Two weekends ago, we all crammed into our not-so-beloved car Dyxie (so called due to the license plate ending in DYX, probably should have been a sign) and made the journey up to Quebec City for the weekend. The journey there takes about an hour, a little longer when your car is somewhat engine-ally challenged. However, we made it, which is of course the main thing! We were helped along the way by our own amazing sense of direction and preparedness in finding out where we had to go.. (LOL)
Apologies to Jen for stealing this pic! As I drove, I didn't take any in-car... note only Katy's smiling face, Eilidh looks like she's about to kick the car in Glasgow-style
Most of us had managed to find somewhere to stay in the city for free, what with having previously met some other assistants based there, who were very acommodating in letting people stay who they had met previously only once or twice. However the stays were exchanged with a promise that, if they ever felt like it, they would always be welcome with us in Saint-Georges. (More on this later, as this coming weekend some of them have decided to take advantage of such an offer!)
After arriving on the Friday night, we decided to grab a bite to eat at our hosts' and head into town to see what the nightlife was like. Having successfully met up with most of the other assistants, (excepting a certain group of massive lamers) we started off in this really cosy bar playing incredible 50s/60s music, and ended the night dancing in some bar that we couldn't quite figure out was gay or not.. in any case, it was fun, and great to get to know some other assistants better. On a related note, there are actually a few parallel programmes to ours here - one with Germans, one with Mexicans and one with English-speaking Canadians. This means I've met people from all over, which has always been something that's interested me, I love hearing about life in other places :) also it means you can go and stay in said other places further down the line, and get shown around by a the best tour guide : a local! Safe to say, whenever I've met a German I've literally grabbed them to get in as much Deutsch practice as possible, I don't quite have the feeling I've lost everything just yet, but it's something I'm constantly in fear of...
Saturday, we awoke bright and early (we actually did as well, go team) and took advantage of the amazingly placed Free Bus Day (where all the public transport was, you guessed it, free) in order to explore the city a little bit. It was perfect wandering about weather, sunny and clear but not too hot, and me and one of the other assistants from St-G had a lovely relaxed time pottering about the Old Town (especially by the castle/boardwalk and in the Quartier Petit-Champlain) with our lovely Canadian hosts. Here are various pics of nice things :
Chateau Boardwalk.. the view down was amazing, wish I had a good pic!
View down over the Rue du Petit-Champlain (really cute lttle shops and boutiques)
In the afternoon, we met up with various other assistants who were dotted around the centre as well, grouped mainly by where they had been staying the night before. They had basically been doing exactly the same thing as us the whole morning, however we'd all been far too disorganised to meet up earlier. In any case, it was lovely to see everyone, especially loser no-shows from the night before ;)! We quickly all arranged to go for dinner at a highly recommended burger bar. (Verdict: tasty, but would have been better without loads of stinky French mustard :( ...sad face)
As we had gone a bit mad the night before and certain people (me) are old, we decided to have a quiet one on the Saturday in order to prepare us for Maximum Sightseeing Sunday. That is apart from the loser group who scored a few points back by staying out late and meeting some strange note-writing friends! Our plan the next day pretty much went, well.. to plan, having decided to meet at 10am and take the bus out to the Chutes Montmorency, about 45 minutes out of the city. Unfortunately, it wasn't Free Bus Day anymore, but any journey anywhere in Quebec City only costs $3, and I must say to get out to see this beautiful park and falls, I would have paid a whole lot more :)
Taller than Niagara Falls.. just thinner ;)
<3
From the other side.. so loud!
