Love Today (Difficulties at School, & France)

Well, I finally reached half-term break. And I never thought it would get here! Unfortunately, now it’s already over 😦 This half-term was a lot longer than usual (not only literally, but mentally and physically too). Normally, half-terms are six weeks long, but this one was seven and I spent it with the same kids everyday instead of changing schools every few days. Before I agreed to take the position, this school was my favourite school to work at, but that quickly changed within the first week of my short-term position. I basically ended up getting bullied by 11-16 year olds for the entire time I was there. Why? Because for some reason, the kids here think they’re entitled to everything. Including being disrespectful. Kids threatened to report me. Kids ACTUALLY “reported” me (once cause I wouldn’t let a student go to the washroom – the teacher he complained to obviously didn’t care, and another time cause a student didn’t like the groups I chose for drama class – again, the teacher didn’t care). Physical incidents in my classroom became at least a weekly thing. Everything was my fault. Kids wouldn’t own up to anything – whether it was that they were talking (“I didn’t say anything!), chewing gum (“I don’t have anything in my mouth! Why do you accuse me of something I didn’t do?!”), being out of their seat (“I was asking for a pen/ruler/eraser!” – when there’s clearly one on their desk), being late (“No, I’m on time! The clock in here is wrong!”)… I was constantly blamed for everything, and the students told me that it would be my fault that they didn’t do any work because: I didn’t have spare pens for the 20 people who asked for them on the daily, I was talking too much, I was going too slow, I was going too fast, I “didn’t tell them about a test,” I “didn’t teach them that,” I wouldn’t let half of the class go to the washroom during a single hour, I wasn’t being strict enough, I was being too strict with giving them behaviour points, the list could go on… The kids here have no problem with telling you everything that you’re doing wrong, and why you’re a bad teacher. On my last day before the break, one of the students said that the next teacher would accept them as they are, unlike me. Good luck with that… Anyway, I had quite a few temper tantrums (by the students, not by me). I was once called every swear word in the book (f***ing idiot, slut, b****, etc.) by a student before he stormed out of the room and slammed the door, all because I asked him to switch seats. I had one student get extremely upset because apparently I didn’t tell them about a quiz: “You didn’t tell us this!” “Yes, I said it about three times last class. It just so happens that only the four people who were actually listening are the only ones who know about it” (and those four backed me up and claimed that I had said it). “No, you didn’t! I hate it when teachers do that! I’m reporting you to the head of science.” “Okay, great. But can you do it after class? You’re wasting class time right now…” “I don’t even like science! It has nothing to do with my life!” “Science IS everyday life…” “No! It has nothing to do with my future. I’m working with kids when I’m older, I won’t need science for that!” “So, what if one of the kids you’re working with has diabetes.. how are you going to know about glucose in the blood, and insulin levels?” “Well, that won’t be my responsibility.” “Yes, it will.” “Well, I think…” “No. I think you’re being ignorant.” The entire class was quiet for once, and a couple of students were giving me thumbs up in the background. Sometimes these students just have to be told how it is. And this student ended up working really hard in every class, and helped me out in class after that event occurred. Anyway, by the fifth week, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was miserable, I was coming home everyday completely hating my job and my life, and then I’d just stay in a bad mood until I went to bed, and wake up in a bad mood because I didn’t want to go to work. On Tuesday at lunch, I wrote my agent and told him I was done. He said he’d talk to the school, but said to expect someone to approach me by the end of the day. I was covering a math lesson that afternoon when the head of science walked in and asked if I could come talk to her after school. On my way there, the vice-principal saw me in the hall and asked if I could talk to her. She was fully determined to get me to stay, and said she was willing to support me in any way that she could in order to keep me there. She asked if there were any specific classes causing problems (obviously the year 9s – in both my science and drama classes), and asked for a list of names of problem students. She then said she would email the head of science in order to get some support set up. I went to the head of science, who did pretty much the same thing as the vice-principal, and tried to get me to stay. Obviously, I can’t say no to peoples’ faces, but it didn’t seem I was really given an option to leave anyway. When I checked my email, the vice-principal had not only emailed the head of science, but cc’d about 10 other staff members in it as well. She also said that I would be sending out an email with a list of all the problem students, and the events that have occurred with them. Therefore, I spent one or two hours that night preparing an informative email for the other staff members. The drama department was extremely supportive, and put all of the students who I listed on report, so they had to reach three targets every drama class or else they’d have one hour detention. This really helped with getting the students to actually participate, as most of them used drama as a “sit and catch up with friends” class. However, I never heard the end of it from the students who were put on report, “Miss, did you talk to Miss So-and-so about me?! Why would you do that? She thinks really highly of me and now she’s going to be upset!” or “Miss, why did you put me on report? Did you put so-and-so on report too? Because he/she talks way more than I do!” One student even gave me the silent treatment for the entire class (yay!). The science department was supportive for about a week, and then the support went back down to normal. They put a different teacher in each one of my classes. The teacher just sat there and did marking, but just them being there helped so much. The first time it happened, the scariest teacher was there. I’m even scared of him! Some of the most talkative students pulled me aside and asked why he was there. “Well, because I talked to the vice-principal about the behaviour of this class.” “Is he going to be here the entire time?!” “I don’t know what his plans are.” “Well, can’t you ask him to leave?” “No, I quite like this. This is the quietest you’ve ever been, and you’re actually getting work done!” “But can’t you say you want a different teacher? Like a nicer one?” “No, you had a nice teacher and you took advantage of it.” “Well is he going to be here next class?” “I’m not sure..” “Well if he’s going to be here, I’m not coming to class!” “Okay then, that’s your choice.” After about a week, teachers stopped showing up to class and the year 9’s went back to their old ways. The year 8’s had also gotten quite bad. There was a lesson where I decided to let them do group work, and the class got completely out of hand. The head of science barged into the classroom (this wasn’t the first time she’d done that) and got extremely upset with the class for being disrespectful not only towards me, but towards her and the entire science department. “Now that you’ve shown us that you’re unwilling to work with miss, with me, or with the science department, miss and I will find the driest, most boring lessons that we can find for you. You’re each going to be given a textbook and you’re going to have to read the textbook every lesson and answer the questions. If you don’t know the answers or if you need help, miss won’t be helping you. From now on, the textbook is your teacher.” Great! Now I had one class that I didn’t have to deal with. And any time someone put up their hand, I just shook my head no. Towards the end of my time, I let the students know I wouldn’t be coming back. And while there were a couple “yes!”‘s, most of the students begged me not to leave. Especially the year 9’s, who vowed that they’d be better if I stayed (doubtful). One student asked if I could name my first daughter Tatiana (after her), to which I replied, “I don’t think I’ll be having kids after this experience.” Anyway, my agent ended up calling me and asking if I’d go back on Monday and Tuesday after the break, to which I replied yes because at least I’ll be tied in for two days of paid work.

One thing that I’ve grown to love while being at this school is challenging the students. As in if they share information or an idea that I know is totally bogus, I’m going to call them on it and do a mini-debate with them. The students are so narrow-minded (as we all most likely were in high school), so it’s always entertaining for me to watch them squirm, trying to come up with evidence to support their ideas, and to present them with other views. The students usually like it as much as I do, because soon they’ll smile and realize that their idea is just as bogus as I thought it was. The students are serial liars, but this is the one time I can really question them without them getting super defensive and upset (unlike when I see a phone out or I see someone chewing gum and I ask them to put it away and they reply with “Put what away?! I don’t have anything!” – Literally happens at least five times a day). One day, the students were talking about another student in the school, who has decided to identify as a female, and throughout the year has started changing her appearance, putting in hair extensions, joining the girls’ phys ed and dance, changed her name, etc. (This isn’t the first time this student has been brought up in one of my classes). Anyway, the conversation eventually progressed into whether or not it would be okay if they punched said student based on if she was a girl or a boy. I then decided to join in on the conversation and just said, “Maybe you just shouldn’t be punching anyone, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about it.” “Wait, you know who we’re talking about?” “Yeah, she’s in one of my classes.” The group of guys started laughing at how I said she. “Well, I think we’re supposed to start referring to her as ’she’…” “Who said that, did Mr. Jones?! (The school principal)” “No, but if that’s what she wants to be seen as, then we should respect what she wants.” One of the boys made a comment, “Well only until he undergoes the procedure will I start referring to him as a she.” “Ummm no, because the procedure is changing the sex, and we’re talking about gender.” “What do you mean?” “The sex is what biology says is male or female – ex. sex chromosomes, reproductive organs, etc. Gender is what society considers is male, female, or somewhere in the middle. Therefore, the procedure really has nothing to do with confirming what she identifies herself as.” The boys then decided to go back to their other conversation… And again, I asked why they would ever need to punch her in the first place. “Well, if he hurt my sister, then I’d have to do something about it. So if I punched him, it’s not really about what he thinks of himself as, it’s how the rest of the world sees him and what they think is okay.” “Ummm no, definitely not. That’s what I was saying before. Gender is a spectrum made by society and how society thinks a male or a female should be perceived. Who’s to say that someone is more or less masculine than someone else? If we put you guys in a group, and numbered each of you from most masculine to least masculine, who makes those rules? Society does. So if said student wants to identify herself as a female, then we respect her wishes.” One student ended up asking if I was on the debate team when I was in school and I said no, why? He was like, “Well, you just have an answer for everything!” I’ve learned that while being here though; the students keep me on my toes, and I know I’m going to have to have an equal comeback to whatever remark a student throws at me. No, you’re not going to burst if I don’t let you go to the washroom. No, you’re not going to die of thirst if I don’t let you get water.

Even though it was quite difficult at work, I still tried keeping myself busy when I wasn’t working. A couple of weeks ago, Jess and I went to Forbidden Nights, which is like a Magic Mike/Cirque de Soleil show, but they keep it classy. I’m pretty sure I was smiling from ear to ear during the entire show, and I’m also pretty sure I managed to record most of the show! After the show finished, they cleared the chairs and made a dance floor, where Jess and I spent a good amount of time dancing (Again, Jess and I both claim we “never dance” when we go out, but somehow every time we go out together, we end up on the dance floor…). We then decided to head closer to home since it was close to midnight and the metros/trains stop working at that point. It was on our way from the Putney train station to the bar when I decided to change out of my heels, but upon taking my shoe off, I looked closer… “Is that blood?!” I showed Jess and yes, nearly half of my shoe was covered in blood. Meaning it had to come from somewhere. I looked at my foot, which was also quite bloody. No pain though! And oddly enough, I never ended up feeling any pain even the day after, or during the healing period. To this day, I still have no idea how it happened. I used to drink responsibly, but apparently that part of my life seems to be over! I guess now that I’ve had nearly a year of not having to DD, I really have no more excuses. I also ended up going to Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, the musical. The set was absolutely amazing! I spent a day shopping in Camden Market with Kim as well, and we found an all-you-can-eat sushi place (finally!), where we explained to the bartender how to make a paralyzer, and ended up paying a crapload of money for it.

For the week off, I decided to go back to France and spend some time with the family there. The cheapest (and longest) option was to go there by bus, which cost me 45 pounds there, and 14 pounds back! It also ended up taking about 10 hours each way, with only one quick stop at border control. I finally arrived in Paris at about 7:30 on Saturday night. Being in Paris for even ten minutes made me realise how much I missed it, even though I didn’t even know I missed it in the first place. All of the familiar sights, smells, sounds – seeing smiling people, hearing French being spoken – I was smiling from ear to ear. I felt the happiest I had been in a long time. I was somewhere familiar in a place that comforted me. An onslaught of different emotions took over me. Even though I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face, I also started tearing up within ten minutes of being there. I was flooded with memories, and I think just the realisation of how unhappy I might have been finally hit me. I knew I was unhappy with my job, but I didn’t realise how much weight it was putting on my emotions and my well-being. I spent that night in a hostel that was located in my favourite area, Montmartre. I was able to walk around the area, enjoy the atmosphere, and I went for dinner at my favourite restaurant, which has a piano bar. I started with French onion soup, had roast chicken with fries, and finished with apple pie. During my meal, I was extremely emotional and kept tearing up since the last time I had been in Paris was almost four years ago. When the server asked where I was from, I could barely say a full sentence without wanting to burst into tears. ‘Come on, what’s going on?! Hold it together!’ I kept telling myself. And then after dinner, I went to the steps of the Sacre Coeur, where everyone gathers to sing songs. There, I let out all of the emotions I was feeling. I had never allowed myself to release any emotions during my time in London because I had went back into my stone-faced, no-crying-allowed routine. In France, I’m very familiar with crying in public places, as it’s happened multiple times, so this seemed to be the place where it felt safe to let go.

The next day, I met up with my friend Beatrice for lunch, where we talked for hours and then she invited me to go to church with her. Since I had nothing else to do, I decided to come along and then I made my way to Rambouillet afterwards. The kids were really excited to see me, and it was nice to see all of them again! It’s crazy that it had already been five months since I last saw them; time just flies! Within five minutes, the dad said I’ve lost weight since Christmas which was somewhat weird to me, since during Christmas I was actually going to the gym and watching what I was eating and now, I’m doing nothing haha However, France is not the place for a person doing a paleo diet (which is no gluten and no dairy). With baguettes and cheese at every meal, I guess I had to cheat quite a bit more than I usually do this week. On Tuesday, I went to Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines to check out the shops, and then I headed into Paris to have coffee with Beatrice. After that, I went to Le Perray to have dinner with the first family that I au paired for. Alexia is now 19, and she’s in her second year of med school! And Julien is 15/16 and is just learning how to drive. It sure makes me feel old! It was nice to catch up with the family though; it was weird to me because I find having conversations with them a lot easier compared to having conversations with the other family. I feel like I understand them a lot better, and I’m more confident in trying to speak French, which isn’t the case with the other family. On Wednesday, I spent most of the day playing with Elsa: playing barbies, house, drawing and colouring, and watching a movie. It was nice to just forget about all of my adult responsibilities, and be a kid again. However, when Antoine came home from school, he came into Elsa’s room to see me, and Elsa told him to get out. They continued fighting and Antoine said that I didn’t come here to only see her and that I wasn’t HER Janelle and that the world didn’t revolve around her. But Elsa still won when she told on him, and he was forced to leave. The fight continued at dinner time when Antoine explained that it wasn’t fair because Elsa got to play with me all day. Elsa replied, “Well, you all went to Disneyland without me.” Which I guess she had a point… On Thursday,  I did a bit of wandering around Rambouillet and then I came back and spent my last evening with the kids. Since they seem to continuously be on their electronics (Antoine playing video games, Elsa watching tv, and Alice Skyping with her friends), I went out and bought some games and crafts for them to do. We did some painting and I taught them how to play skip-bo, which was nice! The next morning, I went to the Celtique to have coffee with one of the old servers there (to anyone who kept up with my Celtique stories 7 years ago, it was ‘funny guy,’). It was a bit awkward with the language barrier, but it was overall really nice to catch up with him!

I came to France during the worst week possible. There was a scheduled strike on Wednesday and Thursday, so I wasn’t able to go to Paris at all. Then, during the entire time that I was there, it rained non-stop. I know it’s rainy in London but even though it rains almost every day, it usually only rains for 20 minutes to an hour and then stops; it seldomly rains for the entire day. Here in Paris, it was literally the entire day, every day. To the point where buildings and roads were getting flooded. Elsa had school cancelled on Wednesday cause her school had flooded, roads and parking lots had water that reached the tops of vehicles, the street of the hospital was flooded so the police had to use boats as ambulances.. It was crazy! Anne said that the last time this happened was in 1909. So when the strike was lifted on Friday, I was so thankful since I needed to get back to Paris in order to catch my bus on Saturday morning. However, because of the rain, one of the walls next to the track had collapsed, which blocked the train tracks between Rambouillet and Paris. Therefore, we found out that only two trains were leaving that day. I was quite panicked, wondering if I’d make it back to Paris that day, but luckily when I went to the station, they had added more trains onto the schedule, and I was able to take a slow train back to Paris. The height of the river Seine was insane! Traffic lights were nearly covered, shops that were on the riverside had disappeared, I’ve never seen anything like it! That day, I went for a walk around the Promenade Plantée, which used to be an old railway that travelled over Paris, but they made it into a garden that you can walk along, and see different parts of Paris. The entire walk is about 4.5km, and there wasn’t any rain! I then made a quick trip to the Eiffel Tower before going back to my hostel. My bus left at 9:30 Saturday morning, and was scheduled to arrive in London at 6pm. But as we know from my past travel experiences, not a lot ever goes as planned. Due to the strikes, the bus wasn’t able to take the Eurotunnel on the way back and instead had to catch the ferry. We went through customs at about 2:30pm and then the driver did a headcount 45 minutes later. He said that the ferry left at 4pm, so hopefully everyone would be back by then. Then at 4:05, he made an announcement saying that we were still waiting on one more person to come through customs, and we had missed our ferry. He also said that since it was half-term break, the 5:15 and the 5:45 ferries were fully booked so we might have to wait for one after 6pm. The girl who we were waiting for still hadn’t been released, but came to get all of her stuff off of the bus and go back. Luckily, the 5:15 ferry ended up having room for us, so we ONLY ended up having to sit around for 2-2.5 hours. The ferry ride was 1.5 hours long, so we got to the other side at 6:45, 45 minutes after we were supposed to arrive in London. Then we made our way to London and arrived at the station was 8:15, 2.25 hours late! By that time, we had been travelling for 11 hours and 45 minutes, and everyone was cranky, tired, and ready to get off the bus. But wait, it can’t be that easy! We were stopped outside the bus station by the police, who kept asking the bus driver questions. Apparently, they were suspicious as to why we came so late, and decided that they were going to do a baggage check. BUT no one was allowed off of the bus until they were ready for us. So we literally sat at the bus station in London ON THE BUS for 30-40 more minutes, while we waited for the police to say it was okay to get off and claim our bags, so they could start the check. By this point, kids were crying, people were freaking out about connecting trips, and everyone was in a bad mood. We were finally let off the bus to collect our luggage and then we had to give it to the police, who put it through the metal detectors. I was concerned because I brought my favourite French sausage back, so I wasn’t at all surprised when the police officer came up with my bag and asked whose bag it was. I said it was mine, and he replied with, “Do you have a knife?” And everyone looked at me with shocked faces. “Um, no?” “Like a folding knife?” “No.. I have fingernail clippers?” “Can you open your bag and show me where they might be?” So I did… “Oh yeah, that’s it.” Phew! Then we had to go through the metal detector – take off our belts and empty our pockets, just like in an airport. After that, they took all of our passport information and manually typed it onto their iPads. I finally left the station at 9:15pm, 3.25 hours after I was supposed to arrive! Therefore, I didn’t end up getting home until after 10pm. On Sunday, I spent the day getting ready for the new week – grocery shopping, cleaning, unpacking, etc. Then that evening, I went to Mika! His concert was amazing, probably one of the best ones I’ve seen! He just seems like a really down-to-earth person, where you leave thinking, “Wow, I’d really like to be friends with that guy.” And his voice is incredible! I (as well as everyone else) was just awestruck at the notes he could reach; I could listen to him for hours! Now I’m back in the real world, but at least I only have six more weeks left until summer holidays!

