Traveling plans coming together nicely

All of my post-uni traveling has more or less been planned. Well, until the middle of January anyway. First stop is Cuba which should be pretty sweet. That's from the 13th to the 20th of December. Then back to Toronto for a few days to pack up all my stuff (*sniff) (I have a cold). And then off to NYC (from the 23rd to the 2nd of January) but by which means I'm not sure yet. Then hopefully by train back to Toronto where I will be starting my East Coast odyssey with one of the kiwi girl's I've met. I'll be meeting her in either Montreal or Quebec City (this is all by train by the way) where we'll be spending a day or two and then off to Nova Scotia where we will be finding our own way around, mainly because no tours run around that time. Anyways, this tour will cover Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Hopefully too, we can make it far enough up north to see Aurora Borealis which would me super amazing. That should take us to maybe the 10th or so of January? Then I'm planning on going to Washington DC on January 20th to see Obama get sworn into the White House aka to see George Bush get kicked out of it. Accommodation will be pretty hard to find but luckily I know someone who knows someone who lives there so... And then after that I dont know but I have to be in Seattle around the 30th or 31st of January so I can fly cheaply to Anchorage which has been the part of my trip that I've been excited about most! Firstly, cos, c'mon, it's Alaska! Gonn' see me some polar bears! Also, it means that my North American Odyssey will soon be over. Which is both a good and a bad thing. I'll let you know closer to the time.

The first snow

So, it's finally starting to snow properly around here. There's enough snow on the ground to pick up and make snowballs which is totally frickin awesome! We've planned a snowball fight for tomorrow (after my stupid exam) which should be pretty awesome - if a lot of people show up. If not, then it'll just be a showdown between me and this Danish guy. Excellent.

Boston - where everybody knows your name

So this past weekend we kinda decided to spontaneously go away for the weekend. This happened after our PR class on Thursday night so as soon as we got back to the Primrose, instead of going out like regular people, we went back to my room to look for these flights right? The original plan was to fly to NYC but we couldn't find these mythical $79 flights that we'd been hearing about. Possibly cos we were booking last minute or on the wrong website or something? Possibly both. Anyways, we decided to look at other places seeing as we're going to NYC for Xmas and New Years anyways and the further we seemed to go from Toronto the more expensive it was. I mean, it cost like, about a grand to get to like, Chicago and it cost about the same to get from Toronto to Russia or even Greenland. Anyways, we settled on Boston because it wasn't super expensive and Boston Uni was our number 1 choice of exchange university before they dropped out. (To be honest though, I probably couldn't picture myself studying there - too much school spirit shit, and frat houses and sororities and whatever.)

Right, so we were up until like, 3.30 in the morning and still hadn't booked anything and hadn't got confirmation from the guy who's idea this actually was. I didn't get to sleep till about 4.30 though cos I had issues. Don't ask. So on Friday we went ahead and booked our flights to Boston but weren't able to find accommodation so decided to wing it. We actually managed to find a nice place to stay though, it was a little bit out from the CBD but was really nice. Just like your Grandma's place would look like, the lady who ran it was lovely too. We settled on this after being so determined to find something within the city but seriously, Boston seems to only have only like, 5 or 6 hostels in the ENTIRE CITY.

Our first flight was to Detroit, Michigan which left a 6.50 in the morning. My first trip to the US was going well. We spent a few hours at the airport just hangin out. Breakfast was kinda American. The bacon was like, deep fried and crispy. Yum. I also kinda hate 'hash browns' that are like this. They need to be in rectangular form dammit! Or even triangular! Circular even! Not this shit!

Anyways, the flight to Boston was pretty uneventful (not to mention short!). And, as mentioned before, we went looking for accommodation. We wrote down a few addresses while waiting at the airport in Detroit so had sort of an idea of were to go. Or so I thought. The first place we went was totally in the suburbs and looked kinda dodgy. Sort of like a crack house. A nice crack house though. And that's not even the worst bit. The cab alone from the airport cost us like $40! To get to the middle of suburban Boston! Not a good start. Not a good start at all. Luckily, another cab had just turned the corner. He was a lot more helpful, though he decided to drop us off at a place where we knew had no vacancies, at least for the Saturday night anyways but we thought we'd try our luck. As a last resort we decided we would check out the hotels around the city (which I kinda knew that we couldn't afford anyway). Half of them were fully booked for the Satureday and the other half were waaaay to expensive - almost as much as the flights! In the end we decided to go back to the place outside the city because we didn't want to waste any more of the daylight.

Turned out there wasn't much of the daylight left to waste anyway. It started to get dark around 4.30ish which was weird. Like, as if it were 7 or 8 pm.

This is Boston at 5pm.

