HAY GUYS.
So I've started working and have been for the past 2 weeks now (ahh!). I was a bit nervous when I started. I probably had no need to be but it might have something to do with it kind of hammering in that I pretty much live here for the next few months... O GOD RESPONSIBILITY. It also means I will have money to spend on fun things like going out to see random gigs and so on and so forth, also food, food is important. I may also have invested in a bike to ride around on, but I'm not sure how that's going to work out if it keeps raining here like it has been lately. I HATE YOU GUYS AND YOUR SPRING/SUMMER INCOMING. At least I don't have to worry about snow until December?
So yeah, no big news yet, aside from seeing The Dandy Warhols for like, $30, pretty much on principle. They weren't bad though, they had two opening bands, I think both from Portland, "The Upsidedown." and "Darker my Love" who weren't bad either. The singer for the first group sounded so much like the lead from Crash Test Dummies, though it took me forever to figure that one out. So yeah, they played a bunch from their new record which I haven't heard and a bunch of older songs, did a few requests, and in the middle of the set they had an intermission so some dude could propose to his gf on stage! That was kinda crazy, but also pretty awesome.
Before the show I got to talking to one of the security guys because he noticed I was sitting down on the floor on the side of the stage waiting for the show to start, apparently it's unheard of over here? Also warned me about the possibility of dudes puking while moshing if I were inclined to be in the middle of the crowd (no thanks!). Did I mention V-fest in the last one? There was SOOOOO much crowd surfing, most of the time it was the same dude/chick and they would do it like 4 or 5 times! These people are crazy. Anyway, this guy, seriously, it's crazy, he's like 19, working 2 jobs, finishing an apprenticeship, supporting his gf while she goes to law school, and paying for this condo that costs him $1600 a month, AND is like 40 mins from the subway... I was like, wow dude, that's fucked up. Didn't catch him after the show though to wish him luck with everything, might catch him at one of the other shows I'll go to, he was a pretty cool dude.
I also got invited to hang out with these guys I think (?), haha. They were like, hey line buddy, are you all on your own? I'm Cameron and this is Trevor, we have some friends coming too so it should be a good night. I'm like, oh cool, but then I had to run to the "washroom" (because I had been holding it since running into Helen at the mall where I was hiding out from the rain after going to the art crawl in Queen West. Then I get there and there's this huge line, ahh!) and then they were gone and I didn't think to look for them again, also it probably would have been weird, or maybe awesome, I don't know. I need to make some friends. Haha. Sigh.
I guess now it's time to finish my Montreal Edition?
OR
Get distracted for a couple hours instead?
Ok so, where we left off was my last weekend in Montreal. Earlier in the week Jonathan (the hostel owner) proposed that I work for him in the second hostel he was aquiring since he knew I was looking for work and a flat. This I was a tad curious about so agreed to have a look at the hostel once he signed the papers for it (mostly to see what I'd have to deal with and if I had my own room etc). We went on the Friday, him and I, and a group of others who I would later spend the weekend hanging out with. LITTLE DID WE KNOW that it wasn't just to view the new place NO. Apparently he missed the fact that the paint was peeling off the walls, and failed to come to terms with the fact that no, this place wasn't going to be ready for anything just yet, let alone a gay pride weekend BUT HE STILL PLANNED TO HAVE PEOPLE STAY THERE THAT NIGHT BECAUSE HE OVERBOOKED. So he's like O HAY GUYS, HERE'S A FUN IDEA TO MAKE MONEY. Pretty much, in the end, the group of us wasted a whole Friday (in which we had decided to go out too, but couldn't because we couldn't get a ride back to the other hostel until about 2am and all the bars etc close at 3am) peeling paint and assembling beds (which he decided had to be dissassembled and then reassembled so he could get that one room's floors sanded... WHY COULDN'T HE THINK AHEAD AND DO THAT ONE ROOM FIRST BEFORE WE MADE ANY OF THE BUNKS I couldn't tel you... as you can tell I was getting rather annoyed at this point. One of the guys, Edd, mentioned he was a sander by profession and lucky him got to spend his weekend in Montreal sanding floors only to be
1) supplied with a bed at Jon's "friends" house (apparently really dodgy)
2) fucked over on time because he couldn't start the second day sanding until about 1pm therefore couldn't finish the house and therefore "not finishing the job properly" and only getting like $150 for it, wtf.
Also on the Monday, when he had planned to hitch a ride with the girls from New York, Nick apparently was "required" to help out on the hostel (or he wouldn't get paid) so he agreed to if he could make the last bus out to wherever he was heading... which he didn't =( at least he kept track of all the money he was owed and got about $450 which paid for his trip to Montreal.
OTHER AMAZING FACTS:
1) He's on a suspended licence, which he decided to tell us about WHILE he was driving us around. His van is also unregistered under Quebec state, and it still under California from when he bought it from some hippies.
2)He has his sick bedridden Mother staying in one of the rooms in the hostel. (You would constantly see nurse types coming in and out of that room)
3) He only deals in cash.
4) He has a pot dealer that he "knows" ? (although it isn't illegal or anything there, but still)
Anyway.
That's pretty much it about that guy. Whew.
The rest of my weekend was good though. Like I mentioned earlier, it was the gay pride weekend so I spent most of it in the Village, woooooo. The first night we went out it was actually on the Thursday and we went to a cool little blues bar. The other girl who went out with us, Rach from Jersey, had never heard blues before! Amazing. It was actually more like Blues Rock, which was more amazing that she'd never heard of it. The second night we went out was on the Saturday where we caught the end of a drag show doing musical divas (surprise surprise? hehe). The Rihhana (sp?) act looked exactly like her it was scary. That was fun though, got to sing along to the Spice Girls too, some of them weren't so realistic though! Then along to a bar where we had the most adorable gay bartender that made us shots. Somehow we ended up in a strip club after that, it was so terrible. Cover was like $2, but then we had to buy a drink and my coke ended up costing me like, $6 plus tip! Lames. All the girls there were so bored, and had noooooo boobs, none of them, disappointing. The only thing that came out of that was Rach buying Jer a lap dance so they could stay an extra day (since Jer wanted to go home early).
