Saturday, May 27, 2006

Friday

I've managed to pay my phone bill (in the third bank I tried... why do they close at 3? this is not a reasonable time for things to close).
Have not managed to cancel my phone, despite walking up to the shop with phone in box with everything, the bill to pay and the bills that were wrong. The stores don't take payments unless they're credit card and they don't deal with cancellations, meaniing I will still have my phone. What is wrong with this company? They've given me a $150 phone and I can't give it back to them? weird. So I came to the decision that procrastinating is good - I can keep my phone till I have finished with Canada altogether (after the wedding and stuff) and then cancel it, since I need to do that over the phone and pay the cancellation charge with my credit card anyway.

Still need to call the bank so I can see how much money I don't have (and be able to pay off my credit card bill when necessary, which was probably about 3 months ago). I hate companies.

My hands have decided to randomly generate black smudges on them whnever I do anything. This strikes me as odd. Must be bird flu/SARS (remember that?)/mad cow disease or something.

Anyway, I'm clearly going insane so I'll stop typing now and drink my coffee.

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Friday, May 26, 2006

I also bought another suitcase a few days ago in order to get my massively expanded amount of stuff down to Chicago. I'm blaming (most of) it on Rob, since every time he came to visit he'd bring one of those business-type cases which contained more stuff for me (DVDs, books and the like) than stuff that he was going to use... but since he never took any of the stuff home, I now have all my stuff from Russia, stuff that I've bought here, and a whole schwackload of extra stuff. Ah well, I must say I appreciated having lots of reading material and stuff to watch.

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

I'm going to miss Quebecois

despite it's ridiculousness... for people who don't know what I'm talking about, there's this site (passed on to me by Lisa) which demonstrates the linguistic differences through the medium of Batman... funny! (Even if you don't understand French, just listen - they're supposed to be the same language, but you'd never know).

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Monday, May 22, 2006

I think I forgot to mention...

that Rob and I have an apartment to live in over the summer :)

Rob's just put some photos up on his blog so you can see the area and stuff (and so can I, since I haven't actually been there yet)... we don't move in till the 24th June so Mum doesn't get to see it, but still. I get to be a housewife this summer, yay?

And in other news, I just found out (from watching a CBC show about the princes and the Prince's Trust) that Prince Charles likes Leonard Cohen. Who'd've guessed?

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Thursday, May 18, 2006


Most especially for my Mum, so she can spot me in the airport... but also cos I'm proud of it :)

Only two weeks left!

Well 12 days actually. Where has my time gone?

It took me about an hour and a half to buy a coach ticket to Chicago yesterday. An hour and a half. I had to go from one counter to another, wait for an office to open, go back to hte first counter, and finally just refuse to move until people told me what I wanted to be told. That was an effective tactic, I think I'll use it again in future.

Anyway, I eventually managed to buy a ticket to Chicago via Toronto and Detroit. It'll take about 18hours, but that's better than the 24 - 36 they originally threatened me with.

And that's all I have for now, except that "V for Vendetta" is a much better film than the title implies. It's all very Orwellian (I like that adjective) and has some serious psychological themes, which is a refreshing change for a film based on a comic. Wow I made it sound really heavy. Oops.

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Ah travelling

it's complicated...

I want to buy a Greyhound ticket to go from Montreal to Chicago. This should be simple. I go to greyhound.ca, and fill in all the things, and it tells me that if my travel plans involve the US I should go to the American site. So I do, and fill in all the forms again, and then I get to the billing page. Which wants US credit cards only. Ok, I think to myself, I can get Rob to buy it for me (hehehe)... and then I notice the shipping thing. It wants a US shipping address, and won't take any other kind. For a journey starting in Montreal, on a site I was told to go to by the Canadian version. I'm confused. Maybe I'll just have to be old-fashioned and physically buy my ticket <gasp>!

I went to the Biodome today, which was fun. There are different areas based on different climates in the Americas, starting in a rainforest and ending up in the Arctic and Antartic (yeah opposite sides of the globe but same kinda coldness). Lots of birds and fish and bats and the odd capybara :) which are fun, and puffins which wanted to swim on their backs which is just ridiculous but really funny to watch (they just kinda flip back the right way up despite all their best efforts) and penguins, which were the stars of the show after everyone saw "March of the Penguins" at Christmas :) . Lots of fun, even with bunches of kids around... I managed to time it so that I was between groups, and when I found something I wanted to watch for longer than the kids behind me (ie everything, but most particularly the beavers) I just let them pass... at the end I watched a falconry display, which made me want to be a falconer like they always do (how do you get involved in that kind of job anyway?).

And that's that for now, quick update. Oh and my photos worked last time, yay for that.

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Friday, May 12, 2006





Just a quick one

Cos I've been doing stuff and the library is going to close soon.

