing what lies ahead, but I didn't really get what they meant by it. However, the proof was in the friend. This theory has worked quite well for them as of late, and they are...happy.

Brilliant. Well then. It is time for me to change as well.

Minutes ago, I watched the trailer for the upcoming movie "Eat Pray Love" with Julia Roberts and I related instantly. I have such a desire to travel and to meet people, and considering I am in France, I have to take advantage of that. It has been fantastic so far, but you hit bumps. You hit hard times. Obstacles are everywhere. It is what makes you...you.

I have been away from home now for 3 months without seeing family or friends; Skype doesn't nearly count.

The past few days, I no longer sleep. I have hit my obstacle. Its amazing how much you can think at night when the world stops moving. News from a friend of mine really hit home. I have been thinking non stop about what I want. Me, as a person, not for those around me. I am 21 damn years old and I have so much more to do. I have so much more to see, more people to meet and damn good memories to build.

The movie trailer says "Have you lost touch...with who you are?". I have not given myself even a 2 week window in my life without being consumed by the people around me. I have never really been alone. Although personal, I have always had someone since I was 15. Now, its time for me.

I am going to risk everything. Travel the world relentlessly and just let myself...go.

I will eat, pray and love. A quote said "If you got rid of all the space in your mind, you would have a doorway and the universe would come rushing in". Well BRING. IT. ON.

So screw this. Screw those that hold me back. I refuse to let that weigh me down anymore. I am going to live my life, and laugh and smile the whole goddamn way.

"Going with the flow" may not be my new life motto, but it will come to me as I travel I'm sure. For now it will be "Eat, Pray, Love". I am leaving on Thursday for 3 weeks. I will be travelling through Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium. I cannot wait.

I have no idea what to expect, other than to expect the fabulousness of Europe. I promise myself to take risks, to eat well, drink wine, take too many pictures, dance my head off, and to laugh harder than ever before.

Being happy has never been so clear in my life !

Can't wait to keep you posted. Wish me luck.

Love you all back home xoxo

Monday, March 29, 2010

Canucks Travel to Vimy Ridge

It has been one of those things on the list that we knew we had to do. We had to venture to Vimy Ridge. I mean...we're Canadian. Duh.

So 3 Canucks and a German...go figure...set out on the adventure to visit the one and only Vimy Ridge.

Side note: no one has actually heard of Vimy Ridge in France. Honestly. The French don't know, their parents don't know (yes I asked), and even the Germans don't know. Seriously...pretty shocking, and sort of embarassing I suppose. But ridiculous none the less.

Right. Rant over; back to the story.

Turns out it is disgustingly cheap to travel in Europe; especially to Arras. With my handy dandy 12-25 card (discount for students between the ages of 12-25, go figure) it would be 9.50 EUR. Ha. What a joke. Pretty sure that has never and will never happen in Canada. BUT - it gets better - so there is this special ticket on sale for 7 EUR that discounts a group rate. Like, big time discount. We get to the counter and she is trying to sell us this card for 7 euros, when all of a sudden Manu (from Quebec) already has the card! Brilliant! We each travelled for 5 euros...return trip. Waaaadddddupppppp.

It's a gorgeous Saturday and obviously I am dressed up in my Canada Olympic sweater(I had to wear something Canadian), and we are ready to go. The ride there was super quick, only 30 mins or so and then we caught a taxi to Vimy itself. We couldn't wait.

We could see the Vimy monument in the distance and we were that much closer to crossing another thing off our list.




Turns out its more fantastic than any postcard you have ever seen. We were there at about 11:30 and the next tour started at 1pm. A group of 42 were supposed to arrive and we were gonna tag along. Kinda cool: all the people who worked there are Canadian! Yay! So nice to talk to a fellow Canuck, slash being able to understand was a bonus too.



We took it on ourself to tour the room of facts and then head to the monument. Gorgeous. Just simply stunning. I was in awe to see the 11,298 names hand engraved of all the people who were in the battle. There were wreaths left from loved ones visiting and the weather was just right. Sunny, filled with tons of clouds, but we could see a storm coming our way. Luckily - it never hit us, but the pictures were breathtaking.

We headed back to the visitors centre for 1pm to join our tour. Turns out they were late, but we chatted with the girls working there until they were ready. We took a tour through the tunnels and trenches. I have to say it was really eerie. Knowing what had happened in those tunnels you just couldn't swallow. We were told stories of how you couldnt even speak in tunnels because the Germans were scoping you out, listening to see where in the tunnels you were situated. We were able to see where the messengers slept. The photo I took had 2 beds, but the tour guide said there was anywhere from 4-5 bunk beds in there at one time. Fact: the average life span of a messenger was 5-7 days and they actually VOLUNTEERED for the position. It was prestigious because you were around those in charge.

The trenches were equally as interesting and to see how close they really were to the german trenches was terrifying. You could really put yourself in their shoes for a moment, and I really could only handle a moment anyways, but it was surreal.

The train ride back was even shorter it seemed, as we recapped everything about that day. We looked over our pictures, and not gonna lie, Paddy and I laughed our heads off at some. Before you judge, I was not laughing at Vimy Ridge but the pictures that Paddy and I had taken of the two of us. Honestly; they are engagement pictures. My arms around Paddy standing behind her, Laura has one of Paddy and I on the hill arms around each other beaming. "Save the date" quickly became the new phrase. They are hilarious, and surreal really; but damn good pictures.




It was such a unique experience to be there. I will never forget it. And I have never felt more proud to be Canadian.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Free as a bird :)

It's official. I am all better again.

I went back to the doctor's on Friday to get my final "check-up" on my collarbone, which two weeks ago wasnt even remotely healed. And since I went to Belgian Sensation AND Dublin in between there, I was not very optimistic that it would be good to go.