Sunday was messed up. After going out for brunch a group of us stopped by the liquor store on the way back so a few of them could "get started on the festivities" early. 3 of us headed back to the hostel and planned to meet the others later as we weren't in the mood for drinking all day from about 2pm. So it starts getting late, after dinner I start enquiring after the group that we split up with earlier. Apparently, I'm told, that 3 of them had returned and then left again after telling everyone that one of the girls (though they couldn't remember the names of them at the time) got alcohol poisoning and had to go to the hospital to get her stomach pumped! Me being me starts freaking out trying to figure out who is where and if they're ok or whatever, the hostel owner is like "yeah whatever.." and talking on his phone while I'm like, ok so who do I call about this do you know anything about what happened? I'm like god dude, these girls are like 18/19 staying at your establisment, srsly. So yeah, anyway, I find out they're ok and on the way back which is a relief, and on the other hand I have Rach who's all upset about her last night in Montreal being ruined. It's not that late so we decide to go out anyway, and the two girls who just got back from the hospital decide to come along too (what?!). Rach and I weren't really in the mood to be babysitters to the two so we left them in the hands of Jer and 2 other guys we had dinner with, and kind of ditched them... whoops. So yeah. That sunday wasn't super exciting, though I did try hookah for the first time ever, so there's that.
So now we're almost caught up! Woooooooo.
I think I'll leave it at that for now though.
xo
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Ok. Proper update, promise.
Who knew I would be so bad at this?
(I DID! I DID!)
Ok so, I've FINALLY settled down somewhere and have time to write a lot of drivel about this and that that happened months ago (I can't believe it's September already!) although really I should be doing washing... See how much I have to sacrifice? Heh.
Right so! For the next 5 months or so I have my own room in a basement apt, which is actually pretty cozy. I moved in on Monday, though really quite late since the previous tenant is a giant procrastinator and didn't get everything out of there til about 6pm, and then we still had to vacuum and clean it out, and rearrange furniture before I could unpack! So it was quite late by the time I had emptied my bag out, but it felt really good. Now I feel like I should accumulate more things just to fill shelves though (I've already started buying more clothes from Value Village, it's pretty similar to Savemart except they donate most of their earnings to charity, they had a huge 50% off sale the other day, it was soooo busy, but I got quite a bit of stuff for $30), and I have a windowsill to put things on! I may buy a plant or something, hehe. But yes, now my backpack is sitting in the corner of my wardrobe looking sad and emo.
The apt itself kind of reminds me of home. It's a bit cluttered but I like it. The whole place is wired for sound too which is awesome. So if I want I can hook up my iriver or laptop, or play a cd or radio in the lounge, and it'll play throughout the whole house if I want it to, or I can selectively play it where ever. Karen, my housemate, she's similar to me, she's a big music person, always going out to gigs and festivals, talks a lot though! But she's cool. She hosts a radio show too and was thinking of getting me to guest on one of them to talk about music in NZ etc, so that could be interesting!
On top of finding a place to settle down in, I have also acquired a job to fund it! Who knew my first interview upon arriving would go so well? It's this cute little cafe in the middle of the arts/fashion district called Niche. When I went in there for the interview I instantly felt comfortable. It's a proper espresso cafe, and by the sounds of it they make really good coffee, much like they do at home, none of this chain drip coffee shit. She even roasts her own beans! Amazing. We even had this talk about how in North America it's so difficult to find a place like that, and she was telling me about how in most places she won't order a coffee but just watch them and cringe when they steam the milk because obviously they're burning it, and she finds it amazing and sad that people still drink it because they don't know any better. I do the same thing, or I just end up scoping out their machine, haha. Apparently they've had travellers discover the place and be like FINALLY! Haha. I'm really excited about starting, they sound like they know what they're doing and talking about. I'm not sure exactly when I start yet, she has yet to get back to me on that, hopefully by tonight, because she still had to hire one or two more and sort out schedules etc (she offered me the job on the spot! Crazy.). But what she proposed in the interview was that I could (if I wanted longer hours and less days, which I did) do roughly 35-40 hours in 4 days and have 3 days off, which is great! It means I'm free to go out of town if I want to.
Like I mentioned, after the interview she said "well, I'm not trying to be indecisive, but I don't usually do this... if you'd like the position it's yours" to which I replied "oh wow." haha. I told her I had another interview at 4pm that I thought I should check out because, well, first interview ever and being offered the job straight away, is a bit overwhelming. She was cool about it though, said she would hold off offering the spot to anyone else until about 8pm since she would feel better if I were completely sure about my decision. The second place, well, they were interviewing for a new branch they were opening up that hadn't started yet. It wasn't a chain or anything though, apparently some projects of some really famous TO chef. The idea behind the place was similar to Sky Lounge, where it was a cafe during the day (aiming to do fantastic espresso coffee, hence the woman hiring said she was excited by me because I was a barista from NZ and I guess we have good reps for coffee, well, Gail said that too (the owner of Niche)) and a tapas bar at night. It sounded interesting at least, they were aiming to have all these specialty cheeses and meats from the Ontario region, good wine selection etc, aiming for something casual. Only problem was that they hadn't finalised much of it so it was mostly all up in the air still. She wasn't sure on the hours I would have, and her system for hiring was a bit flimsy. Pretty much, if I was interested, I could attend this training thing, get paid for it, but it was more of a "we may or may not hire you depending on how you go on these" or at least that was my impression. I think they aimed to be open by mid Sept anyway which was a bit too long for me to wait. So yes. It may have been interesting, but oh well. So I called Gail back and accepted the Niche position and she said "I'm glad you made that decision." and I crossed my fingers.
Ok so now stuff I should have told you about months ago!
Where to start...
(Let's start from the very beginning... what a very good place to start...)
Montreal!
