So it pretty much snowed a bit on Tuesday.

Winter is just around the corner! It's been getting to about 1C lately with wind and such, I almost died on Tuesday! I really need to look into buying some gloves (or mittens!) and a touque (found out the correct spelling of those, I forget if I mentioned learning Canadian..but I don't think so. Coming up soon!) and a scarf... maybe soon. I saw some cute mittens while I was in Halifax this week though, they had lots of different ones dressed up like animals, I could have had zebras, seals, pandas, or kitty paws! But I was so undecided on which one, so, like me, I passed on the lot. Hopefully I'll find something back here in TO!

So I decided to go to Halifax for two days this week because I was told a return flight for $256 was a steal so, like a thief, I took it. It was nice feeling like a tourist again I must admit.
For those who don't know about Halifax it's the second largest sea port (largest is Sydney, Australia) dans Le Monde! It was an important stronghold for when Great Britain held power over it in the 1800s, so important that they built garrisons on THIS ISLAND (and also held Arcadians on there for being Arcadians in 1755) and other points in the harbour to protect it from attack.AND to stop land attacks they built a giant fort on top of a hill! This guy tells us about it.


I also manage to find LITTLE HOUSES in the hill with a chimney? Perhaps they had SECRET gnome warriors in those houses...


Or perhaps they stored their ammunition in them... as I find out later to my disappointment.



So Halifax has a big and important history in Militia, trade, and the founding of Nova Scotia (which is Latin means New Scotland. When the French had control of it it was named Arcadie, hence the depositing all Arcadians for a while on that island above when the Brits had control. They had issues back then, Great Brit and France). BUT, they also have a very neat underground music scene, and luckily I got to catch a night of the Halifax Pop Explosion (H.P.E) while I was there! The H.P.E is pretty much 125 bands from Canada and abroad, I think mostly US, packed into 5 nights and 15 different places. Unfortunately I was tired most of those two days trying to fit heaps of things in and not getting enough sleep the night before leaving Weds morning. But it was still fun! The first night I was there I went to have dinner at the Economy Shoe Shop which is actually not what it sounds! It was a pretty nice restaurant, I had Salmon with a Pinot Gris and dessert, $35?! From what I've been used to so far that's a lot for one, it's a lot for one anyway. Most of the food there I found to be more pricy than TO, so that's where most of my cash went! So I was going to go to the Coconut Grove for a 10pm show as part of the H.P.E. but it was still early so I decided to catch a show at the harbour for $3 which I was a little skeptical about, but it was nice. The girl was called Kate Quinn and she had a really soulful voice,very pretty. Her and her band played mostly variations of soul/blues covers and a few of their original stuff, by the end of it I was almost dozing off though so I had to get out of there! Crashed by about 11 so I missed seeing any explosions that first night.
The second night I caught a film called 6015 Willow about a house at that address, notorious in Halifax for being a creative house full of musicians and artists etc. Once they hosted the smallest B&B in their attic, and the smallest art gallery up there too. So basically, these two dudes who had lived in that house for about 6 years were moving out, and they deicided to leave with a bang SO they make this film with 20 Halifax bands playing in each room of the house including the bathroom and the tiny attic! It was pretty neat. About 11 members of the 20 bands had lived in that house at one point too, granted a few of the members were in multiple bands.
Afterwards I catch a few bands from the pop explosion playing who were pretty good. Boxer the Horse, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Rich Aucoin, Ghost Bees and Laura Barrett. I would go more into these guys, but I don't feel like it at the moment!
And that was pretty much my time in Halifax. It was a nice change from TO, had a nice small town feel to it. I couldn't notice very much of an accent that these guys are supposed to have, but then I didn't talk to that many people =p

So not much news aside from that this week, unless you want to hear about work dramas which aren't really so much dramas more than me bitching about Sam who's pretty much incompetent and annoying and unfortunately not fired. Ummmmm, aside from that I saw the Notwist play a couple weeks ago which was fun, check them out (www.deezer.com, your new favourite site!) and that's where I learnt about touques and how I should have one for winter (touques I thought were spelt touks and they're pretty much those hats with the earflaps on them as I found out earlier this week!) and I also went to:

ImagineNATIVE which is an aboriginal film festival from many places around the world including NZ! So I saw a few films last week which were pretty awesome, and went to the music one too where they played Tiki Taane! Yay. He totally got an honourable mention at the awards for it. They also had 3 artists with natives in them playing live and they were pretty fun too. But OMG I was dancing to Derek Miller and this dude comes up behind me and starts punching me in the back! I was so confused. I turned around and I stare at him like wtf dude but he keeps going NOT COOL! So I move and he follows and I'm like srsly, if you don't stop that I'm going to hurt you fortunately he did, weirdest moment ever.

