Graduation and My Ladies

Graduated? Me? Hells yes!

It is official: I am done, done, done my undergrad! How fabulous! I honestly feel all grown up all of a sudden. Not really actually. Strange though, I’m excited that I’m done however you are faced with the realities of getting a job. And quickly. Fabulous. Nothing like celebrating eh.

Well the girls took me for a night out, supposedly to complete the meter beer challenge without having the same results as last time, however the bar was packed. And I mean packed. I don’t know why so many people were there, but we found a lovely little bar close by: Solferino. Brilliant. Instead of having a horizontal meter beer, we had a vertical keg of sorts that held almost 10 beers. Super cool. Of course, the girls being the girls, they got me to close my eyes. I was then presented with a fantastically large card and a makeshift cap. Bright yellow to make it even better. Love those girls. The top of my hat said “Looking for a free ride to Paris! – Class 2010” and the card noted how much I had learned over the past semester. Really, tons actually.



In my defense though, I swear Margaret Thatcher sounds like a poet’s name.

It is strange, once I was finished all my exams you can hardly believe that I have been here almost 5 months. Where has the time gone? Ridiculous. Now the issue is people start leaving you.



First to go was my lovely roommate Laura. She left us on May 15th to take the train to London where she would then fly back to Canada the 26th. We had done a last lovely lunch, aka pizza in Vieux Lille: it was perfect. One last girls lunch with the 5 of us: Storm Troopers all present. Now, her suitcase’s wheels were broken and it was way too heavy for us to carry. What do we do? As we are walking past Carrefour (our beloved grocery store down from my house) we had the brilliant idea of using one of their metal trolley systems. Hmm. Mags and I went to check it out. At first they had no idea what the hell we were talking about, but one of the guys had literally seen all 5 of us trying to carry the damn bag down the street so he knew we needed help. Not a problem he said, as long as we bring it back. Ha. We come strolling down the street to meet Laura and her bag and they were stunned. We were totally gonna push her suitcase the entire way to the station on a grocery store stacker pushy device. So funny I can’t even tell you.

We got there there alright where we held up the sign “We’ll miss you Chang!”. Tears were exchanged and it just didn’t feel real. I have been living with her for months, I go take naps on her bed while she is on the computer. We get ready to go out together and I always make her tea. What was I going to do now?

Second off was AP this past week. Once again, the girls plus one hit up Grand Place for a beer, then to our surprise McD's. Now I won’t’ kill you with the details, but I waited for about 30 minutes for my meal, then dropped my fries all over the floor. She gave me an ice cream but it was too damn hot it melted into practically water. Oh and Amy had been staying at my place for a couple days since we had moved her out of hers (her landlord was INSANE), but Amy had been living in Basia’s room all weekend while she was in Vienna, so she took Basia’s keys and Basia took mine. We are sitting having our beer when I remind Amy she has to let us back into our apartment. Of course, she doesn’t have her keys. Super. Do a little texting to the other roomies with no response. Have no fear, someone will be there. We got something to eat in the meantime and when we realized it was 5:20 and her train was at 6,we rushed back to our apartment. Was someone going to be there? Da da dummmmmm; THEY WERE! Yay, so we got AP’s bags and were off like lightning to the train station.

So there we were: Mags, Petey, myself AP and Pierre. Her train was 10 minutes late, but it was the strangest feeling standing there. You meet these new friends five months ago and all of a sudden they are leaving again. Strange feeling. AP had a tearful goodbye and she got on the train. We had a couple minutes to kill so we sent her loves messages on the glass and when it time for the train to start rolling away…we ran. What else do you do? We are running alongside the train blowing kisses to one of the girls. Pretty epic farewell if I do say so myself.



And then there were 3: Mags, Petey and I. What a better way to say bye to Petey than a night of 167 and tacos with the girls. We got dolled up and met at Mags house. 3 bottles of 167, 3 bottles of jagger and a german shot belt: a solid evening. Of course as always, we had a freaking blast. A night with the girls turned into the photoshoot of the century, I mean how could we resist right? Vivi came over later and we began the party with the four of us. Well I guess we were louder than we assumed because all of a sudden paper snowballs started flying by the window. Hmm. Weird? Yes. So we stick our heads out. 2 minutes later it turned into a paper snowball contest between us and the neighbors: Vivi was the best although she may have hit the guys face twice. Stuck in the crossfire of it all I suppose. And for some reason, God only knows, we busted out the Lion King soundtrack. But damn, did we ever rock that bad boy. I mean, we were exhausted; we put on about 3 shows a night. (Side note: Maggie’s landlord received 30 complaints from her building and swore she had a huge party at her house: party aka four girls and a Lion King soundtrack? Absolutely).



The next day Mags, Vivi, Petey and I had some tacos for her last sendoff. What the hell was I going to do without Petey? 167 had masked that thought the night before, but being sober and pulling her suitcase to the bus was weird. I saw that kid’s face every damn day. She slept in my room 99/100 nights and well, we kind of fell 15 feet together, so that counts for something. We took her to the bus and as the Polish bus approached we knew it was hers. Of course she would be on the Polish Express. Oh yeah, so she had to pay the drive 10 EUR to get her large ass bags on the bus, but other than that, no issues. We gave our hugs and said “see you soon”. Literally. My ass will be on that same bus in one month going to Berlin. FML: 13 hour bus ride. I can’t wait. And like the past couple send offs Mags and I were there like proud parents waving our Petey away. She did the running motion as the bus started and Mags and I were off running like gazelles beside the bus. Run and jump, run and jump. I’m sure Petey was all over that. We looked ridiculous. But it was all worth it, duh, I mean c’mon, its Petey.

And then we were down to 2. Jesus. Where had the time gone? My girls, and then nada. Everyone was leaving. But no one went out quite like the bam that is Mags. We had realized the night before that Mags elevator no longer worked. Crap. She lives of course on the 7th floor, but the beautiful thing about her apartment is that the 1st floor is technically the 3rd…so we had about 10 flights to work with. Fabulous. I have never been so excited. I had promised Mags I would be there at 10am with our last bottle of 167 and my running shoes to giver my all. Well funny thing about us all going out the night before, we got home late, and well I didn’t set an alarm. For anyone who knows me, my physical alarm clock is non-existant. I was just not programmed that way. I will sleep my day away. So, I’m thinking the alarm is set for 930 and you know that feeling in bed where it feels like noon, but your alarm hasn’t gone off. The best. Then I realize I didn’t set an alarm and jump off. 11am. Shatttttt. I was supposed to be there an hour ago. So I call Mags from bed, and to my luck her fam was stuck in traffic and would be there super late too. So I got my life together and headed over. We made a cheers to the last bottle of 167 and her family arrived.

One hello to Tom her dad and BAM: Brooklyn accent. You would know it in a heartbeat. How fabulous. So there were 5 of us moving Mags out: her dad, boyfriend Bram, her and I and Aberlardo came over to help us too. We could do this. Funny thing about when Mags moved in, she kinda did a confetti spill of everything, everywhere. And since packing up she had no suitcases, everything was in plastic bags. Hmm. Amen for IKEA bags though, they are the best. And huge. We had to do about 4 or 5 flights up, but man oh man, 10 flights killed us. You basically sign up for a marathon every time you enter the damn stairwell. It was insane. But we did it. Took numerous hours, but we managed just fine. How do you celebrate? Lunch.

One final lunch with Mags, her dad and Bram and she was off like lightning. The last of my Storm Trooper ladies. I was officially the last one standing. Normally you get a trophy or something, yeah, not so much in this case. It’s strange how people come in and out of your life like a flash. We met five months ago and these ladies saved me. They won’t know the impact they have had on my life. They are one of the best things that has happened to me, and certainly my Euro experience would not have been the same without them. And they came at a perfect time in my life. They were the girls who make your world a better place and make the day better just by being there. The hours we spent together, the nights we went out, the thousands of pictures and hundreds of times we have been brought to tears of laugher.

Thank you ladies; you made my trip amazing and changed me forever

Storm Troopers 167 forever xoxo

And Life Goes On...

It seems so much has been happening in the Month of May that I just cannot keep track. I unfortunately received another metro fine. I know right? This happened a while back when school was still running, but Laura and I were actually riding the metro when the green guys stopped it, came on and checked everyone’s tickets. Bastards. Neither of us had tickets, so we got off and he was lucky enough to let us split the ticket fine. Man oh man, no travelling to that jail cell on the tram again for me.

I think its been clear that 167 has been our beverage of choice for the past several month, but wowzers, post Amsterdam/the Hague, 167 had not sat quite as well. Maybe it was the 12 bottles we drank, but sadly 167 was not featured in any evening this month. We did however, bust her out this week for Petey’s final evening here: 3 bottles. Amen.

Another thing I have been quite busy with is figuring out my travel situation for the month of July. My original flight had been scheduled for July 1st, but I would like to do some more travelling for that month and ideally like to leave August 1st. Well this all sounds swell and dandy, but I needed to verify with the Canadian consulate that I could do so. Turns out they are only open from 9-12am (super long work day), so I went on a Thursday. Took the tram and started walking. I double checked with an older woman to make sure I was going in the right direction since I couldn’t see any street signs and yep I sure was. What was I looking for she asked; the Canadian Consulate. She pointed to a gorgeous old brick house filled with lilac trees. Well done Canada. So I keep walking and yep, the gate is open. Beauty. I waltz up the front steps and notice the buzzers: two family names, then underneath a sign that said Canadian Consulate below. Okay, so I go downstairs, turn the corner and BAM. The Canadian consulate is the garage. I am not even kidding you. Are you serious? Yep. A one car garage, and the door to enter labeled the Canadian Consulate. We even had one of those plastic flags sticking out. How mortifying. This is the best we could do? Wow. To top that all off: another sign that said ‘unusually closed’ today. Of course you are; a 3 hour work day was too exhausting I’m sure.

The next day we had gone to Calais so I went back the Monday to ask…and shock: they were ‘unusually closed’ for the day…again. Seriously? Let me call you up on that number you posted. Of course no one answers, so I leave a message. Turns out it is the most ridiculous process getting a straight answer from anybody. She said I had the right to stay in France 3 months, but I needed the other countries permissions that I wanted to travel to. She gave me another address to go to which I did and she said the same thing. Okay, so I am now in the process of e-mailing all the countries I am going to be visiting in July: Germany, Switzerland and Egypt. Egypt is tentative, but how cool right? So this has been a never ending story as I’m trying to book my plane to come home. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

Also – I got my hair done. What seems like ages ago now, but I got it done before heading to Germany. I had found this place not even 5 minutes from my place and it was perfect. 20% student discount, if you were under the age of 20. When I booked she had asked and I said I was, and she then said I had to show ID. There went that plan. Well when I arrived, I had to wait a while in my chair. Small place, but she had another customer. No problem. I fell asleep. No joke. I freaking fell asleep. I woke up when she came back and asked what I wanted: blonde with a cut. Fabulous. She did the colour which is super strange here: blue and no foil or anything. Like I was getting my whole hair dyed; except they were highlights. Anyways, she brought the machine to put over my head and the heat….you guessed it…put me to sleep. Unreal. Well when the timer went off, the girl came over to check my colour and was so thrilled to see that the front of my head had not seen a second of heat. I had to re-sit. Of course. She told me to stay awake this time. I put my hand under my chin and was out cold again. I woke up to find that I was being moved to the washer. Super. She left me there to see another customer and I fell asleep. It was ridiculous. Honestly, my appointment was at noon, and it was not even 1pm at this point: how is this even happening? I soon became the laughing joke of the salon I’m sure. Unreal.

