It's good to be home...sometimes.

Tonight I went for dessert with a couple of my friends from home. Some funny comments came up that have no relation to each other:

"I don't like the soggy ones"
"The hole was too small so I couldn't get it out"
"It went in the hole"
"We don't need you...we got a girl that sucks waaaay more than you"
"How do you say it? Chi-POE-tle."

"Hey I know why your street is named Forest Edge"....
...."That's not the name of my street"

Candy, can you remember any other ones?

Bienvenue a Paris

Well I'm back from Paris. Here is a rundown of my 10-day experience. I travelled to France with a girlfriend of mine and we had fun taking in the sights, eating way too expensive food, and being harrassed by ugly french men. Perfect weather for most of the trip. Blue skies and breezes.

Day 1
Not much to say here, except that waiting in airports while delays are happening are not fun (see previous post). Waiting for planes to take off while sitting IN the plane is even worse. We took off from Toronto and did a pitstop in Montreal. We had to wait an hour and a half for them to find 3 pieces of luggage that made it onto our flight by accident. Good thing we were in the premium seats, which offered a full 5 inches extra leg room. Great for a shorty like me!

Day 2
Walked around the Clingancourt flea market in the North of Paris. There isn't much there except either really cheap or really expensive. Next we went to Sacre Coeur, a huge church. You're not allowed to take pictures inside, but people don't like to follow rules. I watched this little old lady sneak a pic and then run out the door. We went to see the Moulin Rouge and realized that we almost booked a hotel that was beside the 'Sexodrome'. Good call.

Day 3
Eiffel tower!! Don't need to say much stuff about it. It sort of speaks for itself.



What a perfect day

Day 4
Headed to Versailles today. We toured all of the king and queen's apartments. This place is really huge. We didn't even get to explore the whole grounds. On the way back we met a nice Canadian couple from Montreal who told us about their experiences in Normandy. Now I can't wait to go there on my next trip. On our way home we stopped by the Notre Dame. I saw a real french mime!


Thank you sun for the nice effects

Day 5
Today we went to the Louvre and spent many hours there. I didn't realize that they had dice from 3000 BC. We couldn't push our way to see the Mona Lisa - this was around 2 pm, so we decided to come back later. Four hours later, it was STILL a pain to get to the front. I got about 30 seconds of face time with her.

Day 6
Changed hotels and found out that we can watch porn 24 hours a day. Today we went to the Rodin museum and saw those famous statues such as "the Thinker". We went to dinner where the the bottled water cost almost 7 euros.

Day 7-8
We went to Lille, about an hour away from Paris. There REALLY isn't much to say about this town except that the shopping is really good. This is where I bought most of my stuff. There were some good treats too...




Yummmm

Day 9
Went to Brussels today. Really not much to say here either.

Day 10
Back to Paris. Good to return to a place where guys don't cluck at you or stare at your ethnicity like you're aliens. We did some last minute shopping and then really took it easy cause it was DAMN hot. My coke cost 6 euros but it was sooo worth it. The rest of the trip was packing and not worth talking about.

All in all a good trip. I would definitely go back.

Some memorable quotes:
"Hey, doesn't our hotel key kind of look like a ball of poo?"

(Heard at the second level of the Eiffel Tower) "You know, it really is quite big"

(Heard in front of the Venus de Milo statue in the Louvre) "Why is everyone here?"

Anyways, I start my residency on Friday and I am scared out of my mind. Gonna go eat some ice cream now and wallow.

Cheers.

Europe Trip Commentary Part II

I really should be sleeping right now, but as the morning of my second Europe trip in a month is nearing, I feel that I really should write about my last trip before I forget everything.

I will call this blog: The joys of flying airplanes

We booked this trip with Air Transat because they had a great last minute airfare sale to Amsterdam for $590 CDN (taxes included). So we were pretty excited about that. When we got to the airport we found out that we were only allowed one carry-on bag, so we had to check our second knapsacks (on this trip we did what I like to call, pseudo-backing). We were sitting at the gate, waiting...waiting ....waiting.....for the announcement for boarding. Didn't come. What's the hold up?? An hour after boarding was supposed to start, we learned that they accidentally spilled the fuel as they were getting the plane ready. So we had to wait 1h45min to finally board the plane (and who wants to board a plane after they spilled the fuel???). This only stressed me out a tiny bit, since we had a connection to make in Amsterdam with only a 3 hr window (now cut to 1 hr or less t claim baggage, go through customs, go outside, re-check in, and go to the gate). Not to mention that the seats on Air Transat are clearly made for midgets with no arms, as that is how small their seats are. People who are claustrophobic don't ever book with this airline!

Anyways, so we made it on our second flight alright, and even though the planes were probably 10 years older, they were much more spacious. Ahhhh, smooth sailing. Never let your guard down though until you've actually reached your destination. Cause who knows when Smart Wings will lose their next bag of luggage? Oh wait...what? That was my bag? Dang! I've never had my luggage lost before, and this was certainly not a good time to do so (I guess it's NEVER a good time). Fearing the worst, since all of my clothes were in there, I figured I'd just buy some clothes and make the airline pay for it (that's what it said on the website). The Czech people at the Prague airpor weren't really helpful either. They basically said well, if it doesn't turn up then you're out of luck. Luckily it arrived some hours later and we had to go back to the airport to be reunited. My beloved backpack was fresh off the plane from....Budapest. Yes, that's right. My bag has been to more European countries than I have. Interestingly, I just found out yesterday that a classmate of mine, who was flying from Amsterdam to Prague just around the same dates that I was flying, lost his luggage too on the same airline. Lesson learned - do not fly Smart Wings. Stay tuned for more stories.

