1002 Things Before I Kick the Bucket
Because Eventually I Have To Die, Maybe
Monday’s Picture of the Week
Apr 13th
A trip from the beach near my grandparents house in Kingston, ON. Yeah, the beach is really disgusting enough to warrant the sign. A half kilometer East though, the water is fine and dandy!
Relevant Reading – the Thanks but No Thanks Edition
Apr 12th
This week is all about things that aren’t about to make it onto my life list any time soon. I’m trying to be adventurous and open to new experiences, but some things are just beyond my personal threshold. Case in point: Pulpit Rock. The articles are still great and interesting, the subjects just happen to make me queasy and unhappy to think about.
10 Most Exotic Asian Foods
via Nellie at Wild Junket
I should mention here that the chicken feet actually look somewhat good…but the rest of it isn’t about to be consumed by me anytime soon.
This video!!!
This video is insane and I cannot believe people stand there!!
Most Dangerous Roads in the World
I hate driving in Calgary Alberta, I doubt I would survive these unscathed.
North Korea
This blog entry is surprisingly beautiful and has some wonderful photography. It actually kind of made me want to go to North Korea, but I think it might still be a little bit too out there for me. The forced participation in musicals is what does it for me.
My Top Ten
Apr 11th
I think by now my list has every continent, and possibly even every country, on it. Of course, like with all things, I have a few favoured destinations, ones that distract me from everything.
Snow = like Iceland. Boring roofs = not like Iceland
1. Iceland
Most people like warm destinations, but being Canadian, I prefer familiar temperatures and not having to buy new clothes to travel. I also like colourful roofs, which Iceland has an abundance of. Oh, and there’s a penis museum.
2. Morocco
Whenever I dream I’m travelling, I dream I’m in Morocco. There was this one time I dreamed I was in Italy but people were trying to kill me and I stabbed someone in the neck, very vividly, so you can see why I opt more for Morocco. One time someone asked me if it was the beaches that drew me towards it, and I replied “Morocco has beaches?”. There’s something about the food, the giant deserts and the culture that I like, all of which I, of course, learned about from Brad Pitt in Babel.
3. Russia
Adam says if I go to Russia I will get stabbed and die. Why does he think I want to go? Can you imagine that twitter message? EPIC! “Landed in Moscow, went through customs, agent stabbed me in the eye”. Really, I just want to go to Russia for two reasons:
a. My Russian history teacher had a mesmerizing moustache and was totally hot.
b. That same teacher told me about a guy who dresses up like Lenin and runs around in St. Petersburg
4. Los Angeles
I’m going to find the Zachary Quinto and follow him around until he files a restraining order. Hopefully he’ll spend some time at tourist hot spots so I can see those too.
5. Cuba
I just want to be a Communist and lay on the beach without abandon.
6. Afghanistan
While I hate to see myself as being too good for a war zone, I can also see how deciding to travel freely to one as people try to escape it is a bit…well wrong. I met a guy from Afghanistan when I was in high school and he was one of the nicest people in the world and looked really good with a popped collar. He told me once about how he had shot a gun and my tiny white 17 year old Canadian brain exploded. I really want to go there, but I think I might wait for it to settle down a bit there, which I hope it does eventually.
7. Yemen
I was once told Yememi men do it better, and I now want
a. a shirt that says that
b. to wear that shirt in Yemen
Plus it might be the closest I ever get to being in Saudi Arabia.
8. Peru
I think a lot about the fact they eat guinea pigs. It fascinates me. I want to see the farms they keep them in. And try eating one, maybe. They also have alpacas which are indisputably the most awesome animal ever to exist in the entire Universe. They do not eat the alpacas from what I understand, except in rare cases, which makes Peru super cool in my books.
mmm Asian stuff.
9. Japan
Adam really got me into Japan. I used to have no interest in going at all, but after Adam kept blabbing on about wanting to go there, he totally changed my mind. And I love Asian stuff, like the food and wonderful English translations on packages.
10. New Zealand
I have a secret passion to be a sheep herder. And they have the steepest hill in the world and I want to roll down it in a garbage can.
The Philosophy of “Just Do What You Want”
Apr 9th
I don’t wax philosophical much on this blog, but in real life I’m the love child of Socrates and Plato (the gayest of all the philosophers: fact). And I’ve had a giant mental shift. The other night, laying in my super pink room, worried deeply about my future, Adam told me something that blew my tiny Stegosaurus brain.
And I quote: “Just do what you want”
Of course, I said: “ANYTHING I WANT?” (in caps, I talk in caps).
He said: “yes”.
Naturally, I replied: “okay, well I want to be reborn as a fabulous gay-sian man who can get away with platform boots in any situation”.
Apparently, though, “just do what you want” only can operate within the laws of physics, which honestly is a bigger rip off than the fact I can’t get Google maps implanted in my brain yet.
