Because Eventually I Have To Die, Maybe
Adventures
As the joke goes…”Camping is in-tents”
Nov 4th
This is just a quick hit! Number 581 on my list was to go camping again. I vaguely remember going as a child, camping as we travelled around. By “vaguely” I mean I have a strong memory of camping at Niagra Falls and it raining so heavily that I could feel a river moving under the tent. Sidenote: I was also terrified of thunderstorms at the time and there I was, in a tent, during a thunderstorm. Fantastic. I went again when I was 10 or so with my parents and family friends, and it was just awful. So, naturally, I out-and-out refused to go outside or near trees for 15 years.
This summer I managed to overcome my deep fear and went camping a total of three times. And all three times I set up the tent. Oh yeah.
#581. Go camping again
I played in the snow ‘n junk
Nov 29th
Those of you lucky enough to have met me (or created me like my mom did) know I’m absolutely adorable (read: I act like I’m 5 and play it off in a positive light by describing it as adorable, because, let’s face it, I have no life skills). So it should come as no surprise to the few, the proud, the usually gay who befriend me, that yesterday I looked out my boyfriend’s kitchen window into the snowy unshovely wonderland that had taken over his backyard and proceeded to scream “I WANT TO BUILD A SNOWMAN” at the man lucky enough to be sleeping with the only five year old in North America that is legally able to consent to sex.
This was at around 9:45 in the morning. Phil, the aformentioned man (who is definitely probably not a pedophile), insisted breakfast come first because apparently filling me with protein and coffee would calm me down. He made me eggs. Cooked in bacon grease. It was awesome. Then he let me drink a 500mL chocolate milk and I spent the next hour whining about how my tummy hurt. It was not awesome.
Then it was time to go play outside! Now, I should mention that Phil is 25 and has his shit together. Like, ridiculously so. Like owns a house and wears matching socks to work together. Has a whisk specifically for making scrambled eggs. Yeah. Just for eggs. So you’d think given his togetherness at life and my desperation to go out and form snow into some kind of lumpy fat person with a weird carrot nose that we’d be able to get out of the house at play in the snow rather quickly. No. It took about two hours, from my falling over in an attempt to change leggings and Phil looking for his “awesome snow pants” which were never found (hint: I burned them because dating guys who own snowpants is social suicide [unless they are megarich Swedish ski instructors]).
Given enough time, two people can accomplish anything, so with 120 minutes under our belt (that’s right, I can add, suck on that), Phil and I were dressed to impress (or to stand outside in the snow for 20 minutes before I invariably decided I was bored). We trodded outside and proceeded to test the snow. Short answer: not packing snow. No snow man. Being the adults that we are, we did not decide to throw ice balls at the giant icicles on this roof until they cracked off and once that was over we certainly did not end up just throwing loose snow at each other for four straight minutes until Phil’s parents called from Phoenix.
Though, Phil, being the giant man-child that he is, did proceed to give me a “snow bath” after returning from his phone call which then caused me to frantically shove snow down the back of his shirt while my butt got all wet because I was still sitting in the snowbank he had pushed me into. I’m not sure if Phil was just cold and miserable or if he realized I probably would sit in the snow bank digging a snow cave until I froze to death, but he decided to call of the Snow Man Attempt of 2010. We spent the rest of the afternoon with him attempting to teach me how to play poker “like a shark” and me insisting I could go to the casino, blink a lot and act lost and someone would just give me money.
And thus, I still have yet to cross “Make a Snowman” off of my list.
Lame.
Zombies Beware
Aug 11th
So, I think guns are awesome. I haven’t always felt this way, but over the past few years I have become a rabid anti-gun law type, feeling as though Canada wastes a lot of time and money ‘protecting’ us from guns. The only people who follow gun laws are people who don’t do stupid shit with their guns. ANYWAYS. Before I fall into a desperate rant about pretty much nothing, yet keeping on the topic of guns, you may have noticed I had ‘Fire a Gun’ on my life list, under #155 to be precise.
