stuff
Tact is for those who haven't mastered the art of sarcasm.
Wednesday, July 30, 2003 :::
Let me see if I can struggle through one more post, just so I don't get even more behind...
*Insert admiration for Maddy's amazing bravery here*
Yesterday I went into the museum in the afternoon. I was supposed to go on Monday, but things got just a little bit crazy here that day, and it wasn't exactly possible for me to go. It also didn't help that I had my first piece of food at 4.30pm at Pizza Hut - I wasn't about to leave the house and go to work without eating anything! The lack of eating was caused by there being no food whatsoever in the house for me to eat... at about 3.30 I was seriously considering eating some of the white bread that had mould all the way through it, I was that desperate!
Anyway, went into the museum yesterday, after having lunch at this cool little cafe I've discovered on King Street where you can get a very good cappuccino, which is tops! (King Street is within walking distance of home, as compared to Second Cup, which would take me about an hour!)
I thought I was going into the museum to finish the Geohistory project so that it could be offered to the public, but as I was walking in I was 'apprehended' by one of the summer students who needed help with her children's program. I thought I would just help for a few minutes, but I ended up sticking around for over 3 hours, as well as doing absolutely all the washing up from the program! I wasn't particularly happy afterwards, but the summer student (who is a really cool girl) was very apologetic and nice. It's very hard to be mad at this girl for very long - she talks so much and says the strangest, funniest things that you just end up laughing when you swore that you were going to ignore her! Anyway, I got most of the brochure that's needed designed, and left instructions for someone else to finish it off today. So hopefully it's finally done!
Oh, I forgot something about Monday. One of HS2's friends called late on Monday night offering her the chance of a lifetime - her mother had won two tickets to the Rolling Stones concert in Toronto on Wednesday but couldn't go, so HS2's friend (let's call her HSF just to complicate things) invited HS2 to go.
Now this concert, is well, the concert of the century. Toronto's been really hard hit by SARS, and this concert was a way to help the city recover financially. On the list of acts are bands like The Rolling Stones, The Guess Who, and AC/DC, plus heaps others.
So of course HS2 and I are both getting very excited about her going, she because, well 'SARSstock' would be amazing, and me because if I couldn't go I was going to live vicariously through someone else.
But of course, my host mum being the extremely protective mother that she is, would hear nothing of it. Apparently Toronto is a very dangerous place to be (because everyone knows that anyone who visits a big city is bound to be either robbed, raped, or sold into slavery), and certainly not the place for her daughter.
So I jokingly said that I would go if HS2 couldn't. To this my HM replied "well, you could go, but my daugher can't", very cooly and calmly. "Maddy's not my daughter, so if she got arrogant and stubborn enough then I would have to let her go, but you're my daughter so I can stop you." Very devastating, and very smart I thought! Of course I wasn't going to go after she said that - I would like a place to live in for the next 3 weeks. She's a crafty one my host mother!
Apparently after I left the room she told HS2 that there was no way she would have let me go... :p
Yes, I know, once again I must apologise for my pathetic blogging skills, and yes, I do realise that I have about a million and one things still to write about: Montreal (part two), a visit by a particular uncle (god, that was a long time ago!), the wedding of the century last weekend...
But this time I have a real, bonafide excuse:
I'm sick.
And miserable.
And being very pathetic.
It would seem that all of my friends are getting sick one by one, and I'm just the next in what seems to be a trend. I don't have food poisoning (thank god - really glad to hear that you're feeling better Bron!), but I do have one heck of a head cold, accompanied by an excruciating sinus headache, a snuffly nose (which I'm sure is really annoying everyone in the house right now), a sore throat and a bit of a temperature.
Because I know you were all just desperate to know all my symptoms! :p
It's been two days now, and I'm well, sick of being sick, as I'm sure are all the other people in the house. I'm trying my best to curb my tendency to be annoying and extremely pathetic, but I'm not sure I'm trying hard enough. My attempts are not helped by the fact that I can't lie down very well to sleep because that just makes the sinus headache worse....
*This is where you all heap sympathy and kindness on me (and my host family for having to put up with it!)*
Thursday, July 24, 2003 :::
Went into the museum on Monday and Wednesday, to 'Walk Like an Egyptian' - I helped run a children's program based around ancient Egypt. It was a lot of fun, although I somehow managed to end up with twice as many kids on my table as anyone else, and they all seemed to be the worst in the room. But when you're making mummies out of Barbie dolls wrapped in toilet paper, who can really complain!!