Europe Trip Commentary Part I

I've decided to write about my trip in themes. Makes it a little more interesting and well, helps me to remember things that happened.

Food

The food in Prague is so frickin cheap, as long as you know where to eat. My friend took us to some pretty nice Czech places, including U Pinkasu, where they tapped the first Pilsner in 1843. Apparently there is this HUGE sealed vat underground, where a truck comes and fills it once every two weeks. I don’t know what happens if they run out before that, but I guess it’s pretty big. Out of the top Czech beers, I had two of them: Pilsner and Gambrinus. They were pretty good as far as beer tastes, and I generally don’t like it. Not bad for about $1.40 each (and they’re huge!). One interesting fact that I learned - Apparently, Budweiser stole their recipe from the Czechs and there has been this huge battle going on over the rights to it. It is called Budvar in Prague and it’s slowly making a comeback.

On the first night I had goulash. They serve it on this plate, with a few pieces of meat, lots of stew sauce, and four “dumplings”, which are just flat round pieces of “bread”. Yum. The price was exceptionally reasonable, 109 CZK, which works out to about $6. The second night I had fried cod, which reminded me of Bahamas, but this was so much tastier. I managed to get through 11/2 pieces with no bones, and then BAM, suddenly in the last ½ piece there were about 50 million bones. Not complaining though, just felt bad because I’m such a slow eater to begin with!

I must confess, we ate Chinese food while in Prague. This is what happens when your “tour guide” doesn’t meet up with you for a day. Earlier, we indulged in chicken burgers and fried cheese (which apparently we were supposed to try). Quite interesting. Wish I had taken a picture. So this Chinese food, just a little fast food hole in the wall, was interesting. Run by Vietnamese people and cooked with Czech ingredients. Edible. Cheeeeeap.

The next night we became even BIGGER tourists, indulging in an Italian restaurant next door to our hotel. We had walked around all day and the menu looked pretty decent. We could have had more Czech food, but it just didn’t feel satisfying enough. We were starving. So we had some pasta and pizza, which I have to admit tasted AMAZING. It tasted so good. I guess we are just used to eating certain foods - and seeing how Italy is a lot closer to Prague than Canada, maybe it tastes better for that reason alone. This food was also dirt cheap. I think my meal was $10 including a full pasta, garlic bread, beer, and tip. Come to think of it, we had Italian two nights in a row. My friend took us to this small little place where the pizza is really good. I opted for pasta again and man, I must say that the two best meals I had in Europe were friggen Italian dishes.

This brings me to another point. The food may be cheap and the beer may be cheap, but Coke is not cheap. And we had soooo much Coke on our trip. I don’t know why traveling makes you crave Coke so much. Must be the sugar. Beer is so cheap in the supermarket. I think Corona is the most expensive beer that I saw and even then it was cheaper than buying a stupid beer at the bar in Toronto.

Interesting find in Prague: Paprika flavoured Lays. Tasted a little like BBQ.


Tasty!

Off to Amsterdam, where my goal was to have one of their famous pancakes. I had to wait until the last day to have it, but it was worth it. Sooooo good. Soooo expensive.


Yummm.....

Another interesting find: Sugar-free Red Bull. Kind of counteracts the theory that Red Bull only makes you hyper because of the sugar. Anyways, it didn’t do a single thing to me. I must have been REALLY tired.


How is it supposed to work without the sugar??


Another bad tourist moment happened when we tried to eat in a downtown restaurant, but since the prices are so ridiculously expensive in Amsterdam, we only wanted a beer and some fries. After battling the language barrier to order fries, our waiter, who was Asian, said sorry you can’t order fries if you don’t order a meal. Baffled, we struggled to find something else to eat..dessert maybe? After about….10 seconds of deliberating, the waitress just walked away and started serving the next table. So we left. She was kind of rude. So we went to the next best place – McDonalds. Blasphemous! Eating McDonalds in Europe! We had to. We are poor individuals. And the Euro is not exactly the Canadian dollar. On the menu they had this thing called the McKroket. I still have no idea what it is supposed to be, even after eating it. Not wanting to break the fast food string, we had a drink (me, Coke) at Burger King while waiting for the train to take us back to the airport.

We had about 6 hours to kill overnight at the airport, so we wandered around a bit. The only things open 24 hours were a few restaurants and fast food joints. We were getting a little thirsty so we hit up Burger King again ( I know, I know). I had a banana milkshake, which was pretty good, but not as satisfying as a large icy cold Coke. Too many Cokes in one day can kill you. Or at least make you very fat.

Wow, I must be uncool

Okay, this is my second post in about an hour....I was doing some random shopping internet surfing (already enough to make me uncool), and I came across 24 freaking pages of forum about how Aritzia is the best clothing store because "my mom buys me whatever I want" and the debate over whether or not their brand TNA stands for Talula National Athletics or Tits 'n Ass. Really....do people have absolutely nothing else on their minds but how to bash people who don't buy expensive, overpriced, oversold, ubiquitous articles of clothing?