So I booked for 2 weeks in this small little hostel that had it's ups and downs. My aim was to use that time to figure out work and a flat etc (to no avail.) but instead spent the first week going out and not sleeping until 4am every night (bars closed at 3am) tsk tsk!
The first night was a Saturday in which I went out trolling with a group from New York, Chicago and one annoying kid from Boston who fortunately got kicked out the next day (more later). It wasn't too exciting, went out looking for a good bar/club something, lead by this know it all Boston kid who had been staying a while already in Montreal. We wound up in this 50s themed place with kids all dressed up and a ska band who were just finishing. That was kinda fun, I remember marvelling at this chicks hair that defied gravity, it was almost cone shaped and pretty much amazing. I could imagine birds nesting in it. Anyway, then we wandered around some more, and the group from NY decided they wanted to go to a strip club so we split up and our group started back to the hostel after finding something to eat. Upon arriving back we find some guys from Manchester and a chick from TO zoned out on the couches on the porch coming down from their afternoon on mushrooms, and we also find out that the kid from Boston is an aspiring musician who calls himself Scooter Rocket ( I dare you to look him up on youtube, if you do, I know it's long, and 9 mins is way too much to handle, but skip to the last minute, it's so retarded. Apparently he either tried for idol, or is going to, maybe he makes it into the bloopers cut.) and we find this out because he starts playing his guitar and singing while we're all chilling out on the porch. This ultimately gets him kicked out of the hostel for being too loud so late at night (also used as an excuse for the owner to get rid of him for other various reasons) but this is not the last we see of him!
Sunday we find out the boys from Manchester are also in a band (Eskimo Cowboy. JP, the singer has an amazing voice, so melodic), spend some of the morning at the Jean Talon markets and see an amazing jazz show. The group was called Kalmunity Kollective and they're pretty much amazing. It's a group of musicians that get together every Sunday and Tuesday and just jam, it's all improv' so it's never the same song twice, and it's always good, so who would mind paying a $5 cover charge? Guess! Our aspiring musician scooter joins the group of us about 20 mins after they start and after being asked for the cover he says "I don't think I'm happy to pay $5 for this" How embarrassing! Mind you, this is after he's been sitting at the table for about 10 mins with his video camera and laptop out. After that we all went outside for some "air" (mostly to ditch him and bitch) and one of the dudes went and apologised to the door girl and made it clear that he wasn't with us. I mean, you'd think that as a musician he'd appreciate how tough it is to make any kind of living playing gigs, and I mean, $5 is nothing really for such quality. Though I suppose it's more than what anyone would pay to see him, if anything!
The rest of the 1st week was a bit of a blur, but I did manage to go to the first night of Francofolie, the everything French music festival and see the Canadian fireworks show as part of the international competition they hold over the summer. Pretty much every Weds and Sun there's fireworks, each day is a different country who does a 30 min show to music of their choice/theme. This first time I wasn't in a position to hear the music very well (I think they broadcasted it on some radio station too), but the show was still pretty neat. The second time I went it was the USA show, I was in a much better spot this time around and could hear their music very well. They did a rock and roll theme and a few songs they did worked really well! They did Yellow by Coldplay and some of the timing for that was perfect! Same with Tonight Tonight by the Pumpkins. Other times it was just messy and full of loud bangs.
The same night I saw the second round of fireworks I was with an Australian dude and we went and hit up the Casino! It was way fun. Should have skipped the slots and roulette that we started on first though and went straight to blackjack, next time...hehe. Broke fairly even, so it worked out. Good thing we were bound by time to catch the last train back to the hostel! Before we left we were watching a game of craps, completely confused by it, and a nice man who was playing bought me a bottle of water, yay! We decided the following day we were going to look up how to play it for next time, though I would still be too scared to jump in.
God this post is going to be a novel. Well... once I stop getting distracted and actually finish it.
Here are some fun facts for this post:
Started 2pm Thursday 4th Sept.
Wrote the above in between doing laundry, making dinner, reading trex comics (http://www.qwantz.com/) and other comics suggested by http://xkcd.com, general web surfing and making fun of Kris on facebook.
Went to sleep at roughly 3am, left the blog tab open, still with no extentions to the above written.
Woke up 11:30am.
Checked email, checked timetable for V-Fest on Saturday. Had a soy milo, talked to Karen about politics and religion among other things until about 2pm.
Called Gail back about the job, start training on Monday! Probably free for the rest of the week. Start thinking I should sort out what films to see at TIFF, but then stop myself. Shifts would be Mon/Tue/Wed 9-7 and 8 hours on Sun. Now I can start planning things to do thurs/fri/sat.
Get distracted trying to figure out if I can go to any of the dcfc shows that are on next month within that timeframe. Possibly Boston. Look up bus ticket ($170) concert ticket ($35) hostels ($45 per night in a dorm?! wtf. 2 nights:$90) total approx $300, start researching alternatives.
Karen sends me her myspace to look at. Says it's good for finding music so I start looking around, stumble upon the "Halifax Pop Explosion" fest in late Oct. Then start playing around on Deezer.com.
It's now 5:30pm Friday 5th Sept.
I'm being good and not looking up films yet! But I am hungry and might make something to eat...
You probably want a break anyway.
So when we come back... (which we will...promise)
Gay Pride weekend!
and
Dodgy hostel owner!
(I DID! I DID!)
Ok so, I've FINALLY settled down somewhere and have time to write a lot of drivel about this and that that happened months ago (I can't believe it's September already!) although really I should be doing washing... See how much I have to sacrifice? Heh.
Right so! For the next 5 months or so I have my own room in a basement apt, which is actually pretty cozy. I moved in on Monday, though really quite late since the previous tenant is a giant procrastinator and didn't get everything out of there til about 6pm, and then we still had to vacuum and clean it out, and rearrange furniture before I could unpack! So it was quite late by the time I had emptied my bag out, but it felt really good. Now I feel like I should accumulate more things just to fill shelves though (I've already started buying more clothes from Value Village, it's pretty similar to Savemart except they donate most of their earnings to charity, they had a huge 50% off sale the other day, it was soooo busy, but I got quite a bit of stuff for $30), and I have a windowsill to put things on! I may buy a plant or something, hehe. But yes, now my backpack is sitting in the corner of my wardrobe looking sad and emo.