However, the doctor checked me out, pressed hard as hell on my bones to see if they would move (like what would he have done if they did shift, honestly?) and said that I no longer needed the brace :)

As Barney from How I Met Your Mother would say: WADDDDDDDUPPPPPPPPP

Pretty much I was on cloud nine. It was 7 weeks to the day and I was so damn sick of that thing. I mean, it was hidden and all but still, I wanted to sleep on my side again, the whole "sleep on your back and don't move thing" doesn't work for a starfisher in bed. I move constantly. And constantly paid for it the next morning.

And I'm not gonna lie, wearing all my clothes again. Thank god it was 'cold' weather and all and I could wear sweaters and such, but since its nice weather time now, more sunshine, I was eager for dresses and tshirts and the whole 'brace football player look' is not it this spring.

Even went for a run two days ago, and both the ankle AND collarbone hung in there. Finally. Its official. I'm a free bird. A braceless pigeon as Maggie now calls me. Either way. Amen.

Monday, March 22, 2010

St Paddy's Dublin Slogan: "I swear to DRUNK I'm not GOD"

It had quickly become the craziest week since we had been here. We had Belgian Sensation on Saturday and then we left for Dublin, Ireland Monday night. Super right. Who needs recovery time? Students do? Nahhhhh. Bring it on.
We had class in the morning and we all collectively decided that for our sake...being 8 girls...we should give ourselves the most time possible to travel. We caught the 2:40pm train to Brussels where we would then take a flight to Dublin. Woo! Eight girls always makes things more interesting and the first train alone, I don't think I could breathe I was laughing so hard. A great preview of the week to come for sure. Once we got to the station we had to take another bus to the airport - no problemo. Except the bus was maybe from the 70's. I'm not even kidding. It felt like we were riding a tractor and the interior reaked of the 70s patterns like a pumpking had exploded everywhere. Once again, we were in tears laughing. Who needs a bus when you can ride a tractor to the airport right? We sure didn't.

No problem when we got there. Us non EU candidates got our VISA's checked out, and then it was security. Now RyanAir is so sweet that they have really strict requirements for flying with them. The backpack has to fit in this super skinny little thing and if it doesn't you have to check your bag (30 EUR), and you can only have one carry on. So no backpack and a purse, its a packpack and anything in your hands has to fit in your backpack or you can't bring it on. Okie dokie. We were only there for 3 nights, and we would be drunk for 89% of that anyways, so who needs much? The first part of security is the RyanAir guy. He checks to make sure your bag fits and then we hit the real security check. The guy right in front of me in line must have had the smallest bag we had ever seen (smaller than any of ours) and he was being rejected to enter the plane; he had to check his bag. Crap crappity crap. I put on the big smile, walk up, and I took my bag off and put it at my feet. "You're Canadian? Isn't it really cold at home?" the guy checking my passport says...."Absolutely". Brilliant. Slid that bag right through. I mean, in my defense it would have fit. I just would have had to put 99% of the clothes I packed on. No biggie. The Canadian thing worked just fine. I was through.

Now being diabetic is a whole different game travelling. "Any fluids?" --> Insulin. Okay, no problemo. I handed her my contact solution and walked through. I get body searched. Fabulous. Pat down and she hits my insulin pump thats hidden in my bra. "What's that?". "It's my insulin pump." Well obvi she can't just believe me, so I got taken into this oober creepy little changing room type thing where she wanted me to strip to show her it wasn't anything more. I looked at her and just unclipped my pump. I ain't getting dressed when I can just show you. She was fine with that. Thank you. Come again. And we were off again. Every damn time though. You think I would get more questions about the needles in my bag, but not a word. I'm not complaining.

The flight was fast, we took off at 7:20pm and got in at 7:50 Dublin time. Now we had to get to the place we were staying. We each got a bus ticket for 5 EUR, so not expensive at all and it would take us right there. We ended up catching a different bus that dropped us off pretty close, and of course we had to ask for directions. The irish man was just laughing, 8 girls, and he couldn't quite spit it out. Turns out we were right next to our apartment and when we arrived it was a game of stealth. We had booked for 7 people, and there are 8 of us. Right. Stealth time. We mastered it by the end of the trip but this was a tricky one. You needed a key for every door, and since it was a collection of apartment complexes, there was only one entrance into the courtyard. We did it, but man was it worth it. The most GORGEOUS apartment you have seen. All hard wood, gorgeous bathrooms, 3 bedrooms of 2 beds, and the pull out couch. A huge kitchen, dining room and our big balcony. When we first checked in, the women had said we were the top floor of our apartment, so we are walking and walking and walking, and we get to the top and its the roof. Amazing view! And I think it was our little secret. Needless to say we all went out for some beer before we had arrived at our apartment and we had a nice little part on the roof. Looking out over Dublin, having a Dutch Gold beer (not bad at the beginning but man, after 3 days I will never touch it again). A gorgeous way to start our trip. We stayed up late, chatting and drinking on the roof, but we had planned to do a tour bus the next morning so we called it quits.

Now, with 8 girls, you can only imagine how long it takes for everyone to get ready. Kill me now was more the story behind that one. We had 2 showers and not everyone showered so it wasn't that bad, but we had to get up pretty early. Paddy and I shared a room, and I love the snooze so I had promised her first shower and well...turns out when the alarm went off, my brain turned off, and I just got up and zombie walked to the bathroom thinking she had already got ready. I didn't bring anything with me, no shampoo, no towel nada. Amen for Paddy right. She had a good chuckle when I started yelling her name (once I actually woke up). Once we were all ready, it was time to rock n roll in Dublin.

First - breakfast. We found a cute place called 'Kylemores' and it was the full Irish breakfast for cheap. Incredible: baked beans, sausages, toast, coffee, hashbrowns and bacon. Thank you Irish gods. Paddy and I had been going through some mega withdrawal from the English breakfast...because the french don't eat breakfast? They eat baguettes and cigarettes. I missed a good hearty breakfast. The English pulled through everytime and so did the Irish. Of course, we needed our paraphanalia for the trip. Our Irish gear! We went into Caroll's shop (pretty much the MAIN shop for gear) and all picked out our gear for the week. We ended up all getting matching headbands with sideways green hats on them, and then some people got boas, necklaces, and I got an Ireland scarf. We were thrilled.