Home is where the heart is, and a piece of my heart will always be in France. It was the place where I’ve done most of my growing as a person. I came there as a young, shy, naive, and depressed 18-year-old and it was there where I overcame that depression, where I went way outside of my comfort zone and pushed myself to the limits – not only forcing myself to talk to people I didn’t know (which at that time was extremely difficult for me), but doing it in a completely different language. Not only leaving the comfort of everything that was familiar to me, but moving to a completely different part of the world. It was there where I learned to budget my money, with my 2.50€/hour pay rate (when going out for coffee or coke would be equivalent to two hours of work). It was there where I learned how to take other people’s crap not only with a smile, but followed with a, “what can I do next?”, which has allowed me to continue working in other crap jobs and know how to deal with crap customers, bosses, or students with a smile. And it was there where I learned how to play mom to three kids almost overnight, three kids who I’ll love unconditionally for the rest of my life. Even though it was a struggle, even though there were times when I thought I wouldn’t make it, when I’d call home crying, I pushed myself through. And I created friendships and relationships that will last a lifetime. Being there has really made me start comparing that life to the life I have in London, and I can only wonder if London will have that same effect on me five years from now. One last thing (because I know that this is getting quite long)… I just want everyone to know how happy this makes me. To see that people are taking 10-15 minutes out of their lives wherever they are in the world to read what I’m doing in my life means so much to me; you have no idea. It’s so neat to see the different countries that are taking part in reading my blog, and I can usually figure out who belongs to each one, so thank you 🙂 I hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in less than 8 weeks! Love always
Love Today – Mika

Lonely Cities (Birmingham, Worcestershire, Stratford-upon-Avon)

Well, since my last post, I’ve had my birthday and I’ve done a weekend trip! Last week on the day before my birthday, we ended up getting hail for about four minutes! The kids started freaking out, and lessons came to a stop as all of the kids looked out the window. It was the first time we had ever had some type of snowfall all year! The teachers were talking about it in the staffroom, wondering why we had hail at the end of April, and then it finally clicked… I ALWAYS have snow on my birthday! I’ve had about two birthdays without snow, and this time it was trying to strike again! It was the weirdest thing… Anyway, that same day, one of the kids made a comment that she was going to get me a birthday card for my birthday and I replied that my birthday was the following day. The class started freaking out, “Miss, what do you want for your birthday?!” “I don’t want to give out any C-points (bad behaviour points)!” “Okay, miss!” Well, on my birthday, I’m pretty sure I’ve given the most C-points that I’ve ever given in a day! I also ended up having a physical incident between two boys in one of my classes, and had to stay after school to write up a report. That evening, I went out for dinner, drinks and dessert with my flatmate, which was quite nice! I was so happy when the week was over; it was such a long week! That Monday was a bank holiday, so we had an extra-long weekend. Jess and I decided to make a last-minute trip to Birmingham, which is about 2.5 hours north of London. I contacted as many people as possible on couchsurfing and surprisingly, someone wrote back and said that we could stay with him! We arrived in Birmingham around noon on Saturday, dropped our stuff off at Joe’s house, and then joined

another couchsurfer, and the four of us made the trip to Worcester (pronounced Wuh-ster), Worcestershire (pronounced Wuh-stah-sher, so weird). We checked out the cathedral, the river, and then went to the Worcestershire sauce factory. Unfortunately, they don’t allow people inside, but we could smell the sauce all the way down the road; it was lovely! We then went for dinner in a pub that used to be an old church. It was so cool! The stained glass windows were still there, and it still looked like a church with the pews removed. The dj even set up where the pastor would stand. Well I must have not paid attention to the couchsurfing profiles because that night, Jess and I realized that we’d be sharing Joe’s room with him. Jess and I shared his bed and then he slept on the floor, which was somewhat weird… The next day, Joe, Jess and I went to Stratford-upon-Avon, which is where Shakespeare was born. We got to tour his house, and then go to the church where he was buried. I’m not much of a Shakespeare fan, but it was still really neat to see! On Monday, Jess and I went to Cadbury World! We could smell the chocolate while walking from the bus stop; it was delicious! They had a 4D chocolate adventure, a tour of the factory, tons of samples, and even a ride similar to the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyworld, except chocolate-themed. This past week has went by a lot more quickly! The kids have been a bit better, which has been nice, but now I’ve been having more problems with the teachers and feeling belittled by them. Anyway, thank goodness it’s the weekend! Three more weeks at the school 🙂 I got to go to the Close Talker concert on Wednesday, which was great! Kim and I were looking for a place to go for dinner before the concert, and happened to find Chris on the sidewalk, so we joined him and the band for dinner. It’s always nice to see some familiar faces here in London!

I’ve seriously been contemplating whether or not I should put this part of my life in my blog, considering most of the people who read my blog are family members. But I’ve also gotten multiple requests to write about this, so I’ve finally decided what the heck, I’ll do it (Obviously while keeping it G-rated and sugarcoating it a bit)! So as people most likely have gathered, I’ve always put dating on the back-burner of life. It definitely has never been my number one priority, and I’ve always made sure it would never get in the way of my goals. Therefore, I’d never consider any of the past dating relationships I’ve been in as long-term or serious relationships, as pretty much all of them started in the summer and then would fizzle out once university started back up again. I also made sure I didn’t date at all during my two years of education, because I knew I wanted to teach abroad and I didn’t want anything or anyone holding me back from that. And now I’ve realized that I’m finally where I want to be, and I don’t really have anymore excuses left. But let me tell you… it’s extremely difficult to meet people in London! Whether it’s for dating purposes, or just meeting new friends even.. Everyone always has somewhere to be, people don’t have friendly conversations on the bus or the train, the only people I interact with on the daily are under the age of 18, you get the picture. And there’s an IMMENSE lack of wedding rings in this city.. I actually think that people are so caught up in their own lives that they just end up staying single forever. I don’t really want to be one of those people, so I decided to try the whole online dating thing. And unbeknownst to almost everyone, I actually started it before I even moved to London so that when I got to London, I could maybe have some dates set up. And that’s exactly what happened.. I was still staying in the hostel when I had my first date! I wrote Guy A first, he seemed nice, played rugby, had a nutrition degree, but lived about two hours away in Kent. He ended up catching a ride with a friend to London, and he came to where my hostel was and we went for coffee until the cafe closed. Anyway, we ended up talking on the phone every night before and after meeting. A couple of weeks later, I had finally gotten settled in my place and we decided to meet up again. This time, we went for dinner, coffee, and basically talked until he had to catch the last train back home. Eventually, phone calls stopped, texts became less and less, and questions went unanswered. I had been ghosted. For those of you who don’t know what the definition of being ghosted is, urbandictionary.com defines it as: “When a person (male or female) leads on another person into thinking they’re interested in them. After leading on this individual they “ghost” them and disappear. This is usually indicated from no responses through text, phone call or email. Ghosting is performed by selfish people and ones who don’t believe in karma. Because what goes around, most certainly comes around.” Well-said, urban dictionary.com! I was quite disappointed, and decided to wait awhile to get back into the dating scene. Anyway, a few months later, I decided to try out the whole online dating thing again. Because let’s be honest… swiping left or right makes the one-hour trips to school go by a lot faster! I met up with Guy B and he took me to the Sky Garden, which is a bar at the top of one of the tallest buildings in London, with the nicest view. It would have been a very romantic setting, but I felt that the conversation was quite forced, and I wasn’t feeling it. I’ve learned to start arranging first dates on school nights, so I always have the excuse that I have work in the morning. So I used that excuse, but then there’s always the awkward saying goodbye part, where it’s like, “Crap, is he going to try to kiss me? He looks like he’s thinking about it, and I definitely don’t need to deal with that right now. Quick! Reach out for a hug, keep it friendly.. Turn your head to the side. Phew! Kiss on the cheek.” I left that date feeling really unsure about online dating.. It seemed like the guys I was interested in weren’t interested in me, and vice versa. Unfortunately, I had already set up another first date for the following day (haha) so I decided to just get on with it, and then stop online dating for good. I met up with Guy C at a German pub. He was an Australian engineer, who loved to travel and had been living in London for quite a few years already. He ticked off all of my boxes and conversation easily flowed for seven hours straight, to the point where we got kicked out of the pub cause they were closing. The chemistry was even there, and I thought about how lucky it was that I decided to go on this last online date. We had arranged for a second date a week later, and on the day that we were supposed to meet up, he wrote me about being sick and asked if we could reschedule. And I bet everyone can guess what happened.. Ghosted again. I know what being ghosted is like all too well. Why, you ask? Well, because (and I’m not even kidding) I have never NOT been ghosted in my entire life. Yup, that’s right. Out of every guy who I’ve somewhat been seeing or dating, (unless I’ve called things off myself) NONE OF THEM have had the decency to just be like, “Yo, I don’t think this is gonna work out, sorry.” They’ve all just peaced out, stopping all communication, with no explanation, no apology, nothing. Which is probably why my opinion towards men is so negative. And BECAUSE I’ve dealt with this so many times: wondering when he’s going to write back, thinking every ding of my phone is from him until after a week goes by and I finally convince myself that no, I’m never going to hear from him again, I now know all of the warning signs. I know when guys are thinking of ghosting, I know when a guy makes a false promise of meeting up soon, and I know when a guy has sent me his last message. And those first few warning signs are when I start clocking out, just so it hurts a little bit less when it actually happens. The only thing I can do is change the way I write my messages in hopes that they’ll feel a bit more guilty about the cowardly thing that they’re about to do (Hey, two can play at this game…). I’ve always been the type who doesn’t date just for the sake of dating; I date because I can see a relationship progressing. So of course, I was once again hurt when the two guys that I actually connected with both just ghosted on me. And I sat there feeling sorry for myself, and thinking I’m never going to date again because I’m much happier just being single and not having to worry about anyone else. And if I go on another date, I’m just going to end up being ghosted AGAIN cause that’s all any guy ever does (<— Oh look, a bit of foreshadowing…). And then after awhile, I thought: Wait a second… why should I have to avoid dating just to avoid getting hurt? Why do I feel like when I go on a date, I have to impress the other person, when I already know that I’m a good person and if they can’t see that, then too bad for them? Why should I even go on a date with the mentality that it’ll progress any further? Why should I owe that person ANYTHING? I’m living in one of the biggest cities in the world, I’m 25 (now 26) AND single; I might as well take advantage of it! The chances of running into someone that I’ve dated in a city of 9 million people are slim to none. And right then and there, I decided to change my attitude about online dating. My friends and I call it my new MENtality. I was going to date MY way. As in go out and just enjoy MYSELF. No expectations, no plans of taking things further than a first date. Hopefully have a good conversation, take any free drinks or meals that come my way (hey, it’s not like I sit there expecting them, but if they’re offered then why not?), don’t expect anything more, and move on. I don’t owe these guys anything. They don’t owe me anything. Hopefully I’ll just have someone nice to talk to for the evening! So then I started setting up those first dates. Guy D was a teacher who had actually taught in China at one point, nice guy, not interested but it was a good chat! Guy E was also a teacher from Canada, who had been living in London for as long as I had. Funny thing is when talking on POF, we found out that both of us would be in Edinburgh at the same time, so we decided to both book the same 12-hour tour (that Loch Ness tour that I did). I guess I wouldn’t really consider it a date, but moreso of a meetup with a complete stranger for a 12-hour bus ride haha Longest “first date” of my life though, and I’ve had many long first dates! Guy F was English and we just met at one of my local pubs. Guy G was South African but has been living in London for a few years, and yet again we met at a pub. Guy H was English and he was my first Tinder date! Met at a pub.. And since then, I’ve given online dating a rest for awhile because I went on my two-week holiday and met that one Australian guy in Amsterdam. And we met up a few weeks later, but the romantic holiday feelings just weren’t there anymore, and I was ghosted once again. But have no fear, I have reopened my dating account! So I’ve now become an expert on first dates aaaand I’ve gotten at least 20 free drinks (but who’s counting?) and a few free meals. The only difference between me and all of the previous guys I’ve dated is that I at least tell the person that I don’t see a second date happening. And maybe this whole ordeal is just horrible of me, and everyone is going to judge me and think I’m a terrible person. But frankly, I’m just sick of being treated the way that I have been in the past. And who knows, maybe London HAS turned me into a heartless bitch (‘scuse the French..). Honestly though, if I fall in love while I’m in London, it’s likely because I’m mentally unstable and I can’t actually think clearly because my job has driven me crazy.

Speaking of a change in mentality, I used to think the best in everyone – that everyone had something to offer. Now I’m at the point where I get suspicious if someone is being nice to me. I now believe that no one will do anything nice for me because they only have an ulterior motive. I’ve started to just hate dealing with people in general. Why? Cause here, everyone lives with a ‘fending for yourself’ attitude. Everyone has somewhere to go, and you’re the only person who’s going to get yourself there. People have stopped worrying about the people around them. When I went to Birmingham last weekend, someone accidentally ran into me and actually said, “Sorry!” I  remember looking at Jess with a shocked look on my face, thinking, “Where are we?!” People here make plans, only to cancel them. It’s happened time and time again, and I don’t understand what the point of making plans is if you’re not going to follow through with them. The students here have an excuse for EVERYTHING – nothing is their fault, the blame is always put on someone else. And after dealing with some of the teachers, I’ve realized that that mentality never really fades. No one wants to own up to anything, everyone just wants the easy way out. Frankly, I’m at my wit’s end, and I’m sick of not being appreciated and not being respected. From the students, I’ve learnt to expect it (even though it still isn’t right), but not from the teachers. However, it’s happened on numerous occasions. I come home everyday just fuming, literally hating my job and hating people. I count down every single day and urge myself to just get through it, “You only have 15 days… you can make it.” But is it really worth diminishing my sanity, my happiness, and my self-worth? I’ve always lived trying to do the right thing.. when I give someone my word I stick to it as best I can, I don’t back out when things get tough. I’d rather have integrity and do things the hard way, than be a disappointment to someone else. But then I often find myself being walked all over and taken advantage of. And there’s never been a time when I’ve regretted the morals and values that I have, but there have been multiple times when I’ve wished people would stop messing me about because of them. So who knows how much longer I’ll last over here… I LOVE it in London, but the combination of everything else is getting to be too much. Anyway, I have a great weekend planned so that should lift my spirits! Hope everyone is doing well! Love always

Lonely Cities – Tigertown

Seeing Stars (Amsterdam, Belgium, and Luxembourg)