And that about concludes our (first) Quebec trip! After much traipsing around, it was time for the St-Georges girls to make their pilgrimage back to St-Georges. I had done my driving service on the journey up, and so was glad one of the other girls was driving, mainly due to being absolutely knackered after a full weekend. I am 73 after all! Obviously, this translated into promptly passing out very attractively in the back seat ;) mmmmmmmmmhotn'snorey
Until next time........................................... (can't believe I'm writing in this semi-regularly)
Thought you lovely people might be interested in the school I am working at! Here is the website... and if you can't be bothered to click that, a couple of pictures :)
Ecole d'Youville
Ecole Lambert
The school is split into two sites (d'Youville and Lambert, if you'd not guessed) about a five-minute walk away from each other in the town of Saint-Joseph-de-Beauce, which in turn is about half an hour away from where I live. A fun fact about this journey is that me and another assistant from St-G are on the Special Bus hahaha.. but only on the way there! So I'm a special kid only half the time.. the other half I am that massive loser nobody wants to talk to on the normal (massive, yellow, summer camp-y) school bus. Obviously I do a lot for my image on said bus by knitting, reading (I'm literally a reading machine at the moment, it's AWESOME, more on this another time) and writing postcards to those I miss.. if you didn't get a card yet I either didn't get round to you yet or secretly hate you! Whichever works best for you ;)
Anyway, I am working at both schools - mainly due to my mentor only working part time, I'm not quite ready to be left to my own devices just yet! The school timetable throughout the whole of Beauce is a 9-day rotation not including weekends, of which I always have Day 8 as an extra day off. This could harbour great roadtrip potential if any of the other assistants also had day 8 off, but unfortunately ours don't co-ordinate at all! This means that on days 1, 3, 5 and half of 7 I'm at d'Youville (years 1-3) and days 2, 4, 6, the other half of 7 and 9 I'm at Lambert (years 4-6). It has taken a bit of getting used to with all this changing and age-range variety, but if there is something I've learnt throughout my time in work, mixing things up a little bit is the best tool to keep my interest anyway ;) also, due to much pre-Christmas luck on my part, from now until the start of 2013 I have about four four-day weekends to fill which is awesome! Let's just hope the snow holds off a little so I can get out to where I plan to visit safely and easily... (Ottawa/Gatineau, somewhere on the Gaspesie (probably Rimouski) and Montreal again if you're interested to know!)
Saint-Joseph
This brings me to initiation, something which is very common here, and therefore perhaps something subsequent assistants might like to be somewhat prepared for ;) - out of the five assistants based in Saint-Georges I think three had to do some kind of silly task or presentation, as a way of initiating themselves into the school. After spending the last two years being amongst the incredibly genuine but rather staid Germans, having to dress up on a whim was somewhat more of a surprise to me! However the theme was certainly to my taste (see Beard Night 1 and 2 in Previous Life Activities), in that we had to wear a moustache all day to honour the principal's, which is like nothing you've ever seen! Never thought I would be completing Beard Night 3 in the daytime, at some school in eastern Canada, but there you go! On a related note, various sneaky principal moustache pics to be uploaded throughout the year due to its' majesty...
Fitting in wi't'locals
After wearing my moustache all day (as well as a T-shirt letting the whole world know that I'm new.. luckily there were lots of other new people too so I didn't feel too weird!) myself and the other newbies/older staff met promptly after the bell at 3pm, in order to drink beers, eat nachos and present ourselves to one another. As the idea of standing up and talking French in front of a large group was utterly terrifying, I adapted an English slideshow I'd made for the students about my life in the UK/Germany, using Powerpoint. That meant I could get it all corrected beforehand, and say exactly what I wanted to day without getting tongue-tied ;) woohoo!
Powerpoint Wanker 2012
Something worth mentioning here would be the French, which I am finding rather difficult - the Beauce accent is... interesting, to say the least! I am completely lacking the easy start I encountered in Germany, and often have this feeling that my brain is actually expanding, which is hard to explain. I guess I am being quickly and fully immersed in a little corner of Canada, where more people don't speak English than do, so it's absolutely going to feel strange and maybe even a bit stressful at points. There is this pre-conception (thought also, until quite recently, by myself to some degree) that all people in Quebec are completely bi-lingual.. but I can honestly say in Beauce this is absolutely NOT THE CASE as it would be in bigger cities. Luckily, I am also simultaneously aware that it will be worth it in the end, I'm just interested to see the direction my pretty elementary French will take ;) will I come back with a Beauce accent?!