The apt itself kind of reminds me of home. It's a bit cluttered but I like it. The whole place is wired for sound too which is awesome. So if I want I can hook up my iriver or laptop, or play a cd or radio in the lounge, and it'll play throughout the whole house if I want it to, or I can selectively play it where ever. Karen, my housemate, she's similar to me, she's a big music person, always going out to gigs and festivals, talks a lot though! But she's cool. She hosts a radio show too and was thinking of getting me to guest on one of them to talk about music in NZ etc, so that could be interesting!
On top of finding a place to settle down in, I have also acquired a job to fund it! Who knew my first interview upon arriving would go so well? It's this cute little cafe in the middle of the arts/fashion district called Niche. When I went in there for the interview I instantly felt comfortable. It's a proper espresso cafe, and by the sounds of it they make really good coffee, much like they do at home, none of this chain drip coffee shit. She even roasts her own beans! Amazing. We even had this talk about how in North America it's so difficult to find a place like that, and she was telling me about how in most places she won't order a coffee but just watch them and cringe when they steam the milk because obviously they're burning it, and she finds it amazing and sad that people still drink it because they don't know any better. I do the same thing, or I just end up scoping out their machine, haha. Apparently they've had travellers discover the place and be like FINALLY! Haha. I'm really excited about starting, they sound like they know what they're doing and talking about. I'm not sure exactly when I start yet, she has yet to get back to me on that, hopefully by tonight, because she still had to hire one or two more and sort out schedules etc (she offered me the job on the spot! Crazy.). But what she proposed in the interview was that I could (if I wanted longer hours and less days, which I did) do roughly 35-40 hours in 4 days and have 3 days off, which is great! It means I'm free to go out of town if I want to.
Like I mentioned, after the interview she said "well, I'm not trying to be indecisive, but I don't usually do this... if you'd like the position it's yours" to which I replied "oh wow." haha. I told her I had another interview at 4pm that I thought I should check out because, well, first interview ever and being offered the job straight away, is a bit overwhelming. She was cool about it though, said she would hold off offering the spot to anyone else until about 8pm since she would feel better if I were completely sure about my decision. The second place, well, they were interviewing for a new branch they were opening up that hadn't started yet. It wasn't a chain or anything though, apparently some projects of some really famous TO chef. The idea behind the place was similar to Sky Lounge, where it was a cafe during the day (aiming to do fantastic espresso coffee, hence the woman hiring said she was excited by me because I was a barista from NZ and I guess we have good reps for coffee, well, Gail said that too (the owner of Niche)) and a tapas bar at night. It sounded interesting at least, they were aiming to have all these specialty cheeses and meats from the Ontario region, good wine selection etc, aiming for something casual. Only problem was that they hadn't finalised much of it so it was mostly all up in the air still. She wasn't sure on the hours I would have, and her system for hiring was a bit flimsy. Pretty much, if I was interested, I could attend this training thing, get paid for it, but it was more of a "we may or may not hire you depending on how you go on these" or at least that was my impression. I think they aimed to be open by mid Sept anyway which was a bit too long for me to wait. So yes. It may have been interesting, but oh well. So I called Gail back and accepted the Niche position and she said "I'm glad you made that decision." and I crossed my fingers.
Ok so now stuff I should have told you about months ago!
Where to start...
(Let's start from the very beginning... what a very good place to start...)
Montreal!
So I booked for 2 weeks in this small little hostel that had it's ups and downs. My aim was to use that time to figure out work and a flat etc (to no avail.) but instead spent the first week going out and not sleeping until 4am every night (bars closed at 3am) tsk tsk!
The first night was a Saturday in which I went out trolling with a group from New York, Chicago and one annoying kid from Boston who fortunately got kicked out the next day (more later). It wasn't too exciting, went out looking for a good bar/club something, lead by this know it all Boston kid who had been staying a while already in Montreal. We wound up in this 50s themed place with kids all dressed up and a ska band who were just finishing. That was kinda fun, I remember marvelling at this chicks hair that defied gravity, it was almost cone shaped and pretty much amazing. I could imagine birds nesting in it. Anyway, then we wandered around some more, and the group from NY decided they wanted to go to a strip club so we split up and our group started back to the hostel after finding something to eat. Upon arriving back we find some guys from Manchester and a chick from TO zoned out on the couches on the porch coming down from their afternoon on mushrooms, and we also find out that the kid from Boston is an aspiring musician who calls himself Scooter Rocket ( I dare you to look him up on youtube, if you do, I know it's long, and 9 mins is way too much to handle, but skip to the last minute, it's so retarded. Apparently he either tried for idol, or is going to, maybe he makes it into the bloopers cut.) and we find this out because he starts playing his guitar and singing while we're all chilling out on the porch. This ultimately gets him kicked out of the hostel for being too loud so late at night (also used as an excuse for the owner to get rid of him for other various reasons) but this is not the last we see of him!
Sunday we find out the boys from Manchester are also in a band (Eskimo Cowboy. JP, the singer has an amazing voice, so melodic), spend some of the morning at the Jean Talon markets and see an amazing jazz show. The group was called Kalmunity Kollective and they're pretty much amazing. It's a group of musicians that get together every Sunday and Tuesday and just jam, it's all improv' so it's never the same song twice, and it's always good, so who would mind paying a $5 cover charge? Guess! Our aspiring musician scooter joins the group of us about 20 mins after they start and after being asked for the cover he says "I don't think I'm happy to pay $5 for this" How embarrassing! Mind you, this is after he's been sitting at the table for about 10 mins with his video camera and laptop out. After that we all went outside for some "air" (mostly to ditch him and bitch) and one of the dudes went and apologised to the door girl and made it clear that he wasn't with us. I mean, you'd think that as a musician he'd appreciate how tough it is to make any kind of living playing gigs, and I mean, $5 is nothing really for such quality. Though I suppose it's more than what anyone would pay to see him, if anything!