So I get back and the guy is about to style my hair and jokes that I have to stay awake so he can cut properly. I made an extra effort to stay awake for that one. Now, when my hair was wet I swear she hadn’t even put any colour in. Eff. This was going to be a huge waste of 88 Euros. Ah well, faith right? Yeah well he blow dried and when he moved the hair from in front of my eyes I was so damn blonde I couldn’t believe it. Magic. Yes. Paying was the best part: I guess that note saying I was a student was still on my file, so I only paid 70 EUR. Cha-ching! I saved 18 EUR, I may have fallen asleep, but I saved 18 EUR. Great day. I loved the hair though, super short, a bit longer in the back, shorter in the front and blonde. It was a risk getting it done so far from home and on a whim, but face it. Sometimes it’s just nice to get your hair done.

Now you know when you have one of those weeks where nothing goes right and everything possible goes terribly wrong? I had one of those. Right in the middle of exam. Brilliant. You get bad news here and there from home, then we have no hot water, no furnace and no gas to cook with. For almost 3 days. Now, I am good at surviving, but c’mon now, you can’t do anything. Of course it was just our floor of the apartment that suffered from this, but somehow we managed. I think we ate cereal for 3 days. We did take a freezing cold shower once, but with a blazing headache after and almost hypothermia, you really don’t want to do that twice. Its brutal. So that was 2; the third was that that stripper swing around the pole in Amsterdam cost me a black ankle, a nice through and through black on either side. Of course it did. Ow.

Then the grand finale: it’s Sunday night around dinnertime when all of a sudden my computer picked up a virus and BAM. Not working. After a nice panic attack, I thought it’s okay, I’m sure this happens all the time. Reboot. Of course not. My computer is literally alarming at me. Yelling at me. Laura had never heard anything make that noise before, let alone my computer. I was going to lose it. I had a final exam Wednesday and well, I needed to study my ass off. I would take it to a computer place first thing the next morning to get fixed. Now finding a place was also difficult. What do you do, Google search that? Normally yes, here in France, of course not. That is too simple. Laura’s boyfriend was good with computers so he was sending Laura directions to give me while I tried to boot it up beside her. Safe mode, then run my full McAfee scan. That took what seemed like days, but honestly like 2 hours and nada. The scan picked up nothing. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE. Stupid computer. I would need to take it in somewhere. At the FNAC (shopping centre) Laura remembered seeing a computer section.

I’m picturing like a Best Buy at home, or Future Shop where they have techs working in the back. Brilliant. I got for 9am, but they didn’t open until 10am. I finally get in at 10 and deek right for the computer section I’m looking for. I wish you could have seen their faces when I asked for a computer technician. Absolutely not. He said they don’t have that in stores anymore. Pardon? No, only private companies do it. What the hell does someone do when they break the computer then? He had someone linked to the store that he could call but it would cost me 100 EUR before he even did anything. He would come to my house as well. I’m half wanting to cry but what was my other choice? I could search for another guy to come to my house, but that will be insanely expensive too. Oh man. So I ask when the guy could come to my house: next Monday. One week. Absolutely not. I need this thing ASAP.

Losing the will to live I go nail polish shopping with Laura and bought a gorgeous coral colour, but still, I could not get over the fact that there are no stores you can just walk into to fix your computer. The number of people that must be shot due to frustrated customers must be sky high. Okay, next plan was to go see Guillaume and see if he knew of anyone. Worst case scenario: the school has techs. Okay. I hadn’t lost hope yet.

I basically rush into Guillaume’s office and he saw that I had sent a “HELP ME” email already. I explained what happened and he said we could go ask the school techs. Awesome. On the way down the stairs he told me that even if they offer to take my computer and help, I should say no. Pardon? They are the school techs, are they not? Yes and they are crap. FML. Un-freaking-believable. So we get down there and the two men look at me like I am from Mars. I asked them if they knew of anywhere, and nope. Not a single name. YOU ARE COMPUTER PEOPLE. WHERE DO YOUR FRIENDS WORK? No, none of that. They mentioned one store they had heard of, but said it probably wasn’t trustworthy. They gave me that name. So helpful. I was thrilled…not. So Guillaume said thanks and then we would look on Google. I was not losing the will to live. He printed off a few names for me, and one looked promising. 45 EUR for him to just come in and go from there. Cheaper than 100, and I needed my computer back ASAP. I called him and he could see me that day at 5:30. Perfect.

Now, I am in the computer lab to kill some time, when I see my dad come online Skype. I fill him in and he sent a quick email to the tech at work. Gave me the directions to follow and things to download then transfer. Okay, I can do that. I managed to get my computer on in safe mode momentarily without it yelling at me and got the programmed installed and running. I was really beginning to be optimistic. It was almost 4:30 and the guy was going to my place for 5:30 so I made a quick call to cancel on the off chance that the directions I had been following would work. If not I could call him back. I get back into the computer lab after I get off the phone sit down and I swear to you not even 2 minutes later my computer started alarming. In this situation the only way to make it stop, is to shut down the computer. I am in a computer lab packed with students studying, and my computer alarmed like a tornado warning for the state of Texas. Kill me now.

I casually walk back outside and call the man back. Please give me back my appointment. Yay me. I get back to my place and wait. Of course, he is late. A half hour late. He shows up around 6 and its game time. I explain what happened, had told him the name of the virus/program that had popped up and he went to work. Only during his work, my hard drive decided to just flop on him and my computer would no longer turn on at all. Of course that would happen. Superb timing. SERIOUSLY WORLD?! Give me a freaking break here. K, thanks. He asked if I had any of the installation discs that he could reinstall XP with. Absolutely not. Those were in Canada. I essentially had to pay the man 45 EUR to make my laptop worse off. Shoot me.

He could do nothing without those CDs. So I made a very loving phone call home to get those delivered ASAP. I would be without my notes for my exam, but thankfully Petey and Laura were in my class as well, so we could study together. Oh boy oh boy, nothing like exam time stress eh? Right. I got my CDs later that week and called the same man back. Come fix my computer ASAP please. And he did, he was at my place for noon and he started reinstalling everything. I would lose some stuff potentially, but about 3 weeks earlier I had done my external hard drive so I would have that stuff saved thankfully.

All of a sudden you see his face and it doesn’t look good. Are you kidding me? What now? I had all the right CDs, except that the CD with drivers, had only Vista drivers and not XP. How, how, how is that even possible? Kill me. And it’s not like I could have lived without those drivers: it was sound, wifi and one other I can’t remember. Yeah. So he went back to his office to download the drivers and then would come back to install them on my computer. This was the longest most torturing process of all time. You just want the computer to work. You really do and went to work.

He was miraculously able to save my things and taught me the 10 billion step process to unlock each file, but that was fine. I would do anything to get all my pictures back. Brilliant. My computer wasn’t perfect, but damn I was happy to see it.

It was just one of those weeks where everything and anything that could have gone wrong did. Ridiculous really.

Since then I have treated my laptop with love. I do not want us fighting again before I get back to Canada.

Girls Day to Calais!

We had wanted to do one last girls day out somewhere. We had thought about going to Bordeaux, but timing wise and price wise it just didn’t work out. We decided to go to Calais, a cute little fisherman village about an hour away on the ocean. To die for idea.

Unfortunately miss AP was not able to come along, so it was Petey, Mags, Laura and myself. We got up nice and early and went to the train station. For only an hour train ride, it went pretty quickly. We spent most of it talking about grades and teachers, and school so an uplifting convo for sure eh. Not. But of course we had some good laughs anyways; I think our laughing caught some attention, but whatever, we were having fun.

We get to Calais and we decided since we knew nothing about the city we would venture to the tourist office and see. Well turns out they didn’t open until 10am, and it was just before 9. So we got some breakfast instead. Petey and I were thrilled to find an English breakfast on the menu. That is the one thing Lille lacks: a breakfast joint. Don’t get me wrong, I love the croissants, but sometimes you could just go for some sausages, bacon, toast, or pancakes. No such luck here. So needless to say, we were psyched.

We got ourselves to the tourism office and he handed us a large map and I got him to circle the cool things that we could do that day. The beach, the lighthouse, some shopping malls, important monuments, and city hall. Great! We were off! Where to first?



We started walking towards the water and came across a cute little park. It was still early, so some people were on benches while others reading books on the grass. Then we came in…and well, had some fun. There were palm trees and we love the palm trees. Had a little photoshoot and started the day off with a bang compliments of the jumping picture. We kept walking and out of the corner of our eye spotted the lighthouse! Yay! How gorgeous! I have always wanted to go in one, but the tours weren’t for another couple hours, so we said we would go back. We never did because we got so preoccupied with other things, however, very cool just the same.



We even came across the church that Charles de Gaulle got married in – very cool! We walked and chatted and decided to finally venture to the water! On the way is to date, probably one of the funniest pictures I have ever taken. We were walking trying to find the coast and Mags was really cold. She put her hands under Petey’s armpits, except that Petey is ticklish – uh oh. Petey is laughing her head off, and Mags put her face closer to Petey. The picture turned out as follows: it looks like Mags is a huge stalker, smelling Petey. Love, love, love it.



The water was so worth it. The weather had been a bit off and on, a couple drops here, a couple drops there but when we got to the beach, the sky was blue and some clouds were in and out. We lucked out. We found a bench and just sat for a while, staring and snapping some shots. Of course, now was a good a time as any for a photoshoot. The beach was bare, not a single person in sight, so the picture is divine. We walked back up the hill of the beach and decided to celebrate with a beer. This is where our nickname “Storm Trooper 167” was born. Somehow I mentioned that I loved the movie Twister, and that we should do that, and can you imagine us all in a van chasing storms. We all concluded that we needed nicknames: (1) after the first jumping picture of the day, Mags called me Miyagi; yes like Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid, (2) Mags was dubbed James Bond after he silent escape move in Amsterdam, (3) Petey had been our affectionate name for Paddy for a while since one time she came over and Laura was trying to yell Paddy and feast at the same time…Petey came out. I don’t think I’ve used the name Paddy in months now (4) Amy was amypants, aka AP (5) Laura was officially dubbed Chang about a week later after Mr. Chang from the show Community; she is the teacher, the oldest and marches…a lot. Storm Troopers 167 featuring Miyagi, James, AP, Petey and Chang was born. God I loved my girls. I think our beer might have aided with our level of creativity on that one.