Allow me to throw into this mix: Phil, this dude I know who really, really, really loves guns. So much so that he has a membership at a local gun range. I showed up at Phil’s house a few days ago, ready for another day of watching Food Network with his parents, but instead he said “let’s go”. When asked where we might be going (in case he was planning on murdering me, I’d like to find out in advance) he replied “The Shooting Edge” . Definitely going to murder me. I mentally prepared myself for death, accepted the inevitable, and climbed in his car.
Much to my surprise, Phil was not planning on murdering me. In fact, he wanted to teach me how to properly use firearms, presumably so we could have epic glock showdowns in his house. I signed in as a guest and waited patiently with a copy of “Pheasants Forever” until a shooting bay was empty for our use. I let Phil do the talking, as I had no idea what was going on whatsoever. Phil chose a 9mm Beretta for my first experience.
After the 10 minute introduction to firearm safety and what to expect, we threw on our eyes and ears and entered the shooting bays. Holy fuck on a stick is it loud. I don’t like loud noises so I was a bit apprehensive at first, standing near the back insisting Phil go first (somewhat hoping he’d shoot me and put me out of my noise-induced misery). Our super awesome Range Officer then loaded a single bullet into the mag and made sure I was holding properly and then gave me a countdown to three and told me to fire (at the target, not willy nilly). I was still nervous at this point so I’m not going to go on a long string of “what a rush” and “I knew I was addicted”. In fact, I didn’t really like the Beretta. Too much kick and I had no idea how to aim it. Thankfully, Phil is never okay with just one gun, and insisted we try a glock.
Now, I say this in all honesty: I am going to take a glock down to the courthouse, marry it proper and make sweet, sweet love to it (I’ll allow that horrific image to sink in for a little. Also: hi mom.)
I really got into firing the glock. I love slamming in the mag, pulling back the thinger magigger, and letting loose a hailstorm of deadly lead pieces imagining all of the zombies I could be hypothetically mowing down with my murderous prowess. This is all made better by the fact The Shooting Edge has movie posters from The Crazies freely available in the bays. Needless to say I am now the proud owner of a hella dead photographic zombie.
With a sigh, I finished off the last clip, looking at Phil with my patented “I am so sad this over, do something now” eyes. Luckily, Phil either responds well to this look or is simply gun crazy, because he turned to our Range Officer and said “anyway we could fire a shotgun today?”. Our Range Officer, seeming to be just as excited as I was at the request, packed up our glock and went to get us a badass deer exploding piece of metal machinery. The shotgun tutorial was a bit longer, but worth it, because he taught us the proper technique not to get thrashed by the kickback. Phil went first (I went second, just for your own reference). I don’t care about Phil going, so I’ll talk about me and I really only have one thing to say:
Shit. I’m divorcing the glock. Shotgun wedding, for reals.
155. Fire a gun
Crossed Off!: Strippers Can Touch You in Montreal
Jul 25th
And it’s kind of skanky.
One Sunday night whilst I was in Montreal for the Explore program, my homosexual friend Abraham suggested we go into The Village and experience one of the men-only strip joints, since it hosted ladies night every week on the Lord’s Day (hah!) $5 Cover at Campus gains you entry into some basic stripping, albeit by some extremely hot men. Some of them were hot. Other’s Abraham and I decided looked like they probably ate babies for breakfast because of their ‘roid problems. Ick.
We thought it would be funny to get lap dances too, since we were there. I had heard from other chicklets in my French program who had gone to straight strip clubs that they just danced near you, they couldn’t touch you and you couldn’t touch them. Not so much a problem at Campus, apparently. The first words my stripper (my stripper, lol) said to me were ‘you can touch me anywhere’. I did not take him up on this offer. He, on the otherhand, attempted to do things that HE would have to pay ME for. I was kind of revolted. And he made me smell like cologne for the rest of the night, which was gross, because I’m a girl and I don’t particularily like smelling like a dude.