I think we also finally got the geohistory thing worked out. We've been trying to come up with a way to offer the program to tourists during the summer, but there have been huge problems with people vandalising the boxes that are at each site. So now we've ended up doing away with the boxes and coming up with new questions, so that people just have to record what the site is now instead of finding the answer to the questions in the boxes. If that makes any sense to anyone! I'll have to go back in within the next week or so to finish off booklet that will be given to people doing the 'challenge', but there's not much to do, so hopefully it won't take too long.
Spending a lazy day at home today, due mainly to the fact that it's been pissing with rain since last night. Nothing planned for tomorrow, but on Saturday it would seem that I'm going to the wedding of my host mum's nephew. Or something like that. I haven't met either of the couple, and I have considerable trouble keeping track of my host's extended family: my HM has 8 siblings, my HF 4. These are big families! This wedding could be... interesting!
Last night I saw an ad for the next item I will definitely be adding to my CD collection: the 4 disc set Country Music Hits of the 80s. And if you buy it with your credit card, you get Number 1 Country Music Hits of the 80s. Oh yeah.
As much as I dislike country music today, it is certainly not improved when 80s style-music is added to the mix, judging by the fine song examples that were played. Urgh...
Saturday, July 19, 2003 :::
So I think my mother is rather desperate for me to post an account of my trip to Montreal, and I suppose it's about time seeing I went about 3 weeks ago. You all have to understand that it's really quite exhausting to write in this thing!
Ok, Montreal. Well, I went with my area coordinator, a cool girl from Germany who went to St Mary's, and 3 other students who went to a different school in a nearby town (1 Brazillian, 2 Germans). The trip up was pretty uneventful - no wrong turns, no crossing 4 lanes of traffic to get to an exit... the only serious problem was trying to choose a radio station that wasn't in French.
Well, it was uneventful until we entered the Montreal city limits. There were roadworks happening on the highway into the city, and the normal 2 lanes of traffic had been reduced to 1. So my coordinator's driving along, talking away, and so doesn't notice that the car in front of him has slowed to a stop because of a traffic jam. So at the last moment he has to slam on the breaks to avoid slamming into the back of this guy. Of course, him doing this causes another car to slam into the back of us. Everything and everyone was ok, apart from the fact that the very back seats in the van popped out of their anchor points because apparently my coordinator hadn't put them in properly. So we had to get off the highway, pull into a side street and watch him struggle to anchor these things properly for the next half an hour. Great start to the day really...
Anyway, after finally getting the seats in, and then asking for directions because we had got lost, we eventually made it to St Joseph's Oratory, a very impressive church on Mont Royal (the hill, incidentally, where Montreal got its name from!). The exterior of the church is very traditional and very imposing, standing there on the top of the hill. The inside, however, is quite modern and completely different to the outside. The view from the steps is pretty spectacular as well. The story is that if you can't walk or if you have trouble walking, you crawl up each step to the oratory, praying on each step. My area coordinator says that there's this huge display of crutches that people have thrown away after their lameness went away, but when I asked him if it had happened lately, he couldn't exactly give me a straight answer.
My coordinator used to be a reverend, by the way, so any trip anywhere with him always involves an in-depth discussion of religious matters, and visits to at least one church.
After St Jospeh's we went to the top of Mont Royal, which is covered with parkland. After a short walk we got to a lookout area from where you can see all of downtown Montreal and the river. The park is home to what seems like thousands of squirrels, chipmunks and groundhogs, all of which surrounded us in large numbers on the walk back. I've got some very cool photos of me getting 'up close and personal' with some animals...
We finally got away from the animals and drove downtown to park the van. We drove past McGill University, one of the best in Canada apparently, and quite a few consulates and the like. From our parking space it was a short walk to Chinatown, and then to the Subway where we had our lunch. I would have preferred to have eaten somewhere a little different than a subway, which I can eat anywhere in the world, but one of the girls had brought her lunch with her so we had to eat somewhere where she could sit and eat without being glared at. It was all good though - at least my 'sandwich artist' could speak english!