We kept the adventure going by walking the streets and essentially window shopping. Walking along we came across a cute little tea shop, which you could tell Laura was dying to go inside, so we did. The place was tiny, cute and filled with art. Since Mags, Petey and I had each had a beer (Laura passed), we didn’t order but Laura ordered chai tea. When the lady came back with 4 glasses…we were a tad confused. Her drink had been 3 EUR, so we were worried that her bill would be x4, but we would figure it out. And yep, out came a huge pot of steaming chai tea; smelled fabulous. We each had several glasses, honestly, I think I had 3 or 4 but damn it was good. Turns out they were closing….at 2pm, so we had to head out. The time came to pay the bill…and BAM: 3 EUR. We couldn’t believe it. Imagine if we had each ordered one? No way.

So we are walking around more and we caught a bus. Did you know they have free public transportation? How fabulous! So we caught a bus and planned to take it wherever it took us. Turns out the driver has a great taste in music and was busting jams the whole ride. Pretty sure we stayed on the bus longer than intended just to listen/dance. We ended up jumping off at a random stop because we had seen what appeared to be an opera and a gorgeous church. Yay! On our way to the church, we decided to get some food. Mags had been talking about Mexican food for a while, and what did we find? A little sandwich joint with Mexican hotdogs! Ha! We totally had to get them, so Petey, Mags and I got the Mexican hotdogs and Laura chose a chicken sandwich I believe. Man though, ours was delicious.

At this point of the day, it starts raining and we are just cursing ourselves. Calais is a cute tiny village, but its much better with sun you know? We finally came across the Opera which came in perfect timing since we needed some shelter from the rain. We couldn’t see much other than the front lobby, but the outside was beautiful. The rain didn’t seem to be giving up anytime soon, and since we were right close to the shopping mall we decided to head inside. Of course I came across H&M, which I adore, and am a HUGE sucker for, so that was a no-brainer. Ended up buying a couple pieces and left totally satisfied.

We decided to venture to city hall: the last piece on our list for the day. On our way we saw a fabulous pirate bar/restaurant of sorts with a pirate statue outside. Quick little photo shoot and we were off again. We came across city hall, but we were more intrigued by the garden. Gorgeous really, but there was another huge park across the street.

Now Petey and I have a list of things to do while we are here…right. A double-dog dare is one of those things. You are able to dare someone to do something and they cannot object. A couple weeks ago I was able to use my DDD on Petey and she debated using hers on me in Calais. She wanted me to run through the gorgeous water fountain that was located in the park across from city hall. Not a chance. I had my fingers crossed but luckily I didn’t have to. Phew.

We saw on the map that that there was a Citadelle nearby and ours here in Lille is gorgeous so we decided to search and locate what appeared to be the massive garden on the map. We finally found it, but couldn’t find how to get in! We managed to come across a cute little staircase but on the way up Mags stepped in a pile of dog poo. Oh boy did we laugh. She had no idea what to do. Do you run up the rest of the stairs or back track? We voted run up! She ran to the closest patch of green and went to town. Turns out the Citadelle isn’t as pretty as you would think; it was just a soccer field. Strange.

We had a little bit of time to kill before the train came and we had come across a ‘troll’ bar so when we passed it coming back from the Citadelle we decided we had to go in. Of course at that hour we were the only ones in there but still. Troll beer…who knew. Turns out its delicious! And the coolest damn logo as well, which was plastered all over the bar, tables, doors. Really funky spot.

Train time. We headed to the station and we were super early. We had thought for a second we would catch an early train and ran down, but nope. We had some time to kill. So we grabbed a bench and just chatted. A train pulls up but is on the wrong side of the tracks. Not our train, nope. So we keep chatting then we thought maybe it would be our train? I went and asked one of the men who worked on the train and he said that wasn’t our train. So we keep talking when the whistle goes and the train starts leaving. Yeah…turns out that was our train. Are you serious?! Absolutely. You should have seen our faces. We had waited for almost an hour, and OUR train left. How does that even happen? We had to wait another couple hours for the next one, so we went and got some dinner at a local joint down the street. Onion soup – yumm. We were in time to catch OUR train. Oh boy. What a hell of a day. We got in at around 11ish and it was bed. For such a relaxed girls day, we were exhausted; a girls day well spent indeed!

Round 2: Queen's Day in Amsterdam!

And shut eye did we ever get: we slept in until 1pm. Clearly we all had decided that the night before we didn’t need to set an alarm. We would wake up and head to Amsterdam early. Of course we would; not. We were woken up by Mags doing a steam roll over top Petey, who accidentally thought that Mags AND Amy had jumped on her; but that’s’ another story. We finally got out of bed and what did we have for breakfast? 167. No joke. Delicious. Right. I quickly submitted an essay that was due and we got ready for the day. Off we go! Amsterdam here we come! Well we got to the train station and that thought was put to a quick halt. No trains were going right into Amsterdam central station. Fabulous. Adventure here we come. We grabbed some breaky to go and booked it to the train. We then found some friends. Of course we did. A group of guys travelling to Amsterdam too, so we chatted and ended up sitting with them on the train. Tons of fun and we all exchanged numbers to meet up later. In the train ride we had downed another couple bottles of 167, for you see, we had another 8 bottles to finish. Four girls: not a problem, we had tons of time. And don’t worry fam: we were very safe, buddy system and looked out for each other.



We got to Amsterdam and it was straight to the hostel we had booked. I had booked a place called Shelter City and it was a mere 650m from the train station. Brilliant and easy, I like it. We started walking and Maggie was asking people on the way for directions. What should have taken 5 minutes took us two hours. We got lost, had to ask directions at least a half dozen times and just laughed the whole way. Of course with our 8 bottles of 167 we definitely made a dent in those as well. This Shelter City place was nowhere to be found. We called them and they talked to Maggie giving simple directions as best they could, when she asked for a landmark the girl said there really was nothing, they were in an alley. So we kept venturing. All of a sudden I look to the left and spot the “Shelter City” sign! Yay! We found it! We get a little bit closer, but wait…Shelter City: Christian Hostel. Oh boy. I booked a Christian Hostel, and had no idea. No biggie. It’s one night, and we aren’t really going to be there much: just a couple hours of sleep. We enter and are immediately presented with the rules: no alcohol, no drugs and no being under the influence. Well considering there were still about 6 bottles in our bag of 167…that might be an issue. Well bible study was at 7:30 and we were almost in time, but we kindly declined the offer. We were off to find our rooms then were out again. I walk through the double doors to see the fabulous mural of “God Loves You”. We had to be good here or we would go straight to hell.

We took off to go venture the rest of the streets and honestly what a hell of an experience. So first off, we were a couple bottles deep when we checked in, and my eyes missed that there was a step down from the hostel. Right. Well I wiped out. And then getting to the end of the street, my bad right ankle gave out and luckily I caught the street pole and did a hilarious swing around. Pretty sure I looked like a stripper, but it all happened so quickly it had been my first reaction. Yeah well the group of guys, and of course my girls were dying laughing. As if that had just happened. Owwww but I was even laughing. Right, carry on.



Orange everywhere and we just kept walking the streets, drinking and chatting with people we saw on the sides. Petey even stopped to play a game of badminton with a group of guys! Ha, she was outstanding. Now we are walking around and of course you have to venture to the red light district. This is something that you never see at home, and absolutely not like this. Door after door, all the windows and these girls are gorgeous. Like I’m talking should be on the cover of magazines gorgeous. It was insane. When curtains are closed that means they are busy and honestly it was fascinating. So we are walking down one red light district alley when all of a sudden we look up and what do we see?....OUR HOSTEL. Yes, our Christian hostel was located in the red light district. Seriously? We all had our mouths open, and of course took a picture. Who would have thought?

You think when we called to ask where they were located they might have mentioned that they were in the red light district as a landmark…but nope, they just said an alley. Uhuh. Too funny.



We ended up meeting back up with Erik (who we had met on the train earlier that day) and we all decided to venture to a bar. We are walking and they were looking for a particular bar but clearly with so many people, everything was packed, and the longer the day goes the less your coordination and direction skills are accurate. We are walking down when I see the sign “shots for 1 EUR”. Perfect. Turns out it’s a pancake house, but we didn’t care. There was a bar and tons of people. Game time. We had brought a german shot belt with us and since this is Europe, and particularly Amsterdam, we did all of them right in front of the bar. We also popped a bottle of 167, borrowed some glasses and the bartender didn’t’ seem to mind any. All I could think was that this WOULD NEVER happen at home. Ever.

Now of course we made a group of friends with guys, some of which were American but we didn’t care either way. We all did some jagger shots, had some margaritas and were just loving life. The bouncer was probably my favorite: he had a shaved head except one teeny tiny ponytail, braided, black hair out the back. Big guy, and I just couldn’t get over that. Too funny. So while we were loving life, we had managed to finish off the last of our 167, jagger and complimentary beers from our new friends. Fa-bu-lous. It was time to switch bars, I mean we were in a pancake house, but it was about 12:30 so a good time to change. We are walking out when I spot “Canadian Maple Syrup”. Oh yes. This is impossible to find here, so I kind of…well….took it. I mean, the girls had been talking about pancakes for the longest time, so I figured we could use some Canadian maple syrup. Oops: but for the record, that was to die for with our pancakes later that week.



So off we went and managed to venture into another New Orleans type bar called the Bourbon Street Bar or something along those lines. Brilliant. We were having a blast, good music, tons of people and just soaking it all in. It was a relatively tiny place, but just what we needed. Now we are having a great time when all of a sudden we cant spot Mags anymore. Where the hell did she go? She wasn’t picking up her cell, not answering texts, nada. Shit. We are in Amsterdam, with millions of people, all dressed in orange and we lost her. What do you even do? We went on a man hunt throughout the bar with no avail. She was gone. Now Mags is from the Hague, so she speaks the language, but still, we were super worried. How did that even happen? None of us smoke, so its not like she went outside. Crap, crap, crap. This would happen to us, right? Of course it would. Well since we had no directionality in the city, we decided to stay in the bar in the hopes she would come back in. Ha, not a chance. We were there until about 4:30 when we finally decided to hit the road.

The walk home was certainly an adventure. Petey was just down for the count, not sick, but more zombie-like. So I held her backpack like a leash (which she was not impressed about) but I was not going to let her fall. We had to ask some folks for directions but man oh man we finally managed to find our hostel. Now, this whole “you cant be under the influence of alcohol” thing was going to be an issue. We had had 167 for breakfast…so uh…this was going to be interesting. They gave us these papers that we had to show to get in, so we walk in, and pretty much all pressed our faces against the glass to show our passes. Ha. Not drunk at all. Super smooth ladies. We are laughing our heads off as well. Yeah. Yay us. So because I don’t want Petey to fall over while walking, I decided to give her a HUGE bear hug from the back and just tell the guy at the front desk how much I loved her and didn’t want to let go. Yeah…I walked bear hugging her all the way to her room. He must have known. Must have known. And clearly my love had been matched with the death stares I was getting back from Petey. Yeah, we were smooth all right.

So its about 5am at this point and its off to bed. Super. Some chick was in my bed, so I took her bed. I had done this whole ‘wrong bad’ situation before, but honestly, I was going to be sleeping for less than 2 hours, so I really didn’t’ care. We were supposed to meet at 7am at the front desk to check out so we could all get our trains back. Oh man. I got there just before 7, and as 7:10 came around, I ventured to the girls room to see if they were alive. Who do I first see? Petey looking like death. Now please keep it in mind, we had essentially been wearing the same orange outfits for 3 days now, we had 2 hours of sleep post our 8 bottle, jagger, beer filled day. Yeah, we were still drunk. No question there. But we had to get moving. So we got our stuff and were off!