Not having had anything to eat since our lovely Detroit breakfast, we decided to grab some lunch/ dinner and apparently there was some good ethnic food around where the hostel was. So we (by we I mean I) decided on Chinese, seeing as I hadn't had any for a while. It was an....interesting experience. We ordered the roast pork fried rice, sweet and sour chicken and broccoli with oyster sauce. The latter was absolutely fine besides the extra large sized pieces. The sweet and sour chicken was cold, 80% batter and had maraschino cherries in it! The rice was also soaked in soy sauce, so much so that it looked like they used brown rice instead of white! It was also served on this weird, silver platter thing. I don't have a photo of it but man, it was weird.

As you can imagine, we got out of there as soon as we could. We headed back into town to check out some of the city. We stumbled upon a massive food market which was in the middle of packing down for the day so they were trying to sell all there stuff for ridiculously cheap prices - (puts on a Bostonian accent) 'boxxa beans fer a buck!' (or something to that effect. I wasn't paying much attention).

We also found Qunicy Market and Faneuil (rhymes with 'manual') Hall which was a massive market with two long buildings filled with shops and one which was just a massive food court which was amazing. There were candy stores, oyster bars, bakeries, and a lot of ethnic and Bostonian foods. Which would have been a lot better than Chinese food. Ha. There was also replica of the bar from 'Cheers' which was pretty awesome. The real one though was only a few blocks away.

So, it was totally wet and kinda raining so we went to see 'The Dark Knight' at Imax which was pretty ridiculous. I mean, I've seen it before but seeing it on Imax was well, ok, it was exactly the same but on a bigger screen. But I think after taking Hollywood and Society and uni and learning about the history of cinema it kinda made me appreciate what like, widescreen and cinerama and stuff like that may have been like. Anyways, that's enough nerding for now. Oh, we also saw the Paramount theatre which first opened in 1932 and had enough seating for about 1700 people and was one of the first movie houses in Boston to play talking movies. Ok, THAT'S enough nerding.


Right, so after heading back to Grandma's place, we decided to plan our next day. Our only full day in Boston. We picked up a few pamphlets at the airport. One of which was for whale watching - 'whale sightings guaranteed!' it said. Why the hell not? Also, how can you guarantee a whale sighting? - which was at 8.30 and took about 3 hours so we thought we'd go do that and then check out Quincy Market by day cos apparently it was alive and kicking at about 11.30ish. Sounded like a plan. We rock up to the whale watching place at 8.30 am on the dot and ask whether we can still get tickets. (Lady behind glass with microphone) ' ...there is no 8.30 sailing (idiots). It's fall, so the earliest one is at 12.30'. Right. So, plan B. What the hell is plan B? We decided to buy the tickets and grab some breakfast from Quincy Market. We made it back just in time to join a tour of the city, which conveniently took about 2 hours - we'd make it back just in time to board the boat to watch some whales. Guaranteed whales!


The tour was actually pretty awesome. It was one of those hop on, hop off tours but no one in our trolley thing wanted to leave cos our guide was really funny. We learned a lot about the history of the area including Paul Revere, Sam Adams and the start of the American revolution. A lot of which I can't quite recall right now but it all started with the Boston Tea Pahty where John Hancock and Sam Adams dumped an equivalent of $1.2 million dollars of tea into the ocean. Party over. Anyways, they were wanted for high treason by the British. Long story short, Paul Revere, the legend that he is, rode his horse Brown Beauty to where Hancock and Adams were hiding to warn them that the British forces were coming. This was the start of the American Revolution. Ok, there's a LOT more to it than this - something about farmers using nails as bullets and overpowering the British or whatever. We also saw the balcony where the declaration of independence was first read and has been every Independence Day since. I'm pretty sure we saw a lot of other stuff which I don't quite remember (which is totally my fault for leaving this post so late after the fact).

Whales! It took like, about an hour to get to the sactuary and I was standing on the bow of the boat for the whole time, freezing my face off for no reason. The annoying thing was that 2 minutes after I finally caved and went inside the first whale was spotted. It was pretty slow to begin with, only one whale here and there but then it started to pick up with several pairs of mothers and calves and they even breached the water a few times which apparently doesn't happen very often. I took like, more than 100 photos cos I couldn't really tell what I was taking photos of...

WHALE!

WHALE SPLASH! aka too slow to get it coming fully out of the water!

This was a total fluke. It's also my favourite shot.

Right, so we got back at about 4ish and the sun was beginning to set on the way back to port. Having not eaten since breakfast we decided to grab some dinner. At about 5pm. Crazy. But anyways, its was super dark and we decided to go to a seafood restaurant seeing as Boston is kinda famous for it? I dunno. Anyways, I had the clam chowder which apparently has been served a seven presidential dinners as well as the tuna and Boston cream pie for dessert. Which, to be honest, tasted kinda like cheesecake. We also managed to get a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc (GASP! Underage drinking!) which was nice.