Hi everyone! My holidays are coming to an end 😦 But I figured I might as well write about them! Since I last wrote, I only had one more week left of work before my holidays. I had also lost my keys during the last blog posting, and I ended up getting a call from my work a couple of days later and the bar had found my keys! So that was quite a nice surprise. The last week of work was the longest week ever! Even though I was working at my favourite school, the kids were on their worst behaviour ever.. likely because the holidays were coming up. That week, I was approached by the Vice Principal and the Head of Science, and both asked if I’d like to come back after the holidays as a full-time teacher since their science teacher was leaving at Easter. I’m still not wanting to take a full-time position, as I don’t want to have to worry about preparing lessons during my holiday, and I don’t want to have to mark. Also at that school, all teachers are required to stay until 5pm everyday and since it takes about an hour and ten minutes for me to get there, I don’t usually end up getting home until 5 if I leave right after school. I talked to the Head of Science about what my responsibilities would be and she said that the work would be supplied for me and I could keep the same hours as I have, but I might have to give feedback to the students. I was still hung up on the distance and the hours. This school felt like their students were falling behind, so they’ve added an extra period to each day and therefore the schooldays are a lot longer than every other school I work at. So I (thought I had) said I’d think about it, but then the next day, about six other teachers AND the principal came up to me and said that they were so excited that I was joining them! I was so confused and I tried to replay conversations in my head, because I didn’t remember actually agreeing to anything. However, then I got an email from my agency saying that I was assigned to the school for the next seven weeks! I wrote my agent and explained that I hadn’t actually agreed to anything, and he asked me to get it figured out. So on my quest looking for the Head of Science, I ran into the Head of Humanities and she exclaimed that she had wanted me for humanities, but science got me first. By that point, I realized that they were pretty desperate for teachers, and that I had the upper-hand. Might as well take advantage of it! I found the Head of Science and said I wanted some more details before I made my final decision. She was kind of taken aback and said that she thought I had agreed, and I said that I still had to think about it. So I fought for no planning, no marking, and the same hours (basically what I’m already doing now, except I’ll have my own classes and they’ll all be science). And then I talked to my agency and explained that I was concerned about the distance, so they offered to pay me ten pounds more each day! I also said that I’d try it out for the next seven weeks (until the next break) and then possibly extend it until the summer. So now I won’t have to worry about not getting work or not getting paid, and I still get my freedom! And I’ll be able to build the classroom relationships with the students that I don’t normally get to build as a supply teacher. So it’s pretty much a win-win situation, minus the transport. On the last day of school, I had a conversation with the teacher who I’d be replacing. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so passionate about teaching! He decided to leave because he felt like the school had too many rules and guidelines as to how you had to teach (which just started being implemented during the past two years). He explained that teaching is an art and it can’t be robotic like that, and I could really see how much he cared about the students. I think he’s the first teacher I’ve met here who hasn’t complained about teaching, and it was really refreshing to hear!
Anyway, my break started two Fridays ago, when I went to the Ellie Goulding concert with Becky and Charlotte. We went out for a late lunch first and good thing we went quite early because the service was horrible. It took us nearly 30 minutes just to get a drink! We had standing tickets at the concert so we were quite close to the stage – it was great! John Newman opened for her and while I recognized the name, I didn’t know any of his songs until he started performing them all. Ellie Goulding was really good as well! The next day, I had to get to the station so that I could take a bus directly to the airport. Unfortunately for me, I had to print out my bus ticket, as they wouldn’t accept mobile tickets. I knew I had limited time so I made my way to Putney (the next neighbourhood over – about 10-15 minutes away by bus) and asked a printing company if they would print out my ticket. He said I just had to email it to them and he would print it out, but the website wouldn’t let me send it on my phone! So he directed me to an internet cafe and I ran over there. I tried to print out my ticket there but the printer wouldn’t work! The man there was like, “Okay, well try it on another computer then.” So I tried it again and still nothing. The man was on the phone so I secretly emailed the ticket to the printing company, and then told him that it still wasn’t printing. “Well, you’re doing something wrong.” “No I’m not! This isn’t going to work, I’m going to have to go somewhere else.” “Okay, bye.” I ran back to the other place and he explained that I needed to pay minimum 1.50 and asked if I wanted multiple copies of my ticket. No, one is fine; I’ll pay 1.50 for it… I ran back to get my stuff and then started my journey to the airport. As usual, my trips to the airport are always hectic so I wasn’t surprised when the train service was cancelled to the station, therefore requiring me to take a bus to another station so I could catch the train there (and nearly doubling my travel time). I still made it to the bus stop in time but then the bus ended up being about 10-15 minutes late. I ended up being the only person on the bus because another bus had picked up everyone else. However, on the way to the airport, we were making a left turn and suddenly I heard a big thump and the driver braked so fast! Some idiot had tried to squeeze through on the inside lane when obviously, a bus needs two lanes to make a turn. So then the bus driver had to get out, get all of the driver’s information, take pictures, hold up traffic (EVERYONE was honking), which made us another 20 minutes late. I made it to the airport in time to still have a quick dinner before boarding the plane. The flight to Amsterdam was only about 50 minutes, but it was the worst flight I’ve ever been on. And I love flying! It wasn’t just your normal everyday turbulence, but we were doing constant freefalls. I was in the very back of the plane so I could hear all of the carts sliding around, and stuff falling off, and when the flight attendant went, “Oh my God!,” I decided to start freaking out as well. The final drop I swear lasted for like 3-5 seconds and it was during that time when I actually thought I was going to die. The lady beside me screamed, and she ended up crying for the majority of the flight. I think there was a sigh of relief throughout the plane once we touched the ground! I didn’t realize how tense I was until my whole body relaxed at the end of the flight. The prices of hostels were absolutely insane for Saturday night (as in 150-200 pounds for the night!) since it was Easter Sunday the next day. However, I found a considerably cheaper place (still quite pricey though) in a hostel about 40 minutes outside of Amsterdam. I decided to stay there for one night and then move into Amsterdam for the rest of my time there. I had to catch a bus from the airport to the hostel and on the bus, I ended up sitting next to an Australian guy (Zac) who I spent the majority of my time in Amsterdam with. It was actually his birthday the next day, so we spent most of Sunday going to pubs throughout Amsterdam. However, the buses back to his hostel only ran until midnight and we didn’t realize that until about 1 in the morning. We went back to my hostel until it closed at 3 and the hostel owner kicked us out. We asked if we could just look up directions outside before I came back in, but then the hostel owner locked me out and wouldn’t come to the door despite our constant knocking! So we spent the rest of the night on a bench in the train station waiting for the trains to start again at 5:45 that morning. After that, I headed back to my hostel and found out that there was a different night door! ARGH, the hostel owner could have told me! So I went in and I was able to sleep for about three or four hours before I had to wake up again. That day, I was able to meet up with my cousin Janine and her friend Roxan! We had lunch and then Zac met up with us and we did the Heineken Experience at the brewery, which was pretty cool! It was really interactive compared to other breweries I’ve been to. On Tuesday, Roxan was pretty sick (and ended up getting tonsillitis), so Janine and I went shopping and checked out the different markets. Then, we went on a Lovers Cruise (I had to replace Roxan), and we had pizza and Heineken while cruising down the canals of Amsterdam with a whole bunch of couples haha I then had to say bye to Janine since both of us were leaving the next day 😦
On Wednesday, I took the train to Brussels. It was actually pretty intimidating at the Brussels train station because there were police and guards everywhere! They were basically surrounding the entire station in their camo uniforms and with their camo trucks, carrying guns around. I wondered what I had gotten myself into, but once I got away from the station, it wasn’t so bad! Honestly, that was probably the safest time for me to ever go to Brussels since their security level was so high. However, my hostel was eerily quiet… I rarely saw anyone! That evening, I had some mussels and then I went for a walk around the area. There was a huge memorial site set up due to the events that happened the week before, which had a huge impact on the city. I ended up walking through the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, one of the oldest shopping malls in the world. As I was walking through, one of the salesmen tried to coax me into his store and even though I constantly refused, he continued trying to persuade me. Well, what did I have to lose? I decided to go in. He took me to the back of the store and I said, “Just so you know, if your intention is to try to get me to buy something, it’s not going to work.” He looked SO offended, “I don’t want you to buy anything, I just want you to try this product and talk to you.” He took out this hand scrub and rubbed it on my hand, and then proceeded to tell me that it was made with 24-karat gold. “What?! How much does this cost?!” “Well, this container is 500 euro.” “What?! How much did you put on my hand?!” The amount of money on my hand was probably more expensive than the clothes I was wearing. Anyway, he did the whole works.. moisturizer, etc. Then told me that yes, the scrub is 500 euro, but FOR YOU, I’ll give it to you for 100 euro, and I’ll give you the scrub and moisturizer for 150. Ha, I knew that was coming. No, not interested, sorry. Okay, well what are you doing tonight? Want to go for drinks? I pulled the old, “Sorry, I have a boyfriend” card, and I’ve never seen someone recoil so fast! “What?! Is he here?!” He looked so nervous, looking all around him. He quickly escorted me out the store haha
On Thursday, I started the day off with a walking tour, which ended up being three hours long but it was a good way to see Brussels. Brussels’ claim to fame is its statue called Manneken Pis, which is a tiny statue of a little boy peeing. That weekend, he was dressed in a police uniform, as a tribute to all of the hard-working service people in the city. The leader of the tour was so appreciative of us being there and said that the terrorists will not destroy them. The only thing they can do is make people afraid, which they’ve already done a good job of since the hotels and the tourist industry has had so many cancellations since the attacks. She thanked each of us for not being afraid and for still coming to visit Brussels, and to keep spreading love around! 🙂 After the tour, I went to the Musical Instrument Museum, which has over 8000 instruments. You get an audio guide in the museum, and you’re able to listen to each of the instruments while you walk around the museum. It was pretty cool, as I had studied quite a few of the instruments before, but I had never seen them in person.
On Friday, I took the train to Bruges. This was by far my favourite place during my entire trip! It was so picturesque and peaceful, and everywhere you looked was absolutely gorgeous. Since it was such a beautiful day, I started it off with a canal tour, which took about 45 minutes. Then, I went to the De Halve Maan brewery. This was probably the best brewery tour I’ve been on in terms of information. Most tours I go on, the information of making beer is all there, but I never fully understood how it was made until I went on this tour. Of course, I got my free beer at the end of the tour! I went back to my hostel and met my two roommates, Celsey (from Australia) and Matt (from Ottawa), who I spent most of my time in Bruges with. We went on a walking tour, which was again about 3 hours. After that, we went to one of the pubs to try out their 11% beer. They only allow people to have maximum three glasses per sitting since it’s so strong! I definitely felt it and I only had one! On Saturday, Celsey and I went to check out the markets, and I bought my very first original painting! Again, the artist’s wife thanked us for coming and for not being afraid to come, and explained that their hotel normally has all 22 rooms booked up every day and that week, they only had 7 bookings total! It was weird that so many people were so appreciative of something that I didn’t even think twice about doing. But it was nice to know that we were somewhat making a difference, and fighting the fear! We decided to check out the windmills of Bruges and then go to the nearest town called Damme. We were originally going to go by boat but we missed the last boat by ten minutes! So we decided to walk the 6km trek. Once we got there, there was a windmill that we were actually allowed to climb into! It had three levels and you had to get to each one by climbing extremely steep stairs. It was my first (and likely only) time in a windmill! It made the whole walking trip worth it. We decided to get a crepe and hot chocolate in town, as we had gotten quite hungry by that point and then we planned to take the bus back. However, we found out that the bus only came three times per day, and we once again missed the last bus by ten minutes! So we ended up walking the whole way back as well. By the time we got back, we were completely worn out, so we met up with Matt and went for dinner at a place called Humpty Dumpty. The restaurant must have forgotten to put in our order or something, because we ended up waiting and waiting and waiting for our food, while watching everyone around us get their meals before us. Although we were starving, we luckily had good conversation so it wasn’t that bad. I don’t think we ended up eating until about 8:30 though. After our extremely long 3-course meal, Matt was determined to find hot chocolate. In Belgium when you order hot chocolate, they usually just give you a cup of warm milk and a plate of chocolate, so we wanted to try it out. I was skeptical because in my opinion, you should always have more chocolate than milk in a hot chocolate. Am I right? However, after walking around for over an hour, we never found our hot chocolate 😦
On Sunday, I made my way to Luxembourg which took about five hours. I had to stay in a bed and breakfast because there weren’t any hostels available, so it cost A LOT more than what I’m used to paying. But I got a nice queen-sized bed and an ensuite bathroom all to myself! That evening, I went to the Chocolate House, which had the hot chocolate that we were looking for the previous night. It was actually so good; I was pleasantly surprised! The next day, instead of waiting for the walking tour at 2pm, I decided to do the self-guided walking tour. During it, I stopped at the Chocolate House once again for lunch, where I had a salmon quiche with a caramel latte. When I was served, a photographer came up to me and said that he was taking pictures for the new website, and asked if he could take some pictures of me enjoying my food and drink. Do you know how difficult it is to pose for someone while drinking a boiling cup of coffee?! Kind of an awkward experience haha but I guess I’ll see if any of my pictures are up on that new website! Part of the tour was to see the casemates, which are an underground system of passages used for protection under the castle. They were pretty cool to see! I did a lot of walking through the city’s old town, and its green area, as Luxembourg has a lot of it! On Tuesday, I went to a town on the border of Luxembourg and Germany called Vianden. It’s a cute little town with a castle, so I got to have a castle tour! I usually never go inside castles, so I think this was one of the first times I actually went inside one. The town also has a chairlift to go up the mountain but because it was raining, I don’t think it was running so I sadly didn’t get to try it. I went back into the city and then stopped at the Chocolate House one more time before going to the airport and heading back to London.Screenshot
On Wednesday, I went to the Hans Zimmer concert, which is one of my favourite movie composers. Little did I know, he wrote some of the music for the Lion King! Why Elton John gets all of the credit, I don’t know. So he played that, as well as Gladiator, Crimson Tide, The Da Vinci Code, Batman, as well as many others. It was really good! On Thursday, I went to get my haircut. I had gotten a groupon-type thing, and since the salon was only a month old, there weren’t any reviews online. I decided to just go for it and get my hair cut off, as the hairdresser seemed to know what she was doing. She said that in her seven years of cutting hair, she’s never had anyone donate their hair to charity. However, when she cut the first braid and I saw how short it was, I started freaking out! It was waaaaay shorter than shoulder length! However, I just tried to stay calm and convince myself that it would all grow back eventually. She offered me a glass of champagne (which helped!), and she convinced me that I would love it. And I did! I’m still not sure how I’m going to style it like she did, but hopefully I’ll get the hang of it. On Friday night, I went to the London Coffee Festival with my flatmate. We had VIP tickets so upon arrival, we got goodie bags (complete with a sample bottle of Bailey’s), and then we were offered a free rum coffee cocktail (which wasn’t very good). Then we were able to go through the entire expo, which must have been about 200-300 companies, each sampling their products. We got to try different coffees, chocolates, teas, everything! It was pretty cool! Then after the expo was done, there was a launch party with a DJ. We stayed for a bit and then headed back home.
This morning, I decided to go to the walk-in clinic because my throat has been really bothering me the last three days. It wasn’t like a sore throat, but it felt like I had swallowed something huge and sharp, and it had gotten stuck in my throat so every time I tried to swallow, the muscles would squeeze around it. I had never felt anything like it before, and I didn’t have any cold symptoms so I knew it was something different. I ended up having to wait nearly two and a half hours at the clinic, as there were no doctors and there was only one nurse taking all of the patients. All I had to do was open my mouth and the nurse was like, “Oh! Yeah, I’m getting you antibiotics.” So this weekend, I’m stuck in bed with tonsillitis. I have to take two tablets four times a day for ten days. And she said that I had to rest my voice for four or five days, or the infection will spread further down my throat and hit my voice box, and then I won’t be able to talk. So that’s fun! I’ll be sitting in my room watching tv shows all day. She said as long as I do minimal talking today, tomorrow, and Monday, I should be good to go back to work when school starts on Tuesday. Anyway, I hope everyone’s doing well with the spring/winter/spring in Canada! I definitely don’t miss that… Love always

Seeing Stars  – BØRNS

Edinburgh (Scotland)