The guy at the front desk gave me some pamphlets on religion and some websites to visit, so I made a mental note and put those in my pocket. Thank you sir. We get outside and its raining. Of course it is. We looked ridiculous. Pretty sure we were the only ones on the street at that point. Oh boy. We were sorta walking, sorta sliding back to the train station. We left Amy there since she was taking the train, but we were taking the bus. Why? Ugh, horrendous idea. 7 hours. But still, we grabbed a croissant and a drink and just sat. We had a couple hours to kill after all.

So there Petey and I were: on the floor of the train station, waiting for our bus. All of a sudden Petey looks for her phone. Gone. Ahahah she would. She had managed to lose her phone. I didn’t have it, and for sure Amy didn’t either. Oh Petey. How how how? This was the second or third phone Petey had broken/lost in the past year. Fabulous. I was dying laughing, but she was still pretty unimpressed with life, slash why I had woken her up so damn early. Turns out Petey didn’t even take her shoes off for bed, or use the sheets. She face planted and 2 hours later was greeted with my pretty face telling her to get her ass out of bed.

So its almost time of our bus and we go outside, when all of a sudden a guy told us we have to wait in line, give our ticket and they then give us a card with our bus number. Right, okay, our bus was leaving in 20 mins, but the line wasn’t moving. Of course this would happen to us. We get closer and we thought they had said last call for our bus back to Lille….but turns out they didn’t. But we were closer in line anyways. Finally we get our stuff and get to our bus. Two seats together. Superb.

Those 7 hours were a huge blur. Pretty sure I was instantly outcold and same with Petey. I can only imagine the smell of booze oozing from our pores. Oh god, those poor people on the bus. We had stopped once for food, but oh man, we needed bed. Big time. I mean don’t get me wrong, a bus is semi comfy, and I slept, but wow, I needed to starfish in bed. Desperately.

To end off this fabulous adventure to the Hague/Amsterdam I got a phone call on the bus from Mags. HELLO!? WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!? ARE YOU ALIVE?!. Oh the story that came out of her mouth was priceless. Turns out she is a silent escaper. She had planned to take the train back that night anyways, since they were running all night to go back to the Hague. Well, in a 167 state of mind, Mags left the bar and started walking back. Turns out she was incredibly sick, and shared that thought with the sidewalk, streets, etc. A guy ended up throwing her in a cab and paid for it as well. She gets to the train station and it’s a slow motion movie. She just covered the train tracks. Oh Mags. Once on the train, people were slowly backing up and she just repainted the deck again. We are in tears laughing on the bus because we had honestly thought non of us were sick. Not even CLOSE. Mags filled in that gap for all of us. Poor love, but she was okay. Alive and at home safe and sound. Unreal. We made a mental note after that that she was a silent escaper.

Amsterdam/The Hague had been brilliant. What a hell of a way to see the sights eh. Queens night/day were fabulous, people filled and a ton of funny stories. Memories to last a lifetime with the best girls to share it with.

Ps – a week ago Mags received a phone call from the Bourbon Street bar saying they had Petey’s phone. Ha. How fabulous? Now we just need to go back to Amsterdam to get it…hmmm. Roadtrip?

Queen's Night in The Hague!

Now this blog is a simple one to write for you see the three day of Amsterdam and The Hague are blurred together, however the basis is booze and laughter. Both of which are crucial to queens night and day. Here we go. It’s a goodie.

The tradition is as follows: April 29th is Queens Night in The Hague and then Queens day, April 30th is in Amsterdam. Amen for both. I had yet to venture to Amsterdam so off we went. Mags, Petey and I booked our bus for the 28th at night and of course the bus was late. Nothing is ever on time in this country. You have a party for 10pm, it means show up at midnight. We knew this and yet somehow, for some reason, we showed up early. Well, we had a blast regardless. I had brought sandwich makings since we would be on the bus from 5pm-11pm-ish and well, I would need food. We devoured that before we even got on the bus. It was fabulous though.

We get on the bus and of course practically every seat is taken. We each split ways to find something. I found one with a guy, maybe in his 30s, and I sat down. Fabulous. Until he started talking. Oh Sarah, you sure do know how to choose em. The girls were pretty close by and were peeing their pants laughing. I not only learned about his girlfriend, work, sure the normal things, but somehow got into how he lost his virginity. Oh yeah, the big one right there. What the hell made you think I cared? I don’t think I even said two words, but at this point I’m begging for fresh air and a bag to breathe in trying not to hurl all over him. I was laughing, and I will admit that, because we had been talking about his girlfriend and work and him moving and then BAM, there we were. Right. Way to pick em’ girl.

We took the bus to the Hague where Mags mum and stepdad were picking us up. We were psyched. We got back to her place and it was to die for. One of those places you see in a magazine, all white and all I can think is that I would never even make it to the couch without spilling spaghetti everywhere. It was gorgeous. This was going to be home-base for the next little while. We had some food which the tummy agreed was much needed then it was bed time. Tomorrow was Queens night! Yay!

Mags’ boyfriend was doing his master’s thesis that day, so we would be meeting up with her way later, about midnight actually. So Petey and I got prepped for the day AND night. We had to dress all in orange, so of course I ventured to H&M a couple days before we had left and bought my orange hat and t-shirt. I had been informed I will be wearing the same outfit both days: bring it on. So Petey and I got ready and off we went: with out 167 of course. Now 167 is actually a Muscat wine, that just happens to be 1.67 EUR so naturally, we call it 167. This has been the most famously cheap and effective drink we have yet to purchase. Well…we bought 12 bottles for the trip to Amsterdam. I know, I know, but c’mon. They came in boxes of 6 that day, which is a hell of a lot easier for transportation and we loved it. Fabulous combo. Turns out it was all Mags had packed in her suitcase. Literally: our crate of 167. We couldn’t have been more proud.



So Petey and I had been given a hand drawn map from Mags about the Hague and what we could do for the day. We brought with us ourselves and 3 bottles of 167. Hey, no judging, we were only going to be meeting up with Mags at midnight and it was Queens night; so there. All justification needed. ALSO miss Amypants was going to be meeting us at 4! It has been a toss up if she was going to come, but that morning we were graced with the fabulous news that she was! She would be arriving at 4ish! Yay! More fun! So Petey and I left the house at 1pm, and we ventured. Honestly, we ventured straight to the beer store. Sorry mum. We each bought a 6 pack and were off again. We wanted to sit, drink and just enjoy what a damn gorgeous day it was. We ended up at one of the canals. We sat and just chatted for hours. Seriously, almost 3 hours. We laughed and watched the boats go by. We waved and got some waves: since well, we were a little early in being dressed all in orange but hey; we were tourists.



We had finished a good portion of our packs and were feeling great: now it was time to meet Amypants (AP for short)! We finally met her in one of the main squares and we were off. First something to eat while we put together a game plan for the rest of the day. We had been notified by Mags that there would be tons of little concerts going on, the fair and that we would have tons to work on: we weren’t worried. So we ventured, walked around the streets, window shopped and even ventured to a palace we saw on the map! Gorgeous park, and so we decided to sit and drink some more and just take in the scenery around us. That is where we met our duck/geese friends.

We ended up spending the rest of the late afternoon/evening walking from concert to concert. We started off at one where I saw a guy that had the same hat as I did, bummer and awesome all at the same time, in addition to us finishing our beers. Those things were a pain to keep carrying around and plus we had 3 bottles of 167 in the backpack. Oh yes we did.

The fair! Of course, how could you NOT go to the fair! It was crazy, everyone all dressed in orange having the time of their lives. So many people and we loved it. We walked around, you know, people watching when all of a sudden we came across A PHOTOBOOTH! Oh, how I love photo booths! It had been way too long and we decided to give it a shot. Now, there are three of us, and having two people in there is awkward enough, however, we were totally game for the thrill of fitting. We jump in and start going through the instructions: please keep in mind everything is Dutch. Okay cool. Continuing on, we take our 4 pictures and it’s time to print. We see our four photos lined up and we had to choose which one we wanted…no no; I want all 4, on one page. Well the timer timed out and out came a sheet with 8 pictures…of the same picture. Frig. How do we do it!? No idea. But we are determined. I had paid 4 Euros for the first set, now Petey was paying for the second. We get in, take probably the exact same four photos and its time to print: this time we are reading carefully and damnit we could not see where the hell to print all four. It said at the top either pick an individual or all four; but we COULD NOT see it. Again, the timer went off and out came 8 mini pictures of one of the photos. NO NO NO! Okay ladies, third time the charm. Amy puts in 4 Euros this time and we are so damn determined. Take the four pictures and jesus we couldn’t figure it out. We are dying laughing, slash screaming at the machine slash ready to cry at how much money were wasting. Surprise: out comes a sheet with 8 mini pictures of only one of the four shots. HOLY CRAP LADIES. THIS IS INSANE. We are in tears at how stupid we are. Honestly…this machine is made for idiots: and I realize its not our language, but still. Man oh man. We felt like morons.

Now a couple comes along and we let them go ahead: we told them we couldn’t figure it out but that fingers crossed they would and we could figure it out. Little did we know: the screen on the outside shows the people inside and the pictures they take! THE PEOPLE SITTING AROUND THE BOOTH HAD BEEN WATCHING US THE THREE TIMES! Oh man, we must have been the highlight of their day. I know someone as stupid as us would have been. This was ridiculous. Okay, we are paying attention. They take the four pictures (not bad shots actually) and then its printing time. EVERYONE WATCH. They are scrolling between the four pictures trying to figure out how to highlight all four when all of a sudden they move the scroll bar over one more and IT HIGHLIGHTS ALL FOUR PICTURES! AS IF! We felt like THE dumbest people ever. How could we not have figured that out?

We had to do this now. 16 Euros we finally came out with a sheet that had the 2 sets of the 4 pictures we had taken: FINALLY. We had spent 16 Euros….16!? Wow right? Mags wanted to hit us when we told her this story later. She couldn’t decide whether she was more outraged we had spent that much money or whether she was embarrassed she knew us.

We continued walking through the fair and just continued laughing at our pure stupidity. Then we came across the “fun house”. People watching at its prime. I cannot even express to you how hard I was laughing watching these people try and climb. So it had different blocks that were moving horizontally, but two horizontal levels for each foot. Well they moved at separate times so it was quite hard to climb these ‘stairs’ without following the pattern of the movement. People were almost doing the splits the poles were going at such different paces. Tears, absolute tears. We must have stood there for a solid 20 or so minutes just laughing our heads off. Unreal. The best was kids; as horrible as that is. They are too small; you would all of a sudden see the guy working there dive in to rescue the kid who was in legit splits or hanging on like Tarzan. Basically it was a home video clip, the ones where they show you small clips of gymnastics disaster. Fabulous. Just FABULOUS.