Anyways, this is something I’ve struggled with for years, the ability to just do what I want, unfiltered from my incessant worrying about what people (read: my mom) are going to think. Adam on the other hand is prone to punching old ladies in the face if they get in his way, because, yeah, he just does what he wants. All the time, doing what he wants.
In reality this conversation has shifted my internal processing, especially when it comes to my very undetermined future as a functioning member of society. I suppose most of the things I want to do (read: giant squid) break this lame “laws of physics” rule. No one has ever told me to just do what I want before. I’ve been told to go to school, to stop being lazy and get a job, and to stop wearing tiaras in public, but never to “just do what I want”. It’s an entirely new concept to me, really, and I wonder why there isn’t a class entitled “Just Do What You Want: The Philosophy of Punching Old Ladies Who Get in Your Way in the Face”.
What is this going to mean for my travels, my future job prospects, my social life? Probably all bad things after I’ve assaulted a flight attendant for looking at me funny, written my resume using macaroni and glue and then decided only to attend functions with the words “super awesome” in the title.
Thanks But No Thanks: The Calgary Stampede
Apr 7th
Last summer I packed up my school bag and an over-sized purse, met my friend Chris at the airport and took off for a month. I roamed through Montreal, Toronto, Guelph, Oakville, Kingston and Manhattan. I took the Greyhound, VIA rail and the Metro. I crashed on couches, slept in cramped, stinking hostels, and rested in my mom’s childhood bedroom. I saw cockroaches, watched Central Park become aglow with fire flies, witnessed the tallest French transsexual this side of the Atlantic, and had a conversation en francais with a man about his pen.
That’s all nice. But the best part? I escaped Calgary for the entire duration of the Stampede.
The Calgary Stampede is a 10 day adventure that draws in tens of thousands of people a year, packing themselves onto our already stuffed C-trains and transit system to get down to the Stampede Grounds in order to drink, hurt small animals, and risk their lives riding 40 year old amusement park equipment run by homeless drug addicts (seriously). The best part is that the Stampede Grounds are technically within the downtown limits, which means trying to get to work and back from “the Core” becomes par with having the ability to shit out fluorescent pink llamas.
Most people who live in Calgary love the Stampede. Love it. 10 days of with a city full of foreigners just waiting to have a drinking contests and a one night stand. Or, you know, they own a downtown hotel and make several million in this one 10 day span. I am not one of these people. These 10 days mark the worst time of the year to live in this city. It makes me feel so badly for people who live in truly hot tourist destinations, like Amsterdam. People who might never see their favourite bar without a loud, drunken buffoon again. Or, even worse, to live in a country where the only form of employment is to serve the rude, self important jerks who think their $900 vacation package bought them the country and all of its inhabitants.
I’m not sure if it’s simply that I was born without the cow-wrangling gene, refuse to define myself as “country western” in any manner of speaking, or that I was raised by liberals in the East, but I seriously have my hate on for the Calgary Stampede. Enough so that I intentionally travel to other tourist destinations to get away from the one I live in.
Monday’s Picture of the Week
Apr 6th
A photo of my grandmother in her teens. I digitally photographed her stash of old photographs during my last trip to Kingston.
Relevant Reading
Apr 5th
MyLifeList
This site allows you to keep track of a life list, post stories and maintain a network of other life list keepers!
How To Tell Your Family You’re Leaving
via Travelers Notebook
Great piece on breaking it to your family you plan on doing the extended travel thing. I’ll never need it because my family wishes I’d leave the country for a long term stint.
10 Things to do in Amsterdam
via Matador Trips
There’s more to do in Amsterdam than get high and act like a bad tourist?
Reykavik City Guide
via Katie Hammel
All I want to do is go to Iceland!
How Safe is Your Hostel?
Apr 3rd
The lock on the door proved to be quite useful in my Montreal hostel last summer. Easy enough to open if your roommate wanted to lock you out, at least.
Biding My Time
Apr 2nd
I’m sitting here writing a paper that looks at the development of abortion rights in Latin America from a religious and colonial perspective. I don’t want to be writing this paper. I hate the fact I have to write this paper. I want to be in Latin America, not writing about it. Sitting on a beach, laying in a hammock, wandering the streets looking for something delicious to devour. Joining a group fighting for reproductive justice. Not writing about it so one guy can read it, grade it, and forget about it. After about every three sentences I write for my paper, I pop open Firefox and immerse myself in a travel blog, search a cheap fares website, or just look at pictures of exotic and beautiful places. I come back from day dreaming and hammer out the rest of a paragraph. I’m backpedaling, misfiring, completely lost in my own life.
If life is a highway, I’ve been stuck at a filthy truck stop for the last 5 years of my life.
Monday’s Picture of the Week
Mar 30th
One of the many anti-meth photos I collected when I went to Montana a year ago.