We ended up finding our tour bus getaway no problem, with the help of an Irish tour guide. He loved our getups, and he had the most intense accent we had heard yet. We had to ask him to repeat everyonce in a while, but we didn't mind. The ginger hair topped it off too. We got on our bus and naturally grabbed seats on the top of the double decker (duh). There were 23 stops in total....and not gonna lie, we got off at one. Now, before you get all judgemental. We were able to take stellar pictures of tons of things, and since it was St Paddys day, a lot of things weren't open due to the holiday. And it turns out it was freezing. The wind was killer, and once again we were all dying laughing at how we came to Europe for the good weather and we were gonna die of cold. Ridiculous. We had our eye on the prize stop: Jameson Whiskey Distillery at stop 20. Laura was ready to kill us at stop 15 because she had to pee so badly, but we had to hang in there. Whiskey would warm us up. Clearly we are students right. We get on at stop 2, and get off at stop 20. Ridiculous when you think about it. But so worth the wait. We get in, and everyone but me heads to the bathroom. Right - I get in line for our tickets for the tour (which is an hour) and the bar next to us while we wait would be stellar. It was calling my name. These pink drinks looked insanely good, and they had something called "Hot Whiskey". Perfect. We get our tickets for the tour and have a half hour to kill before it starts? A drink? Duh. I got the pretty pink drink which turns out to be a Macree, and the most delicious thing your mouth could have asked for.

We are all drinking, sitting at our little table, with our hats, and a TV crew comes over. Yep, we were on TV. CBS morning show to be exact. He asked us where we were from and if we had an Irish background. So that was pretty cool talking to him but it was time for our tour! Now my buddy Adrian said, if they ask for a volunteer put your freaking hand up. We had a little introduction video, all 8 of us sat in a row, and when the time came for volunteers we all shot our hands up. 2 of us got chosen (Hillary and Paddy), but we were just glad we would see first hand what they had volunteered for! Turns out it was Whiskey taste testing...oh boy. We do our tour which was great and then with your ticket came a free whiskey drink - yesssssss. We grab our drinks (Jameson whiskey and gingerale was my choice) and we got some good seats to watch the taste testing. Turns out they had three types of Whiskey, and they had to chase with water? Barf. But very entertaining. Paddy struggled a bit, and turns out Jack Daniels is her fav (please note out of a table of 10+ people she was the only one who didn't chose Jameson as her favorite). Idiot.

Jameson Distillery was fantastic but we were starving now. Home time for some dinner. We catch our tour bus back to the main street: O'Connell. We stock up on beer and snacks for the next day (Dutch Gold obviously) and now we needed to find our new hotel for the night (so sad, we were only able to have the apartment for the first night). But this place once again was booked for 7, and was cheap. We get a cab there and we arrive at the Deer Lake Lodge Inn (or something like that). We walk in and Amy books it to the bathroom to hide (because we are only 7 after all). Turns out they had overbooked, and they didn't have enough room for us. We would be sleeping on cots, and we said hells no. We paid for beds, so we need those. This place was supposed to be for 2 nights, so mine as well make it count. He said he had an apartment style place that 4 of us could sleep (3 in the bedroom and 1 in the living room). We really didn't have a choice, we had booked it, and it was nightime now, so not the best time to look for a new place. Show us the apartment. Turns out, his family member lives there? Are you kidding me? Clearly they had had a party in the living room, chips and laundry everywhere. Righttttt. The guy was super nice, and he was very apologetic. He then mentioned that they had a sister hotel right on the main street O'Connell and he would check with them if they had extra rooms. You do that.

We sat there, busting into the chips now cause we were all depressed at this idiotic situation and talked about how there was no way we would get the main street hotel. It was hard enough to find this one, let alone, on the main street. It's St Paddys day after all. The previous day at the Jameson Distillery we had rubbed the lucky stone, and turns out it paid off. There were two rooms available at the main hotel. No freaking way. We would be main street Dublin for the best time of year! Yessss! Got ourselves a cab back, checked in and turns out the rooms were 110 euros/per person/per night. Because the hotel had messed up overbooking, we were able to get the hotel for what we had already paid: 20 per person/per night. Wow. Could we be any luckier?

Now for real...food time. We figured we would drink and then head for dinner and then the bar. Like the world, its illegal to drink on the street and cops were everywhere. Our hotel guy said we would be arrested if we were caught. Well no thanks, I don't need any of that so we decided to hide them in our coat until we found a little place on a side street or something to finish them. Turns out McDonald's came first. The bathroom? Oh yes. We sure did. We chugged back our Dutch Gold in the McDs bathroom. Could we be any classier? I don't think so. However, the group picture we got was priceless. Okay, beers done, seriously, we need food. We had seen a great place on our bus tour, so we decided to hit that place back up. It was in temple bar area, and now that we were main street, it wasn't far away at all! Turns out, it was closed, but we found a fantastic pizza place right on the side street. Delicious, hot, fresh. Hit the spot. Now we needed to party. Temple Bar area is famous for their bars, and especially with St Paddys day, we were sure it would be wild. Walking down the street alone you were shoulder to shoulder with people from all over the world. I swear there were more tourists than Irish folk. You never really knew someone was Irish until they spoke.

We were walking from bar to bar trying to pick a place to go when all of a sudden two guys approach and asked us if we would hold a sign for their friend Robin. Turns out their buddy Robin was evicted from the country and was sent back to Canada! So they were taking picture of a bunch of girls holding this "wish you were here Robin" sign. Of course we did it!

The night was fantastic and filled with bar hopping between different places. All we wanted was a place that played some damn Irish music that we could dance to. We came back around 3ish, considering it was St Paddys day and we knew we were in for a long day. We had no idea. We got up the next morning, got our gear on, and went and got some damn good breakfast from Kylemore's. HAPPY ST PADDYS DAY! Because we were on the main street, we were on the main street of the parade! 500,000 people were there, everyone dressed in green, it was super cool. We decided to hit up the Guinness factory and then hit Temple bar at night. The Guinness factory would only take a little bit right? Right. Turns out we were there for almost 6 hours. Of course, Paddy got in for free because anyone with a derivative of Patrick. Damn her. We thought about getting fake ID's...but it was only 11 EUR to get in, so we figured we would just suck it up. There are 7 floors to this place - just massive. Where do we begin?