Hi family and friends,
Sorry I haven’t written in quite awhile.. now I feel like I’m just living life over here, and people might get bored of reading “I got up, waited for a phonecall, got called and went to work, the kids didn’t behave, I went home and made dinner, watched my tv show and went to bed” over and over again. But I DID just come back from Scotland, so I might as well update everyone on that! First, I guess I’ll give you a brief update since my last post. The past six weeks went by extremely fast, and they were a lot more enjoyable compared to the term before Christmas. Maybe I started to change my attitude around… In London, everyone is extremely cold here, and it was very difficult to get used to at first. I used to take everything so personally and I’d wonder why everyone was so mean! And then Christmas came and for a day, everyone was in a good mood. I think I just carried my good mood on and decided to just keep killing everyone with kindness. My biggest fear is that this culture will get implanted in me and I’ll come back to Canada acting like a jerk. So yes, I’ll say ’thank you’ when I get off the bus, sure I’ll smile at someone on the sidewalk, yeah I’ll ask that old lady if she needs help carrying her bag down the stairs. And I’ll feel good about it, because I might have made someone’s day better if only for a second. So my mood has definitely felt a lot more positive! I spent three of those six weeks at the same school, which is a school I absolutely LOVE working for. For the first time, I didn’t mind going to work cause the kids were (comparably) well-behaved! Most of the kids actually said, “Thank you” when walking out the door at the end of class. I’ve shared multiple moments on Facebook, such as my sex ed experiences. The kids were hilarious! I just loved teaching them because they were so curious about EVERYTHING, and I’m pretty sure most of them didn’t even know what sex was. I also felt glad that I was there, cause the kids seemed really open to asking questions, and I don’t feel like they would have gotten that opportunity had their real teacher been there. I explained to the kids that an ejaculation emitted up to 250 million sperm and it was basically like a big race and if that ONE sperm hadn’t gotten to the egg first, they wouldn’t exist. The kids went absolutely insane! “Wow, I am SO blessed!” “Miss, are you impressed that I won that race?” So entertaining.. However, there WERE some classes that I wasn’t so fond of. Throughout all schools, there seems to be a common theme of students poking holes into other peoples’ water bottles. I see it absolutely everywhere I go, and I don’t get it cause I don’t ever remember that happening when I was in school. Anyway, one morning, I was on my way to work and I was standing on the train and my back was feeling really weird so I put my hand there and realized that my entire back was wet! The kids had poked holes in my water bottle the previous day and I didn’t notice cause it was nearly empty at the time so when I filled it up before school and put it in my backpack, it emptied out all over me. I was SO not impressed cause it took at least three hours to dry so for that amount of time, it likely looked like I wet my pants. Darn kids! During the last two days before the break, my agent said they desperately needed a science teacher in the northeast part of the city (aka the EXACT opposite direction of where I live). This would require me to travel nearly two hours each way(!). Since it was the week before holidays, I kind of HAD to take the job since I wouldn’t be guaranteed pay. But when I got there, the man in charge was under the assumption that I agreed to stay for the next few weeks (which my agency has STILL not brought up with me – not surprising). So not only is the transportation way too long, but the kids were not good at all. I did agree with the man that I would stay for one week after the break (since that would guarantee me pay), but then I don’t think I’ll have the patience to stay anymore.
In other news, our landlords said they wouldn’t be renewing our 6-month contract due to “redecorating purposes.” While this is probably for the best (since they made our stay a living hell), it still would have been nice to have the option to stay if we needed to. Considering I’m supposed to be moving in 9 days and I still haven’t gotten a new place set up. We’re also concerned that they won’t be giving us our fees back. They took 4-weeks’ rent money as a finders fee and a void protection fee, which is basically used in the case that we don’t stay for our full 6 months and don’t find a replacement tenant, those fees can be used as security for rent. But technically (in my mind), they should be able to give those fees back once they get our last month’s rent (which they did three weeks ago). However, they said they won’t give the fees back until we check out and they make sure everything’s okay. BUT in that case (and this is the law!), they should have put the security deposit in a protection scheme (which is basically given to the government so that neither the landlord or the tenant can touch the money until the returned amount is agreed upon). This scheme was put into place when landlords started charging tenants for ridiculous (and made up) damages to flats – like charging 250 pounds to replace a lightbulb. Since our landlords didn’t put the fees in a protection scheme, they can’t really use the money as a security deposit. We’re under the impression that they always keep the fees and get new tenants every 6 months, and that’s how they make all of their money. But who knows.. All I know is I NEED that money in order to afford a new place. So I guess I’ll find that out in about ten days.
Other than that, I’ve just been enjoying life! Cooking, baking, trying out new restaurants, shopping, etc. And I just got back from Scotland! Actually, Scotland has never been on my list of places to go. For some reason, I just never felt the need to go there. However, a week before my break, I realized that ticket prices had gone way up and because I was already stressing about having enough money to move flats, I decided to just pick the cheapest place and fly there. Which actually was Germany.. but next up was Scotland and I made a last-minute decision to make the trip there. And am I ever glad I did! I’ve seen so many places now, that many of them are nice, but not many of them shock me. Edinburgh did. From the moment I got there (at 11pm, mind you..), I was in awe of everything around me. It’s an absolutely gorgeous and picturesque city! There were many moments during the week when I seriously contemplated moving to Scotland, since my visa would still be valid there. Anyway, my first day there (Sunday), I realized what I forgot (cause I ALWAYS forget something). This time, it was my toque. Which I figured would be easy to replace since there was a Primark in Edinburgh, which is the cheapest store ever (and is where I do my weekend shopping!). First, I went to check out the castle.. I didn’t actually go inside cause I thought it was too much money, but I quickly found myself getting extremely cold due to the wind. I made my way down to the main street and stepped into Primark, which had all of their bathing suits and spring stuff out. When I asked about winter hats, they said they didn’t have any. So then I went into H&M, which was the same story. And I literally repeated the same thing over and over again all the way down the street, until the last stop was a Scottish store that sold knitwear (which happened to be on sale, score!). So I was able to get a toque, which helped me survive the rest of the week. After that, I walked through the castle gardens, and then decided to get a good view of Edinburgh by climbing the Scott Monument. It’s something like 287 steps in a spiral staircase, which was SO narrow and most of it didn’t have a hand-rail. Of course, the only way up was the only way down so when someone was coming from the opposite direction, you really had to work together in order to pass each other without having someone fall down the stairs. At one point, I had someone lift and push me up in order to get past him haha The view was absolutely worth it though, and gave an awesome view of Edinburgh! After that, I made my way to the National Museum of Scotland, which was somewhat boring so I didn’t stay long. BUT I did find out that Scotland’s last wolf was seen more than 250 years ago. So that’s a fun fact! Kind of blew my mind… Afterwards, I went to The Elephant House, which is a cafe that apparently was the birthplace of Harry Potter. Apparently it was cheaper for JK Rowling to buy a cup of coffee than to pay for her heating bill, so she’d come to the cafe to write the first Harry Potter book. It was pretty cool to see, and the mocha and brownie that I had did not disappoint! That evening, I went out for dinner with a couple girls from the hostel, which was nice since it was Valentine’s Day and all. One was also a teacher in the UK from Ontario, and another was English.
On Monday, I caught a bus to Glasgow, which took about an hour and a half. Glasgow definitely had more of a city-feel to it, and didn’t really have much charm compared to Edinburgh. However, I tried to make the most of it! That evening, I went walking through the city but everything seemed to be closed, so I didn’t find much. However, I went to this AMAZING vegan restaurant! I was really able to treat myself to the food in Scotland, cause even though they use the exact same currency, the price for a meal was about half as much as it would be in London. It was crazy! Anyway, at this vegan restaurant, I had a buffalo tempeh burrito (stuffed with coca cola(?!) black beans among other things), a tomato-butterbean-kale soup, and then for dessert, I had a raw chocolate and avocado cheesecake. So good!
On Tuesday, it rained the entire day so that kind of limited what I could do. I decided to check out the Glasgow Cathedral, which was really nice! I then came upon this restaurant called “Steak, Cattle, & Roll,” which sold milkshakes. I had the best milkshake I ever had in my life – a nutella & dark chocolate milkshake. Absolutely amazing! I actually went back the next day to have another one… I had a falafel burger there, with fries, coleslaw, a corn cob, and some chicken wings. Of course, I couldn’t eat it all, but the prices were once again unreal! I then spent the rest of the night hiding from the rain by checking out the mall and the shops.
 
On Wednesday, I went for lunch at this great Italian restaurant. I had caprese to start (tomato and mozzarella with basil), and then I had a tomato-mushroom-chicken risotto. After that, the rain cleared (thank goodness!), so I decided to check out the Necropolis, which is essentially a huge cemetery with a great view of Glasgow. It was quite muddy, but I made it to the top without wiping out! I then went to the St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, which gave information and showed paintings from different religions around the world. It was pretty cool, looking at all of the differences! I then took a short walk downtown before heading back to my hostel for the night.
The next morning, I took the bus back to Edinburgh. I had lunch and checked into my hostel, and then I went to the Surgeons’ Hall Museum, which is basically an anatomy museum with real specimens of every single thing that could go wrong in your body. Like there must have been at least ten thousand jars of random stuff. It was interesting! But I definitely felt sick towards the end of it. I don’t know how many times my mind went “Oh. My. God.” when looking at some of the items. I learnt some cool things though! First of all, apparently surgeons were in need of bodies way back in the day because they wanted to study more anatomy, so there were actually gangs who went and stole bodies from graves because they would make so much money off of them. Not only that, but there were two guys who owned an inn and they started killing the tenants, so they could sell them to a professor who would use the bodies for his anatomy lectures! I also learned that before stitches and staples were a thing, some cultures used ants to close wounds because the ants would bite the edges of the wound, and then the bodies would be twisted off. The jaws stayed behind and would keep the wound closed! Pretty cool! Other than that, I saw everything. I saw a tumour in every body part that you could imagine. I saw a lung with tuberculosis. I saw a scalp that was torn off because the person’s hair got stuck in machinery. I saw an IUD in a uterus. I saw an x-ray of a coin in someone’s throat. And then I left the museum feeling sick to my stomach, and wondering what was wrong inside my body haha You’re lucky because we weren’t allowed to take pictures (out of respect for the bodies) so I don’t have any to share. After that, I did some more looking around the shops and then had dinner before getting ready for bed.
For Friday, I booked the Original Loch Ness Tour, which was 12 hours long and started at 7:45 in the morning. It was moreso a bunch of driving; we covered nearly 600km, so a trip to Calgary! 🙂 It was crazy how we were able to see every season at some point. There was rain, there was snow, there was rain in snow, there were coloured leaves like fall, there were green fields like in the summer. It was crazy! I tried haggis since it was my last day there. It was actually haggis in a baked potato, and it was so good! We also did a 1-hour cruise on Loch Ness, which was pretty cool as well! On the boat, I had a Whiskey Chocolate, which was basically hot chocolate with whiskey. So I got to try two of the official food/drinks of Scotland! Didn’t see Nessie though 😦 I got back feeling so tired and quickly went to bed because my flight left at 7:15am the next day, so I’d be getting up at 5. My sleep didn’t last for long because at 2am, everyone else seemed to come back from a pub-crawl or something, and decided to spend the next hour talking, giggling, yelling, etc. So when my alarm went off at 5, I felt like I hadn’t had any sleep. I made it to the airport on time though, and got back home by 10:30. And that was my week! This weekend, I’ll likely be packing my stuff up so it’ll all be ready when/if I find a flat to move into next weekend (fingers crossed!). I hope everyone’s doing well! Miss you all tons! Love always
Edinburgh – The Lake Poets

Edelweiss (Austria)

Hey everyone, hope you all had a great holiday! I was so not looking forward to going back to work but luckily, I haven’t gotten called in too many times. My holidays were really enjoyable! Just enough time to refresh myself for another six weeks of teaching. The first few days, I did a lot of baking and relaxing. On Sunday, my French family came to London for the week! They had rented an apartment for the week and had one extra bed, so I ended up staying with them until Christmas Eve! I went over Sunday night for dinner, and I got to see the kids another three years older (Alice was 12 but turned 13 on Christmas Eve, Antoine is 11, and Elsa is 7!). I’ve unfortunately forgotten most of my French, so it made it quite difficult to communicate with everyone, especially since the kids speak so much faster and use words that I don’t understand now haha it worked out cause Alice has really good English now (probably equivalent to my French) so she would speak to me in English and I’d speak back to her in French. It was good practice! On Monday, we went to the Natural History Museum first thing in the morning. After that, we went to Winter Wonderland and then we checked out m&m’s world. Elsa and Antoine were both sick, which kind of concerned me since I was sharing a room with Elsa and I didn’t want to get sick before going to Austria. We ended up taking both of them to the clinic (I was there to translate) and the doctor diagnosed them with a chest and throat infection and gave them antibiotics (which scared me even more)! Luckily, I didn’t end up getting sick but I was seriously contemplating spending the rest of the week at home. On Tuesday, Emmanuel stayed home with Antoine and then Anne, Alice, Elsa and I went shopping because Alice wanted to shop for her birthday. We only lasted until lunch and then we went to the National Portrait Gallery for awhile (not really my thing, but oh well). On Wednesday, we went to Camden market, which is a HUGE market that I’ve always wanted to go to. Unfortunately because the kids were sick, we weren’t able to spend too much time outside but it was neat to see nonetheless. After that, I had to go back home so Alice came with me and we made gingerbread cookie dough to bring back to the apartment so we could make cookies there. That night, Alice and I made cookies and then Elsa helped us decorate them the next morning. On Thursday, it was Christmas Eve and it was Alice’s birthday!

We tried to go to Tate Modern, which ended up being closed. Then we went to Covent Garden, which was SO busy! It started POURING rain (sideways) so we went back to the apartment to dry off (since we were all absolutely drenched – umbrellas don’t help in those situations). That’s how my iPod had died before so I was guarding my iPhone with my life this time! Once the rain stopped, we headed over to the Portobello Market and then went back to the apartment to spend some more time together before I went back home. It wasn’t too tough of a goodbye this time, since I knew I’d be going to France sometime in the next six months. I made my way back home and got back nearly at the same time as Jess (who was in Amsterdam for the week). We watched some Christmas movies before going to bed to wait for Santa to come. The next morning was a pretty lazy day on my end. Jess made an amazing Christmas dinner and we watched movies pretty much the entire day. Absolutely everything closes in London on Christmas Day, including public transport, so we pretty much had no choice but to stay at home. We even thought about going to the cinema but that was closed too.

The next morning, we started our journey to Austria! In London, we have an app that tells us what buses/trains to take in order to get somewhere, which usually comes in quite handy. Because all of the trains and most of the metros were closed on Boxing Day, we had no choice but to take a bus to the airport (which would double our travel time – taking two hours). This day, the app told us to go to a bus stop (by bus) and then take another bus directly to the airport. What it didn’t tell us was that we had to reserve spots on that second bus ahead of time, as well as pay extra for the ticket. So when we got to the bus stop, we waited and waited for this bus that never seemed to come. Finally, we figured out it was a van that would come every so often to pick people up. I looked it up online and figured out that it was completely booked up for the entire day. By that point, we were kind of freaking out but we found out that there was a coach bus that also goes directly to the airport. However, we’d have to take another bus to get to its station. The bus only came every hour on the hour and we got there at about 11:10 so we had to wait 50 minutes for the next one. However, if we caught that one, we’d get to the airport JUST in time to catch our flight at 2:30 (as the bus takes about an hour and a half). We booked our tickets online, which cost 15 pounds each and were non-refundable, and then we waited. At 12, the bus hadn’t come so we waited for awhile but then got extremely anxious when it still hadn’t come by 12:15. I tried to track down the bus online but the website couldn’t find the bus. So I had no choice but to call the company (and get charged 14 pence per minute, so dumb). I talked to one guy who tried to track the bus and put me on hold twice for over ten minutes each time. He said the bus wasn’t trackable, but he took my phone number and said he’d call me back when he figured out where it was. By that time, we were freaking out because even if the bus came, there was no way we’d make it to the airport on time. Taxi rides cost about 80-100 pounds so there was no way we’d be doing that. Luckily, there were two other guys at the stop who were waiting for the same bus so we decided to call an uber which ended up costing us ten pounds each! We still weren’t sure if we’d make it in time though, as the trip would take about 50 minutes. On the way there, the guy called me back and said they found the bus and it would arrive at 1:15 (an hour and fifteen minutes late – later than the next bus would be) and asked if that would work for us. I replied no, our flight leaves at 2:20 so we wouldn’t make it on time. Luckily, he refunded me (which now that I think about it, I never got any money back…) We made it to the airport about 40 minutes before our flight. Luckily, Gatwick is so organised so we were able to smoothly make it through security and we even had time to run and buy lunch to take with us on the plane. It was a stressful trip, but we made it! We got to Salzburg about two hours later and made our way to the hostel. We booked two beds in a six-bed female dorm but when we got there, we were surprised to see that the room was composed of two bunk beds and one queen-sized bed. The only spots available were one on the bunk bed and one on the other side of the queen-sized bed. How weird! Luckily, the other girls arrived later so she switched and Jess and I just shared the queen bed. Better than sleeping with a complete stranger! The next morning, I woke up extremely early to get tickets for the Sound of Music tour. It was a four-hour tour and it showed us the house and gazebo in the movie, as well as many different parts of the Do Re Mi song in Mirabelle Gardens, and then it also took us to Lake Wolfgang, and the church where they got married in the movie. It was a really good tour! That day, I got to try my very first strudel, which was so good! Since the tour ended around 2pm, we still had a lot of time to explore afterwards. We went to Mozart’s birthplace and Mozart’s house, which were pretty neat! Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures, but they had a lot of his pianos and his violin, as well as a whole bunch of information about his family. We were able to buy a Salzburg card, which was awesome! It gave us free transport as well as free entrance into all of the museums and attractions. We also did a bit of shopping that evening, since the boxing week sales were so good! On Monday, we went to the Natural History Museum so that we could watch the shark feeding! It had some pretty good exhibits, as well as some really nice aquariums. After that, we made our way to the cable car ride, as it was included in our Salzburg card. It was somewhat scary but so worth it, and was really cool to see Salzburg from up above (an altitude of 1776m!). After making our way back down, we went to the Steigl museum, which was also included on our card (along with a Steigl mug and three 2-oz samples of beer!). I hardly made it through my beers before I was unable to breath and it was then that we realised that most of Austria’s restaurants have a smoking and a non-smoking section, and we had chosen the smoking section. After finishing our beer, we moved to the non-smoking section and we ordered dinner, which was SO GOOD! I know I can always count on breweries for having good food 🙂