We then found a really cool concert that was playing semi-nearby the fair and decided to venture. They were playing some pretty sweet tunes when we decided to crack another bottle of 167. I had yet to pop a champagne bottle and I couldn’t wait. So there I am, about to pop the bottle and its time to pick where I am going to direct the cork. You see, it had been a competition for the past four months to see how far you can get the cork. We shoot them out my kitchen window and we’ve nearly hit the building across the street: impressive right? Well this was my turn to shine and I was ready. There was a bicycle parking lot in front of me so I pointed there. Pretty sure somehow my cork went diagonal and it shot right over the bicycle parking lot right into the crowd that was the concert we were just as. Bollox. Better luck next time eh?



We were partying and loving life. We had at this point met some friends from The Hague and we were just chatting, dancing and loving every second of Queens night. I had danced with an old woman, we had made a backpack dance with Amy and her belongings and were just having a ball. Then it started raining: of course right. It was raining just enough to be fabulous and yet not enough to be cold. I had my hat so I decided I was good to go but the crowd had been handed garbage bags to take shelter under and AP was all over that. Boy did we look great wet. Did not put a damper on our night AT all. If anything, made the night even better. I loved the rain. I was in the best mood possible.



Our friends said they were shifting spots and going to another concert nearby; wanna join? Sure! So we ventured along the streets which were now devoured in a sea of orange people and just ventured. We found the concert but turns out so had the rest of the world and we couldn’t get anywhere near the place. Food? Sure. KFC…dear god. I had not had that in years, but Amy had NEVER had it. Why we thought that was a fabulous idea, no one will know. But we did. I think it all started in the search for a bathroom. And alas, the line was like an hour. The lived in a dorm nearby so we grabbed the KFC to go and we’re off. Fabulous fabulous. Dance party and just loving everything about The Hague.

FINALLY we get the call at like 1ish from Mags asking where we were! Let’s meet up, let’s meet up! I was exhausted at this point however, when we met up with Mags, she meant game time. She hadn’t drank at all but wanted to celebrate Queens night. Let’s do it: off to the bar we go! We found this one little spot, not little at all really, but we went inside and managed to find tables up top on the second floor. We chatted with each other and others around us and just soaked it all in. Literally. We were exhausted by the end and finally decided to head home around 4am. We walked; oh yes we walked in the rain but it wasn’t that bad anymore. We were all feeling good, yet exhausted and could not wait to collapse in bed. It would be well deserved after all. I mean, we had been out all day, in the sun and rain, mixing and mingling and we deserved a good bit of shut eye.

15 hours on a train? Absolutely.

Petey and I woke up earlier than expected the next morning. I couldn’t believe it was already April 20th, 2010. Where the hell had the month gone? I had left for Germany the night of April 1st. Wow. Anyways, we woke up, and I opted to shower in the morning, I needed to be awake if I was going to keep Petey company as long as possible. So I get up and turn on the water…freezing cold. No effing way shower: I need to shower, I am going to be on a train for 15 hours and then see two people I have not seen in 5 years. Let’s go. Absolutely not. I woke Petey up to help me. Phew, we finally figured it out and I was golden. We were in and out without making too much noise, until I woke them both up to say goodbye. I’m slowly backing out the door when my backpack slammed the door shut slash I got stuck to it. Of course I would. Sorry ladies, back to bed for you.

Petey and I were off like a flash. Surprinsingly the trains were really smooth. The plan was from (1) Rome to Milan (2) Milan to Basel. We could do that. Then fight our asses off when we get there. Beauty. Petey and I agreed that we should buy souvenirs in each location, since well, this was pretty epic, and it deserved a magnet. My thing is magnets: I have bought one everywhere I go since the beginning of time, and I will continue doing so for the rest of my days. Petey does shot-glasses, and some people do postcards. We are on the trip from Milan to Basel and what a view! Wow! You could see the alps so clearly and right then and there Petey and I said that we would go to Interlaken, Switzerland and go sky-diving for our birthdays. I was high on life. I have always wanted to go, but I mean, skydiving and seeing the alps; it can’t get any better than that!



We pull into Basel and its go-time. We run and stand in line, get up to the country and Petey takes over: she speaks German, thank god. I’m the girl standing there ready to fight my case if needed. Nothing to Brussels from Basel. Crap crap crap. He then sends us to another tourist area and we’re off like lightning. You know when you are so edgy that you can’t sit still; that would be me. We for sure needed to get to either Lille or Brussels tonight. Petey had an exam and I had people to meet. This had to happen. Our number gets called and I practically run to the country. Once again, I let Petey take over, but the girl is looking at me as I eagerly await what she has to say. TICKETS TO LILLE! Fabulous! Yes, yes, yes! We would be taking (3) Basel to Strasbourg,France and (4) Strasbourg to Lille. Wow. We were in for what would be a 15 hour travel day. Thank god we’re inseparable to start with or a travel like that could end a friendship. That is a long day my friends. We had about an hour to kill so we got some food and of course, bought our magnet. I bought…HEIDI AND HER GRANDPA. Awesome right? I laughed my head off and had to buy it.

I finished my book on the way to Strasbourg then gave Petey, the I’m so sorry, now you have to entertain me look. I mean, I get bored pretty easily, but talking makes it so much better. So Petey and I started planning our last couple months and where we wanted to travel too. Had some good laughs on that one thinking of us venturing all over the world, but it was a good time consumer. And, we needed to plan eventually right?

Finally the last leg of the trip from Strasbourg to Lille. No book, so I got to listen to my iPod when BAM: its dead. Of course it is. I had used it the whole bloody trip. Okay, Petey has one, so we pulled it out. She thought that it wasn’t going to last but turns out it lasted the entire trip! How fabulous right? I owed her huge, slash I’m sure she was thankful. I was getting anxious to get into Lille to see Pabs and his dad. It had been so long you know.

Finally we pull in and as we are getting off the train I spot them: I freaking spot them. Two figures standing on the bridge. I head for the escalator with Petey and I just feel like running. Petey read my mind and offered to take my bag: run for it she said. Run I did. I’m pretty sure it was a scene from a movie as I’m running across the station. I just see the two of them standing, smiling and waiting for impact. There I was. Huge hugs all around. Finally.

It was a quick drive back to my place then of f to Brussels. The next day all seems like a blur. There really are no words to describe that day. It was so wonderful to finally catch up. How are words supposed to sum that up? It’s like a storybook that had been written when I was 16 and just picked up from the same page we left off. Fabulous is the only word to describe it. It was so strange saying goodbye; but this time it wasn’t a goodbye, but more a “see you soon”; the way it should have been you know? Yeah, I suppose it’s always been a see you soon.

Roma Part II: Thanks to Volcano Eyjafjallajokull!

So Sunday was the day we were supposed to fly and clearly that wasn’t going to happen. Our flight had been cancelled the night before and we had now rebooked for Tuesday. Fabulous. Now what? We had done everything we had wanted to do, the big stuff anyways, so now we could do the things that we hadn’t had time for! We got some breakfast at the hostel and waited in line to extend our stay. We were at this point, quite familiar with the front desk: aka Hossain. He knew us all by name, however he usually got myself and Jessica (pronounced Hessica) mixed up. No worries. We spent a good chunk of time on the computers in the morning researching the damn volcano, and finally, we needed some fuel. A tiny Chinese food place around the corner caught our eye and it was perfect. We decided that since we were stranded in Rome, we needed wine. Of course right? What a fabulously brilliant idea. So we headed to the grocery store and that’s where we met Betty. No, not a person, but our 5L beautiful glass bottle of red wine. We were like proud parents walking her back home to the hostel. We broke her open earlier than expected and as such, we met a bunch of people in our hostel. Some British guys were in the room next door, and even some Americans. However, all Canadians that I met were from BC. I don’t know what it is, but honestly, it was the same convo every time: “Where are you from?”, “Canada”, “Oh my god me too – where from?” “BC, you?” “Of COURSE you are from BC.” Honestly though, every time. It was nuts.

Great ice-breaker though: Hi, we’re (introduce ourselves) and this is Betty. She was a keeper. We easily went through half of that baby, and ended up saving her for the next day. Like I said, we just stayed on the internet for a majority trying to research ways out of the country. People were in a panic and it was clearly visible. Chaos had taken place. However, our highlight of the walk home from Termini station had become Cristiano Ronaldo. Holy crap, he had some ads up with Megan Fox and wow, I’m pretty sure all of us drooled everyday walking by that damn poster. But like I had said, he quickly became the highlight of our trapped days. How did we celebrate being in Rome another night: Baffettos for the third time. Fabulous. We knew the insides and out. Thus far I had had a margherita pizza, four cheese and this time I would do margherita with green peppers. I have to say, it was sensational. Duh? Of course it was.

The next morning we slept in, because let’s be honest, we could. We went straight to the train station to wait in line to see if there were any trains leaving the country and as soon as possible. Petey and I had our flight booked for the next day, Tuesday, but honestly, the possibility of flying was looking grim. There were signs everywhere saying that there were no trains left: all had been booked solidly until Wednesday. Super. I was still going to Brussels and the hotel I had booked had been reserved since Monday. Wonderful. Nothing like flushing money down the toilet. But more about that later. I was just anxious to see what trains were available. We waited in line for three hours to talk to someone. Everyone back home kept saying “Oh, you’re trapped in Rome, boo hoo”, but honestly, this was not the luxurious part of the vacation. We were trapped. Idiots. It’s the same everywhere, we couldn’t spend all day roaming around because we were too busy trying to get out of the country. The earliest flight that Jess and Jewels had seen was Saturday! An entire week; that’s insane. A lot of money spent in staying another week and everyone around you is stressed. It’s not exactly lying on the beach.

So we get up and Petey and I ended up booking a 15 hour train ride back to Lille. Not even back to Lille: the woman could not book us further than past Switzerland and that was a risk we would have to take: to fight for a ticket in Switzerland to get back to Lille. Should we do it? What other option did we have. Booking a third flight is very costly, and this train was a guaranteed start to a trek home. Okay, we booked it. The train was as such: (1) Rome to Milan (2) Milan to Basel and once in Basel, Switzerland we could then fight to get home to France. Right. Exciting alright.

We ended up eating fresh pizza at the hostel which was fine by us, since we were all debating how the hell we would get back to our homes. I was determined to get back to Lille ASAP. I needed to head to Brussels and Petey had a final exam Friday: yeah, final exam. We were screwed. So our train was booked for Wednesday, from Rome to Basel Switzerland. Ha right? I had it in my head just getting to Basel and everything being sold out. I would pull the Diabetic card for sure. You see, it wouldn’t be a lie: I WAS running out of pump supplies, and I really did need to get home ASAP, but I would be fine for another couple days. Jewels and Jess had taken a pass booking a train, but after dinner we ended up going back and they waited in line again. Petey and I sat in a café nearby and I read the book that I had bought for while waiting in line earlier. Great read. I would literally laugh out-loud and immediately want to tell Petey why. Also, coke zero overload was happening to our bodies. Smart marketing on their part, but the Coke Zero crew was out in heavy grouping handing out mini cans to everyone who was stuck stranded in the train station. We probably had 8 that day. It was insane. Jewels and Jess ended up booking something, and once we got back to the hostel we busted out Betty part 2. It was going to be Jess’ 21st birthday at midnight, and we needed to celebrate. Sure, being stranded in Rome wasn’t the dream 21st, but it sure as hell was a good story. One to tell the grandkids, eh eh? Absolutely. 3-2-1 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY HESSICA! We had some drinks, some laughs and brought her into her birthday the best we knew how in the hostel: wine.