Free food and drink on floor 2. And we were off. A guinness bread with salmon, complimented by Guinness stout. Delicious. Minus the bread - I just ate the salmon. But still - who can complain about free beer? We went up a couple levels and we were waiting for the others to join us when all of a sudden a man approaches me, and asks where I'm from: Canada. "Right then, follow me". A little hesitant he says "I'm an Irish man, you can trust me". So I take his hand and follow him not even 5m away to a radio booth. Oh shit. "Take a seat love". I heard that, looked at Paddy and said "sit your ass down too". So she did. Turns out we were on a live radio station. We talked about Canada, and my "love" for Celine Dion. Super sarcastic by the way. And what we were doing here, and how we came for St Paddys Day. At the end of the chat, he handed us two gift bags filled with Guinness apparel: a magnet, pens, note books, and stuff from his radio station TODAYfm. We got a "Turned on yet" tshirt, and Guinness chocolates. Free stuff! We were off to the party room, it should have been called that, because they were handing out free Guinness like it was their job, they had Irish dancing, and the best part: we were able to join in after. Of course we jumped on that. I had a partner from Michigan, and then an Italian. But god did we laugh. The women beside me was turning her partner round and round; needless to say she was wasted and lost her balance on more than one occasion.

Then we were off to the top floor: floor 7 for the 360 degree view of Dublin; and our free drink. Hells yes. The best part: the foam of our Guinness was stamped with a shamrock. Unbelievably cool. I was a Guinness virgin before St Paddys day, but I gotta say, by the end of the day I was quite pro. We easily must have had 8 each with all the freebies, but we had a blast. There was music, drinks everywhere and of course people. Friends we had met at the Jameson distillery we met up with at Guiness too, so that was cool.

Once again, we hadn't eaten since breakfast so we were starving. We took the classy way home: a horse carriage ride. I have always wanted to take one, but this had to be the funniest one yet. So Paddy, Basia, Maggie and I got in one, and we were off. We were taking pictures, joking around, when I asked what the horses name was: I heard Lily, Maggie her Millie so we weren't quite sure. But quickly, Maggie discovered she was allergic to the horse. Holy crap I have never laughed so hard in my life. We were all in tears as she is cursing Millie for being our horse and wondering how close we were to home. By the end of the ride her eyes were the colour of our red blanket. I couldn't breathe laughing so hard at one point. Maggie did not thank the horse for the ride. We were dropped off in Temple Bar district and we in search of the great food place we had wanted the other night. Of course, being St Paddys day, the bars overtake the restaurant area of restaurants and there was a little dinky thing outside with food. No luck.

We finally settled down at an Italian place and it quickly became the funniest dinner I have ever experienced. I couldn't even repeat half of the things we talked about, but it was a combo of Maggie dying in the corner and men. I'm pretty sure we were dying laughing the entire trip really. We all went home for a power nap, and started drinking. Back to temple bar and boy we were ready this time. We met 'Robin's' friends again (the one we held the sign for) and I ended up writing another message on my arm for him. Too funny. We danced the night away, drank away and just loved every second of being there.

Some of us ended up closing the bar. On our way we hit McDs and realized it was almost 4:30am; our cab to take us to the hotel was coming at 5:45am...ugh. That came so quickly. We pretty much just took a nap. When the alarm went off I thought it was a joke, there is no way this is happening. Then I hear Paddy "you have 10 mins". Crappppp. Pretty sure we were still drunk as I am trying to pack my life back into my damn backpack. I could barely fit it all (considering we got our gift bag from the radio guy) slash I was drunk, which never really helps your packing skills.

So we jumped in the cab and began our long ride back to Lille. The airport was quite humorous, the longest line ever getting into security and finally we all collapsed waiting for the plane to start loading passengers. We were all out cold within minutes, and all you could see from behind the seats were our green hands slowing falling to the side as our heads bobbed.

All in all, the trip was filled with Dutch Gold, leprechauns, Guinness and some really good times. The fact that Dublin was gorgeous and the people are so nice just topped it off. I could not have asked for a better trip.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Belgian Sensation What? Belgian Sensational

Belgian Sensation. Where do I even begin writing about this night. Well I guess starting off with the outfits. Requirements state that you have to be head to toe white. Rightttt. I thought wearing white after labour day is bad luck?; but thats cool. I have had enough bad luck, what can happen eh? Well...I was going to a rave, so there was potential but still. I was psyched. My first ever rave with 30,000 other people, all dressed in white. I could only imagine how insane it would all look. But then back to the dilemma: I do not own white. If you know me, you kinda know that I am already pale as hell, so I kinda like to look alive when I get dressed, so I have avoided white a good portion of the time. No hiding anymore. Off to carrefour. It was Cally, Paddy, Laura and I before the gold medal hockey game (same night we purchased 5L of rose wine for 4.50 EUR) and we thought we would look for some accessories. Laura found a cute white cheap shirt, and I happened to come across this one dress for barely anything at all. Fantastic. And because of my super hot collarbone brace, I wanted something to cover it. Naturally my options are less, but this dress was fantastic. Done and done. Next!

The day came. We had slept in due to the fact we went to bed late the night before, but that was fine. We would do some work during the day and the bus was leaving at 6. We had to be there for 5:30. Well the day wasn't quite as productive as planned, and the time came so damn fast. Laura and I just powered through getting ready starting at about 430pm, and Cally and Paddy were coming over at 5. We looked fantastic. One by one Paddy, Cally and Laura came out and showed off their outfits. Sensational - no pun intended. But really - it was so cool.