From then on for the next few hours it was just a leisurely stroll around the 'Old Montreal' area, a very cool part of the city, but kind of touristy. We also went to Notre Dame Cathedral, which is in the middle of the old Montreal area. It's incredible inside -although it's a relatively small church, the impact is incredible. And Celine Dion got married there, so it must be good! :p
One of the drawbacks of travelling with a group of exchange students is that it seems to be compulsory to go into every single souvienir shop on the face of the planet. It was even more evident this time, because the girls I were with were returning home in a few weeks and were desperate to get their hands on some last souvenirs. It was all good though - it was stinking hot that day and it was usually a blessed relief to have to go into one of the stores.
I know this is a very bad thing to do, but I have to leave my story there and go get dressed (it is 12.19pm after all). I think we're about to go do something. But I promise (not that my promises seem to mean much on this thing!) to finish this thrilling narrative very, very soon!
Tuesday, July 15, 2003 :::
Oh, one more thing I forgot to put in that must be included before I go and eat. So that you can all mark it in your diaries with red circles and stars and drawings of fireworks, your favourite blogger will be arriving home in Tassie on September 8! Yay! Says everyone.
Ok, so I know you're all going to hate me for this (ok, by all of you I mean my parents), but I'm going to take a break from updating now - it really is exhausting! I promise that the visit by the famous uncle from Edmonton and Montreal will arrive very soon - and this time I really mean it! It's just that right now it's 12.28pm, and I haven't really got out of my pjs yet, or had breakfast. A girl's gotta eat! But you have to be impressed with the number of posts that I've made today. Please keep that in mind before you are all rude on my comments (and some people really are very rude on that thing! :p)
Monday was also the day that I finally got all my flights home arranged. I have been struggling with Air Canada and my 2 exchange organisations (one in Canada, one in Australia) for about a month now, trying to get this all organised. My exchange organisations have been absolutely no help - the attitude was 'well, you have the tickets, you organise it yourself'. Now even though we have finally got it all done, booking international flights and connections is not something you want to stuff up, particularly when there's a $100 charge for each additional change after the first one. I never would have imagined that my parents and I would have to do all of this by ourselves - for some silly reason I presumed that when you hand over a lot of money to an exchange organisation, that they will assume responsibility not only for getting you to a country, but also for getting you home again!! Apparently that was a very silly assumption to make. I was just talking to my area coordinator a few minutes ago (he came to pick me up to take me to Ottawa Airport where I thought I would have to go to sort out my tickets, until I got it done over the phone) and dropped a few (very strong) hints that some help, any kind of help, would have been gratefully appreciated. He blamed it on my host organisation on Australia, a recurring theme in this whole thing. Here's a tip to any people considering going on exchange in the future - make sure that the organisation that you deal with in your host country is the same one that you deal with in your home country. Otherwise there's bound to be major trouble!
So we arrived home from the boat tour at about 6.30 to find the house practically overflowing with people, all of whom were there to have dinner. I think. People suddenly appear at this house and you never quite understand the reason...
It was all very nice (more mosquito bites for the collection!), but people were kind of emotional. Nothing, however, like the next morning, when we all said goodbye to the EX. My HM now says that she's not going to let me leave so she doesn't have to go through that again...
The boat-ride was long (about 5 hours!) but really good. Brockville is on the St Lawrence River, which forms the border between Canada and the US. At this part of the river you can see straight across to the States, but if you go further west a bit, the river becomes filled with many different islands - hence the name 'The Thousand Islands region'. By the way, I don't think the salad dressing came from here, but I'm not exactly sure on that.
Anyway, back on topic. Apparently there are actually more than a thousand islands, and the US owns more of them (the border sneaks and zig-zags its way down the river), but if you look at land area, Canada and America have about the same, the result of a land agreement drawn up. (it's amazing how much you can learn at the Brockville Museum!) The area is absolutely beautiful. Some of these islands are no bigger than some people's backyards, some even smaller, but people have managed to somehow build these amazing houses and cottages onto the majority of them. Almost all of the islands are privately owned, with only a few being managed by Parks Canada, or whatever it is in the US. Absolutely everybody owns a boat, and it seemed like most of them were out on Sunday afternoon.
The region is also home to 2 castles: Boldt Castle and Singer Castle. Boldt Castle is open to the public (although you have to go through US customs if you want to visit!), and I think Singer Castle is being opened in a few months. They're both very spectacular, but strangely seem to fit right into the landscape - they don't look out of place at all.