Most of last week I went out every night which probably wasn't the best idea but it was great! I went to a number of films as part of ImagineNative, learnt a few things about aboriginal history here in Canada (like how 10 years ago the Mayor of Oka in Quebec wanted to take Mohawk land and turn it into a golf course! I saw this amazing doco on the protest) and about this place in Russia that nobody knows much about. I met a couple of Elysse's friends, had authentic Israli hummus and I don't remember the last time I cooked dinner. I still have a pineapple to cut up from when I bought it a week ago. So I think I've pretty much caught up on everything so far, I skipped work stuff because it's probably boring, and yeah. This weekend I get to see Llamas play at the free cafe and I need to also work on a Halloween costume since now I have plans for that (thanks Helen for inviting me to these things! I have no idea what to wear!).

Groups that I have discovered recently/today that I might go see live:
Clap your hands say yeah
Broken social scene
Of Montreal
I also saw Okkervil River play a little while ago and they were amazing. I think I might have to go on a cd splurge sooooon... which also reminds me that APPARENTLY REAL GROOVY IS CLOSING DOWN and that makes me cry =(

Ok time for food! Should be more later. I'm getting better at this thing, 2 posts this month? wtf. It's almost November though! How silly is that?

xo.

So a lot happened last week.

Hey so this is my week from last week! Time goes by so quickly sometimes...

SUNDAY:
Suuuuuper busy day at work, but $55 in cash tips and $35 in card = a lot of tips, that was each. Apparently 2nd busiest day ever, first weekend working? No Prob.

MONDAY:
Get told I'm doing really well so far and that I get a pay rise! Woooooooooo.

Tuesday:
Am super tired in the morning so I end up having 5 espressos in one go... bad idea! I end up crashing and out of it the rest of the day. Rest of the day was terrible. Gail kept picking up on little things that I shouldn't be doing (like playing my own music and wearing sleeveless tops, although that was my first time ever and I had planned to wear my jumper most of the day anyway and Hilarie was wearing mostly singlets for the past 2 weeks and not a word!). A guest decided to tell Hil that she basically looked terrible and should go home, and afterwards the same guest, who had herself eaten for two, decided to comment on the "side boob going on" of Hil's top pinching her armpit...uhh? Hil then goes home early after throwing up gross things because she was actually feeling terrible. Two dudes come in for lunch, ask for their bill, decide to wait til Andrew and I are busy with other customers, say bye and walk out leaving $8.40 out of their $23.40 bill. So we basically get stiffed $15. WTF. So then I end up feeling terrible like I fucked up all day and just after I got told I was doing really well etc. Boo.

WEDNESDAY:
Weds works out much better. I decide to stay away from coffee for a while. Elysse from work invites me to go along with her to Nuit Blanche on Sat which I am very excited about. After work I visit Si, then head off to see a music film called "The Basement Sessions", a live recording of a bunch of artists familiar and unfamiliar spliced together. I think they were doing one every Weds of this month. This week was Thom Yorke, Albert Hammond Jr. , The White Stripes, The Shins, Neil Hannon (?) and one other group that I didn't catch the name of. It was a good film, there wasn't any kind of commentary or anything, it was just music. I was surprised at how few people there were in the theatre, only 6 including me. Meg and Jack White were so fun to watch live! The Shins, who I was looking forward to seeing weren't so fun, I was a little disappointed to be honest. Neil Hannon was pretty funny, he was only shown singing 2 songs, but they were both more like short stories which I thought was neat. Thom Yorke I generally find too whiney for me sometimes, and Albert Hammond Jr I hadn't heard before, they sound similar to The Strokes. After the film I went home and went straight to bed, which leads to...

THURSDAY:
Where I sleep for most of the day and wake up around 3pm. At this point I have no money after paying half of my rent (which is all I could afford) until Monday, so I stay home.

FRIDAY:
I get invited out to a cd release party for Sarah Noni Metzner by Helen who was helping out on the door. http://www.livewithculture.ca/content/view/full/21797/
It's near home so I head out about 8:30 and almost freeze to death! It was probably colder than the coldest winter back home, even Helen thought so! I got scared after that since it's only fall and not even close to winter yet! Anyway. The show was pretty awesome. Instead of an opening band she had some acrobatics stuff, a guy and a girl doing fancy things with ropes/hoops from the ceiling. There was also a live painter there that painted the band while on stage! If I wasn't super poor I would have bought her latest cd, not only because it was good but also because the concept for the cover design was really clever. The cover had a square hole cut through it with various slides for you to choose from, so it was pretty much a "choose your own cover" deal. She also had these poetry books for sale, they had inside them lyrics and drawings and the covers were all different, wrapped in a nice paper with a button on the front and string to tie it up with. Very neat.
I get home about 1am, and K is getting ready to go out to a gig supporting the local radio station CKLN (which she works at on Tuesday morning 2-6am. She is trying to get me on there to talk about NZ music etc, I'm tempted to go up but work the same morning at 9 doesn't really work out.). I decide to join her so we drive out east to this bar where the last dj is playing his set. Nothing too exciting, but I did get to dance a bit which was fun and ended up back home about 3:30/4am woooooo!