It was now Tuesday, and we were officially titled the longest girls to ever stay in the hostel: it was night 8. Ridiculous. The longest group to ever have stayed there, we thought we should get a t-shirt to celebrate. We asked our buddy Hossain and he sent us around the corner to his friend. Petey and Jess lead the way and automatically turned around, looked at me, and told me to ask. Why? “Cause he’ll like you”. Weird but sure, why not? I walk around the corner and turns out it was one of the guys that worked there. One of those people you always smile at, and they always smile back. No biggie. Well in this case, smiles paid off because we provided us with practically a gift basket of the hostel merchandise: a t-shirt, a table cover and a pen. FABULOUS. We were thrilled.

Since we had everything booked to the best of our abilities we took the day to do some last minute sight-seeing. We headed back to the wedding cake and decided to climb as much as we could. We found a fabulous view: gorgeous. The whole city really. Rome really was one of the prettiest places we had ever been; hands down. We took advantage and did a little shopping too down the famous streets. Of course, one was an Gucci, D&G, etc and we basically window shopped. You saw people walking down the street with 5 bags and you just wondered how the hell they managed to get to that place in their lives. We all made a wish to someday join them. I even got my palm read; which is something I have always wanted to do, but when you know? No time like the present in Rome. It sure was an interesting experience, but I liked what he said and I like to think it will all come true.

But where to head for the birthday girl’s lunch: Claudio Pepi’s. We had gone one of our first couple days in Rome and he was fabulous! Claudio Pepi said that his wife made all of the pasta herself and he would give us a free bottle of wine. Done deal; he knew the way to our hearts already. We had a blast: he sang to us, and we all got a lovely kiss when we left. We said we would marry his sons if we could eat that well everyday. I had had the seafood spaghetti: wow. Sensational really. So we knew exactly where we wanted to go for her birthday. Best decision ever: we had some wine, to die for pasta, he sang as expected and he even gave Jess a dance. An all around fabulous time. You felt Italian: laughing, drinking and eating all at the same time. Who knew multi-tasking could be so much fun?

We figured we could do the Holy Steps later that day, but we went back to the hostel to check into our new room for the last night. We were splitting a four person room. Easy breezy. Well once checked in we decided to take a little nap, just a little one. Yeah, well we ended up sleeping right through the Holy Steps. Crap! We’re idiots, but damn we were tired apparently. It was Jess’ birthday and we had wanted to do something cool for dinner. She had made the request for some good food, wine and chocolate cake. Jewels and I took it upon ourselves to go ask the front desk where we could find the following three things nearby.

Turns out a place right around the corner did, so we took a little walk. The most chocolate-stuffed cake I had ever seen made me want to hurl so I knew Jess would love it. Jewels and I booked a reservation and headed back to the hostel. We told Jess that we had been given a card for a place around the corner, not sure if it had chocolate cake but we would get a 10% discount and we all loved saving money anywhere possible the past couple days. Brilliant. So we got dolled up and ventured. Jess had no idea. We got our table outside (as we had been told) and we were thrilled. Dinner was delicious, and the white wine hit just perfectly. He even brought over a complimentary bottle of champagne. Hells yes. We loved it. Then the grand finale as requested: he brought her the cake with some candles. Love love. She was thrilled: the birthday had been a success!

This was going to be our last night in Rome: we couldn’t believe it. Well ours anyways: Petey and I were off at 6am the next morning and would start the longest train ride of our lives. Jewels and Jess still had some more days to stay but they would be staying with Jewel’s dads friend so that was brilliant. Hossain: our buddy. We knew we had to take a picture with him. He jumped on that in seconds, and was thrilled to ask one of the guys in the bar to take his picture with us. He was so nice and so damn excited all at the same time: he added us all to facebook instantly after and we were now “official friends” as he would say. We did a little bit of past minute packing and before we knew it, it was bed. We had been in Rome for 8 days; 8! We had the time of our lives and experienced a hell of a lot more than expected; but hey; it would be a great story in 2050. Absolutely. And we all joked we would get a tattoo of that Volcano Eyjafjallajokull on our ass. So there Volcano.

Roma Part I: The Intended Trip!

So the alarm goes off at 315am, you’re kidding right? I took a nap. Essentially that is what I would call it: a 2 hour cat nap. The kind of nap where you just fall asleep and your alarm scares the daylights out of you. Well with my ear plugs, I didn’t even hear the alarm; I felt it. Thanks vibrate setting, you saved me. Of course I am a snooze button kind of girl, so I really only got out of bed at 3:30am. So I jump out of bed, throw on my clothes, grab my bags and I meet the girls at 4am outside our rooms. How utterly depressing, however we were going to ROMA today! Yay! This was the day we were meeting Petey in Rome too after her venture to Paris with the fam jam. I was excited! Pretty sure that’s the longest I’ve gone without seeing Petey, but still, I had never been to Italy, and Roma is the place to go! Little did I know this would not only be an extended vacation, but one I will remember hands down the rest of my life. The kind of story you would tell to the grandkids.

So we had impeccable timing catching the airport shuttle from the piazza catalunya square at 4:10am, and we were off to the airport. We were flying with Vueling airlines this time, and susprisingly everything was smooth. Once again it would have helped to speak Spanish, but no problems getting through. Now the task was breakfast. All of our wallets were a little on the light side, and not much was open at just after 5am…you guessed it. Mcds. Writing this blog has honestly demonstrated how much we ate there, but seriously, when you are strapped for cash, and that sucker is cheap, you really can’t help it. Anyways, we had seen signs and we followed them. Mcds was closed. Devastating. But wait…there are 2! Hmm. Well this next part was the lowest point in life I had reached. I asked a man who worked there what time Mcds opened at. Honest this guy handles questions about flights, problems, so many important things. He couldn’t help but smile at my ridiculously mortifying question. “It’s already opened” he said. Liar. The gates are closed. Nope…turns out he was right and we just hadn’t walked far enough down to the second one. Right. Cue head looking to the ground and walk away. Quickly.

We enjoyed our breaky quite quickly and headed to our gate. The flight was smooth as anything, and we arrived just on time. Fabulous. Now the trick was getting to the hostel. We had our directions and they said to take the train to termini. Easy enough. We follow the signs and we get in line for tickets. One train was leave at 9:06am, the next at 9:36. Considering it was 9:04 I figured by the time it was our turn in line we would miss the first train. Boy was I wrong. Got our tickets and we started running for the train. The whistle is blowing and Jewels is finishing buying her ticket. Run, run, run! We all jump aboard and breathe a sigh of relief. We made it; we actually freaking made the 9:06 train. Go us! Now finding a seat. I found a sector of 4 people, except two men had taken diagonal seats from one another. Akward, but I was going to squish through to the window. Perfect fit. Yay us. An hour later we arrive and the hunt is on for the hostel. We first however had to walk what seemed like years down the track. No I’m serious…we must have walked for like 15 minutes down the length of the train to get inside the terminal. We were laughing already. A pretty consistent trend in our trip. Who on earth would build such a large platform? Clearly someone who runs marathons. Thanks for the heads up Rome. Welcome. We were pretty good with directions at this point, so it really wasn’t that bad.

And then we entered Alessandro’s Palace. Welcome home. No really, it soon would be our home, but at the time it was just a place to sleep for 5 nights. Super cool. Check in wasn’t until 3pm, so we had a lot of time to kill. We stored our luggage downstairs and planned. Petey was to get in a couple hours later, so we hit up the Piazza de Republica in the meantime. Saw a fabulously ancient church and we found some pizza. Now, funny thing is we ordered the pizza thinking we saw chicken on top…when it turned out to be potato. Weird? And yet totally legit because we were in Rome. Go figure. We finished the pizza just in time to meet up with Petey! Finally rejoined.

Together we decided to hit up the major spots: first up was the Coliseum. Wow. Like, wow. We really were speechless. So much history in one place, it was overwhelming. Of course, like anywhere else in the world, we had a good laugh attack. Two asian girls were taking what appeared to be a myspace photoshoot. Now, normally this would not be as amusing, however, they had flowers, they were leaning against walls, looking at the camera, not looking at the camera. Naturally we had our own photoshoot with the wall afterwards too. See picture below! After the coliseum we decided to take a walk through the roman forum. The view from the top was gorgeous; filled with lots of sitting areas and an orange orchard you really did feel surrounded by awe.

Next up was the Trevi fountain: the infamous picture. We had heard it is the largest tourist spot it the world for pick pocketing. Note to self: keep the purse close. It was time for the pictures. The infamous picture where you toss a coin into the fountain and make a wish. We each took our turn: Jess, Petey then me. I ended up having to toss twice since I was so distracted by the first picture I didn’t make a wish. But then the best picture was still to come: miss Jewels. Now all of our pictures were blurry: I mean they are action shots, tossing a coin in, hips thrusted forward: not pretty but it’s the must have photo. So jewels steps up, we count 1-2-3-TOSS! Oh she tossed alright. She instantly went into a hand on hip, and hand perfectly positioned sideways. I’m pretty sure our mouths dropped in and instant laughter came. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a fabulous picture, but I swear to god only jewels could have managed that shot. Perfectly poised, hand out, no blur, like a genie in the bottle. Fabulous. This quickly became THE joke.

We then headed off to what we affectionately called: the wedding cake of rome also known as Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II. You can see this from practically anywhere in the city with its huge glowing white boxy building, but its gorgeous. After snapping our pics we moved on to the Pantheon! Half of the exterior is under construction, but we managed to grab some gelato before sitting down to admire. Our first gelato in Roma, was, well, spectacular. How do you describe something that makes you so happy, and make you feel worldly, and just so in the moment. That was gelato. Every bite you can’t help thinking that you are in Rome, with friends, surrounded by beautiful people, and just loving every second. This was why I was in Europe in the first place. All those feelings, and gelato made you re-live all of those.

We wrapped the day off with a fabulous metro ride back to the hostel. It really was fantastic how cheap the metro was: 1 euro. That’s it. So sweet and simple, and no stupid extra coins. Just one euro. Fabulous Rome; points for you. Another fabulous side note about our hostel was the fact that it served dinner…every night. One guess as to what they served: pizza. I mean, granted its like a million pieces shoved over top of one another in a huge box and first come first serve. But really – it was easy, and already in the price we paid for. Excellent. Eat away ladies. We wrapped up our first day with some computer time and we were off to bed. Damn did we ever sleep well. Jewels, Petey and I split a 3 person room that was pretty much like a hotel: our own bathroom, towels, sheets, covers, a TV. Yeah…it was more a hotel than a hostel. We we’re all over that.

Day 2 we ventured to the Piazza del Popollo and walked up the hill for the view from the top. Gorgeous. This was our first view of the Vatican actually, and we could not have been more excited. How incredibly cool. On the way of course we ventured, and found our very own little private park and saw some gorgeous old architecture. Also, we happened to watch the changing of the guards which was really cool in front of what I would assume was a government building of sorts.