The rest of the 1st week was a bit of a blur, but I did manage to go to the first night of Francofolie, the everything French music festival and see the Canadian fireworks show as part of the international competition they hold over the summer. Pretty much every Weds and Sun there's fireworks, each day is a different country who does a 30 min show to music of their choice/theme. This first time I wasn't in a position to hear the music very well (I think they broadcasted it on some radio station too), but the show was still pretty neat. The second time I went it was the USA show, I was in a much better spot this time around and could hear their music very well. They did a rock and roll theme and a few songs they did worked really well! They did Yellow by Coldplay and some of the timing for that was perfect! Same with Tonight Tonight by the Pumpkins. Other times it was just messy and full of loud bangs.
The same night I saw the second round of fireworks I was with an Australian dude and we went and hit up the Casino! It was way fun. Should have skipped the slots and roulette that we started on first though and went straight to blackjack, next time...hehe. Broke fairly even, so it worked out. Good thing we were bound by time to catch the last train back to the hostel! Before we left we were watching a game of craps, completely confused by it, and a nice man who was playing bought me a bottle of water, yay! We decided the following day we were going to look up how to play it for next time, though I would still be too scared to jump in.
God this post is going to be a novel. Well... once I stop getting distracted and actually finish it.
Here are some fun facts for this post:
Started 2pm Thursday 4th Sept.
Wrote the above in between doing laundry, making dinner, reading trex comics (http://www.qwantz.com/) and other comics suggested by http://xkcd.com, general web surfing and making fun of Kris on facebook.
Went to sleep at roughly 3am, left the blog tab open, still with no extentions to the above written.
Woke up 11:30am.
Checked email, checked timetable for V-Fest on Saturday. Had a soy milo, talked to Karen about politics and religion among other things until about 2pm.
Called Gail back about the job, start training on Monday! Probably free for the rest of the week. Start thinking I should sort out what films to see at TIFF, but then stop myself. Shifts would be Mon/Tue/Wed 9-7 and 8 hours on Sun. Now I can start planning things to do thurs/fri/sat.
Get distracted trying to figure out if I can go to any of the dcfc shows that are on next month within that timeframe. Possibly Boston. Look up bus ticket ($170) concert ticket ($35) hostels ($45 per night in a dorm?! wtf. 2 nights:$90) total approx $300, start researching alternatives.
Karen sends me her myspace to look at. Says it's good for finding music so I start looking around, stumble upon the "Halifax Pop Explosion" fest in late Oct. Then start playing around on Deezer.com.
It's now 5:30pm Friday 5th Sept.
I'm being good and not looking up films yet! But I am hungry and might make something to eat...
You probably want a break anyway.
So when we come back... (which we will...promise)
Gay Pride weekend!
and
Dodgy hostel owner!
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Ogod Update.
Hey, so, it's been a while huh?
Yeah.. I'd say about, 3 weeks? It's ok though! I'm still alive :D
I don't know how to start this off, I really don't. The best bet I think is to break this up into chapters since, well, my time spent in Montreal was pretty much amazing on so many levels, and there's soooooo much to tell everyone. So much, that the owner of the hostel I was staying at (let's call him JackAss, JA for short, strange because that's his initials also!), well he just gets an ENTIRE section to himself!
But I'll just start off with where I'm at right now.
I have since left Montreal (mainly because I couldn't stand JA anymore, and I needed a change of scenery) though I'm planning to head back since there is still more for me to experience there, and I may have work when I get back from hanging out with Sibod. SO where am I? Well, at the moment I'm staying with my friend Joey back in Memphis, since, well, I had about 2 weeks until Si got to TO, and I figured it cheaper/similar to fly here and hang out then to hang out for 2 weeks where ever and pay food and lodging. So I'm here until I fly back on the 19th and meet up with Si (yay!). Our rough plan is then to meet with Amanda, perhaps see a Cirque show, then to head SW of TO and visit some random distant relatives of ours! (Also squeezing in a Niagara Falls day trip somewhere).
So that's me, now and pending.
More on the past 3 weeks coming up.
It's about the time for making tacos.
/hugzzzzzz
Yeah.. I'd say about, 3 weeks? It's ok though! I'm still alive :D
I don't know how to start this off, I really don't. The best bet I think is to break this up into chapters since, well, my time spent in Montreal was pretty much amazing on so many levels, and there's soooooo much to tell everyone. So much, that the owner of the hostel I was staying at (let's call him JackAss, JA for short, strange because that's his initials also!), well he just gets an ENTIRE section to himself!
But I'll just start off with where I'm at right now.
I have since left Montreal (mainly because I couldn't stand JA anymore, and I needed a change of scenery) though I'm planning to head back since there is still more for me to experience there, and I may have work when I get back from hanging out with Sibod. SO where am I? Well, at the moment I'm staying with my friend Joey back in Memphis, since, well, I had about 2 weeks until Si got to TO, and I figured it cheaper/similar to fly here and hang out then to hang out for 2 weeks where ever and pay food and lodging. So I'm here until I fly back on the 19th and meet up with Si (yay!). Our rough plan is then to meet with Amanda, perhaps see a Cirque show, then to head SW of TO and visit some random distant relatives of ours! (Also squeezing in a Niagara Falls day trip somewhere).
So that's me, now and pending.
More on the past 3 weeks coming up.
It's about the time for making tacos.
/hugzzzzzz
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Farewells.
So it's been a bit of a tough week.
Mama passed away last week, and her service was held over the weekend. Although I couldn't make it, or see her in her last hours, fortunately I was able to listen in on skype (hooray for technology). It was a good service, unfortunately one hour is not enough time to relay how much she meant to everyone or to review what an amazing life she had led. It's going to be weird arriving home without her there to greet me, but I hope she's finally with Yeh-Yeh and resting in peace.