So yes, the tour was amazing (even though we did run out of petrol - luckily it was at the very end and about 10 metres from shore. We were rescued by SM's dad). I do have photos which I'll get around to uploading somewhere sometime, but until then have a look at the photo gallery at this website. Mega tops...
Ok, so let's work backwards here, starting with the weekend just past. The EX 'officially' left the house 2 weeks ago to travel with her mother, but they both came back (along with the EX's cousin) on Friday for 3 nights to visit.
This visit of course sparked off another major cleaning frenzy, but certainly not as bad as the last one in honour of my uncle. This was due to the fact that absolutely everything had been cleaned because of his arrival, so this time there was not as much to do. So in fact, me dropping my uncle's visit on the family at practically the last moment (possibly because of my poor organisational skills...) was actually a good thing. That's what I'm telling myself anyway...
So yes, the EX (with family members in tow) arrived on Friday night. It was all a very laid-back affair while we all met and chatted and whatnot (I love that word by the way...). I got a few more mosquito bites to add to my collection, which is always a welcome bonus in my day. I have other stories from that night, but I don't really want to put them on here. But if you ask by email, I'd be happy to oblige!
Anyway, on Saturday they all went to Kingston I think, with HS2 as well. I didn't really have much to do with the whole visit - while the EX and I got on ok, we weren't exactly bestest bestest friends. That night the EX's mother took us all out to dinner at a very nice restaurant in Brockville, which was tops. The french onion soup was very nice... (my mother says that this blog is more about the food that I eat in Canada and less about the things that I do or experience. I think she's making things up... :p)
On Sunday I didn't think we were doing anything with them (the EX and her cousin were going scuba diving with that guy that I keep referring to and who needs his own code... how about we arbitrarialy say it's 'SM' for Scuba man. Well, I'll think of something better later on), but then at about 12 HS2 comes downstairs (where I might have still been in my pjs) and says that we're going on a boat ride and that we have 10 minutes to get ready.
So after a lot of rushing around, we finally made it to SM's place and then onto his boat. I am going to describe the boat tour, but I think it needs a post of its own...
Ok, here we go. Time to finally write some of the stuff that has been happening down in this thing. I swear I had good intentions, but the longer I leave it the more I have to write down, and the job just keeps on getting bigger and bigger and bigger that I finally just give up!!!
But no more. I am determined to conquer this beast head on. Only now I have to remember what's happened in the last 2 weeks or so... :(
Sunday, July 13, 2003 :::
This is why I love technology - I'm currently talking on msn messenger to my mum, Bron and James, all at the same time! Who cares that it's 1.43 in the morning... we're all talking - at the same time!
Yippee!
More updates to follow (after I go to sleep for a few hours and get up!)
Saturday, July 05, 2003 :::
Yes, I know, my long-promised Montreal entry still hasn't eventuated and I'm a very lazy girl. But you'll have to wait for just a few more days (because I know there are scores of you out there who have been practically dying at your computers of anticipation), because something has come up. Or flown over... see my uncle from Edmonton is coming to visit today! "Yay!" I say. In almost an hour and a half he is due to arrive after driving down from Ottawa. He's staying a night in Brockville before going on to Montreal for a conference or something on that kind.
The only problem is that I had kind of told my host mother that he was coming the weekend after, because, well, I'm a disorganised, forgetful twit. So when I told her yesterday afternoon after talking to my uncle on the phone (ok, I got my host sister to tell her, on the phone, because I was kinda scared) there was a bit of a commotion. Apparently the visit of a relative means absolutely gutting the house and cleaning every single object that doesn't move. I mean, this not just your normal bit-of-a-vacuum, bit-of-a-dust kind of thing. This version involves steam-cleaning carpets, reorganising cupboards (because my uncle is so going to be inspecting the linen cupboard) and repainting the front and back doors. I think she would have liked to actually replace the two doors, but time (fortunately!) only allowed for them to be painted. By my long-suffering host father of course. :p
This could be an interesting visit... but at least I get to see my uncle!
I celebrated Canada's national day by going out on a boat with HS2's kind-of boyfriend (I think this guy needs a code of his own, he pops up that often), HS3 and HS4 to watch Brockville's fireworks from the St Lawrence River. It was a really good display and we were really close to the action. So close, in fact, that I was a couple of times that we were going to be covered in burning firework remnants! But we escaped unscathed, with only a few extra mosquito bites for my collection to show for the night.