And thus ended my adventure at the strippers.
Whatever.
It got something off of my list.
306. Go to the strippers
So I did something I thought was on my list
Oct 21st
…but it isn’t.
While wandering around downtown today with my gay-sian friend (yes, you CAN contract gay and Asian into one word!) and he says
“have you peed in that toilet yet”
And I say
“in what toilet?”
because Keith thinks that everyone can hear his thoughts.
Anyways, it turns out he was referring to the robot potty on 17th Ave SW, which is part of a “City of Calgary Sanitation” project. There is seriously no website about this thing or information. Useless city.
It’s basically this weird roundish box plopped on a street corner. It looks kind of like something they would protect a major electrical center in or something. I decided, as I needed to pee anyways, to make use of it! Plus, I thought it was on my list, even though it is totally not actually on it. The toilet itself is fantastic. It tells you how to use it in a robot voice and cleans itself. You press a BUTTON and a CLEAN TOILET SEAT APPEARS OUT OF THE WALL!!! It also plays calming music for you as you make your business. Rad and a great idea for public bathrooms. Clean and calming!
I’m sad it’s not on my list, but whatever. I peed in a robot today and that in itself is fantastic.
Why is it so hard to get anything done, ever?
Aug 31st
Yeah, I’m not going to Seattle. The infamous “Destination Unknown” trip has been cancelled, due to Adam moving back to Lethbridge and me just not having enough energy to get up to pee, let alone drive for that long. I wasn’t even excited to be going. What is wrong with me? I’m going to NYC in three weeks with Adam and I don’t think I’m excited for that either. I’m sick of these temporary flings with travel and awesome places.
I need to move. Somewhere awesome. I wonder how rent prices are in Narnia. That place seems happening.
For fun, here is a picture:
Everett Park in Kingston.
Kelowna
Jun 23rd
Forgive my ridiculous lack of posting. There is not excuse for laziness…pure, consuming, indulgent laziness.
I did make it out to Kelowna for a rather short, but incredibly relaxing trip. Adam and I just hung out and took in the beautiful surroundings. I did get to see the Spotted Lake near Osoyoos, which was pretty awesome. It was actually one of the things I was most excited for on my list, because I like freaky natural things. Check out the pic below.
I also got a massage for the first time, which has gotten me a slight addiction. There is definitely not picture of that. Pervs.
Two things were crossed off of my list in the short trip!
26. Get a massage from a professional
308. Go the Spotted Lake at Osoyoos, BC
A Beginner’s Guide to NYC
Apr 21st
After a sleepless 12 hour over night Greyhound stint, stuck sitting next to the bathroom, Manhattan can seem a little daunting the first time you see it from a distance. And from there, it only gets worse. You climb off the bus into the August heat, trying to find the right Subway entrance. You have you map, your hostel reservation and the driving need to experience everything “New York”.
Whatever your actual itinerary looks like, bus or plane, hostel or hotel, weekend or several weeks, New York can be a little overwhelming on your first visit. Here are a few tips to maximizing your first trip in NYC and keeping your wits about you. I’ve kept frugality in mind since I was just about broke when I got to New York.
1. You won’t learn to navigate Manhattan if you stay hidden inside your room. When I was in New York I stayed in a run down hostel, in a room with a tiny window and no fan. In the middle of August. It was horrible to be in and smelled like curry and peanut butter. I found a cockroach in the bathroom. It was perfect. I never wanted to be there for any reason which motivated me to spend all of my time wandering around and taking in the sights. Taking a break in the room was never an option. Even the Subway was preferable since it had air-conditioning. While you don’t necessarily need to book the worst rated hostel you can find, but consider the fact you’re not in the city to enjoy a nice room. NYC is big and scary but hiding in your room won’t help you learn the city.
2. Get the New York City Pass if you’re planning to go to most of the major tourist attractions. If you end up going to even half of them you’ll have saved yourself quite a bit of cash. A lot of the bigger sites also have special fast-tracked line ups for people who have their tickets already which is a huge time saver (especially at the Empire State Building).