I enjoyed the rest of my stay in New Orleans. I had the chance to wander around the French Quarter a few times during the day and once on a Saturday night (I have mementos from Pat O'Briens, including some Hurricane mix I hope to put to some use, hehe). We went to a karaoke bar called "Cats Meow" , it was fun(ny), lots of hens groups singing and some 'resident' rapper guy aka white guy trying to do 50cent and Nelly (also wearing All Blacks shirt? for shame.).
Had fun riding the street cars down St. Charles and Canal and wandering around City Park (after an adventure trying to find it). I think I finally had myself semi-oriented around the city before I had to leave for Seattle, so that was good.I remember the night before I left was the 4th of July, Julie and Larry drove us out to the other side of the river (Algere? It was opposite the Moonwalk near the Quarter) to watch the fireworks. It was a pretty good show, they had two lots going, one uptown and one downtown, off barges sitting on the river. All around us people were letting off fireworks too, just like one would during Guy Fawkes at home. After the show Lar and Julie were talking about going to a pub called "The Bulldog" on Canal Blvd and I was like "I totally know where that is. Jeez, I start knowing where you're talking about and I gotta leave tomorrow!" haha. Oh well.
I really enjoyed my stay in Seattle. It was only two days looking around but I'm pretty sure I could live there. Weather is similar to Auckland, although apparently it rains more often than not? Both days I was there the weather was perfect! I love the cultural aspect of the city, the emphasis they have on art and music especially.
I went on a "duck tour" which is a land and water tour of the city on some vehicles designed from WWII amphibious trucks, that was fun, I learned quite a bit about the history of Seattle and the layout of it. The guide was telling us that all around the city we'll notice pieces of art everywhere, and that's because for every building that's built in the city, 1% of the cost has to go towards some kind of artwork. So everywhere there's fountains, statues, sculptures etc, it makes for a beautiful city! Also on the tour we went down to look at some floating houses, like the one in Sleepless in Seattle. Apparently, before the film came out, it used to be that houses on the water were the cheapest living option in Seattle, but because the lots became limited to about 300 properties allowed on the lake and the growing popularity of floating houses the prices have gone way up and it's now the most expensive. Most of the original one story houses were torn down and newer 2 story houses were built, some of these houses look absolutely amazing. There's this one that the guide pointed out. Apparently has 3 levels, 2 above and one basement below water with lights illuminating from the windows, isn't that amazing? Although all I can imagine down there are seedy red suede couches... (house pictured below with the columns)
Anyway!
Walking around the city was great, it wasn't too hard to find my way around. Ended up wandering through the Pike Place Farmers Market. It reminds me of Victoria Park Markets on the weekends, with stalls as well as stores inside, but it also sells produce, fresh fish and meat along with other bits and pieces. Took some photos for Mum. It was a pretty cool atmosphere.
You could definately see all the art everywhere walking around the city. After wandering around I caught the Monorail back to near the Needle and went into the Experience Music Project (EMP). It was pretty awesome. It went through the Eras of music, and music development within Seattle, from jazz to rock and roll to punk to grunge etc etc, it had really good displays and audio guide. They had a room dedicated to Jimi Hendrix so that was cool too, and the evolution of guitars and electric guitars. They also had recording boothes if anyone wished to record a song and buy on cd, and also a virtual stage where people could go up to play and have screaming fans etc and you could also buy that on cd. I wandered around EMP for a couple hours before making it to THE SPACE NEEDLE.
Actually, I went for a walk down to the Sculpture park before then. It was a really nice evening, lots of people walking their dogs, jogging etc, all amongst these pieces of art.
When I arrived, they had a similar set up to the Tower, I had my photo taken infront of a backdrop of the city before lining up for an elevator. No chance to be confused, they escort you up and down, so I guess that's taken care of. The cafe was kind of terrible. I hadn't eaten dinner so I decided on soup and a panini that was really foul, there was probably a reason they didn't have them on display, I think it may have been the orange cheese... I never do well with orange cheese. The only other things they had available were bottled drinks, a few rolls, crisps and starbucks coffee. Ick.
I think that was the extent of my travels so far. Here's a link to some photos!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=135916&l=4fe8c&id=830225371
I'll update as soon as I get settled in Montreal.
xxo.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
New Orleans
So I arrived in New Orleans a couple days ago by bus. 10 hours on a bus kind of takes it out of you, I think now that I've checked riding on a greyhound off my list I'll never do that again. Though it was kind of a nice way to see the state I was passing through. At least most of the way here was spent sitting on my own.
My hosts, Julie and Larry are really sweet. Yesterday Julie and I went walking up Magazine Street to do a bit of shopping and to have lunch. Afterward she drove me around to get me oriented so I could work out where to catch buses and street cars. It's a bit hard since most of the streets curve around to follow the river, I think I'll be ok though, just have to remember the main streets. She also told me a lot of history to the city itself and the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Luckily their house missed the flooding, but there were a lot of houses and buildings that remained underwater for at least 6 weeks, there's still signs of water damage on some houses even 3 years later. Apparently about 2,000 100year old oak trees were uprooted during the storm too =(
We passed through Canal Street which is known as the Neutral Ground as it separated the French Quarter from the Americans/Irish etc way back when. We also drove around the French Quarter a bit (we're going there for a bit of bar hopping etc on Saturday so I'll get a bit of a taste of the night life). She was telling me that it's mostly set up with stores below and residential above as it was in the old days. Some of the residential places have Spanish courtyards because when the original French Quarter burnt down, the Spanish were in power at the time, so they rebuilt it with Spanish influence too.
We also drove around to look at the old houses. The one I'm staying in at the moment is at least 100 years old, it's really long, apparently called a shotgun house. The houses were built like this because back in the old days (I don't like that term really but I don't know dates so.. =p) people were taxed on how much house was facing the street. Most of the houses around here are amazing. We drove past a few houses that Anne Rice wrote about in her novels too and one that she lived in.