Think that's it for now... thanks for reading :)
xo
Ps. Goodness me, five million !!!!s.. if you're worrying that Canada somehow made me eager about life, don't despair, I still hate everything, I was just trying to get this done whilst I still had the motivation (therefore with very limited editing time).. saying that it would probably have taken less time to edit them out than type this, live and learn...
(NB. I started typing this about five million years ago! So some of this may be a little out of date now, but I can't even bear to look at it anymore so it's being posted regardless :p)
Thanks for sticking with me.. life got rather a bit too busy, for a moment. To cut a long story short (ie. if you can't be bothered to read much further ;)), I am currently almost-installed in Canada but was a Very Bad Blogger and didn't write a single letter the whole last month. So I shall be attempting to catch up on myself, whilst remembering all the details, and therefore get back upto speed with where I am currently, which is very far away from where I was last post. Here goes..
I feel that I should begin where my leaving-England also began and tell you about Iceland, which seems so long gone already! However, Reykjavik was my first stop after leaving London, and incredibly interesting if not a little chilly. I stayed at this rather nice little place, which although was on the city's outskirts was worth it just for the price.. other plus points were that it was clean and the staff were helpful, also I must say that the bus service to get me there was incredibly well organised for such a small place. The suggested walking route to town was a little bit rapey however, but once I found the main road into the city (that conveniently passed a handful of breakfast bakeries) I even found myself enjoying my twenty minutes of fresh air and walking-iPod time each day :) here are some pictures from this part of my journey :
View from the Hallgrimskirkja
Cool little skatepark in the city centre
Awesome oldschool till :)
I think my favourite things were the Hallgrimskirkja (gotta love a good viewpoint) and the old harbour, but overall I really liked the norse-vikingy feel to the place, it's kind of hard to say where exactly this came from but it was everywhere somehow.. go there yourself and perhaps you'll agree. Or not, who knows! After staying in the city for almost three whole days, however, it was time to move on and get the largest part of my journey over with. If you know me very well, you may be aware of the fact that I'm not the most happy person when it comes to getting in what is, effectively, a massive (albeit engineered) tin can and being thrown about over large bodies of water, to other continents. However, there ain't no way I'm getting to Canada without flying, so I guess in these situations, one just has to suck it up and think of the end product. In a vain attempt of calming my nerves a little, I stopped off at the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport. There's a really great bus deal, where they pick you up from your hotel and take you directly to the lagoon.. you have a few hours there, and then the journey continues to your flight. It cost a small fortune, about the equivalent of £50 for journey and entrance, however at this point I had rather too many Krona to get rid of, and I must say it really was worth the money. Also, if you don`t have any kind of time budget (like I did), you are able to stay there as long as you like - I managed about two hours, which I feel was still enough. I don't think I'd go again, but to hang out for a few hours, in naturally hot and mineral-y water, with masses of lagoon mud on your face facepackstyle, plus strangers dancing to some surprise-11am-DJ, in this somehow alien volcanic/mars-like Icelandic landscape.. was really something worth remembering :)
One very uneventful and comfortable flight later (thanks Icelandair <3) I landed in New York, and after a bit of confusion found myself in a minibus bound for the hostel. I was staying in a very simple but also very clean 4-berth room, a bit like this one at the Westway Hotel in Queens / Jackson Heights. Although this was far out as far as sights were concerned, I didn't have much interest in most of them anyway, and must say that I absolutely loved the area; it felt really safe and I was particularly in love with the walk from the hostel to the nearest subway station. The main reason for this was due to this particular roads' proximity to so many AWESOME places to eat, no exaggeration. I think I fell in love (literally) with everything I ate in New York.. particularly the bagels <3 <3 <3
The next few days passed in a blur of walking-iPod time, I had been to New York on a college trip many years before and done most of the "main" sights (Empire State, Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center etc) so, as already mentioned these weren't really on my agenda. I'm generally a big fan of getting a feeling for a city, just by taking a book around with me, sitting in various cafes sampling the food and wrtiting postcards, talking to the people who work there and the like. I honestly believe that seeing new places can be as expensive or as cheap as you want, and as a lot of awesome and interesting things in New York (Central Park / Times Square / Staten Island Ferry / 9-11 Memorial / Coney Island Fair etc etc) are pretty much free save for the transport to get you there, this fitted into my wishes and budget well.