SATURDAY:
Nuit Blanche!! Slept most of Saturday day, I would like to say in preparation for the night out but I'd probably be lying. Went out to meet Elysse and her friend at St. George and Bloor around 8pm, then went to another friends apartment for a couple of drinks before heading out. We walked passed the Bafta shoe museum and the ROM which were full of people (though unfortunately I learned later that they had a giant paint by numbers thing going on at the shoe museum that I would have loved to see!) and onto Queens Park which was supposed to be full of eerie sounds but too crowded for anything like that. So on we moved to see a waterfall made of plastic bottles!
Next is on towards Yonge and Dundas for pizza and the prison spotlight installment. I was a tad disappointed at that, mainly because the idea of it was really clever but to have it in the brightest place in the city was probably the worst idea ever. It was meant to be used as a 15 seconds of fame deal where the dude up in the tower would pick some random person out in the crowd with the spotlight and they could run like a fugitive, or dance, or whatever. It was the most prominant spot, but also the brightest so that ruined it. Next we wandered over to College Park where we saw this sign:

When we got there there were many people but no signs of zombies anywhere! So we wander around towards this large gathering of people trying to see if there was anything worth seeing, we got there just in time to see 2 dudes mooning everyone from the top of a building, hooray! One of the guys in the group says "quick, it's 11:11 make a wish" so we wish away, a few of us wished for zombies and MOMENTS LATER:
I guess wishing on 11:11 works sometimes? I hadn't even heard of doing that until that night. So that was exciting! Lucky for me there were only 2 zombies and 3 of us so I got to keep my brains :D
Afterwards we decided to wander west , stumbling across things like the blinking lights on city hall (I got a neat shot of a maple leaf from the streetcar) and a neat little art gallery on Richmond. Then along King west we managed to find this little art gallery hidden behind some buildings that had some amazing graffiti art. Finally we made it to Liberty Village and caught a few big things like:
And some other things too. By this time I had no idea what the time was but we're all getting tired and decide to head home but not before stumbling across(!) :


I must have taken about 50 photos of these guys! It was so hilarious. It must have been after 4am and these guys would have been dancing about all night so now and then you'd see them just go and pass out around the field after dancing up a storm or just getting up again. The crowd in the stands were going crazy! That was a good ending to the whole night, I basically laughed until I cried. Didn't get home until 5:30am which doesn't bode very well if one has work within the next 5 hours!

SUNDAY:
Work wasn't too strenuous which was good. I was introduced to Sam who had just started and was placed to look after the patio which many people didn't take up since it was pretty cold out, so I was basically back up for the whole day. I'm setting things up outside and wondering where Hill and Brit were (since they should usually be doing Sunday as well) when Gail pulls me aside and says "so a lot has changed since you were last here..." (wasn't that only 3 days ago?) So apparently Sam is Hil's replacement as she was fired on Saturday for not paying for her meals and letting her friend eat for free... =( and Brit was fired just this Sunday for sleeping in (she was supposed to open) and not calling until 10:30, this apparently was her third strike. So crazy! Brit was one of the oldest staff members too, so now all that's left is Brent and Andrew. So Sam, he dropped his cv in at work the week before, and I think maybe Gail was needing someone pretty quick to fill in for Hil, this is my guess and I'll tell you why soon! Anyway, so somehow I make it through the day, and I don't think anything else happens. I agree to work the following Friday close to cover Brit's shift.

So that was last week, the week just been is coming up! Boy my life is getting pretty busy or something, maybe interesting? Who knew!

xo.

2 posts in one month? Awesome.

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

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!

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

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.

As some of you may know I've said "cya" to the States and am kind of in transit in Edmonton. I have a flight booked for Montreal end of this week, so hopefully some exciting adventures coming up!

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.

So the Needle wasn't like I was expecting it to be. Being only about half the height of the Sky Tower and only having one viewing deck (with the option to go outside) that had annoying wires around it to stop anyone from jumping or taking any good photos, it was kind of "oh.". But taking into consideration that this was built in the 60s, it's pretty impressive. The view was pretty cool, I have photos up on Facebook. Managed to sneak in a bit of the sunset for a few of them, even though the sun set at 9pm! That was the other thing that amazed me, it wasn't completely dark until about 10pm, it's worse here in Edmonton, it's still dusk around 10:30!
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.

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