Today I went for a walk around Lafayette Cemetery. This was mentioned in one of Anne Rice's books too, I think Julie said it was Interview with a Vampire? I can never remember. This is one of many cemeteries with above ground tombs. I'm told that people are buried above ground here due to the water table being so unbalanced. If they were buried below ground, eventually the caskets would pop right back up out of the ground. Many of the tombs are family ones, today I saw a few with about 9 people etched onto it! Apparently the older ones were amazing, families having statues made of the deceased, even the poorer families would scrape together the money to do so. They even have society tombs, I saw one that hosted firefighters. These were usually to host for people who didn't have family around or who hadn't a tomb to rest in. I also noticed along the walls of Lafayette there were single memorials too, so I guess if you didn't have a family tomb you could buy a slot in the wall?
After that I caught a street car up to Canal Street and down to the river front. Walked around there for a little while then went into the Aquarium (mostly to avoid the incoming storm). It was pretty cool! I've decided that I enjoy taking photos of the facial expressions of fish cause they're way awesome. Especially Stingray, they always look happy. Too bad my camera battery died halfway through and I missed out on a lot of cool shots, like seahorses and giant white aligators! The exibits were cool, it was laid out as different water habitats. Carribean, Amazon, Mississpi, then had extra bits with Penguins and Otters and Seahorses and Frogs and Jellyfish. The seahorses were sneaky, they had lots of different types. A couple of them took me a while to find due to them being so well camoflaged. One was long and had things on them that looked like leaves so it blended into the plants really well! I had to cheat and look at the display picture to see what I was looking for =(
Didn't do much after the Aquarium. Was still a bit wet so started making my way back to the house and got stopped by these 3 guys who were hanging out on the corner with the cemetery on it. They were like
"excuse me, we were wondering if you could help us out with something"
(/prepare for death scene)
"so we're from (such and such) college and we need to shoot a short film and we were wondering if you could act in this shot for us"
(...uhh)
"see this guy is gonna be passed out drunk over there and all we want you to do it maybe kick him a bit and mug him and then walk off"
(I don't think I look like the mugging type..)
"exactly!"
(Sigh, ok I guess we can give it a go)
So grats to me. I'm now in some random college short film mugging some dude and walking off with his camera and about $10 cash.
wtf.
Ok that's all for today, am being taken out to dinner somewhere famous and exciting and good, and I don't remember what it's called.
xxo
My hosts, Julie and Larry are really sweet. Yesterday Julie and I went walking up Magazine Street to do a bit of shopping and to have lunch. Afterward she drove me around to get me oriented so I could work out where to catch buses and street cars. It's a bit hard since most of the streets curve around to follow the river, I think I'll be ok though, just have to remember the main streets. She also told me a lot of history to the city itself and the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Luckily their house missed the flooding, but there were a lot of houses and buildings that remained underwater for at least 6 weeks, there's still signs of water damage on some houses even 3 years later. Apparently about 2,000 100year old oak trees were uprooted during the storm too =(
We passed through Canal Street which is known as the Neutral Ground as it separated the French Quarter from the Americans/Irish etc way back when. We also drove around the French Quarter a bit (we're going there for a bit of bar hopping etc on Saturday so I'll get a bit of a taste of the night life). She was telling me that it's mostly set up with stores below and residential above as it was in the old days. Some of the residential places have Spanish courtyards because when the original French Quarter burnt down, the Spanish were in power at the time, so they rebuilt it with Spanish influence too.
We also drove around to look at the old houses. The one I'm staying in at the moment is at least 100 years old, it's really long, apparently called a shotgun house. The houses were built like this because back in the old days (I don't like that term really but I don't know dates so.. =p) people were taxed on how much house was facing the street. Most of the houses around here are amazing. We drove past a few houses that Anne Rice wrote about in her novels too and one that she lived in.
Today I went for a walk around Lafayette Cemetery. This was mentioned in one of Anne Rice's books too, I think Julie said it was Interview with a Vampire? I can never remember. This is one of many cemeteries with above ground tombs. I'm told that people are buried above ground here due to the water table being so unbalanced. If they were buried below ground, eventually the caskets would pop right back up out of the ground. Many of the tombs are family ones, today I saw a few with about 9 people etched onto it! Apparently the older ones were amazing, families having statues made of the deceased, even the poorer families would scrape together the money to do so. They even have society tombs, I saw one that hosted firefighters. These were usually to host for people who didn't have family around or who hadn't a tomb to rest in. I also noticed along the walls of Lafayette there were single memorials too, so I guess if you didn't have a family tomb you could buy a slot in the wall?
After that I caught a street car up to Canal Street and down to the river front. Walked around there for a little while then went into the Aquarium (mostly to avoid the incoming storm). It was pretty cool! I've decided that I enjoy taking photos of the facial expressions of fish cause they're way awesome. Especially Stingray, they always look happy. Too bad my camera battery died halfway through and I missed out on a lot of cool shots, like seahorses and giant white aligators! The exibits were cool, it was laid out as different water habitats. Carribean, Amazon, Mississpi, then had extra bits with Penguins and Otters and Seahorses and Frogs and Jellyfish. The seahorses were sneaky, they had lots of different types. A couple of them took me a while to find due to them being so well camoflaged. One was long and had things on them that looked like leaves so it blended into the plants really well! I had to cheat and look at the display picture to see what I was looking for =(
Didn't do much after the Aquarium. Was still a bit wet so started making my way back to the house and got stopped by these 3 guys who were hanging out on the corner with the cemetery on it. They were like
"excuse me, we were wondering if you could help us out with something"
(/prepare for death scene)
"so we're from (such and such) college and we need to shoot a short film and we were wondering if you could act in this shot for us"
(...uhh)
"see this guy is gonna be passed out drunk over there and all we want you to do it maybe kick him a bit and mug him and then walk off"
(I don't think I look like the mugging type..)
"exactly!"
(Sigh, ok I guess we can give it a go)
So grats to me. I'm now in some random college short film mugging some dude and walking off with his camera and about $10 cash.
wtf.