On Tuesday, we caught a train to Vienna. That evening, we did a little more shopping and looking around. On Wednesday, we went to the Vienna zoo, which was a pretty nice zoo, and it’s the oldest zoo in Europe (It opened in 1752)! You can tell that the animals are well taken care of and they seem pretty happy at this zoo, which was nice to see. They even had some of the old historical cages on display, which was so crazy to see, as it was such a small area for a bear or a lion. After that, we went to look at schonbrunn palace, as it was right beside the zoo. It was absolutely huge! Vienna was much colder than Salzburg, so spending time outside was quite difficult. Especially since during the trip, my boot literally started breaking apart, seeping in water so my feet were permanently cold. After warming up in McDonald’s for awhile, we made our way to the Ferris wheel of Vienna, which was a crazy long line-up! We finally got our one turn around the Ferris wheel, and then spent a bit of time downtown. On Thursday, I decided to check out the cemeteries, since Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, and Schubert were all buried in Vienna. It was the coldest day so far and it was absolutely freezing! For the majority of the time, I couldn’t feel my feet at all. So both cemeteries were really short trips haha Beethoven’s grave was gorgeous! I kind of feel bad cause he seems to have been forgotten about since most of the focus is usually on Mozart. After the cemeteries, I warmed up for a bit and then checked out the market before heading back to the hostel. In Vienna, they have a New Year’s Trail, which is basically 12 different stages along the streets of central Vienna, each providing its own genre of music – oldies, classical, dance music, etc. Because it was completely outside, I put on as many layers as I possibly could and then I made my way to Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, where they had a Philharmonic Orchestra performing. It was so nice to see! And every time a waltz was performed, the older couples in the crowd wouldstart dancing. After an hour or so of that, I met up with Jess and we made our way to the DJ section, which was a huge dance party. We danced the night away (literally… For three or four hours). There wasn’t a countdown for New Years; everyone just started cheering when their phones turned to January 1st. We hung out for quite awhile and then went back to the hostel to get a bit of sleep before getting up and catching our train back to Salzburg. It was raining when we got to Salzburg, so my feet once again got cold and soaking wet, and when we got to the hostel at 2pm, we were disappointed to find out that reception was closed until 5pm. So we walked to the nearest McDonald’s to hang out for three hours before checking into the hostel and resting there for the rest of the night. We caught our flight back to London on Saturday morning, and the line-ups to check-in and to get through security were absolutely insane! Then they started boarding late, and people had to get on a bus to be moved to the plane, which was literally a 30-second walk away (which slowed down boarding even more). Our flight was only two hours but then it still took us 4.5 hours after arrival for us to get home! With our luck, the train happened to be cancelled that weekend so we had to catch a coach bus (which cost us 12 pounds each and took about 1.5 hours). Then we had to catch another two buses to get home once we got back into London, which took another 1.5 hours. We FINALLY got home at 4:30 and then used the evening to relax and unpack. Sunday was my catch-up day, where I did loads of laundry, grocery shopping, and cleaning before going back to work on Monday.
Once again, we wouldn’t be guaranteed pay the first week since it was the week after a holiday. On Monday, neither of us got called in so I went shopping to buy some new (much-needed) boots. That night, there was a monthly Canadian Expat Wing Night in London, so Jess and I decided to go check it out for the first time. One guy brought a huge box of Timbits from home since he got back from Canada the previous day, which was a nice surprise! Most of the people were middle-aged, but I had a good conversation with the oldest guy there, who just had his 50-year reunion from graduating at McGill! So he told me stories from the 1940s and 50s, which was pretty cool. On Monday, I was also told that I’d have a job from Tuesday to Friday (thank goodness!), but it wasn’t at one of my favourite schools to work at. The kids don’t do much work and are quite disrespectful. The last time I was there, one of the classes were writing a test, and I happened to notice that one of the students had two tests in front of her. Then she “dropped something on the floor,” and as she went to pick it up, she gave one of the tests to the person behind her. So I went and asked for it and said he could hand it in as is; he seemed pretty upset. Then, as the girl was still “looking for what she dropped,” the guy beside her swapped their tests so that when she got back up, she could fill out his test for him. I didn’t notice it until I went to collect tests, I asked for her test and it was in his hands. So I told them I’d be writing the three of them up for cheating and they’d have to rewrite the test. I still didn’t know the last guy’s name though, and he refused to give me his test cause then I’d know his name. Finally, at the end of class he gave me his test, but he had scratched out his name and wrote down someone’s name who was absent (so they’d end up getting trouble). I remembered the name and made a comment about how it was weird that this person wasn’t in class, and this guy kept getting more and more upset cause he’d keep trying to outsmart me and it wouldn’t work. Anyway, the following week was insane. The classroom was an absolute mess every day by the end of the day, kids would fight each other, and no one would work. Apparently, this class has already went through two science teachers since the beginning of the school year and the second one had given his notice of resignation that week, so they are currently in the process of finding a third teacher. My agent had told me that on Friday, he would let me know if the school would need me for another week, but once I found out that the teacher gave his notice, I wrote my agent and told him that I wouldn’t be coming back the next week. And good thing I did because this past week, I only ended up working a total of two days (one full day, and two half-days!). So I got quite a bit of (paid) time off, which was nice! Already counting down the weeks until my next holiday (four more weeks!). Last Thursday night, I met up with Helena (my friend whom I met in France, who was also an au pair there) and we went to the Billy Elliot musical. The kids in that production were SO talented, I couldn’t believe it! They could tap, do ballet, sing, act, and they didn’t look older than eight.
Anyway, yesterday we found out that the landlords weren’t going to renew our 6-month contract due to “decorating” or something. I wasn’t too surprised, and I had started looking for a new place before I even found that out. Unfortunately, it’s really difficult to find a place in London, and you usually have to pick a place on the day that it’s posted. Since our contract doesn’t end until the end of February, I’ll likely have to wait until about two weeks before we move out before I start looking for a place. And of course, looking for two bedrooms makes it that much more difficult! But hopefully it’ll all end up working out.
I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays as much as I did! Miss you all tons! Can’t believe it’s already been five months since I left.. Love always
Edelweiss – The Sound of Music

Hundred Miles (Morocco)

Well, this week has been amazing! For those of you who don’t know (and didn’t catch on to my Facebook posts), I spent the past five nights in Morocco. It was nice to try out not only another country, but a completely different continent. I had to keep reminding myself that I was in Africa! So crazy! I still spent Saturday in London, where I spent about four hours carving a pumpkin. Then, Jess and I went into central London to do some shopping and to check out an event called Thrill the World. Basically, it was a planned flash mob where people dressed up as zombies and danced to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” song (also notice the play on words with his “Heal the World” song). This dance was arranged so that it would be done at the exact same time as multiple cities around the world, and they were trying to break the record for being the biggest Thriller dance in the world (I’m not sure if they actually beat that record or not…). The downside to this is that in London, the dance wasn’t scheduled until 11pm, so it was quite cold outside by the time it actually happened. It was an interesting experience though! The next day, we got an extra hour to our day, as daylight savings time was either starting or ending (still don’t really understand how it works…). That morning, we had a fire alarm mishap, where the fire alarms all went off and we couldn’t get them to stop. I called the agent and about an hour later, he showed up with another guy, who told us it must have went off because of the steam from the shower. Anyway, I spent the rest of the morning packing for Morocco and then I made my way to Gatwick Airport, which is actually a really simple trip from our flat. Going through security was the smoothest process I’ve ever seen. Instead of lining up along the security belt (like pretty much all airports do), they had about 5 or 6 lineups perpendicular to the belt. So people at the front of each line had their own section of the security belt and could easily set their stuff in the bin and set it on the belt.

Then after going through security, you go to the end of the belt, grab your bin and take it to an empty station (there were about 15-20 of them), and then you could take your time putting all your stuff back together, putting on belts and shoes, etc. without having to take up space at the end of the security belt. I was extremely impressed! Once you get through security, they make you walk through the entire duty-free department store in order to get to the gates. It was like walking through IKEA, with the twists and turns, except this time you were twisting and turning through alcohol, perfumes, cigarettes, and watches, among other things. Finally, I made it to the end but here, they don’t tell you the gate number until about ten minutes before they start boarding. I found a quiet cafe to have lunch while I waited to find out my gate number. The bathrooms here were pretty well-organised too. Each sink had its own hand dryer, which was behind the mirror, so you just had to hold your hands under the mirror in order to dry off your hands. I finally found out my gate number and headed over. There, they also did things a bit differently.. They had to scan your ticket and passport in order for you to enter the gate. So then when they actually started the boarding process, there wasn’t a long lineup to scan everyone’s tickets. I think Gatwick has some pretty good ideas that actually work! I flew with Air Arabia, and the flight lasted three hours. It’s so crazy that in three hours, I can fly over multiple countries and reach a different continent whereas from Saskatoon, I’d just make it to Toronto in the same amount of time. The flight started off with a “Travel Prayer,” which I though was kind of cool. The tv screens had English subtitles so I was able to understand what the prayer said. Then the flight started! They didn’t have individual TVs, just the one tv in front of every 4 or 5 rows. They played Mr. Bean’s Christmas special, and then they played a show called ‘Hole in the Wall,’ which is somewhat self-explanatory. Basically there are three people standing in front of a pool of water, a wall comes towards them with awkward-shaped holes in it, and the people have to try to match their bodies to the shapes of the holes in order to not get pushed into the pool. All the players really sucked at it so pretty much everyone just ended up in the pool. I arrived in Morocco at about 8pm but by the time I got through customs and got a taxi, it was about 9:30 when I got to the hostel. I was starving by that point but because it was Sunday night, not a lot was left open so I settled with getting some Pringles to hold me over for the rest of the night. That night, I had a bit of trouble sleeping, as a prayer reminder started early in the morning (they do it six times per day: at 5:15am, at sunrise-6:40am, at noon, at 3pm, at 5:30pm, and at 7pm), so there’s kind of a megaphone that blasts through the entire city and multiple men pray/sing on it for about 15 minutes. During this time, tv’s are turned off and you notice many people wandering off on their own. After the prayer happens early in the morning, all the roosters are woken up and all I hear for the next couple hours are cockadoodle-doos.

The next morning (Monday), I had breakfast and then three of us (an American and a Welsh person) decided to explore Tangier together. We just kind of wandered around and got lost in different streets (with a bit of help from the locals, who were intently watching us and would let us know when we shouldn’t go a certain way). The cool thing about Tangier is that next to Arabic, French is the most common language (then Spanish, and THEN English), so I was able to try out my French. Moroccan French is SO clear and so easy to understand, so it wasn’t too difficult to get back into the hang of it, after not speaking it for three years. Anyway, during our walk it started raining so we ran into a close cafe until the rain passed. After that, we were starving so we headed to Cafe Hafa, which was recommended to us by one of the hostel owners. This cafe overlooked the entire Strait of Gibraltar and on a clear day, you can see Spain on the other side. It used to be frequented by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones! It’s well-known for its Moroccan tea (which is offered in every single cafe you go to), which is sweetened mint tea and is delicious – I had at least one every day that I was there! After lunch, we decided to head back towards the hostel and take a walk through the markets. Then, we took a taxi to Hercules’ Caves and timed it JUST RIGHT so we were able to watch the sunset, which was amazing! The story behind Hercules’ Caves is that Hercules used the cave as his resting place after finishing his twelve labours. We were actually quite lucky because they caves had been closed for the past two years, and only reopened a couple of weeks ago. After we got back to Tangier, we joined up with another person at the hostel (a Canadian) and went for a late dinner at another recommended restaurant. We told the chef to make wherever he wanted so he made different types of tajine – a traditional dish, which is pretty much a stew. I got to try shark for the first time! It was good, and didn’t taste like anything other than another type of fish.
On Tuesday, I got up and had breakfast. Then me and another hostel-goer went for Moroccan tea and had a good visit. It’s so weird going in some of the cafés because in this one especially, I was completely outnumbered by men. It was completely full and I was the only female in there. We then went back to the hostel, met up with another girl (another American) and the three of us went for lunch. After walking around aimlessly and failing on finding the restaurant that was recommended to us, we gave up and walked into a random one (or rather, the chef walked up to us and urged us to come inside). They served us a lot of food: a salad each, fries each, tajine, couscous, skewers, and mixed veggies – half of which we couldn’t eat. And then when we went to pay, we were all shocked at the amount, as it was the most we’ve ever been charged for a meal. Which made us a lot more careful about choosing restaurants in the future, and making sure we didn’t just let them “make whatever.” After that, the guy left to move onto the next part of his trip, and the other girl and I decided to do some shopping in the markets. I found a few treasures and then stopped myself from buying any more, even though everything was extremely cheap! We went back to the hostel to drop everything off, then met up with another guy and the three of us took a taxi to Cap Spartel, which is a lookout point where the Mediterranean meets up with the Atlantic. After that (because we were in the area), we asked to go to Hercules’ Caves since the other two hadn’t seen it yet. Then on the way back, the taxi driver asked if we wanted to stop by the camels and of course, I said yes! I bartered with the camel guy to let me take a picture on the camel for 40 dirham (about 2.60 pounds). I was just expecting to sit on it for five seconds, snap a picture, and get off. But he actually got the camel to stand up, and then took us for a short walk. The other girl decided to ride one as well and since the guy had already tried it before, he was our personal photographer and snapped a bunch of pictures for us. Being on the camel was a bit scary haha mostly just when it stood and sat because it bows down really fast, which makes you lose your balance really easily. I also felt like I was tilted to one side the entire time. But it was so cool! Definitely one more thing to check off my (non-existent) bucket list! After we got back to the hostel, Marie and I tried to find another restaurant and once again got lost. A kid told us he’d show us the way and took us on an extremely long walk in the opposite direction. I became more and more sceptical, as I didn’t think we were THAT far off from the restaurant. The kid took us to a completely different restaurant and I recognised it as the restaurant that the hostel owner specifically told us to avoid. So I said we weren’t interested and finally escaped, and then I took her to the restaurant that I had been to the evening before.
On Wednesday, literally everyone left me haha I even had the whole room to myself! But that meant for the first time, I’d be wandering around Tangier alone. Before I got there, I read that it was a touristy place where everyone hassled you, but I had never found it that bad. Probably because I was always with someone else. On Wednesday, I started to notice it quite a bit more. I decided to check out the beach and take a walk along it, as I hadn’t seen it yet. But I also noticed that there, I was followed a lot  more. It was all harmless, but it made it more difficult for me to enjoy myself. Once I got to the other end of the beach, I saw a McDonald’s so I decided to take a break there! I needed to test out the McFlurries, as I do in every country I go to. Unfortunately, they only had M&M and Kit-Kat 😦 nothing too unique. I opted for the Kit-Kat one and then headed back towards the hostel. After hanging out there for awhile, I decided to go back to Cafe Hafa to check out the sunset. It wasn’t as great compared to Hercules’ Caves, but it was still really relaxing! After that, one of the hostel owners took me and his other friend to a sushi place for dinner, which completely blew my mind considering we were in Morocco haha it was really good though!
On Thursday, I decided to see if I could walk to Cap Spartel and then check out the hiking trails over there (since I didn’t want to pay the full taxi fare on my own). I was thinking 2.5 hours isn’t that bad, but I underestimated it and forgot that most of the trek would be uphill. I also couldn’t figure out how to get to the coast, as it was all walled off so I ended up having to walk along the main road, which was extremely hot with no shade and no wind. I guess I should also explain that in Morocco, women are still objectified so it’s important to stay covered in a sweater and pants, and even then you still get stared at and the men try to talk to you. Therefore, wearing jeans and a sweater while hiking in hot weather isn’t the best combination. I made it to a park, and then I was able to cut through the park in order to get to the coast, and then I decided to just head back down into town, since it was way past lunchtime and I was starving. By the time I finally got back and was able to eat, it was around 3 or 4pm. I had a bit of a scare because the night before, I had been playing with the cat that frequents the hostel (but doesn’t technically live there) and it scratched me. So after talking to my mom about it, and her copying and pasting a whole bunch of stuff about rabies from Google, I started freaking out and decided to walk to the nearest clinic. As I waited in the waiting room, I actually started to feel not only scared, but stupid. Out of all the ways people die, I basically risked my life because I couldn’t resist playing with a cat… After what seemed like the longest wait ever, I was finally let in. The doctor seemed confused as to why someone with a tiny cat scratch was sitting in his office. I had no idea what the French word for rabies was, so I had a difficult time trying to explain my concern. Eventually, I think he understood but said I shouldn’t need to worry, as it didn’t look infected. He wrote me a prescription anyway, in case anything changed within the next week. Hoping, it’s nothing though!!!!!!! I went back to the hostel and spent the rest of the night visiting with all of the new people who came for the weekend.
The next day (Friday), I headed back to London 😦 My flight was at 1pm, so I got back to London at 4, and got home around 5. Then, I just did some laundry and relaxed for the rest of the night. Jess is away for the weekend, so I’m going to have to figure out how I’ll spend my Halloween weekend! Hope everyone enjoys their Halloween! Love always
Hundred Miles – Yall feat. Gabriela Richardson

In Your Light (China)

And my trip is done! On Thursday, we rented bikes and rode about three quarters of the 14 km city wall of Xi’An. I finally got to try a bicycle built for two! But technically, I didn’t really bike as I let my dad do most of the work 🙂 It was scary riding in the back though, having absolutely no control over where you go! After that, we went to the Shaanxi History Museum. As history isn’t really my thing and museums also aren’t really my thing either, I kind of fast forwarded through the museum and just spent the rest of my time outside. We then took a quick look at the Big Goose Pagoda before going to the airport. Then, we waited for our flight to Beijing, which ended up leaving two hours late. When we were supposed to board the plane, it still hadn’t left Beijing yet! So we didn’t arrive until about 1:30 in the morning, giving us a good excuse to sleep in the next day.