We ventured to the Santa Maria della Vittoria church. I’m not going to lie, it was probably the most exquisite, gloriously beautiful church I had ever seen. So much detail and elegance on the walls, and knowing the history as well. You had to be impressed. One of the coolest pieces inside was the Ecstasy of St. Teresa by Scipione’s favored Sculptor Bernini. It was fascinating to see that in person. We figured that today was going to be a venture day: tons of walking around since everything is so close to one another. Honestly, we talked a lot about this, can you imagine growing up around so much history? Walking to a friend’s house and your landmarks are the Pantheon, Coliseum, Trevi fountain, etc. “Oh where do you live?”; “Left of the Trevi fountain”. Ha. I like across from a Tim Hortons. Beat that. Ridiculous. Zero competition. It was amazing.

We now wanted to venture to the Spanish steps! Wow! Gorgeous, we started at the top and walked down. Honestly, the perfect weather so naturally the steps are covered in groups of people, travelers, locals, you name it. The things you see are fabulous, and I’m talking about prime people watching as well. (1) An older couple and the man honestly had pizza sauce ALL over his face, as if he had accidentally face planted in his pizza. He didn’t care, but boy his wife was eyeing him. Eventually she got out the napkins. But wow; a prize winner right there. (2) A group of asian men begged to take their picture with us: we were locals? Absolutely not. We gave a smile anyways. Pretty sure that picture made their day. (3) The Rose man. Now you realize that everyone sells roses, and if they say they give one to you, you grab it, you then have to pay for it. So its sort of a hands off thing. This one man selling roses would not give up, he thought I was great, and wanted me to take a picture with him. Absolutely we will. Ridiculous. One of those moments were eyes say everything: “Petey, take the damn, Petey TAKE THE DAMN PICTURE!”. Right, moving forward.

We had booked what was called a “ghetto tour”. No really, that was the name. It did things like the mouth of truth and other sites that we would never have necessarily ventured to see. It was fabulous though: we walked for about 3 or 4 hours and saw where the chariots raced, the mouth of truth (totally felt like Audrey Hepburn), and so much more. We saw the Jewish ghetto, and the island that separated it all. One thing I saw that I had never seen before were the locks that people put on the bridge. They wrote the initials of them and their love and locked it to the bridge symbolizing their love would last forever. How incredibly romantic. Can you imagine your name on a lock? How fabulous.

We wrapped up the tour by having some aperativos and a large glass of wine along a really cool side street. This is where we learned of Baffettos. Amen for Baffettos but more about that later. We chatted and had wine with the tour guide after everything was all said and done. We had lucked out and the tour was almost a private one, it was made on special request so it was Jess, Jewels, Petey, myself and one other Canadian named Sam. Very cool. It was nice having a small group for the tour, more bonding with the guide and you could actually hear everything. Even better. Our best bonding moment: bonding with the two tour guides over Jewels Trevi photo. Posed or not? Absolutely. We loved her.

Day 3 was going to be the most epic yet: THE VATICAN! Oooo baby. This was it. You walk in and you are automatically hit with the realities of what surrounds you. The smallest state in the world, a place with their very own postage, so much history, the POPE for crying out loud. Just wow. We got in line, which was quite long actually and waited. Amazingly, what we had heard was hours in line only took us 30 minutes! Fabulous; the day was off to a good start. Once inside we opted for the audio guide for St. Peters Basilica. I wanted to absorb as much as possible, and I clearly wasn’t going to be reading anything once inside, so audio guide it was. Fabulous. How cool to be inside, we had a map and at each setting you could listen to the historical background and what religious significance it presented. Not going to lie, our audio guides had a very heavy religious bias to them, duh, but more so then expected. Walking around, it was gigantic: so many people, and of course photographs being taken left, right and centre. Then the craziest thing I have ever seen: a man had a heart attack. He had been praying and I think he was so overwhelmed with being inside the Basilica, or, so many people…he had a freaking heart attack. All of a sudden we are watching a paramedic bust through the main blocked off area and to this man. Unbelievable. I’m sure this happens more regularly than you would think though. I mean; it is St. Peters Basilica after all.

After leaving the Basilica, we then got in line to climb the Dome. Now the pre-story bit: Jess had worn a dress to the Vatican, and it was a bit short to enter, and a nice security guy had informed us: if she can make it a bit longer, no problem. Fabulous. Done. So when we got into line to climb the dome, we are standing there when the same security guard came. He told us to go further up the line. What? There is a line…but he wanted us to change from a line, to a huge chunk of people, and fill in the gap. Well, unfortunately we were the only ones we had seen him and we stepped forward. Horrible idea: people thought we were cutting in line and one British woman had zero issues informing us how horrible we were. WE ARE AT THE VATICAN for frig sake. Right, so we are trying to explain the security guard (who is no longer in visible sight, bastard) and she was not buying it. She thought we had made it up. So now, I’m awkward giggling, wishing I was anywhere else in the world, but that line. No eye contact with others, no eye contact with others, because we saw him again and he said to stay.

Then the line starts to move, but we are no longer in line, so where do we squish in? Nowhere. A fabulous British couple thankfully let us go in front of them since they could tell we were a) akward b) had been standing there the whole time. The walk up was so damn intense: 551 steps. Oh yes. We did em all. We started at the bottom and made it up to the top without too many problems. Really narrow though at times. God was the view from the top ever worth it. A 360 degree view and you could live up there. Just to die for. The walk down was just as hellish as the walk up, but we somehow managed. To celebrate: we sent some postcards! Yay! How cool; the smallest state, so we had to. Classic photo for sure.

Then it was time for the grande finale: the Vatican Museum. We headed outside the Vatican and grabbed some pizza on the way. Not a long line at all and a breeze to get the ticket. Fantastically enough: we were able to use our ISIC card. I’m pretty sure this is the first time someone in Europe has recognized this card, but we were able to get the discount. Amen. We were going to see the Sistine chapel! How cool? Michelangelo would be thrilled with us. After what felt like an eternity walking, and when I say an eternity, I mean we honestly walked for almost 2 hours through the most gorgeous, thrillingly beautiful hallways I had EVER seen. Each room felt to me like the Sistine Chapel. We even played a game: flat or 3D, because I swear to god each and every ceiling looked 3D in the design, however, it was kindly pointed out that they were flat. Yeah, like I said, a game began. And it was hard too. Tricky paintings.

We finally get to the Sistine chapel doors: take a deep breath and enter. Holy jesus. It was the most magical moment you could dream of. Michelangelo had painted what I was looking at. The detail, the amount of time and sweat and I’m sure tears that went into this masterpiece. Its one of those rooms you could stand in for hours and never look at the same thing twice: just incredible. I can only imagine working there, and sneaking in after it was closed and just lying on the floor staring at the ceiling. That was my favorite part. The things you talked about in art class, that you read in books: this was it. This was freaking IT. Unreal. Words really can’t describe.

We finally left and decided to cross back on a gorgeous bridge. Statues lined both sides and you really felt like you were in a fairytale. You felt prettier walking across a bridge like that. Now there was a reporter of sorts that was filming on the bridge. We tried our best not to dodge in front of the camera to be on TV, but I swear, we were walking by and I got my foot caught on a cobblestone and LAUNCHED forward. Oh boy. The camera man must have given me THE dirtiest look of all time, but I was just thankful I semi-landed on my feet. I really wasn’t trying to get on TV, but I don’t think he would have agreed.

To make the day even better we dined at Baffettos for the first time. We had been told this place was not only sensational, but that we had to get there before it opened. It was open from 630pm-1am, and you had to be early if you wanted to eat. Hmm, okay then. So we got there at 6 and stood in line: first I may add: first in line. This place is family owned and feels like they were put on earth to make pizza. We get a seat outside on the patio and we each order the basic margherita pizza for 5 euros. No idea what to expect but after hearing all about it, we did have high enough expectations. Well, turns out the pizza surpassed ALL of our expectations. The pizza was a) a Canadian large, b) the most heavenly thing you have ever seen and c) the crust was so thin you don’t know how the whole thing didn’t burn in their oven. IT WAS SENSATIONAL. You should have heard us eating it: sound effects were ridiculously hilarious. I’m sure you can only imagine the “ooo”’s and “aaa”’s that the whole restaurant were saying. It was like flipping to the wrong channel. We just couldn’t get over the price though: 5 Euros for such a huge pizza. Of course we finished the whole thing, because it was heaven. We knew we would be coming back for sure. Baffettos was the best damn pizza in all of Italy and we were sure of it.

This is also when we discovered the heavenly gelato joint right next door. Smart business people right there, placing yourself next to the most fantastic pizzeria of all time; they do dinner, you do dessert. Jewels and I agreed that we would try and do different flavours every time we ate gelato. That time I had Bailey’s and banana. Oh boy, words cannot express how damn good it was. On our way home we walked past the Piazza Navona where they were still selling art, the Pantheon and the Trevi. Like I said, you can’t go around the corner without bumping into something historical. The final venture for the night was Trevi. The place is possibly even more gorgeous at night then the day. All lit up, still tons of people, but just awe dropping. We even took a “Jewels re-enactment” picture of the three of us tossing our ‘coins’. Legendary. So we are each taking a night time shot in front of the fountain when a rose seller approaches Petey. Now I think it’s the being half Italian thing, but damn this girl got hit on hard in Italy. Fabulously funny: this time was no exception and probably topped the charts. So he is chatting up Petey and she is giving me the save me eyes. Okay, I took the picture first then went to save her.

Note: A bit of background info. When I broke all my bones I had to venture on a pretty regular basis to the hospital for check-ups. Okay then, so this one time I couldn’t find where I had to go, and this one guy named Said helped me. Fabulous, he was a doctor and super nice: wearing the white coat and all. Right, well turns out he practically had my number on speed dial he called so often (even though I never answered; sorry) and on the way out of the hospital that fine day….turns out he is a custodian. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the white jacket was not legit and the girls have never let that one go. Damn.

So back to the story: We get talking and the rose man says to Petey “What’s your name?”, she takes one look at me and says “Sarah”. Fabulous, thanks Petey. She then politely asks back, what’s your name?...I am not kidding you, he said “Said”. I doubled over laughing. As freaking if. Not only is his name Said, but Petey presented herself as Sarah. I was dying with laughter, literal tears. Said probably didn’t find this so funny, but he had to go sell more roses anyways. Oh boy, Rome was sure conducive for laugh attacks. We caught the metro home, but the thing about Termini station is that we could never quite grasp which exit to take. I mean this in the smartest way possible: all of us are exceptional with the metro, but we always seemed to take the exit that was on the opposite side of the station that we needed. It then became a game to find the right one. This game would last longer than we expected.