One of my favourite parts of this trip was exploring Central Park, as I'd not had a chance to on my previous visit - luckily the weather was perfect for having a wander in the extremely warm sun! I also loved Coney Island - visiting what is a fairly nice beach whilst in one of the busiest cites on earth is certainly something worth remembering (still wouldn't walk there with bare feet, like most of the kids were, though!). I shall also never forget walking over Brooklyn Bridge, something which I did on a whim but provided theeeee most incredible views, I honestly had to reach out and touch the bridge every so often, to check it was real! Another high point (pun intended) was the High Line, this incredible ex-subway-line-turned-aerial-park which starts in the Meatpacking district - I stumbled upon it completely by accident but urge anybody who may not have heard of it to Google it immediately, and visit it if you`re ever in town! Of course, I also enjoyed the 9/11 Memorial, as much as one can enjoy a memorial to so many people who lost their lives in such a terrible and unfair way. The site around the memorial itself is still under construction, but you can still visit the actual thing, and also get a good feeling where the building work is headed. I feel it's a very tasteful and appropriate tribute to those who died.
I think that about covers it for New York - and as I thought would happen, I've written about five thousand words more than I intended to, however I feel it represents just how much there is to do and see in this amazing city! Whilst I don't feel I would visit Reykjavik or Boston (coming up) again due to seeing most of what was available, I wouldn't hesitate to go back to New York and would be gobsmacked if I didn't discover even more new and interesting stuff. Here are some pics from this part of my little journey :
Coney Island Beach
New York City Hall
Brooklyn Bridge
After feeling personally responsible for global warming by taking a 34 minute flight (sorry world), I landed in Boston with what was still a full day ahead of me. I was staying in this hostel near Chinatown, which I can't recommend highly enough. It's brand spanking new and completely spotless, the beds are super comfy, there are many small little touches that are really thoughtful (own bedside power sockets, reading lamp etc) not to mention an amazing free breakfast. I think the only hostel I've liked as much is this place, but that's another story for another time ;)
My first day in Boston, I completed the Freedom Trail, which sounded twee and easy in the guidebook but actually took about four hours (!).. saying that it was totally worth it, I feel that it covered a lot of the main sights and areas to see, and you can take it at your own pace, or cut out what you don't wish to see (in the four hours I stopped a fair bit). I would recommend following the whole trail, though, as Boston`s streets can be very hard to navigate, and having the faithful red line to follow makes it a whole lot easier! A very high point on this was the USS Constitution, I have never in my life felt like a true pirate until I climbed aboard this ship. It's just incredible, you can almost see the history and imagine men running past you to light the cannons etc. Ahhh, history <3
The next day I decided to explore the Beacon Hill neighbourhood, then Harvard. Beacon Hill was beautiful, it`s one of the priciest neighbourhoods to live in in Boston, and is always lit by real gas lamps which are simply beautiful (sorry world, pt II). As it's so desirable to live there, many people have converted their basements into flats for rent or sale, leading to many of the house numbers being halves: 10½, 33½ etc, which I found completely charming! After trying and failing to navigate my way to Harvard on foot, I gave in and took the very ancient subway system (or "The T") out to Cambridge, named after the city in the UK, where Harvard is situated. I really enjoyed my walk around the campus, it seemed that a lot of other people were also there to look around, as well as study. There happened to be some kind of induction week going on, as it was the end of August / beginning of September, so there were plenty of studenty types milling around amongst huge maroon Harvard banners, as well as plenty of stalls vying for their (the students') business. It was a really nice atmostphere, and one I would recommend experiencing if you ever happened to be in the area.