On Friday, we went to Tiananmen Square, the biggest square in the world. We didn’t get to look around too much since we went on a tour through the Forbidden City. It was so huge! It was really cool to see where the emperors used to live back in the day. My feet really hurt by the end of it though. We also got to meet a nephew of the last emperor, who we got to watch do a personalized calligraphy parchment for us. Ron took us to a market since all of us were starving after walking all day but we soon lost our appetites. This market sold everything on skewers, with a few things that I recognized as food (like grapes, apples, and chicken) and many, many things that I have never, ever considered as a source of food. Scorpions (that were still moving on the stick!), starfish, seahorses, snake, ostrich, baby birds, lizards, the list could go on… I stuck with only eating dumplings and fruit, but with the smells of everything else, it was difficult to want to eat. Cool experience though! It was also nice to be able to look at all of the little shops in the market since we hadn’t had much shopping time during our trip.

Saturday was the day we went to the Great Wall! It was about 1.5 hours to drive there from Beijing so we left early to try to beat traffic. We were lucky to actually get sunlight while we were in the Beijing area! With all of the pollution, it’s quite common to only have smog, and that’s what we got used to seeing. The steps of the Great Wall are all uneven so that if the enemy had ever been able to actually climb onto the Great Wall, it would be difficult for them to run up it. And now I know how the enemy would have felt! I hated stairs before; while hiking, I’d rather walk up the steep hill beside the stairs than walk up the stairs themselves. But doing uneven stairs… Wow. One step could be a foot and a half and the next could be a couple of inches, but you seldom would see two steps of the same height in a row. And there were really steep points on the wall without stairs too; the angle was crazy. And there were some girls doing it in high heels! After two hours, my parents and I went for lunch and did some shopping while the others continued their climb. Then, we had the long drive back to Beijing. And was it ever long! With it being a national holiday October 1st and everyone only having to work half a day that day, it seemed like absolutely everyone was on the road. That night, we went back to the market for dinner and then Lauren and I did some shopping until the stores closed.

On Sunday, we spent the morning at the Temple of Heaven. The park was really pretty, and all of the buildings were cool to see as well! After my mom had a tripping mishap, making my mom and dad go back to the hotel, the rest of us went to another neighbourhood of shops and markets. That night, one of Ron’s mom’s coworkers (the bigwig of the company in the Beijing area) wanted to take us all for dinner. We went to an extremely expensive restaurant for a Peking duck meal. He also bought a crazy expensive bottle of alcohol (63%) and after doing a, “Cheers!” with the group as a whole, he did one shot with every person sitting at the table; it was insane! Lauren, Troy, and I had quite a lot of trouble even sipping the stuff, let alone shooting it! It reminded me of the raki in Greece that I had; it burned all the way down. The bottle was finished quite fast, which we couldn’t understand since Troy, Gord, Lauren and I had two shots each maximum, meaning most of the huge bottle would have been split between three people. And after that bottle was done, he bought beer and chugged a glass with each and every person. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone drink that amount of alcohol and still be able to act somewhat normal; we were all shocked! Somehow, arm wrestling came into the picture in this nice, expensive restaurant, but luckily, the other customers seemed amused by what was going on. We went back to the market for awhile and then went back to the hotel.

Monday, we woke up extremely early (4:30) to get to the airport and catch a flight to Shanghai. We got breakfast on the plane, which probably wasn’t the best choice of food… Whose idea is it to serve hard-boiled eggs to a couple hundred people who are in an enclosed space together for the next two and a half hours? Luckily, the flight went by really fast and when we arrived in Shanghai, Yang was there to greet us! We went out for lunch to a steamed bun restaurant (which is now one of my favourite things!) and then we walked along the river. It was absolutely crazy since it was October 1st; I feel like everyone came to Shanghai to celebrate the National day. It was way too busy to try to walk around, especially while trying to keep track of eight people! Most of China takes their holidays from October 1st to 8th so we had to be prepared for it to be busy the entire week. Apparently there were 750 million locals travelling around China that week! We got settled back in the hotel and then went for dinner at a fancy restaurant. Whether the restaurants are fancy or dingy, the food is always amazing! I’ve never had a disappointing meal yet; it’s all been great!

On Tuesday, we went to the Jinmao Observatory Building, where we got to ride the elevator up to the 88th floor and get a fantastic view of Shanghai. What was even cooler was looking down the centre of the building and being able to see every single floor all the way down to the floor of the lobby. We headed to the airport to drop off Troy and Gordan, and to have one last lunch together. Then the rest of us drove to our next destination, Suzhou. We were luckily right in the centre of a night market and because we were back with Yang, I was able to do some shopping again! I found two more purses and then the next morning, I found some new clothes at Cache Cache (they’re all over China too, yay! – but the clothes have a much more Asian look to them haha). After shopping Wednesday morning, we went to the Humble Administrator’s Garden, a crowded but beautiful Chinese garden. It would have been much nicer to see without so many people though! We had lunch and then headed to our next town, Wuzhen, a water town similar to Venice but not. It was extremely crowded so we didn’t get to see much that night but the next morning, we got up early enough to see the park without so many people around. We all took a gondola ride down the river, which was fun! We then went back to Yang’s hometown, Hangzhou, which is where we spent the rest of our time in China. Evan had been staying with Yang’s mom so he was pretty excited to see his mom and dad again!

On Friday, we spent most of the day at the Hangzhou Safari Park. It started with us driving past lions, giraffes, zebras, camels and more (with many of them coming right up to the vehicle!) and then we parked and walked through the rest, which was pretty much like a zoo. The conditions were pretty depressing at most times, and most people ignored the, “Do not feed the animals” rule. I’d see baby monkeys chewing on plastic candy wrappers and stuff like that; it was sad. But I got to see my first panda, which was cool! Evan loved seeing all of the animals as well; I think we all had more fun watching him than watching the animals. That night, we went to the night market to look around and find stuff to buy. I don’t think anyone actually bought anything but it was still fun to look at everything.

On Saturday, we went to a tea restaurant on a hill to relax and not do any sightseeing (finally). However, we didn’t know ahead of time that we would be doing this and had I known, I would have brought a book or SOMETHING to keep myself occupied. After six hours, I was nearly in tears because I was so bored. I wasn’t used to being isolated with no choice of where I could go; I had been travelling for nine weeks, deciding absolutely everything I could do. So I think it was just hard for me to sit there and do absolutely nothing when I could be out walking around or shopping or something. You can only stare into space for so long, right? We headed back to the hotel and worked on packing our suitcases, since we had all acquired a lot more stuff since we first got to China. My mom and I luckily escaped dinner that night; we were so sick of Chinese food, always having to wonder what we were eating and if our stomachs could handle it. We found an English pub and got pasta and got to eat with forks and spoons. It was a nice break!

On Sunday, we spent most of the day shopping and strolling around the lake. That evening, Yang came to pick us up and we went out for dinner with her mom and some more of her family. Both Ron and Yang’s family were so hospitable, even though we couldn’t communicate with each other at all. They’d bring us gifts, take us out for dinner, or give us a ride (or lend their car) any time, even though they had just met us. It was really amazing! I truly felt welcome by both of their families. After dinner, Yang, Ron, and Evan came back to our hotel so we could do some final visiting before they went back to Yang’s mom’s house.

On Monday morning, my mom, dad and I got a ride to the Hangzhou bus station so that we could take the 2-hour bus ride (which ended up being a 3-hour bus ride) to the Shanghai airport. I was supposed to make the trip alone since my flight left two hours before everyone else’s, but luckily my parents decided to go with me. Otherwise, I’d have to carry two big suitcases, my backpack, my purse, and my Chinese musical instrument that I bought (ha) all by myself, and I don’t think that would have went over very well. Because the bus was so late, I didn’t have much time to check in my bags (no extra costs, yay!) and go through security. Then I had a quick final meal (noodles with chopsticks, how could I not?) before boarding my plane for the 10 hour 40 minute flight. For the first time in my life, I crossed the international date line so I’ve basically been able to live Thanksgiving Monday twice! Neither time with turkey though 😦 Now I’m back in Canada! The first thing I could smell when I walked through the airport was Tim Horton’s, and then I saw its heavenly beam of light shining down, just taunting me since I couldn’t have any until I got through customs. It was so awesome to be around English again! To hear people speaking it, to hear it on tv, on the radio (the first song I heard was the overplayed “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye and I was actually happy to hear it!), I got to SEE English: on restaurants, on buildings, on magazines (ah, I think I’ll buy one!)… I have a 4-hour layover in Vancouver, then I fly to Edmonton, which is when I’ve officially went completely around the world! Then I wait in Edmonton for an hour and I arrive in Saskatoon around 5:30. I’m so excited to be home! I definitely started getting anxious towards the last week of China; I was ready to just go back. The weird thing was, everyone else was ready to go back as well, even though they had only been gone for two weeks. What amateurs… Haha so excited to see everyone when I get home! It definitely hasn’t felt like three months at all. And no, I didn’t bring souvenirs for anyone, just so you all know ahead of time; sorry. Thanks to everyone who kept up with my blog (I hope there are people still reading it??!)! And that, my friends, is the story of how I went around the world in 91 days 🙂 Love always

In Your Light – Gotye

The Broken Ones (China)

A week in China has already gone by?!? How does that happen?? When I arrived in Shanghai on Wednesday at 6 in the morning, I first wanted to freshen up before finding a place to put my bags, because an entire day had gone by from the time I woke up in Rambouillet that morning. As I washed my face with all of the other girls, I looked in the mirror and all I could think was, “Wow, I feel extremely tall!,” as I was at least a couple of inches taller than every one of the other girls. I was luckily able to check my bags in even though my flight wasn’t leaving for another 13 hours, but at least I didn’t have to haul them around Shanghai! I took the 1.5 hour metro ride downtown; my first task was to find coffee. But I don’t think it mattered how much coffee I drank, I was still going to be extremely tired. I went to the nearest park in People’s Square to find a bench, read, and relax but it was hard to read when I was mostly just trying to keep my eyes open. Two girls came and asked if I could take their picture and we got to talking. I didn’t know it at the time but I was next in line to be their next scam victim. They both had commented on how beautiful my nose was and how much they liked it. My reaction was, “…Really? I’ve never heard that in my life!” It’s funny how the things that you get teased about most when you’re a child become your biggest insecurities while growing up. Whether they’re constant comments by many people or just one, small comment from only one person, a lot of those things stick with you for weeks, months, years, sometimes a lifetime, and they become what you’re most self-conscious about. Growing up, I was always teased about being skinny; once we were old enough to know what eating disorders were, I was pegged as the girl with anorexia. And I hated it! And I’d eat and eat and eat, trying to gain weight so that I could be just like everyone else. And I’d make sure everyone saw me eat. And I made sure I never went to the bathroom after a meal so that people didn’t think I was throwing up my food. All this thinking at such a young age just to prove something! I was mostly teased about my nose as a kid though, so I just got used to the fact that I had a funny nose. I remember when I was really young, I’d stare in the mirror crying, convincing myself that I was ugly, and wanting to do anything to change my nose. And whenever someone called me pretty or beautiful, I told myself that they were just saying it to be nice. And I just had to accept the fact that my nose stopped me from being normal-looking. I’m not saying all of this to fish for compliments or anything; I’m just sharing my experiences of being teased as a child and how it impacted me while growing up. Because I think everyone can relate, even though they may never show it. And I don’t think many people share what their biggest insecurities are. I’ve never shared this with anyone before; I just kept it to myself and continued to beat myself up, probably until close to the end of high school. But now I know that I would never change anything. Everywhere I go, I see beautiful people. I don’t think anyone ever looks at someone and thinks, “Wow, that person is really ugly…”; usually the differences that a person has is what truly makes them beautiful, because it’s what makes them unique. And I think that everyone I meet is beautiful! Everyone has so much to offer, so much more than looks, and I love trying to figure out why people have come into my life, whether it’s just for a day, for a few years, or for a lifetime. And sometimes, something happens years later that makes me realize why I spent that one day with that one person. It’s so cool! So I think it’s important with everyone I meet to see what I can learn from them, and figure out what I can offer them in return. I’ve said many times before: I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. But I think it only makes sense as a whole at the very end. Anyway, after talking to those girls for awhile, they invited me to what I thought was a tea festival. So I decided to join them since I didn’t have much else to do and because I was having trouble staying awake on my own. They led me to this building and as we were walking, this guy comes up and is like, “Are you about to go drink tea with these girls?” and I said yes. And he was like, “Don’t do it, it’s a scam! It’s extremely expensive!” So then I was a little hesitant and I knew that there was no backing out once I got there. But I went anyway and ended up paying a whole bunch of money to try six different teas at a tea ceremony. But it was also pretty cool and the teas were all really good. At least the girls bought me some to take home as a gift! Since I didn’t have anything to compare the prices to (except the prices of Europe), I didn’t realize it was a scam until Yang told me. We googled the scam and they did EXACTLY everything that was written down. So I was scammed on my first day in China. But I was actually pretty lucky that it wasn’t any worse. They asked me to go out for lunch after but thankfully, I had already eaten beforehand so I declined. Apparently the other scam is to order a bunch of food, one leaves because they get a phonecall and the other leaves after 15 minutes to go to the bathroom, and then neither of them ever come back. After all that tea, I really had to empty out my bladder! But every restaurant I tried, they never had an actual toilet. I am not ready to pee in a hole that’s in the ground yet! I’ve done it once in Rambouillet and once in Italy and it was never pleasant, so I went on a search for a toilet and eventually found one. I’ve come up with a ranking of toilets I would prefer: home toilet, hotel toilet, hostel toilet (depending on the hostel), restaurant toilet, ferry toilet, plane toilet, nature, bus toilet, squat toilet (ew), and side of highway. I’ve had my fair share of experience… I actually headed back to the airport around three since I was too tired to do anything else. My flight was at 10pm and then I arrived at midnight in Zhengzhou. My family, as well as Ronald and Yang were there to greet me! It was nice to see everyone again after ten weeks and I seemed to forget that I was still tired. Ron’s best man, Troy, and his dad Gordan, also arrived that day so the eight of us had to be ready to spend the next three weeks together, whether we liked it or not. We had a 1.5-hour car ride to Ron’s hometown, Pingdingshan, and at that time, I was informed that Facebook is banned in China(!!). How is that even possible?! So sorry if someone was trying to get a hold of me! Once we got to the hotel, everyone was ready to go to bed.

The next day, I slept in until about noon and from that moment on, I was in sync with the time zone! Unfortunately, the rest of my family was not. Their 14-hour difference was a bit more difficult than my 6-hour difference. So while all three of them lied on the bed in my hotel room, I unpacked and showed them everything I had bought during my trip. We also went for a walk down the street to look at what there was in Pingdingshan. We got so many stares walking down the sidewalk, as that city never usually sees any foreigners. And it wasn’t the kind of stare that when they’re caught, they look away; they just keep staring no matter what! It was a little intimidating at first but after awhile, I got used to it. That night, Ron and Yang took us for dinner to a hot-pot restaurant. The traffic in Pingdingshan was absolutely insane! As cars were only introduced about ten years ago, rules were never strictly enforced. Therefore, people can cross the streets when they want to, change lanes when they want to, bike where they want to, and notify people of their presence and what they’re doing by only the honk of their horn. It’s mayhem! When we got to the restaurant, we each got our own pot of oily broth, and then we cooked whatever meats and vegetables we wanted (similar to a fondue but we each get our own pot). They also had a variety of different spices and sauces, so we made our own sauce (while knowing what nothing was) to dip our food in. They ordered so many plates; the food just kept coming and coming! And when we finished one plate of food, it would be replaced by another. I had never seen so much food before! I got pretty frustrated trying to use my chopsticks for every meal but after about five days, I got the hang of them 🙂

On Friday, we took about an hour-long car ride to the Xiangshan Buddhist Temple. It had an enormous Buddha on top of a mountain; its toe reached my shoulder. In order to get to it, we had to climb about 1500 stairs; the humidity definitely didn’t help! In one section, there were 365 stairs total, grouped in 28 or 30 or 31, representing every day of the year, so we each got a picture on our birthday step. The Buddha was so cool! It was covered in gold and it towered above everything else. After our walk up to the Buddha, we went to the bell tower, where it cost 100 yuan ($15) to ring the bell three times. Our family decided to do it so the four of us had to pull back a large, wooden beam (about a foot in diameter and nearly two metres long) and let it go into the enormous bell. It was quite the experience! Ron’s friend Leon took us for a “small” lunch because we were planning to have dinner with Ron’s parents later that evening. He gave us a menu with pictures of live animals on it and asked what we wanted: boar, wolf, rabbit, some kind of bug… We decided to stick with chicken and within five minutes, we saw a fully-feathered chicken coming our way. So we actually got to see our food being prepared from the moment it was killed. At least we knew it was fresh! When we sat down, they kept bringing out food and more food and more food, while we struggled to keep up. That small lunch ended up being a huge lunch! We went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. The dinner was with all of the closest and most important people in Yang and Ron’s lives: their parents and a few friends. My family and I felt very honoured that we were included in their special meal. It was also great to finally meet both of their parents and see who Yang and Ron mostly looked like. The meal was huge! There were probably about twenty different dishes, and after us six Canadians had stuffed our faces, Yang informed us that those were only the appetizers!! Luckily, Yang’s wedding planner had shown up and needed Lauren and I to try on our bridesmaids dresses, so we were able to excuse ourselves from the table and give our stomachs some time to digest the food we ate. Then we went back down for round two! I don’t think I’ve ever eaten as much food as I did my first five days in China! Every meal was a feast; it was like Christmas dinner times three at every single meal!