The next day was sensational and we planned to take a little breather and go to the beach! We ended up taking the metro, the above ground tram and finally a bus; all for the combined price of 1 Euro. Pardon? Absolutely. We asked where to buy tickets, but the one metro ticket we had bought was good enough for them all. I love this country. Brilliant. We travelled for about an hour, but the final bus was the best part: pretty sure it was half off-roading, bumping everywhere. We had no idea where we were going, but we figured when we saw a beach we could just jump off. Absolutely, we saw a beach and practically screamed for him to stop the bus. He slammed the breaks and we jumped off. Brilliant: hello beach. First stop: the bar. We each bought ourselves a beer, which funny enough happened to be Danish, but whatever, we were on a damn beach! Gorgeous weather and hot. Could not beat that if we tried. Also: not a single other person was on the beach. Private? It was ours. Sensational. We made fort, and each got comfy. We decided to hold off for a bit on the sunscreen since we had received zero colour the past few days: this was soon to be a HUGE regret. However, we decided to roast evenly like marshmallows. Seriously, we said we were marshmallows. To be golden brown on the outside. Ha. Ridiculous when I say it out loud now. We spent the day heavenly on the beach and then finally decided to head back before we missed the last bus: which we didn’t exactly know would be coming. Turns out we had to wait for about an hour: however we had exceptional entertainment. Five girls: Jess, Julie, Petey, Colleen (Jewels friend) and myself. We had to stand on the side of the road and well, we got a lot of honks. Honestly though, it sounded like a musical. We thought it was some sort of reality series joke. It quickly became another game: who has the best pick up attempt. The contestants included blowing kisses on motorcycles, whistling tunes, honking tunes by car, yells, and really slow drivers on bicycles. Ridiculously funny.

The bus FINALLY comes and we jump on. And we are riding when all of a sudden Petey says “What is touching my leg?”…Jess answers:”It’s a dog”. You should have seen her face. Literally a little dog was wrapped around Petey’s leg, but she was expecting us to say it was our feet, or a pole…nope a dog. Fabulous. Moving on. It’s time for the tram back before the metro. We were perfectly on time and the metro was about to go. The man is pointing through the trains to ours: we were train number 4 in the distance. So we all start running through the trains. Julie is first, I’m second, Colleen is third, Petey is fourth and Jess is last. Oh my god if you could have seen us running, we thought we had some time when all of a sudden Jewels, Colleen and I are on the tram and the alarm starts going. Jess is still about 3 trains away and Petey is super close. THE DOORS CLOSE. I shoved my hands in and Petey got there just in time! We are pushing the doors back, but clearly they were having none of that. I’m pushing the button to get the door to open and FINALLY IT DOES. Petey jumps on! We are yelling at Jess “RUN JESS RUN!” Oh she was booking it alright but holy crap the same thing happened, we had to keep the doors open. It was like a movie. A movie! Running through the trains, the doors are closing behind her as the exists each train running towards us. We are sticking our arms out reaching for her when she finally arrives! It was insane. We were dying laughing: AS IF THAT JUST HAPPENED. Of course it did: it’s US we are talking about.

This super sweet older woman sat beside me on the tram and to make it clear I do not speak Italian she did not speak English: however, we had her book. She was pointing to picture of Sardinia and I believe she lived there, showing me the sculptures and pictures. My show and tell was our towels: beach, burnt, sand. It was good, we managed quite well. She just kind of smiled/giggled at me, and I smiled and kept saying “bella” at her book pictures. It was great. Of course to top off a great night we celebrated at Baffettos with some gelato afterwards. Unfortunately, I tried dipping it in chocolate. I really don’t know why, but I feel like I need to keep trying and that all of a sudden I will love it. Absolutely not, this day has not come yet. I broke the chocolate off and semi-ate it slash pushed it overboard my bowl. Oops. However, the gelato itself was magical just the same. We decided to venture and take the bus back to Termini this time. Well, I was in tears the entire way, because somehow I had been positioned standing up between two men sitting down. We quickly became a ping pong table as my legs bounced back and forth between one man’s knee, the other man’s knee. I honestly was holding the bar of the bus so tightly as to not move, but the bus was packed and let’s face it Rome’s streets are not smooth. Oh boy, good ol ping pong. You should have seen my face as I just kept laughing and saying sorry simultaneously.

When we finally got back to the hostel I realized just how much colour I had received during the day at the beach. I had had some colour after getting out of the shower before dinner, but now, holy crap batman. My back was turning into like a quickly spreading rash of red, my calves were neon red and bits on my chest. Oh super hot. My legs were so painful I cannot even express, damn damn damn you sunshine. My thighs were perfect, but I had clearly missed the calves. Well lesson learned…again. Petey wrapped me up in wet towels to sleep with and I swear I had heated them dry by morning. Unbelievable.

Now I’m not sure if you have heard of that volcano Eyjafjallajoekull…but that baby affected us hardcore. More about that to come, however, Friday night was when we first really heard about its effects on flights. We knew we were in for a lovely treat by Volcano X. Well…to celebrate we decided to venture to Florence for our ‘last day’ in Italy. Ha. Yeah, well in our minds it was our last day. So half of us stayed to research on the Internet about the volcano, and the other half went to purchase the tickets. Fabulous teamwork.

Our train was at 6:30am so naturally we were up pretty early, to be there early. We got on our train and it was totally Harry Potter cabin style. Yay! Very cool, I had never been on a train like that. Jess and I were sitting together and the other girls were spread in other cabins. It was a mix of chatting and sleeping seeing as we were going to be a 3 hour train ride arriving at 9:30am. First stop for me: aloe. I had been on the hunt the night before, but of course NOTHING was open. Okay, well I bought my aloe cream asap and god damn that felt good. Wow; aloe really is a saving grace. I was now ready to go! We ventured first and got something to eat which was usually a croissant and a coffee. Delicious. We planned what we wanted to do and first up was the David. THE David. Oh wow, that picture that you grow up seeing in art books but never actually think you will see in person. The same sculpture that appears on almost every postcard in the area. All I can say is wow: David is HUGE. I mean, tall, honestly like 20 feet tall. I had no idea. But man oh man the detail that went into him is incredible. Not to mention he had a nice bum, but hey, David is incredibly famous. You had to do the 360 view. We ventured to the gift shop and made a couple purchases which included a pocket mirror for the purse with David on it: not going to lie, David makes me smile on a regular basis.

We then ventured to the incredibly beautiful Florence Cathedral. The outside was so detailed and ornate it was remarkable. Honestly though, the amount of detail that went into that was sensational, not to mention the red roof that you always see. Gorgeous. Now I had worn shorts that day, and since that is not welcome in the church we had to quickly come up with something so that I was allowed in. What did we do? The sweater skirt. I took off the sweatshirt I was wearing and tied it in the front then used Jess’ sweater and tied it around the back. My knees were now covered and I was allowed in! Yay! Granted I took the tiniest bitty steps since the sweater skirt was not stable, however, I was allowed in just the same. Not going to lie, the outside is much more impressive, but still very cool to be able to go inside. The sweater skirt saved me.

Finally it was time to explore the leather market: not going to lie, this was the main attraction to go to Florence, and none of us were against buying a little leather. I had a leather coat already, so for me the goal was a purse; a big ol, oversized leather purse. Dreamy right? We must have walked through that market for hours, talking and negotiating with people, seeing what they had to offer. There was so many gorgeous pieces, it was insane. Everything leather you could dream of. I ended up making the purchase of a large tanned leather bag and a smaller green clutch. Oh I was thrilled. We each bought something, some souvenirs and were pretty damn high on life. Jess made the biggest purchase of the day: a leather jacket. But not just any jacket; this one was going to be tailored. I had gone in with her to give her the okay, and I said it fit her exceptionally, except for the shoulders. The man said he could tailor it for no extra cost and the deal was sealed. While we waited for that to be done, we grabbed a drink and sat anxiously. Finally the time came and wow was it ever worth it. This jacket was made for her. To die for really. We were all thrilled for her, but most importantly, Jess was ecstatic.

The rest of our day trip was spent walking the gorgeous alleyways and streets. We were able to see the mini-David, and the area surrounding it which had tons of statues. So cool to see all the history you know? It doesn’t really hit you even. We had read in a book that one of the best gelato joints was in Florence: this quickly became our mission. On our trek we heard a group of people heading on their way, so naturally we kinda followed them and sure enough they took us right there. We paid for our cones and got in line. Oh. My. God. I got two scoops of mandarin and pineapple and words will never be able to express how delicious it was. It was like eating a mandarin, and the pineapple was so fresh. No wonder this was the best gelato joint: well deserved title. We walked along the river for a while, taking pictures and just taking it all in. Can you imagine living there? Seeing this everyday. I mean Ottawa is pretty, but we do not have ANYTHING like this. Our canal is amazing, but I guess I have seen it so many times. This was so different and unlike anything I had ever seen. We saw the locks again with couples initials; I am in love with that idea. How romantic eh? Love. Love is fabulous.

On our walk Petey got a phone call from her parents. We quickly hated when Petey’s cellphone rang because it never meant anything good: always bad news. Of course, this was a phone call to say that Paris airports were shutting down…we were flying back into Paris. Brilliant; the likelihood that we were going home was becoming slim. Hope and faith. We still hung on. We got some dinner and just laughed about the day slash this damn volcano and how Iceland was ruining it all. Iceland; like c’mon now. Everyone in Canada couldn’t give two craps about this, however, this volcano was becoming our reality quite quickly. One last venture before we caught the train we were able to see the Santa Maria Novella; gorgeous on the outside, however we didn’t venture in. We had a little bit of time before the train so we all grabbed a magazine and sat. We were in tears laughing about our lives, how this WOULD happen to us, slash, the mens bathroom was right across from our sitting area…and well…the door wasn’t closed. We were in tears. Ridiculous right?

Our ride home was good, we were all in different cabins, except Petey and I happened to be sitting beside each other. Oh boy, our poor cabin. I don’t know if it was partially the sun, or just being exhausted, but I had the giggles. Mad giggles. I was putting our purses above our seats and I grabbed Petey’s bag, just as she was saying “Be careful, my shot glass is in there” you heard the smashing sound of the glass against the railing above. I couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard. Her too, sort of. But oh man, we were in tears. I was doubled over and the cabin probably thought we had some screws lose. But luckily, under some miracle, I did not break her shot glass: thank god. Can you imagine? Phew.

When we got back we checked our flights and BAM: all cancelled. Shocked? Absolutely not. We were going to be staying her for another couple nights. Luckily enough, Petey and I were able to book our next flight for Tuesday which was still sketchy since it was Saturday night, but still, we did it anyways. Jess and Jewels waited some more before booking but we were all screwed. This damn volcano Eyjafjallajoekull was being a pain in my ass. We joked about how 50 years from now this is the story we would tell the grandkids: “Now kids, this one time when your grandma was 21 she went to Italy, and this huge volcano EXPLODED leaving us TRAPPED for days...” Yeah I would slash will totally be telling that story.

Not only did this whole thing suck, but I was supposed to be meeting Pablo and his dad in Brussels. We were going to spend the week together for the first time in 5 years since I had stayed with them for 2 weeks in Spain and I couldn’t wait. Also, it was his dad’s birthday: how brilliant right. Well this volcano X was putting a severe hold on those plans. Of course it would: nothing is that easy.

So this was the first 5 days in Rome. Part 1. Wow right? Unbelievably filled with laughter, amazing food, long walks and gorgeous photos. Part 2: the aftermath of Volcano X soon to follow! Stay tuned!