We walked to the train station where the bus was picking us up and that is when the night officially began. We began to see other people dressed in white coming and soon enough there was a nice crowd of us. Now...we just need the bus. Of course the bus ended up being an hour late, however in the process we met a group of guys who quickly became the highlight of our nights. Ridiculously crazy. We hung out with them jamming to some music outside and then finally....THE BUS! Off to Hasselt, Belgium! We get on, get some spots, but the guys that we were talking with before came up to get us saying we had to sit back with them - cool; sounds good to us. Now we were ready to go. Of course not. In France for every 45 minutes the bus driver drives they receive a 30 min break. Right. Not in Canada - get your ass driving mister! I wanna go to sensation! We popped our bottle of 167 before the bus started and we were off! Little did we know we were about to start one of the most epically crazy nights yet.

The guys in front of us were loud, in your face, picture crazy and just loving every second of it. Everyone had drinks open and it quickly became an open bar passing bottles around left right and centre. Super. Sanitary. I tried not to think too much about it. We must have taken 300 picture on the bus alone before even getting to the event. Now a little bit more of the guys from in front of us: (1) blow out guido (2) picture babay (3) tongue rings. I really don't know where these guys are from, but I think its a ritual when you are 18 you get your tongue pierced. All of them....like 8 guys ALL had their tongue pierced. And loved taking picture of them. Epic. People watching at the best of times.

Of course guido blow out (who must have had 12 pounds of gel in his hair and sunglasses from Claire's), who was amazing by the way, but funny, anyways he thought the bus was quiet (not even close) so he gave the bus driver his phone to plug in his tunes. Blasted that shit for the entire world to hear I'm pretty sure. So we're driving and we have had a good chunk of alcohol at this point and I need to pee. Cally said it was a 30 minute bus ride so we had been given'r. Like really taking advantage of our time. Turns out it is a 2.5 hour bus ride. Thankfully our bus driver stopped twice...not for bathrooms but for us all to buy more smokes and alcohol. Right. You are amazing sir. Our tour guides were abercrombie and fitch models I'm pretty sure because everyone was posing with them. I mean they were quite nice on the eyes. The second best part, we met another Canadian on the bus! Andrew was from Edmonton and brave enough to venture alone on this rave adventure. We all partied it up on the bus together and ended up sticking together the whole night with our group.

By the time we all get there everyone is loving life, all bottles are empty and I have mentally worked myself up for this 30,000 person, 9 hours of dancing, all white rave. I can do this. Damn right we can. But I have to say we didn't want to get off the bus - it was the craziest bus ride of our lives and the night hadn't even started yet. Go figure. We get out of the bus and I can't even believe it. A sea of white. I had never seen anything like it. Incredible really. We get in, and there is this bed. "Ooooo what is that for!?" TAKING PICTURE OF COURSE! Yes yes yes, we jump in line and there we are. Cally, Laura, Paddy, Andrew and myself. Best. Picture. Ever. Of course it didn't look that good on the first attempt; pretty sure it just got our legs we were so high on the bed, but the second shot is sensational - no pun intended.




Now - rave time. We walk in and you lose your breath it is so gorgeous. A sea of white people, the enormous set (shaped as a butterfly with wings) and the music just pumping through to your core. Amen. Why have I never done this before!? We held hands like kindergarden students and snaked our way to the front of the stage. Insane. Everyone fist pumping like the jersey shore and high on life (and other things I'm sure). This is where I received my epic scar of the night. First I should let you know that you can smoke inside. Absolutely. Picture that, at least 20,000 people lighting up around you, music pumping, and fist pumping. No need for a smoke machine when you have personal machines all around you. So my story: a very nice gentleman beside me was smoking, duh, and just dropped his cigarette. Well turns out my arm was right underneath him - super - and it landed right on me. Friggggg was the absolute PG version for that one. That crap hurts. So my skin has this super hot scar now, that I can tell my kids I got at a 30,000 person rave...not a bad story actually. Maybe I'll wait until they are older for that one...



Either way the rest of the night quickly became a blur of drinks, people, pizza, crap burgers and fist pumping. We kept switching from dancing on the floor to a seated area (like an arena) so you could stand up on staged levels, but if you wanted to sit you could. Brilliant really. Sitting is deadlly though. This night went from 9pm to 6am. You sit, your adrenaline slows and your ass is asleep. Laura was quick to get me back up as she saw the eyelids shutting at one point. I was back up in no time.

We danced all night, took tiny breaks for water and food and were back at it. The bathroom was the other funny part. We were all too cheap to buy water (which was an arm and a leg), so we ventured to the bathroom to drink from the tap. Don't judge. It was cold, and it was anywhere from 2-6am. We needed water ASAP. The girls you saw in there however, were our pick-me-ups. The highest heels you have ever seen (cough, cough, dumbass), white bikinis, or the best one I saw...a nurse's halloween costume. Right on.

I have to say thus far, Europe has been a 10/10 on people watching. Never get tired of it. Ever.

Just as the night was packing up, we witnessed the most hilarious gay-battle off of two men dancing. One was shirtless and the other was more inner bubble dancing. Maybe they were trying to impress each other? It was fantastic. An absolute blast. We danced with them and were just having a ball. Sooner than expected 6am rolled around and the place was closing down. I couldn't believe we actually survived it. It was amazing though. We wobbled our asses back to the bus and found our seats again. Of course we stopped for french fries as a 7am snack before the bus took off. Not the greatest, but hey, it was the first "real" food we had had since 4pm the day before. No complaints here. Not even two minutes into driving home we were out cold.

The walk back home to our apartment was fantastic at 9:30am, as people are staring at us wondering where we were coming from. The answer: Sensation Belgian Wicked Wonderland Biatch.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Comedian is my Middle Name

I have always considered my name to be quite simple. Sarah Eaton. 10 letters, easy pronounciation, and pretty common sense filled. Even when I'm on the phone with someone in Canada I say "Sarah with an 'h' and Eaton like the Eaton Centre". Never any questions. Its perfect. Always a nice easy name, until I came to this damn country.

My name has been butchered more times than I can even say. It's becoming hilarious actually.