3. Spend your evenings in Central Park. Assuming you’re in NYC in the summer, Central Park offers the perfect place to relax and cool your heels after a long day of roaming the city. It’s a great place to people watch and grab a late night pretzel or slice from the surrounding shops for a picnic dinner. If you’re especially into getting a romantic New York experience, make sure to catch the lightning bugs coming out as soon as dusk hits. Central Park is like the eye of a hurricane, a little rectangle of calm in the middle of a hectic city. If it’s good enough for the hardened New Yorkers to use, it’s good enough for even the most frazzled tourist.
4. The Staten Island Ferry gets your reasonably close to the Statue of Liberty. I had a discount ticket for an actual Statue tour, but it was almost four hours long. I just wanted to see the statue, not learn everything about it and be stuck on the island for four hours wasting time with a bunch of people wearing fanny packs. After asking a nice agent at the ferry terminal (who made my friend and I imitate Terrance and Philip from South Park, because we’re Canadian) let us in on the fact you can easily see the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island Ferry and, best of all, it’s FREE!
5. At least make yourself a rough plan before you go. I’m not a fan of the over-planning but if when I went to NYC I only had three days and I had quite a few places I wanted to hit up. The night before we left my travel partner and I sketched out a rough map of the city and placed all the places we wanted to go onto it. Using a highly technical “circling” system, we grouped the destinations into three days. Manhattan offers a lot and if you don’t employ some sort of planning you’ll end up spending a lot of time running around and catching the Subway and trying to get all over the place. Try and roughly group where you want to go according to where the are located so you can do them all in one shot rather than going back and forth.
6. Give yourself at least an afternoon just to wander around aimlessly. Try to do this as soon as possible in your trip to give yourself some pace of the city without over-thinking where your are trying to get to. Let yourself fall into the pace of the city, learn some of the landmarks, how to navigate if you have a map, and just wander. It won’t be a total waste of time either. Guaranteed you’ll see some attraction or building you forgot to put on your itinerary. If I hadn’t spent some time aimlessly wandering the the streets I would have missed the Central Library, Grand Central Station, Wall Street and the Flat Iron Building altogether.
7. Pick and choose which museums you really want to see. New York has hundreds of museums to chose from, even aside from the bigger name ones like The Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, and the Guggenheim. If you have a limited amount of time you might want to choose just one or two or you could find yourself spending your entire trip inside museums. The Met and the Museum of Natural History can each easily consume five or six hours of your day on their own if you truly want to appreciate them and get your money’s worth. Considering the sheer amount of places you can go in New York and everything there is to do, make sure you are setting a realistic amount of time for museums.
8. Don’t get your hopes up about everything you go to do and see. New York is built up as a giant romantic metropolis teaming with interesting things to be discovered. There’s supposed to be excitement around every corner. Reality strikes quick though, and you need to be prepared for that. Not everything is going to meet your expectations. You will stand in line for at least at hour at the Empire State building only to realize the deck is so full you can hardly see over the ledge. The World Trade Centre site will look more like a construction zone than a memorial site. You probably won’t understand most of the art in the Guggenheim. Don’t let the occasional disappointment turn you off of enjoying the rest of the city, these things are to be expected. New York has some big hype surrounding it and not every aspect is going to live up to your expectations.
9. It might be tempting to stick with what you know and grab Starbucks and McDonald’s but eat at the local places. I’ll admit I was pretty sick on my last night in the city and chicken nuggets seem to contain some sort of Pepto Bismal medicinal properties, at least as far as my stomach is concerned, so I opted for for the Golden Arches. Aside from being sick, it was my least favourite meal during my stay. Between warm pretzels, fresh garlic bread from pizzerias and fresh fruit from a local market, your common fast food joint just isn’t going to cut it. Make sure aside from eating you stay hydrated too!