Saturday was the day of the wedding! It’s better luck the earlier the groom comes to pick up the bride so Yang told us to be ready in her room by seven (normally it’s five). She looked absolutely stunning in her dress! Although it was difficult for me and Lauren, being the only English speakers in the room, it was still cool to be there and watch how everything happened. When Ron and his guys came, they had to do a series of tasks (that were decided by two of Yang’s best friends) before they could enter the room. They had to sing, do push-ups, and bribe us with money before they were finally let in. There were cameras absolutely everywhere, taking pictures and videos of our every move throughout the entire morning. Now I know what it feels like to be a celebrity! I don’t think I could stand it for longer than half a day though. They followed us down the halls, into the elevators, into the cars, literally everywhere we went. And they absolutely loved me and Lauren, as did everyone else; everyone wanted a picture with the two Canadian girls! It must not be a common occurrence for them to see girls like us! Once we took enough pictures, we had to drive to Yang and Ron’s new house, as it was part of the ceremony. Normally, they would pick the bride up at her parents’ house and take her to the groom’s parents’ house, as it is customary for the bride and groom to live and take care of the groom’s parents. The bride’s parents usually aren’t even allowed to attend the ceremony since they “say goodbye” when the bride is taken away, but since Yang’s family is from a different area of China, her parents were allowed to attend. All of the “important people” were piled into eight cars while a whole bunch of firecrackers were let off. Then, we started our half hour drive to Yang and Ron’s new house, being led by a Range Rover with a cameraman hanging out the side, recording us the entire way there. The vehicle also had its trunk open and someone threw out firecrackers the entire way there; it was absolutely crazy! Everyone else was waiting at the house, where we took even more pictures. After we were done there, we went back to the hotel and waited to start the ceremony, which was in an enormous banquet hall. There was about 70 tables of ten, with an expected number of 700 guests! All of the tables near the stage had to be covered with plastic (of course) to protect them from being covered with firecracker remnants. I felt like I was at some kind of Academy Awards show, and I was actually a part of it! It was intimidating since I had no idea when I was supposed to do anything because the entire ceremony was in Chinese and there were 700 people watching me, but we all got through it okay! While the bridesmaids (me and Lauren) and the groomsmen (Troy and Karon) were waiting “backstage,” Ron came riding down the centre aisle of the banquet hall on a motorcycle. Everything that happened during the ceremony was everything you would expect to see during one of those cheesy Asian films, but it was so cool! Then we walked down the aisle two by two to the front, and stood on stage. Yang came down the aisle and then there was a whole bunch of talking in Chinese, basically the handing over of Yang from her dad to Ron, the exchange of rings, etc. Then the six of us poured wine into a pyramid of wine glasses until we filled all of the glasses; it was intense! Then Yang made a speech (in English) about how she was so happy to have her Canadian family with her and I was trying so hard not to cry on stage, but I did. I was just so happy that my big sister was getting married! Finally, we could eat! Luckily during all of our meals, we’ve had someone sitting with us to tell us that a certain dish was turtle soup, or duck tongues, pig’s feet, or jellyfish. I haven’t been adventurous enough to try any of the above choices, but maybe I will in the next two weeks. It was weird because as soon as people started eating, they began to take down all of the decorations in order to prepare for someone else’s wedding that would take place the next day. And as soon as people were done eating, they just left. No one stayed to socialize except the Canadian table, which became a common occurrence. We were able to rest for a couple of hours and then Karon took the Canadians out for the evening. Our night started with a 100-minute massage! I’ve never had a massage in my life and I’m not sure if I’ll ever have one again after this one haha. These tiny Chinese girls sure must have a lot of rage kept inside them! My girl kept trying to crack every part of my body; I think I was more tense during the massage than I normally am during stressful situations because I kept trying to resist everything she did. I didn’t too much enjoy her knee going down my spine… Then Karon told us that we had three choices for the last 40 minutes of our massage but he chose for us and he chose Fire… That sure got us all a bit more stressed out! The masseuse had a stick with a cloth attached and she lit it on fire. Then, she put the lit stick in a glass jar to heat it up and set the jar on the sole of my foot so it suctioned, and then she’d pull it off. I was so freaked out because there was still fire in the jar when she put it on my foot! It never got too hot though. I was literally counting down every minute until my massage was done. The men got a different treatment… Instead of getting the jars put on their feet for 2-3 seconds at a time, they got the jars (18 of them) put on their backs for about ten minutes. Their skin inside the jars rose so high, it looked like a huge pimple, about 3 inches in diameter. The jars bruised their backs once they were taken off, and the spots are still there now! After our not-so-relaxing massages, Karon took us for a “heavy dinner.” We started with a bunch of appetizers and then the main course was a plate with an entire lamb on it. We were given gloves (exactly like my biology dissection gloves) so that we could for once discard the chopsticks and rip apart the lamb with our hands, or “eat like barbarians,” as Karon had put it. The lamb was probably some of the best meat I’ve ever eaten, it was so delicious! Karon also brought a 1.8-litre bottle of Japanese saki so we were forced to do shots every 2-3 minutes until we finished off the bottle. It was such a good day!!

On Sunday, we didn’t do very much. Ron and Yang took us for a walk downtown and took us to a park, where many seniors spend their time on Sundays. There was one man playing a traditional Chinese instrument and Ron asked if dad could try. Of course, he was very enthusiastic about letting dad play his instrument and from dad’s two notes he played, he got a HUGE crowd of people who came to watch the foreign man playing the Chinese instrument. We sure got a lot of attention in China; it was insane! Ron took us for lunch and for the first time, we got one dish and one dish only: noodles! We were all so thankful that we didn’t have to eat so much food. We went back to the hotel and the six of us (my family, Troy and his dad) played cards all afternoon while Yang and Ron did more wedding stuff. Unfortunately, we couldn’t leave the hotel by ourselves since we couldn’t even cross the streets safely without Ron’s help. When Ron and Yang came back, we went out for dinner and had an assortment of different rice dishes…another huge amount of food. And our entire meal for the eight of us only cost 24 bucks!

On Monday, we packed and took a car back to Zhengzhou so we could fly to Yang’s hometown: Hangzhou. Her city was so different compared to Ron’s! We headed to our hotel where we finally got to see Yang and Ron’s son, Evan! Then we had dinner with both Yang and Ron’s parents before going to bed so we’d be ready for another big day.

Tuesday was the second wedding day! Yang came to our hotel room at about 9:30 in the morning with the photographers and hair and makeup ladies so she could get ready with us. The ceremony was planned for 4:30 so by the time we were all ready, we had quite a bit of time to kill. We first went for dim sum and then got our pictures taken by the lake. The dress I had to wear was extremely tight even when I first tried it on back in Canada, and then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to gain any weight on my trip. Like that would happen with all of the foods I’ve been trying! Luckily, I had some spanks but they limited the amount that I could eat and breathe during the entire day. After taking photos, we helped with the decorations. The ceremony was right in front of the lake, and the decorations that Yang chose looked awesome! After rehearsing once, we sat around and waited for the ceremony to begin. Yang and Ron both said beautiful speeches to our family and once again, I cried. After the ceremony, we got macaroons and cupcakes and afterwards, we had the biggest dinner of my trip so far (too bad I filled up on macaroons beforehand!). There were so many dishes and all throughout dinner, Yang’s family and friends came to our table to thank us for looking after her; it was really great! Surprisingly after dinner, Yang’s dad sung a song for her; he’s an amazing opera singer, none of us had any idea! Later that night, we headed back to the hotel to pack and had to get up superearly the next morning so we could leave the hotel by five.

On Wednesday, we went to the airport to take a plane to Xī’ān (but Yang stayed in Hangzhou with Evan for the week). Once we got there, we went for lunch and then made a trip to the Terra Cotta warriors. The ruin pits weren’t so interesting to me but the warriors were neat to see, and they’re not even done piecing them all together! We headed to our hotel and then went for dinner. It’s so awesome having someone from China with us because Ron always takes us to the most grungiest, dirtiest places (that would never pass a health inspection in Canada), somewhere a tour group would never, ever take you to. And the food is amazing and on top of that, cheap! Our dinner for the seven of us (with about five dishes) only cost ten dollars Canadian! Lots of stuff planned for the rest of the week! Sorry I don’t have any pictures to post; I was too busy with my Canon this week and I don’t have a computer to upload pictures on. Hope everyone’s doing well! Love always

The Broken Ones – Dia Frampton

White Nights (Turkey)

Well, the Europe portion of my trip is already finished! On Wednesday evening, I took the bus to the Heraklion airport and waited for my plane to leave. My first flight was to Athens, which lasted an hour. And then my flight to Istanbul was an hour later. But since I had to go through security again, by the time I got to my gate they were ready to start boarding. I forgot how easy travelling can be when flying! No slow trains, no missing buses, no metro breakdowns. Sure, planes sometimes have their delays, but they’re usually pretty reliable. On my flight to Istanbul, to my surprise (and delight!), they gave us a meal even though we were in the air for less than an hour. I arrived in Istanbul at 8:30pm. The visa process was extremely easy; I just gave them 45 euro and they gave me my visa with no questions asked. I was easily able to find my way to the general area of my hostel, but finding my hostel was another story. It was difficult walking around with all of my luggage and being approached, “Are you lost?” “What are you looking for, baby?” “Would you like something to eat?” I soon found out that’s the norm here in Istanbul: Everyone’s always trying to sell you something. Women are still very much objectified here, I feel, so showing skin is not very common. I decided that since it was bad enough with my blonde hair as well as being alone, I would not be wearing shorts and I would never have my shoulders uncovered. Therefore, I was covered head to toe in 30 degree weather… Not the most comfortable feeling, but I’d rather feel uncomfortable physically than uncomfortable by the men.

On Thursday, I made my way to the Eminonu metro station so I could take Jono’s advice and take a ferry to Kadikoy. The ferry gave an excellent view of Istanbul, showing many of the mosques and the beauty of the city. Once I got to Kadikoy, I had lunch (a chicken donair) and then I took the ferry back. I went to the Yeni Cami, the “New Mosque,” which was absolutely gorgeous! I think it’s the first time I’ve ever been in a mosque so it had a very magical feeling to it. There were even prayers going on at the time; I just sat on the floor like everyone else did and relaxed. What I did notice was that all of the people praying at the front of the mosque were men; I wondered where all of the women were and noticed they were all up against the back wall. After leaving the mosque, I walked around for a bit and ended up making my way into the Spice Bazaar! It was really cool; they sold mostly spices and Turkish Delight, but there were also quite a few places to get souvenirs. And the souvenirs were dirt cheap too! I didn’t spend too much time at the bazaar because it was pretty intimidating, not being able to even look at anything without someone trying to make a deal with you. I then walked to Yerebatan Sarnici, the Basilica Cistern, which was so cool! It’s an underground cistern that used to provide water in the 6th century. It’s completely dark with glowing lights on every column, and there’s some relaxing music that plays while you walk around. I’ve never seen anything like it before, I loved it! Afterwards, I went to the Ayasofya Muzesi which is a museum that used to be a mosque as well as a church. It was huge! And it had mosaics on its walls and ceilings. After doing so much sightseeing, I sat in the museum’s park and had freshly pressed pomegranate juice; it was delicious, so much better than the pressed oranges! I tried to go to the Sultanahmet Cami, the “Blue Mosque,” but the lineup was huge and it didn’t seem to be moving. It sure is gorgeous from the outside though! After it got dark (around 8-8:30), I usually headed back to my hostel since it was usually bad enough being alone in the daylight. But just before I headed back, I’d always find a bench to sit on in Sultanahmet Square, which was very close to my hostel. There is a huge fountain in the middle of the square and at night, there are lights inside it that change colours. It was so nice, watching the fountain change from green to red to blue and so on, while having the Blue Mosque to one side of you and the Ayasofya Muzesi to the opposite side. So magnificent, calming, and beautiful!

I decided Friday would be my shopping day! I headed to the Grand Bazaar and boy, was it huge! It was just really overwhelming with everyone getting you to only buy their products. And since I wasn’t really looking for anything specific, it was difficult to want to bargain since there wasn’t anything I really really wanted. And the one bag I really liked, I couldn’t find where it was ten minutes later haha. So I didn’t stay at the Grand Bazaar for long; I much preferred the Spice Bazaar. I then went back to the Blue Mosque but unfortunately, I got there during praying times so they wouldn’t let visitors in. So I just walked down the streets on the way to the Spice Bazaar so I could find a suitcase since I had bought too much stuff. I went to many different places and finally found what I was looking for, yay! Here, my everyday treat has been baklava and apple tea. Denise (the girl I met in Athens) told me not to waste my time buying baklava in Greece because it wasn’t even actually invented in Greece (contrary to what I had thought). So even though she told me to wait, I tried it once. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. Then here, I tried it and they make theirs with pistachios (best idea ever!); it is absolutely amazing! To die for! Delicious! I bought a kilo to take to China; chances are it won’t make it back to Canada, sorry guys. And then the apple tea… I’m not much of a tea drinker so whenever I’m offered tea at the end of the meal, I always decline. However, when I declined at one of the donair places I was at and the guy was like, “What if I gave it to you on the house?”, how could I not accept? It was sooo good, I went out the next day and bought half a kilo to take home with me 🙂

On Saturday, I was planning on going to Topkapi Palace in order to keep myself away from the stores. Once I got there, I saw it was 25 lira and thought, “I could be spending that at the bazaar instead!” so I turned around and headed that way. I spent all of my money until I had one lira left and then I made sure I couldn’t take out anymore cash. That day, I FINALLY got into the Blue Mosque, but it wasn’t as amazing as I had expected. I much preferred the New Mosque, but one of the guys I met had said that once you’ve seen one mosque, you’ve seen all of the mosques. So that could have been my problem.

There are so many cats here! Everywhere I go, there seems to be more and more cats. Croatia had a considerable amount of cats, then Greece had even more, but here in Istanbul there are cats everywhere. And they move into the buildings and try to get food. It’s sad…at two different times, I’ve found a cardboard box on the side of the road with a mom and 5 or 6 kittens inside. My roommate that I had in Heraklion works for an animal protection program where she’s from. She said that in one year, one cat can multiply to about thirty! Female cats are able to have three litters per year with 4-6 kittens per litter, and female cats are sexually mature at four months old. So cats sure add up, especially in a place where they roam wild.

Sunday morning, I had breakfast before I caught the shuttle to the airport which ended up being about an hour and a half long. I stood in line for a good 45 minutes and once I finally got to the check-in counter, the guy said that my flight wasn’t open until 12:30pm so I had to wait an hour and a half before I could check-in(!!). What’s the point of having to be at least two hours early when they don’t open the counter until two hours before?!? I decided to eat lunch so I could waste some time before checking in. Finally I got to check in and go through security, but maybe I spoke too soon about flying being convenient because by the time we were supposed to start boarding, the plane hadn’t even arrived yet. We ended up leaving 45 minutes behind schedule but made up a bit of time and arrived at the Paris Orly airport 20 minutes late. Even though I only saw Paris through the window of the shuttle, it was very comforting to be back. I took the train to Rambouillet and Catherine was there waiting for me so that I could spend the night at their place in Le Perray. Unfortunately I didn’t arrive until 8:45pm so I didn’t get much time to visit before everyone had to go to bed so that they could wake up early for work or school. But it was nice to see them all one more time before I left! And was I sure glad to be somewhere familiar again! As much as I liked backpacking, I was also relieved when I was done. Backpacking isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Or maybe not if you do it “right,” which I feel I did 🙂 My shower towel is the same towel as my beach towel which is the same towel that I sit on when I’m at the park, on grass or rocks, and is also my first aid towel when I used it to wipe off my knee when I fell last week. Therefore my towel is a dirty, bloody, smelly rag. I’ve worn the same seven shirts in five weeks, only “washing” them once. I’ve managed to somehow survive off of the same hotel-sized bottles of shampoo and soap, using everything very sparingly. My hair either goes up in a ponytail or stays down in a huge, puffed-up rats’ nest. How many times I have wanted to shave my head during this trip, I cannot tell you. I’m walking around in over 25 degree weather every single day all day long, and HAVE to shower by the time I get back to the hostel (it’s not a choice, it’s a must!), and by the time I’ve toweled off, I’m already all sticky again. I sleep with no a/c, I’m lucky if I even get a fan, I’m woken up by disrespectful roommates in the middle of the night or early in the morning by talking, snoring, or the rustling of bags. But I still love it! Although I think next time I do backpacking, I’ll only do it in 3-4 week periods. It’s the different experiences that make the trip and even though I was exhausted and ready for it to be done, I really enjoyed myself! Meals are the things I could always count on. I remember in Bari when Phoebe and Ruby wanted to get groceries at the supermarket so we went and they were complaining that they had spent 7 euro on their groceries, which is considerably more than they usually spend. So they were hoping that what they bought would last them for the next three meals. How sad… I won’t tell you how much I spent at the grocery store that day! I could have made this trip waaaay cheaper than I did (and I did start like that), but why go to a supermarket and buy an apple when you can do that at home? For me, trying the local cuisine is a huge part of experiencing a culture. I’m so glad I stopped trying to budget myself and I JUST DID IT. I ate what I wanted, I went where I wanted, I bought what I wanted. And never ever did I think, “Should I really be buying this?” My first and only thought or concern was, “How will I get this home?” Somehow, I still even have money left over, at least enough for China anyway. That was my biggest regret last time I went to France. I was getting paid 60 euro a week which gave me about 8 euro to spend each day, equivalent to about two cokes at the Celtique. And I never did anything, I never went anywhere, I never bought anything. Cause I didn’t have the money. I was in France, yet I might as well have been at home. And I always looked back and regretted not doing anything because I always made an excuse not to. That’s why this time around, I’m doing it differently. And I have absolutely no regrets. Maybe when I carry home my three bags, I will! But we only live once. Why say, “Let’s do it next time,” when we SHOULD say, “Let’s do it NOW!” I’m just lucky I DID have a next time! I hate how society has an expected idea of how life for everyone should be. Elementary school, high school, university, job, marriage, kids, retirement. Who wrote these rules, and why are they so boring?! And because of this, everyone has the same idea, “I’ll do it when… (fill in the blank):” When I’m done school, when I get a promotion, when I’m married, when my kids are older. And some people don’t even HAVE the idea to do something different because it has never even occurred to them. Actually if it weren’t for my cousin who started travelling at a young age, I probably wouldn’t have had any of those ideas either. But I’m glad I did!