After two very full days in Boston, again I had the feeling that I had seen much of what was available, therefore decided to spend my third Massachussetts day in Salem, about three quarters of an hour outside of the city by suburban rail. If you`re not familiar with this town, it`s where the fabled witch-trials took place in 1692, and as such is packed with any kind of witch memorabilia you can find.. tacky or otherwise! After a small walk around surveying what was available, I decided on the Salem Witch Museum, which, with the aid of some very moth-eaten wax figurines, tells the story of the trials and how they came about. Although kitsch to the extreme, I really enjoyed my time at the Witch Museum, and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who can withstand the tack-factor. And this about concludes my time spent in lovely Massachussets! A few pics that show my trip well are as follows :
Beginning of the Freedom Trail (note un-sore feet)
USS Constitution <3
Some cool fountain in Boston (I'm sure it has an official title but I can't be bothered to search it)
Bewitched statue in Salem (+500 points if you also think Bewitched is awesome)
Next, and nearly last, stop on my journey was Montreal, here in Quebec. After a rather stressful morning relying on the Boston airport transport (terrible... literally the worst) I just about avoided missing my plane, with the help of a few tears and a red face (being a girl rulz ok <3). After all the stress it was such a relief to find myself at the immigration gate, I was just hoping that I had all the necessary papers with me! This is the point whereby future assistants might wish to start reading, as it will apply to you next year! The whole process was actually quite pain free and easy to navigate - the border guards at Montreal had obviously dealt with this kind of permit before.. in fact the most stressful part of the whole ordeal were the rather pervy group of Mexicans that were before me in the queue.. it was much too early to be dealing with "ehh, guapa" every two minutes, mega sad face :( That said, I managed to get through all the questions and receive my permit in about half an hour, suddenly finding myself freely in Canada :) I must say that it was quite a strange sensation, after having worked so hard on the application, after having planned the flights and the trip, and after all the preparation/packing involved.. to suddenly just be exactly where you have been planning to go, with a whole year ahead of you. I can't really explain it! But it was a nice feeling :)
After finding my way to the worst hostel in the whole of life.. (seriously, I wouldn't even recommend it to my worst enemy), I passed out asleep. Which in hindsight was kind of annoying as that Monday was the most beautiful day of my whole stay there, but it had been a busy couple of weeks, so I think I deserved it. Plus, I had already topped up any tan I'd lost in the UK by being in New York and Boston, he he ;) That evening, I managed to drag myself into the Old Town in the evening for some dinner, and tried the ubiquitous Poutine for the first time. This dish is everywhere.. I mean everywhere, and is effectively chips, cheese and gravy.. which I kind of remember eating back at school once or twice! However the taste here is quite different to that (it's hard to explain, just try it!) and really pretty good, definitely worth giving a go, even if I could never manage it on a daily basis! You can also spice it up a bit by adding bacon, mushrooms, onions etc but obviously I stuck to the plain version as it was veggie-friendly.