I've been quite adventurous the past few days, getting up early and going to places like a good tourist. On Tuesday I went up the mountain twice (once because it was really early and nowhere was open, and then again after paying my tuition and buying the new Chili Peppers CD because I enjoyed it the first time) and took photos. And when I went home I collapsed on the bed and slept, because that was the most exercise I've done in ages and I'm pathetic... then today I went to the Jardin Botanique, which was really pretty with more flowers that when I was last there (for the butterflies) and yet still free because it's not tourist season yet :) this made me happy when I was expecting to pay to get in. I took a lot of photos there too, but my camera didn't seem to want to give them to me... some of them are also various strange colours, as if the ink was running out or something (except there's no ink in digital cameras, so I think it's just dying a death). I fought and won, but I don't know whether I will next time...

As for posting photos, I'll give it a shot on here but if anyone is on FaceBook and would like to see them, I'm in the Durham network (you may need to sign up for the site to see them, so don't worry if you don't want to).

Have also persuaded my mum to come to Canada when she's over visiting me in Chicago :) Rob's cousin James is getting married, so there's a wedding to go to! (Amazing how many people keep assuming it's my wedding - Mindy, you weren't the first). So that'll be fun.

Anyways, going to try and post some pics now, wish me luck with this temperamental thing...

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Saturday, May 06, 2006

This is a great website. There's lots of hidden things too, so it kept me entertained for a lot longer than it should have!

jkrowling.com

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Harry Potter again

So while browsing FaceBook, which is the scourge of every student this year (seriously I think the entire university is a member) I happened to join the "F**k this, I wanna go to Hogwarts" group... which led me to the Dumbledore is not dead website. I thought I'd been thinking about these damn books too much, but I've got nothing on these guys.

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Friday, May 05, 2006

It's May

Already. I'm not quite sure what to make of this.

My weekend in Toronto was fun, all sunny and good for weddings and stuff. Thursday was not too exciting to start off with, as Rob was technically working and I have had enough of wandering aimlessly around cities on my own, at least for a while. So I stayed with Rob and his freelancer Matthew, who was cool and had the best handlebar moustache I've ever seen. There was a lot of non-work talk (which was good for me, but not so good for productivity) and then computer batteries ran out because we were in a coffee shop with wireless access but no plug sockets... so we went back to the hotel and I read the best part of a book while Rob and Matthew worked. Then it was late and we were hungry, so we went to a place called C'est What? for bison burgers and beer :) I like bison, it's like beef but more so. And with 70-odd kinds of beer to choose from, we were happy. Eventually I decided that I wanted to play pool, and won three out of four games by default (yay other people fouling on the black) and then lost the other. I blame it on the drunkenness that occurs when you drink before eating for the first time in 11 hours. Others might say I'm just not a good pool player.

Friday began with a hangover, as might have been expected. Rob was better than me, he drank more water and was therefore up and about a good couple of hours before I was... by the time I was up it was time to go for lunch with Andrea, Rob's friend from university and the bride-to-be. We went for Thai, which was really good, and chatted about life and love and all that kind of thing. It was nice to finally meet her, since I was going to her wedding the day after! After lunch we wandered around a bit and watched some TV and generally chilled out before going for sushi at about 10pm. Then we watched "Howl's Moving Castle" which was awesome!

The next day we were up early(ish) and went for breakfast at a place that promised the best apple cake in the world. I don't think they were lying either, it was amazing and I'm so glad that place isn't in Montreal otherwise all my money would be spent there. Then we wandered around a bit more, just enjoying the sun and seeing some of Toronto before the wedding. The service was held in a hall about 15 min walk from the hotel, which was very pretty. Andrea looked beautiful, Carlos cried as he read his vows (they had the standard vows and they'd written their own too) which almost made me cry cos I'm soppy. It was a short service but nice, and afterwards we found another of Rob's friends from university called Chris, and made arrangements to get out to the reception with him and his girlfriend.

By this point we were both very hungry, apple cake being well and truly gone, so we went to the market for fish and chips. We're nothing if not classy, wandering around feeling very overdressed! Then we set off for a walk fairly aimlessly, taking in the CN tower (which we nearly went up, but the queue to buy tickets was long and we weren't feeling patient), Chinatown and other random parts of the city (what IS the Mars centre?). Four hours later we were collapsed in the hotel room ready to never move again, but then Chris was in a taxi and coming for us.

The trip out to Missisauga (which I think I've spelt correctly) was a bit of a hassle, since the main expressway was closed. Yes, that's right, the biggest city in Canada closes its main artery to and from the international airport for a weekend when the baseball team is playing. Clever. So traffic was chaos and it took us well over an hour to do a 20 minute drive. I thought I was going to die, since I was in the front and the driver kept changing lanes without really checking that it was safe to do so, resulting in several near misses. I was glad of the open bar at the reception!

The reception itself was much like any other, good food, lots to drink and a bad DJ. It was fun though, and that's all that matters.

Then it was Sunday, and time to be packing and leaving and stuff. It was also the only time I was glad that a flight was cancelled, as Air Canada calls Rob and tells him he's on a later flight giving us an extra couple of hours together, yay!

Now I'm looking for places to rent this summer in Chicago, so I can pass the details on to Rob and he can go check them out... we're a disastrously disorganised couple, I meant to start this weeks ago...

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com