On Monday, I woke up and got ready which was incredible! Instead of quickly getting up and getting ready in 10-20 minutes, I took my time. And I got to straighten my hair, and paint my nails, and spray delicious-smelling products in my hair since I had them all again! Ah, it was great! Then I headed to Saint Quentin to have lunch with Beatrice, who had kept another one of my bags with all of the stuff that I got in London. We went for Chinese and then she showed me her university since she had to register. Afterwards, I went back to Le Perray to pack my two bags in one hour. Closing my bags, hauling them to the train station, and lugging especially the large one up the stairs was (I’m pretty sure) more difficult than walking the Cinque Terre. I found out later that the one suitcase was 27kg, the other was 12 and I also had my backpack. I took the train to Rambouillet and walked to the family’s house to get there around 6pm. It was so great to see the kids again, and they were extremely excited this time! The last visit, everyone (including myself) was a bit hesitant and not too sure what to think. But this time around, everyone was so relaxed and it was honestly like I hadn’t left three years ago. Except I was always shocked when the kids would help clear the table, or shower by themselves, or say something extremely intelligent. And then I’d have to remind myself that these kids are no longer 5 and 6 years old. Sadly, Alice is already in the preteen stage; she rolls her eyes constantly (although I’m pretty sure she had that covered when she was six too haha) and she was too cool to walk to school with us the next morning 😦 But wow, the girl who used to complain all the time is now the peacekeeper of the house, the big sister. She loves Elsa so much, it’s adorable. And Antoine is extremely intelligent. The one who was always quiet is now the one who argues about absolutely everything, but his explanations are actually logical. It’s not just arguing for the sake of arguing; he makes valid points and I’m always so impressed. And Elsa is still cute, little Elsa: laughing constantly and always joking around. It makes me kind of sad how the kids who once depended on me for everything have now outgrown me and no longer need me anymore. At least Elsa still wanted me to read her a bedtime story… Antoine also wanted to spend as much time as possible with me as well, but Alice’s nose was always in a book. Guess I can’t complain since that’s usually me as well! But I also realized that the next time I see these kids, they will likely be teenagers. How sad… Anne and I had a good visit after the kids went to bed and then I headed to bed as well so I could get up early to join them all for breakfast. I walked the kids to school with Anne which was cool because I got to see all of the moms that I used to see everyday three years ago. Anne drove me to the station and then I made my way to the airport. Unlike the last disaster I had trying to get to the airport, I was prepared for the shuttle this time! It must have been my lucky day because the airline I was flying with allowed two bags per person, with 23kg per bag. So I didn’t have to pay any extra costs! Which I was prepared to do, and I knew I’d have to do for my connecting flight. But it saved me a good 150 bucks! I got through security and waited for my 11 hour 20 minute flight, booooo. While I was in the lounge, I kept hearing humming. But it wasn’t like humming a song, it was an annoying humming. And I found the source to be an older man across the lounge. When I got on the plane, guess who my neighbour was… Not so much humming, but constant tongue clicking and belching, some talking to movies, and a large invasion of personal space. So as much as I tried to sleep, there was always an elbow hitting me at some point. And the point where I almost lost it was when he knocked over his coffee all over my shoe, inside and outside, right before we landed. And it wasn’t like that was a one-time thing; during the trip, he knocked over his drink three times and I managed to catch it two of those three times. So now my 350 dollar insole probably has a permanent smell of coffee. Enough complaining, keep in mind I’m writing this towards the end of my 11 hour flight, when it’s 6 in the morning Shanghai time but midnight Paris time. Today’s gonna be a looooong day, especially since I have a 15 hour layover in Shanghai before going to Zhengzhou tonight at 10pm. Hopefully I’ll figure out something to do! Hope everyone’s enjoying the last of September, sure went by fast! Love always

White Nights – Oh Land

Everything’s Right (Greece)

And Greece is now done 😦 but that’s okay cause I’m definitely coming back! On Monday, I was quite ready to leave Croatia so I checked into the ferry at 8pm that night to go to Bari, Italy. When I had booked my ticket ahead of time, I asked if I could get a bed and the lady said I had to get it on the boat. But then when I got on the boat, I asked how I could get a bed and they said I should have bought a bed ticket when I had gotten my ticket. So I was stuck with a deck ticket. I got on the ferry and laid out my sleeping bag on the floor in the hall and set up camp. A lot of people had done the same so it was funny when someone brought out their guitar and started singing Kumbaya on the other side of the boat. The problem with my section of the boat was I was the only non-Italian person there. I’m pretty sure Italians are the loudest people on earth so it was difficult for me to sleep a lot of times, plus the hard floor didn’t really help me get very comfortable. But the Italians were also really nice and offered me food and whatnot so I can’t complain. I think I only got stepped on a total of three times during the night. After 12 hours of being on the boat, we arrived in Bari at about 8am. We then had to go through passport control and for the first time, I was happy that I wasn’t an EU citizen since they had a line specifically for non-EU citizens, which included me and only a few others. I walked to the ticket office and met three girls there: Phoebe and Ruby from Australia, and Lara from Germany. We found out that we were all making the same trip to Greece so since we had about 12 hours until our ferry left, we decided to explore Bari together. We just walked around, sat in parks and coffee shops, and enjoyed ourselves. Bari wasn’t what any of us were expecting; it was an actual city, not a small port with a couple of shops, like we thought. We headed back to the port to board our ferry at 5 and we found out that because there weren’t many passengers, we were upgraded to the reclining seats free of charge! This ferry was so nice compared to the last one, which was great since we ended up being on this ferry for a total of 18 hours. When we finally arrived in Patras at 1pm the next day, I went to the bus station and took a bus to Athens. The trip from Patras to Athens is absolutely gorgeous! But once I got into Athens, I was wondering what I got myself into. The part of the city that the bus terminal is on is pretty sketchy and very dirty so my first impression of Athens wasn’t that great. I somehow found a way to the metro stop that I was supposed to meet my couchsurfing host (Nick) at and to my surprise, he was also hosting another girl (Denise) from Germany/Turkey. That night, Nick took us for souvlaki and then we met some other couchsurfers at a bar. I tried raki, which was waaay too strong for me; I don’t know how other people can handle it! It can be made with up to 90% alcohol content so you can feel it pretty fast. We didn’t make it back to the house until 5 in the morning (yet again).

On Thursday, Denise and I had lunch before heading to the city centre. We found a frozen yogurt bar and decided to give it a try. If you think Pure frozen yogurt is good, Greek frozen yogurt is a million times better! It was sooo delicious, I was just shocked! We then went to the Acropolis Museum, which was cool. I really liked seeing all of the vases and utensils they had used 3000 years ago, it was amazing! After three hours in the museum, we went to check out the actual Acropolis (and got in for free yay!). The Acropolis was so gorgeous! Especially because we went during the last hour that it was open so the sun was setting right behind the Parthenon.. Beautiful! We then walked to Monastiraki, one of the city’s main squares where the Athens Flea Market is located. Eventually, we made our way back to Nick’s and then we met up with the same people from the night before and went to a lounge on a hill with a gorgeous view of the Piraeus port. We didn’t get back til about 3:30 that night, which kind of sucked since I had to catch my ferry to Mykonos at 7:30 the next morning.

That Friday morning, I took the five hour ferry ride to Mykonos! I stayed at this awesome resort and spent my entire time on the beach with an ENGLISH magazine! It was so nice, hopefully I’ll still have my tan when I get back home; it’s probably the darkest I’ve ever been! I got my own private beach cabin, which surprisingly wasn’t even near the beach haha but that was probably better that way for sleeping purposes. That evening (even though I was extremely tired), I went into town to have dinner and check out the stores. I also of course got some frozen yogurt. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go back to Pure frozen yogurt when I go home; this stuff is way too delicious! Mykonos is so cute; it’s known as the party island so everyone I talked to said I wouldn’t enjoy it, but there’s something to do for everyone, even families. I almost didn’t go to Mykonos and instead planned to spend an extra night in Athens, but I’m so glad I went! It was also just nice to have a chill day on the beach for the first time of my trip!

On Saturday morning, I took the ferry to Santorini, the island of romance. And of course, I went alone. The trip to Santorini was the worst! One of the staff members wouldn’t let me take my bags to the deck, which has never happened before. And I have never left my bags before. So when I stubbornly said there was no way I was leaving my bags, he said, “Fine! You stay on the deck, not in the boat!” which was fine with me since I was planning to go on the deck anyway. The first two hours were nice; I just lied on the deck in the sun and listened to music. Then, we reached the rocky waters. Everything I had with me got absolutely drenched from the boat going back and forth non-stop. On the deck, it was basically suicide to try to move anywhere since the floors of the deck were so slippery and with one shift of the boat, you could go sliding across the deck. So basically everyone who was on the deck was stranded up there, holding onto whatever they could to keep themselves balanced. After awhile, my stomach got the best of me and I knew I needed to eat something or I was going to be sick. So I took my two backpacks and carefully made my way to the other side of the deck to where the stairs were. Instead of going from front to back, the stairs were from left to right. Right when I got to the top of the stairs, the boat hit a wave and tilted the other way, which caused me to fly towards the bottom of the stairs. Luckily, I grabbed onto the rail with my free hand just in time but it sure got my adrenaline rushing! Scary, scary moment. I was surprised that they didn’t have anyone go up on deck to help everyone else get down. Anyway, I safely got in the boat and sat down on one of the chairs; it was nice being rocked back and forth while sitting; it pretty much lulled me to sleep. But by the end, I started to feel sick. And just when I thought I was supposed to get off the ferry, they informed me it was still another 2.5 hours, making it a 10-hour trip! So I tried to think good thoughts and ignored the sick feeling in my stomach. It got to the point where the crew wouldn’t allow anyone to leave their seats unless they had to use the washroom, and in that case, they would be escorted by a crew member. I finally arrived in Santorini at about 8:30pm and got a ride to my hotel. I had my own room with a bathroom and a mini fridge! It’s always a nice change from a hostel but it also gets lonely since you can’t exactly meet anyone there. My hotel was located in Perissa, which I found out later is the 10th top attraction in Santorini, due to its beach (which was about a two minute walk from my room!). However once I got to Santorini, I still felt like I was on the boat. I couldn’t walk in a straight line and even standing still, I felt like I was swaying back and forth. I honestly think it’s the tipsiest I’ve ever been! My only solution was to go to bed early cause that was the only way I didn’t feel like I was moving.

On Sunday, I had breakfast on the beach and then I went to Fira (pronounced Fear-uh), the capital of Santorini. It’s a cute city with lots of places to shop. I just love going into every souvenir shop and looking at everything, even if I can’t buy anything. I did however get my Christmas ornament! Around four, I decided to walk to Oia (pronounced Ee-uh) which is the other main city of Santorini. The trip was about 11km and is supposed to be one of the prettiest walks in Santorini. However, after doing the Cinque Terre, I wasn’t TOO wowed. Of course, there were beautiful views, but it wasn’t much of a “hike,” just a road with very uneven rocks and stones. Quite dangerous actually; I found myself sliding down a hill of volcanic rock at one point. And with none of the rocks being sturdy, one wrong step and you roll your ankle and your knee makes direct contact with a pile of rocks, gashing it in three places. So what did I do when I was unfortunate enough to have this happen to me? The same thing any normal person would do… I took a picture. Then I cleaned it out best I could with my water bottle and beach towel since that’s all I had. I found out I had 5 more kilometres until Oia so I continued my walk, open wound and all. It wasn’t that bad; I just poured water on it anytime it started to hurt. I’m just glad I have such a high pain threshold cause by the time I got to Oia, it really started to get to me. So I went to the pharmacist, who gave me an unknown substance for 2.50 and I put it on. And boy, I would have walked BACK to Fira instead of putting that stuff on. It probably needed quite a bit of cleaning though; I’m just hoping there aren’t any pebbles stuck inside that I can’t see. So once I got to Oia, I was in a pretty sour mood. I went for dinner and got some moussaka, an eggplant casserole, very good! Then I headed back to Perissa to spend some time on the beach before going to bed.

On Monday, I went to the beach around 10 and stayed there until I had to catch my ferry five hours later. The bartender on the beach kept staring straight at my knee every time he walked by and eventually came and put a band-aid on it haha, I guess it wasn’t really the prettiest sight. I got to the port but by the time I was supposed to leave, the ferry still hadn’t arrived. Finally 45 minutes later, it came! So we left an hour behind schedule, which made me kind of nervous because I still had to catch a 3-hour bus to Chania once I arrived in Heraklion, and there would only be one bus left IF we made it there on time. That bus was at 9pm. The ferry arrived at 9:15pm. So before I started freaking out that I had nowhere to go, I decided to clear my head. I went for a McFlurry and onion rings at McDonald’s. What I’ve learned is that letting the worry come in won’t help with anything. And that trying to make logical decisions on an empty stomach doesn’t help either. Surprisingly, McDonald’s didn’t have wifi but I was lucky enough to find it elsewhere so I could get directions to an available hostel. When I got there, he said the dorms were actually all booked up (the Internet said otherwise) but he would give me a private suite for the same price of a dorm (I seem to be having a lot of luck with these private suites!). Probably the nicest room I’ve been in so far!

On Tuesday, I went to Knossos Palace, the second-best archaeological site next to the Acropolis. But I realized while travelling that archaeology isn’t something I find very interesting. To pay money to see a bunch of rocks that used to be a palace 4000 years ago is a waste for me. A rock that was once part of Knossos Palace looks like a rock that was once part of the Acropolis, which looks like a rock that was once part of the Roman Forum. I would rather go on a hike and look at a bunch of rocks that have no purpose. I like to see things as a whole or at least partly complete. Seeing the Parthenon was cool, as well as seeing the Colosseum. Looking at cells in university doesn’t excite me either. Looking at a blood cell from a frog or a hair cell from a cat or a skin cell from a human… Cells are cells, rocks are rocks. Maybe I’m just ignorant? I do however love looking at the tools: the hammers, the vases, the paintings. I guess different people just have different interests, and I’m slowly learning mine. After going to Knossos Palace, I went back to the city centre to walk through the markets before heading back to my hostel. Then, I did even more looking through stores around that area. I made my way into a jewelry store and the lady working there (Afroditi) was determined to find me a ring that fit my extremely tiny fingers. Since it is now off-season, I think the storekeepers are desperate to sell anything so when we finally found a ring, she said she’d take 10 euro off! So I decided to buy it and she was like, “Sit down, I want to make you a cocktail!” and went to the back of the store to get some raki and orange juice. I told her about my trip and she told me about her two kids, who are about my age. Afroditi was the nicest lady, saying it was brave of me to travel alone and warning me to be careful. “Now I’m sounding like your mother,” she said, but it was nice to have a motherly person around again. She gave me her name and email to add her on facebook, sounding very excited to have another friend. “And make sure you send me pictures of your trip!” The people of Crete are extremely welcoming, and I know I’ve said that about a lot of places, but the Cretan people go above and beyond to make you feel at home. I went for dinner and got a plate of a combination of things so I could try all of the different Greek foods. As much as I love the gyro pitas (because they’re extremely delicious and they never cost more than 2.50), I decided I should expand my knowledge of Greek cuisine a little further. Boy, do I love Greek cuisine! Heck, I love every kind of cuisine; where can you go wrong with anything that’s not American food? Anyway, my plate included a stuffed tomato (stuffed with rice and spices), pastitsio – a baked pasta dish, bekri meze – pork marinated in white wine, soutzoukakia – spicy meatballs with garlic and tomato sauce, eggplant papoutsakia, and of course tzatziki, love it! After I was done, the waiter came with a small pitcher of raki and said, “Here you go, Canada.” It had enough to do about six shots! After three painful shots, I told him it was too strong to finish. Apparently raki is supposed to be really helpful with digestion, but it burns the throat when drinking it. I headed back to the hostel and easily fell asleep.

Today, I’m just killing time until I have to go to the airport to catch my flight to Istanbul, which isn’t until 5:30. I guess I’ll just have to fill up on Greek frozen yogurt before I leave Greece! I can’t believe I only have one place left to go and then I’m done my Europe trip, it went by way too fast! Hope everyone’s doing well! Love always

Everything’s Right – Matt Wertz