Montreal old town really is amazing, definitely worth a visit if you are anywhere nearby. It suddenly changes from this very North-American metropolis into an olde-worlde cobbled European square in a matter of streets! It was certainly an interesting experience, I felt like I was in Prague or something, but they were speaking French and I was on an entirely different continent. Definitely a place I shall go back to, in fact as a result I unfortunately didn't take many pictures as I was so sure I would return. I would say that Montreal so far was my favourite place on the trip, even though I only had a couple of days to properly explore alone.. we were there for a further three days training and induction, but with some days starting at 05:45am and many workshops planned there wasn't a whole lot of spare time! In any case, the city is only 3.5 hours away from where I`m staying (an incredibly short journey in Canadian terms!) and as such I really didn't feel the pressure to get everything "touristy" done. One of my favourite things to do was get the bus up to the top of the Mont-Royal, however. The views were amazing! Luckily, one of the other assistants had been couchsurfing with a very nice lady who was also a part-time tour guide, and she showed us which buses to get, so we didn't get lost.. yay :)
Me and two of the other assistants at the top of Mont-Royal :)
On the Wednesday, we met the programme's organisers at this hotel and, as mentioned, had our induction. It was great to meet all the other assistants too, some of us had briefly met each other at the interviews / induction day in London, but that was only fleeting. Also we had been chatting via a Facebook group created for us, but as you may (or may not) know my views on online friendship... let's just say it was better to actually see some of the people I was going to be spending time with over the year, rather than reading some words that they happened to type on a web page ;)
The induction itself was pretty full-on, with some disgustingly early starts and plenty of pedagogical workshops after said early starts. Can't say I was able to pay 100% attention towards the end of the day where we started at 5:45, but I tried my very best! In any case, the training was well put together and informative, and it was nice to get to know the other assistants as much as I could in three days - there was obviously also time for a few pints in the nearest Irish pub ;)
On the Friday, our group left the hotel in one large bus bound for Levis, it took about 3.5 hours, and when we arrived our mentor teachers were all waiting for us. Mine is called Nadine, and she has been the mentor teacher for the assistants for the last four years. I was a little worried before starting, as I had not heard anything from my school via email (most of the other assistants had from theirs!) however when I got off the bus and met her I knew we would get on! Since I have been here she has been so helpful, and always contactable, without being intrusive and wanting to do too much for me. Having lived away from home for a good long while I really appreciate this medium ground, as I am very much used to sorting things myself, however obviously still need help on the French side of things! I always know I can call her if anything is wrong, and that's a nice situation to be in. I shall mention more about the school I'm at in another post!
Which brings me to where I'm living now, in Saint-Georges! It`s a fairly small town, about 30,000 people in total, but there is plenty to do, and everyone we've met so far has been really helpful and friendly. In the first three weeks I have so far managed to: find a place to live (sharing an appartment with two Quebecoise girls, who study locally), get a mobile phone (Koodo is about the best deal you can get as of Autumn 2012), buy a car (the heap of crap in the picture below) and generally find my way around the town without getting lost! Onwards and upwards...
It's worse than it looks, promise..
And now, I really do feel like I've been blah-ing on for longer than is possibly bearable! I shall endeavour not to get too behind and have to write such essays as this one again, because not only do you probably not want to read so much, my hands hurt :/
Thanks for reading, well done for getting this far, A+ in reading hehe ;)
.. to write about the next little installment of my trip preparations, that is. My travel money arrived today, look at it, it's rather pretty and makes me feel a whole lot richer than I actually am...
The Icelandic Krona in particular are very ornate and Norse looking, all wooden churches and men with long grey beards. Some of the Canadian dollars are plastic, weird! The American dollars (especially $1 Bill) are so familiar to me even though I've only seen them in person once before, I guess it must be all the music videos with guns and bitches and that stuff. In any case, I'm resisting (so far successfully..who knows how long this will last) the temptation to throw all the notes around the room whilst jumping on furniture / rolling around on the floor / shooting a mock pistol and drinking champagne. If only because it will be too irritating to tidy up again afterwards, still wanna...
2:30am logic, what else to say...
Oh! Insurance (yawn) - I decided to buy a package with Insure and Go, after having a chat with some of the other assistants about possible policies. At one stage, I was looking at one with Bupa for over £600, so I'm glad I shopped around as my Insure and Go policy cost about £250 until August 2013, that covers for both work and travel worldwide.. just not for manual labour ie. machine-operating (....lololol as if) or if someone wants to sue me, which is something I'd be hoping to avoid in any case. (Famous last words. . ?)