Here are my names to date:

(1) Student ID card: Sarah Faton
(2) School Library card: Sarah Featon
(3) The bank: Madame Eaton Sarah (great, they think Sarah is my last name...)
Funny story about this one, and this was a recent discovery. I pulled out my bank card during the whole metro fine fiasco, and Paddy was looking at it. I asked what she was looking at it, and she said my name. It said: "Madame Eaton Sarah". Hers says her name properly, but nope, too difficult. This was the first day Paddy and I had met, when we created our bank accounts. The whole name/prenom here is backwards from Canada, so I had put my names in the wrong boxes. When I handed my forms back in, I asked if this was okay, and she said no problem, they would fix it.....yeah; liars.
(4) Hospital: Courtney Sarah Eaton (yup, swapped the middle name and first name)

I honestly cannot wait to see another one. I never ever thought this would be possible, but hey, everything seems to be possible over here. Unreal! I'm sure there will be another to report on. I really don't think anyone has yet to get my name right.

Metro Fine Shinanigans

So I'm not going to lie, I do not always pay for the metro...in fact; I rarely, barely ever, pay. We have a system here. There are men in green jackets who are out to get you, and we watch out for them. I happen to live in the heart of the city, so my metro stop is quite large, therefore constantly flooded with the 'green jackets'. Boo. Like I said though, we have a system. If going to school we see the green jackets, we have to purchase, but then if you don't we don't. And coming back from school you can peek up and see if they are there, and if they are we always said we would see them and then get back on the metro and go to the following stop.

This was the plan until I got caught. Twice. The first time I got caught, I swore I had stamped my ticket. There was a big group of us, and I was certain I had stamped it. So when we came up the escalator and saw the green jackets, I didn't panic. I went to get my ticket and pulled out 6 that were right. Right..."it's here somewhere....let me just look" was really all I could say. Then he said the fine was 42 EUR. Hells no. "42 DOLLARS!?" was all I could then say. I know dollars is incorrect, but I was so pissed that I would have to pay 42 euros, my brain wasn't really functioning. By the way....the ticket it 0.65 EUR....right. 42, or 0.65. Crap. So I'm looking everywhere determined that the ticket was in there somewhere....but it just wasn't happening. He asked me for my passport which I clearly didn't have on me, and then he asked where I was from. "Canada"....he said "Go back to Canada" and let me go. Not such a nice guy to tell me to bug off, but nice enough to literally let me walk away. I vowed to always buy a ticket. That probably lasted until the next morning.

So now to my second time. I went home from class mid-day (which I hadn't planned on doing, but forgot something). I look up the escalator to scope out the green jackets and nada. Coast is clear. Yeah.....bastards knew my trick. A big ring of them were standing 10m back from when you get off the escalator. When I saw a bunch of them, I mean like 6-8 men. You cannot walk past them, because naturally our metro is filled with machine-gun loving police. Why they need machine guns in the metro I am still not sure, however, I was busted. I tried to pull the "I always buy a ticket" crap and he just didn't care. It was supposed to be 42 EUR, or 47 EUR since I couldn't pay on the spot...but since he knew I was upset, he put it down to 28 EUR which would be 33.60 since I couldn't give him money on the spot. Ugh. Crap crap crap. Paddy automatically got a text on that one.

Soooo I would have to venture to the building to pay my fine. I had 5 days. I suckered Paddy into coming with me, of course, which she was just so thrilled with, but we were off. Turns out you have to take the tram there, not just the regular metro. Paddy and I are standing there debating whether to buy a ticket or not...but we figured since I was on my way to pay a fine, we should pay. FYI really good people watching on the tram. Like I'm talking prime people watching. Paddy and I had a field day. But more so, we had no idea where the hell we were. We could not recognize anything from outside the window, and it seemed too posh, so knowing us, we took the wrong train and were on our way to Belgium or something. However, we finally arrived at our stop. Perfect. Paddy said "where to now?"...."ughh I have no idea, I didn't mapquest the directions" was my response. Once again, Paddy was thrilled with me, but we found a map and tracked down what we assumed was the address. Perfect. Let's go. It was about a 3 minute walk, and when we got there....it was closed. "Really? Are you sure?"....yeah the time said so. We had to wait an hour before it opened again. Paddy really wasn't loving me now. Oh ps: the gold medal men's game was the night before....so we didnt really sleep much and Paddy was hungover; understatement of the year.

An hour to kill: let's get lunch. Well apparently we were in the middle of nowhere and there was nada. One chinese food restaurant we contemplated...but we didn't see noodles on the menu, which was all we wanted, so we figured they weren't good. Finally, we found a little sandwich place. One man ran the show, and there were like 8 of us in line. Brilliant. We have tons of time to kill anyways. So we waited, and waited and waited. Man oh man were we ever standing there forever. People watching, constantly, yet exhausted and wanting to sit down. Oh, and I had no change. Sweet sweet Paddy treated. High on life. We finally get our sandwiches and they were totally worth the wait. Delicious. We still had about 40 mins to kill so we walked back to our stop where we originally got off the tram and sat, and chatted, Paddy debated pushing me over the tracks for dragging her into this, but she loves me, and I'm her entertainment so she decided against it.

Finally it was time to go back and pay. Right on. So we walk back, and in, and.....I can't seem to get the door open. I hear it buzzing, and yet I can't seem to get the door open. I'm in tears laughing so hard, because the door is now alarming, and I can't seem to push it open. Finally we get it. Right. Okay, we're in. I walk to the counter and ask if this is where I pay the bill. She said "no no, down the street right near the tram stop"....crap. Are you kidding me? Paddy is now killing me with glances and I'm dying laughing. You see...Paddy and I had passed this place before on the walk to get lunch. We even said "Imagine if this is where I had to pay for my ticket"...but it seemed off, and sketchy and nah...it was more a parking lot with huge gates. Not for us. Yeah well that's exactly where we had to go back to. Brilliant. So we get there, and I finally found an entrance into a building, walk up the counter and ask if this is where I have to pay for my ticket. "no no, right down the street, literally right across the street from the tram stop". ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? Now I'm crying laughing, not even believing this is happening to us. Third time the charm. This has to be it. 906 was the number we were looking for....and when we finally found it I thought it was a joke.