Ok that's all for today, am being taken out to dinner somewhere famous and exciting and good, and I don't remember what it's called.
xxo
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
So I'm really bad at this (Round 3).
Ok so this might seem like round 1, but I assure you it's not. After losing 2 posts on the Worldnomad.com travel log thing I decided to try, I have decided to leave worldnomad (WN) to looking after my travel insurance in fear that a third round with them would result in my claiming on the destruction of my laptop.
It's been really hot here lately, though last night we had a lightning storm (Actually had another since, was quite impressive). Earlier last week Joey took me to the botanical gardens and I was practically sweating buckets. The gardens were nice, not so many flowers out (most looked like they were dying of thirst) but it had foresty walkways, water features and a giant Koi pond! Well, it was more of a lake with bridges over it.. it was mad, there were so many koi, huge ones too, they went crazy when we started feeding them. KOI BATTLE! Also, with all the squirrels and chipmunks around, I got to make use of the giant lens on my camera! National Geographic imo.(Pics below)
Was a neat mini circus, hand crafted by this dude, it was amazing. I think the display said it was about 6,000 hours of work put into it, which I think roughly translates to 3 years full time? Crazy.
SO IT MIGHT LOOK LIKE I'M BAD WITH KEEPING PEOPLE UP TO DATE ON THINGS WHEN REALLY I am... but it's not as bad as you think.
So it's been just over 2 weeks away and I feel kinda awful I haven't told any fascinating tales of fascinating things. And although I haven't been doing toooo much of anything exciting enough to tell you about I'll try my best. Throughout the weeks I've been writing notes here and there on Notepad (seeing as WN decided it didn't like drafts and would prefer to lose the whole thing) so lets see what we have.
So what's first? I suppose any of this airport/flying stuff is kind of hit or miss. I found it interesting because it was the first experience (of many I assume) I was to have of this whole flying business. A few highlights I guess! Aside from not sleeping any of the 11 hours of the first flight (how, I have no idea) I found the last few hours amazing to see. While it was still dark, the stars seemed at eye level. I even saw a star fall and burn at it's brightest right before it disintegrated into nothing. Flying into the sun on the horizon was amazing! Especially as below us the pacific ocean was covered in clouds as well. It was almost like I'd imagine flying over Antarctica would be, it was so textured, almost like icebergs and mountains of clouds.The only other neat thing to mention out of my adventures surrounding planes and airports was landing in Dallas Airport. That place is huge! So big it has it's own train system running outside to transport people to all the different terminals. Was completely unmanned too so that was bonus. Everything else was your usual customs lines, airport stuff. Didn't lose anything so yay!
It's been really hot here lately, though last night we had a lightning storm (Actually had another since, was quite impressive). Earlier last week Joey took me to the botanical gardens and I was practically sweating buckets. The gardens were nice, not so many flowers out (most looked like they were dying of thirst) but it had foresty walkways, water features and a giant Koi pond! Well, it was more of a lake with bridges over it.. it was mad, there were so many koi, huge ones too, they went crazy when we started feeding them. KOI BATTLE! Also, with all the squirrels and chipmunks around, I got to make use of the giant lens on my camera! National Geographic imo.(Pics below)
Haven't done much else. Went to The Pink Palace Museum, is a museum with an imax and planetarium attached, though when we got there both extras were closed. Mainly due to us getting lost downtown and driving around in circles for about an hour, which was fun... *cough* heh. Got to see some Ghetto and a bit of the city too at least. The architecture is different out here. Not many tall buildings, if at all. Most of the buildings look like nice big brick houses. Even the apartment I'm staying at, on the outside it looks like a nice 2 story house (amongst more of the same houses), but it separates into 3 apartments I think. The mall is a big outside area with similar buildings, the bigger ones reaching no higher than 2 levels.
But back to the museum! It was fun, had all the usual dinosaurs and fossils and lots of local history as well as all the old tools dentists used etc (ouch!) Even had a display of soldiers amputating a foot that had gangrene with what looked like kitchen knife (not even serrated!) and no drugs? EEP.
Was a neat mini circus, hand crafted by this dude, it was amazing. I think the display said it was about 6,000 hours of work put into it, which I think roughly translates to 3 years full time? Crazy.
So aside from the above, I've pretty much just been hanging out waiting for Bonnaroo (which, unfortunately, since Joey had to work I missed a bit of, but from what I did get it was good! There were sooo many people, the camp site was bigger than the stage areas I think, or at least it seemed to be, maneuvering around the tents was difficult).
It's kinda like being at home almost, except apparently asking if there's an electric kettle in the house is a foreign thing and results in: "wtf would we need an appliance to specifically boil water?" Sigh. So the last few times I felt like hot tea (apparently that's foreign too since they have "sweet tea" which is pretty much just iced tea with sugar) I've had to boil water in a pot on the stove for it... what? Sigh.
Oh, there's this fast food place called Sonic over here, and I can't believe I'm going to talk about it, but it's kinda fun (also, I'm glad there's a Wendy's here, whew.). So anyway, this place is kinda neat, it's like in old American films where you drive up and park next to an ordering box, and people deliver your order to you on roller skates. It's the usual fast food type things, but they're well known for their drink selection. They have all the usual soft drinks/sodas on offer, but you can add any kind of flavours you want from a selection of like, 20 (they also have fruit slushys etc). The other night I had a coconut, pineapple sprite, and it was great! But yeah, you pretty much order and eat from your car. Apparently it's quite popular in the summer since it can get pretty hot out here and many don't like leaving the comfort of their air-conditioned cars... Lazy Americans... heh.
But yes.
Has not been overly exciting, but it's been cool just hanging out a bit. Am in the middle of organising myself for New Orleans so I should hopefully be there in the next little while, probably by the beginning of next week.
I'm really sorry about being super terrible at this whole thing, but I promise I'll get better at it!
Hope everything's going well at home,
Loves and Hearts!
Edit: So I have to work on this photo thing too, it hasn't turned out very well, sorry that it looks so awkward!
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