Enough of dull things like financial services, another postal arrival today was the final travel book in my collection, to see me through the ten days or so before I get to orientation. This one is centred on Montreal and Quebec City, which is awesome although it centres more on Montreal. One thing that put me off was that they put a picture / biography of the author on the first page, and he looks like a massive wanker. However, it seems interesting and useful (not to mention bag-sized) so I guess it all works out in the end. I'll let you know how I get on with it!
Think I'll leave it at that, as I'm already feeling suitably groggy, and typing coherent sentences is proving difficult. The thing that always happens when I have no job, has of course happened again.. in that my sleep patterns are, shall we say, erratic. So goodbye from 3am, and see you again sometime you don't expect ;)
A little something to distract me from what I'm supposed to be doing, why break the habit of a lifetime..
This weekend has seen me eBaying (almost) the last of my things away, as well as searching for a work/travel insurance that isn't tantamount to purse rape. As I'm writing this from the stance that perhaps this page might be helpful to someone embarking on the same trip next year, I'll take a little time to describe what seem to be the best deals right now (all non-future-assistants are welcome to skip to the next paragraph). After many nights sat typing away on Google/MoneySavingExpert/Bupa/Anywhere it looks like the best deals can be found through the AA or Endsleigh. Both come out at about £250 - £300 for the year, which works out around £25 per month and I don't think is half bad, especially after a year of over €100 per month in Germany. The only thing I have to check out now, is if the backpacking part of the title "AA Backpackers Insurance" actually covers people who will be living and working abroad, as opposed to just travelling through. I'll keep you posted as to what I find :)
With the mention of assistants, I suppose I should explain a little more about my trip and what I'll be doing over in Canada. There's this rather large organisation called the British Council, they're kind of a big deal...(get that reference and I shall love you forever)... in the world of strengthening UK and international ties. Basically, I shall be moving to Saint-Georges for a year, in order to:
a) help some of the cute little French-Canadian kiddies learn English
b) be the go-to person on all things UK (hopefully my last two years outside the country in question won't hinder me, woops)
c) learn a bit of the ole Francais, with a view to maybe going back to uni or something afterwards (very embryonic thought).
I guess that's it, apart from the fact that I'm rather too excited in my own, play-everything-down-don't-boast-ever way ;) I'm sure that goes without saying though..
So, in one week and four days everything gets going. I shall be making a little tour of getting to Quebec, because the last couple of months in Germany were stressful money / work wise and I managed to save up more than I thought I'd be able to.. so decided as a result it was time to be a little bit carefree and see some of this blue / green sphere we happen to live on. That means my journey will be a little bit like this : London - > Reykjavík - > New York - > Boston - > Montréal with a few days in each... I'm doing a little smile just thinking about it :)))
(OK... a big one)
I think it's time to go before I write too much, essays are never fun to read.. until next time... xo
PS. This just arrived for me via the house computer network, how nice..
Goodness me internet, it's been a wee while. Although I dislike you in many ways, I kind of like the idea of documenting this next year... so here I am. Hello. :) How long this lasts is anyone's guess!
Some facts :
- I don't live in Germany anymore.
- I thought I would be sad about this, but actually I found other things to worry about, such is life, perhaps I'm just too busy to think about it yet?
- I am currently back in my childhood home.
- Whilst this has many positives, constantly taking food from the fridge and hanging around in one's house clothes all day are not two of them. #lazy
- Life is a bit : blah blah on the phone blah blah international health insurance blah guidebook blah blah ebay blah post stuff blah blah wake eat sleep do it again-y..
-
It is 2.01428571428571429 weeks until I LEAVE! For a whole year argh! Typing that has just given me one of those jolts of scaredness you get, like when you forgot to do your homework in year ten or relive something drunkenly embarrassing you did once, you know the feeling.
- Finally, although I wanted to write a whole lot, it seems a few bullet points have covered the most of it, look at that, less is more. Perhaps real life me could learn a little something from typing me ;)
More on the history of things that happened (/will happen) when I don't have to be up early tomorrow to wash shoes, post packages, drink coffee and the like.
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