The tiniest little, sketched out door you have seen. No real sign saying what it is at all, but the hours of operation said it was been open all day...they didn't close for lunch. So Paddy and I didn't really need to get lunch, and kill an hour. I was a dead man. Big trouble with Paddy. Okay, so I open the door and walk in and not kidding you, I thought I was in jail. Top to bottom the walls were covered with graffitti and the room was the size of a closet. There was a waiting room type thing, but no receptionist or anything. One door has big "no enter" signs, and the other one didn't have a door handle. Are you serious? This is it? Once again, Paddy and I are bent over in tears because we are now in jail.

We hear the little alarm going off for the door, and yet neither of us knew where the sound was coming from. Am I supposed to open a door? Really? Which one? Into where?....Thats when the women came onto the speakers informing us that the door was to the right of us. Rightttt. So I push it open, and honestly, I had to laugh. There were little rooms with bullet proof windows on them, and I had to first enter a little glass room, and the women I had to pay was on the other side of the glass. "Is this where I pay for the ticket?". Yes. Oh mannn. Finally. Paddy and I still have tears streaming down our faces.

Finally I paid and we were on our way. Were half laughing about how dumb we are, and how this would only ever happen to us, slash laughing at how that was the sketchiest venue I had ever seen. I will not get another ticket, because there is no way I'm going back there. But at least I know where it is now! Bright side of life eh.

So we are waiting to catch the tram back, laughing at our little adventure and once again, we decided to pay for our ticket. I still had no change, so Paddy was the payee of the day. I pay for my ticket no problem, and then its Paddy's turn. She had a whole bunch of 5 cent coins to get rid of, and this machine actually took 5 cents, so she had to put in 1.60 EUR worth of 5 cents. That's when I saw the tram coming. GO GO GO! PUT THE CHANGE IN FASTER! GOOOO! The tram pulled up, and Paddy is feeding the machine money like mad. I'll give you the play by play. The tram doors open, Paddy is still putting in money, the doors are open, she is almost there. And then the doors closed lol we did not make that tram. I'm doubled over because I am laughing so hard, slash I had sounded like a football coach yelling at her. And so we waited. Again. For the next tram.

When we got on, it was prime people watching. Honestly you see the funniest things when you look. We pretty much cried laughing the whole way back. That's when we parted, and I'm sure Paddy was so damn thankful to be parting ways. But...I had successfully paid my metro fine
.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The Joys of Being Canadian in France

Oh the Olympics. First off: Amazing. Secondly: being Canadian in France was a funny one for the Olympics. It started off with my red Canada mitts, and Guillaume making fun of me. They really do think they are the dumbest things they have ever seen, and I LOVE them. And the fact that Vancouver was seriously lacking snow didn't help either. Canada was the joke of France for a while, because for the first time in years, Lille got snow. Now when I say snow, I mean like 2cm, and it melts by the end of the day, but to them that's huge. They were all joking around about how they could host the Olympics better than we could, and maybe they should be nominated for the next winter games - all in all it was fun though.

Our game place was Cally's house. He had a flatscreen....aka his laptop but that was alright with us. We bought 24 beers for less than 5 euros for the semi-final rounds and we honestly just gathered around. Mainly Canada/USA gathered around to watch. To be honest, not that many people were into the Olympics. One of our friends from Brazil didn't even know it was the Olympics until he saw the google icon. Brilliant.

Now the real story comes for the men's gold medal game. Unfortunately being 6 hours ahead of Ottawa time, and 9 hours ahead of Vancouver, its a mega pain in the ass to watch events. Half of them for us are in the middle of the night. Right. As much as I debated just not having a life and watching TV all day, there wasnt that much to watch. You see we have a TV in the apartment, however, the Olympics was the first time we have turned it on all semester. We don't have a 'living room' either, so an extra mattress was put in our front hallway to sit on and watch. But back to the Sunday night, men's gold medal game. It aired at 9:15 our time which was fantastic. We had bought 5L of beer for 4.50 EUR.....pardon? Repeat? Okay: 5L for 4.50 EUR. Waddddd up? Needless to say we were set.

And crafty doodle Laura had cut up her red fleece blanket to make us the most kick ass shirts ever. We knew we needed a costume. But we didn't want to spend a ton of money, slash its not like they sell Canada flag iron on's here. So Laura came up with the brilliant plan of cutting out the two red rectangles and the maple leaf and we could stick them to white shirts. She aced it. They looked insanely good. So there we were, drinks in hand, costumes on ready to watch the game. There wasnt a big group of us. 3 Canadians, 1 American, 1 German and 1 Mexican. Awesome crowd right? I know.

We had some of the normal drinking games, but we decided we needed some hockey related ones, so we made our own. We had simple rules: drink for everything...icing, fights, penalties, goals you had to chug a bit (don't worry - we were safe). And oh yeah...the losers of the game had to eat chile peppers. A little extra shabang at the end.

We spent the night screaming and yelling, pouring drinks and all on the edge of our seats. The game was amazing and we were loving every second of it. When Canada won - we went bananas. But boy oh boy did we earn it. Now everyone has seen the famous picture of number 25 drinking straight from the bottle as her friend pours champagne in her mouth. We decided to re-enact this picture. I mean c'mon...we did win.



Not quite the same, but man did we have some laughs taking this damn picture. And as promised, the Americans ate their chile peppers...and suffered. Paddy was like a raving lunatic trying to find something dairy in the kitchen to kill the spiciness. She found some milk in the fridge...and it was empty. She found some bread...and it was so rock hard it was a legal weapon in the USA. I was peeing my pants laughing, meanwhile taking pictures every 3 seconds like it was my job.

The walk home that night was fantastic. We held our heads a little higher knowing that Canada had rocked these Olympics, and we were really proud to be Canadian. Paddy wasn't so thrilled to listen to us rant, but she did anyways. I mean after all - Germany rocked the Olympics too...just not quite as many golds as us. Oh snap.

Physio: Da Da Dumm

I'm just kidding. Physio isn't THAT bad. But god it took forever to find someone. Researching online is not that easy. I had asked the hospital where I was supposed to get physio, and if they knew of anywhere they could recommend. He couldn't even think of one....and you're supposed to be my doctor? Super. I'll do my own research. However, what the hell are you supposed to write in a google search? "Physiotherapist in Lille, France"? Yep, thats what I did. It came up with a few pages, and finally I found one with a whole bunch of names and numbers on it.

I asked Guillaume for some help, because a) I have no idea if these are even real b) it would be so much easier for him to call and say what I need, instead of me trying to get across that I broke all my bones. I mean don't get me wrong, I have been doing really well speaking french, but, explaining my idiotic fluke accident, that I broke 3 bones....not my brightest moment ya know? And I needed him to ask how payment worked, do I pay? Does my insurance here pay? I had no idea. After all, I have never done this before.

So finally I was able to find someone, and only an 8 minute walk from my place. Fantastic. Convenient. I liked it.

Turns out to be the nicest girl, looks like she might be early twenties, and must have asked me 5 times how I managed to do this. She didn't believe me the first 4 times I told her it was a dog. Not even a bit convinced. Yeah. Like I said....not my brightest moment. So the first session was easy, she just wanted to take a look, ask me some questions and see where and what exercises we should do from there.

Good news is she doesn't think its fractured. She thinks the way I fell, that I tore it, or twisted it, but that it might not be a hairline fracture after all. Right on. Totally easy to heal, and fast, I approved.

Now to exercises....let me tell you that I thought she was kidding. She wanted me to do the silliest, more simple exercises on my foot, like bending and stretching and holding it, and balancing, etc. I know its to test out my strength, etc, etc, but I honestly thought she was joking it sounded so easy. Yeah....I spoke too fast. Turns out, I sucked. Balance was crap, my ankle was shaking non stop, and all the tendons were not impressed with me. It didn't hurt, it was just hard. Needless to say, I have not questioned any of her exercises to date, and we are now doing balancing, jumping things on one foot onto those damn gymnastic balance ball things you always see people using at the gym when I always wonder what they hell they are doing. Yeah, those. Half circle, squishy things. I am not a fan. They are hard.


My doctor has instructed me to do 20 sessions, and to date I have done 4. Woo. 2 times per week, not too shabby. I'm getting there. Speaking of healing, I went back to the hospital on Tuesday to check my collarbone, get some x-rays....and MY BONES AREN'T EVEN TOUCHING! Pardon? Is that normal? I mean, I feel so much better, I thought the bones would re-allign or something. Not so much. So I have to go back in 2 weeks for some more x-rays. I'm hoping by the end of March I will be good to go with no more brace.


In between now and my next exam I have a couple of events: Belgian Sensation which is an enormous rave (safe), with 30,000 people. Right. Event #2 is St. Paddy's day in Dublin, Ireland. Yeahhhhhh and my exam for new x-rays is the day after I get back from Dublin.

Wish me luck!

THE List

You know how everyone has a list...the list of things they want to accomplish before they die? I'm talking about the ultimate bucket list. Well...Paddy and I sort of created a shorter term list...THE list of Lille.

Now this is post is not rated G, so little ones, earmuffs...or I guess in this case....sunglasses? Whatever. No little ones.

Paddy and I started talking one night at the bar. We were at a place called the DrugStore (don't judge - its great) and the bathroom is filled with graffitti of all the people that have been there, and it was kinda cool. So we were joking around saying that before we left Lille, we would have to add our names. Cool. One thing, then we came up with more. You see there was this man...asleep at the bar. Not kidding. He wasn't dead, he was just drunk and asleep. As my dad would say "resting his eyes". Not. He was outcold. A 'nap' that bartender said. HA. Are you kidding me? You can do that here? You see...we would be kicked out in Canada. Duh. No no, you take a nap, and then when you are ready, you can come back for more. Fascinating. Taking a nap at a bar was then added to the list. Like we said...no judging. And you can only live once.

Seriously though - how funny would that be? Can you imagine? Taking a little nap at the bar - oh gosh I can picture it now. Needless to say, it has yet to be checked off.

While we talked about the list, we decided "learn something" should be on there. After all, we are here for school. That was number 4 on the list. Ride a moped is number 15, walking to Belgium is number 17, and so on. We are students so there are some normal things on here like travelling to places, or going to museums, and operas. But since its us we are talking about, there are some hilarious ones on there too.

#30: Going to Wazemmes market at 7am straight from the bar. Let me explain. Wazemmes market is famous here on Sundays', Tuesday's and Thursday's. It has everything and anything you could need and its cheap. Right. Second part of that is that bars close at 6am, if that, so our brilliant plan was to go to the bar and stay until 6am, and by then the metro would be working and go straight to Wazemmes market which opens at 7am. In that hour we figured we could get something to eat. Or a coffee. Whichever we see first really.

#32: Go to Boys II Men. HA. Right? So, apparently Boys II Men is coming to Lille....why, we aren't really too sure, but we laughed for a solid 5 minutes about this one. I'm pretty sure I have their CD somewhere at home, but I was not aware they were still making music. They play this weekend coming up actually, Sunday night at a theatre near by. We are NOT purchasing tickets. However, since its on the list, we will be purchasing a bottle of cheap wine, and bringing some stools to sit outside of the theatre (apparently you can still hear everything). Im psyched.

Now these are all things that we still have to do, but like I said we have managed to cross some off. These include: going to the bar called 'African Children', learning something, going on a long walk, bringing notebooks to class, watching the movie Goonies, discovering that a litre and a meter of beer are very different things, going to London, going to the 2nd best museum (Beaux-Arts), taking lots of pictures, among other things.

I'll keep ya posted, but I think the next one on the list will be walking to Belgium. We can take the metro right to the border and literally walk right over. Brilliant right? I'll keep ya posted!