Boston Cream Pie

We called it a night after this I think. Back to Grandma's house we went. And after discovering our flight back was at 4pm instead of 2 we decided that in the morning we'd walk a bit of the Freedom Trail which we missed on the tour (the car went right around it and this part was best seen on foot) head over to Harvard University. So we went to see Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church which was one of the 3 beacon signals which was used to signal Revere to start his ride. From here we made our way to Harvard. Luckily there was like, a tour group close by which we kinda snuck into. I was all like 'sup, yeah, I'm thinking about going to Harvard'. But yeah, the grounds were amazing. The economics building looked kinda like the White House and the dining hall looked amazing too! Did you know, that Harvard University has the largest collection of secular stained glass windows in the world? Wow. Anyways, the dining hall looks a lot like the one from Harry Potter with the long wooden tables and the majestic interiors. The food must be amazing. Better than the Chinese food for sure. Ha. Speaking of Harry Potter, apparently Emma Watson was at Harvard looking at the campus a few weeks before we were there. Woah.

Back to the lovely Prescott International Hotel and Hostel we went. Picked up our stuff and headed off to the airport. We tried to hail a cab from the street which was simple enough, funny this was though was that this particular cab was actually there to pick up his son from school (at 2 o'clock!?) but we got in as well. Funny. Fast forward to airport security (cos lets be honest now, this post is just getting ridiculous. I apologise). I totally had to get pat down by the security guard and I have no idea why. He then proceeded to ask me about how New Zealand is. Ok. Also, what was kinda unfair is that the other person I was with got bumped up to first class cos some guy wanted to sit next to some woman who he hadn't seen in a while. Loser. So I was kinda sad about that but that gave me time to work on my presentation which I had to do on Wednesday. Blah blah blah, fastforward to when we got back to the Primrose. Weekend over.

And thus (kind of) began my American odyssey. Kinda prematurely but whatever.

Right, just one more par. about other stuff. The day after we got back I had to pay for October's rent cos apparently I hadn't. I assumed I had seeing as they hadn't called me about it or anything. I also payed for this month's rent too which made me super poor. Also, I found out that my contract at the Primrose doesn't expire until April which obviously a massive problem. I was kinda freaking out about it for a while just trying to find a way out of it but I may have found someone to sublet my room after I leave. Only thing is, is that I would have to pay some of the rent to make it worth their while. Lame. It's a hotel policy thing about filling vacant rooms first. Don't ask. Also, my camera is pretty much a write off which is also lame.

Oh, wow. I think this is the end! Thanks for sticking with me. This was as much of an effort to write as I'm sure it was to read. Hopefully the photos made it somewhat bearable though.

November/ Our time is running out

It's November and to quote one of my favourite songs, yes, 'our time is definitely running out'. Not sure if you realise but this means that I only have about a month of uni left before the end of the year (not including exams). I really don't want this to end. I don't want to say goodbye to anyone here. It's weird but I can't imagine life without them now...

It's November which also means I've been here more than 2 months now. It seems an age since I left New Zealand and so much has happened. I was talking to one of my friends the other day and I told her that this was most definitely the best decision I've ever made in my entire life. God, just listen to me, I'm talking as it today were my last day! But seriously though, there's still so much I haven't done - I haven't been to that medieval restaurant (but I'm gonna try and convince one of the guys to have his birthday there ;) ) and I haven't even been up the CN Tower! I haven't seen a baseball game but I totally missed my chance for that I think and I also haven't been to a hockey match, or a basketball game! (None of which I really give a shit about but y'know, you wanna go just to see what it's like right?) ( Like, when am I ever going to come back?) (Soon I hope).

Anyway, that's about enough of that. In other news, I'm going to see Cute with Chris: Live tonight which is very exciting. If you don't know what it is then I suggest you have a look at it (theres a link over there ----> somewhere on the right). It's something you either like or don't though so...

Novemeber comes right after the end of October which, if you didn't know is Halloween time. For those of you who don't know, this was my first, like, proper Halloween so I was totally kinda amped for it. I dressed up as an Eskimo which, to be honest, was kind of a cop out - I just bought a big jacket (which I needed anyway - it's getting fucking cold out. Though today I was outside in t-shirt and jeans but that's neither here nor there.) a fishing rod and a soft toy fish.

Anyway, yeah, so there were pre drinks in my room which was pretty ridiculous. There must have been about 25 people in there and if you've ever been in my room (which I'm sure none of you have) you'll know that it's not really built for that many people. Possibly about 10-12 comfortably. And any more than 4 is considered a 'fire' risk. I'm surprised actually, that the security guys didn't come up and that I didn't get a fine for the noise. But yeah, there was a parade thing on Church st (which is in the so called 'gay district') which was amazing. So many people! Just imagine my room during pre drinks but instead it was a whole street (does this make sense? I would imagine it might not). After that finished though, the whole night kinda lost momentum. There were a few house parties going on apparently but with us being such a big group it was hard to co-ordinate them (like being back in Montreal!) So after a while I just decided to go back to my room and begin the clean up which actually, didn't take that long but I have like, brown marks on my duvet where one of the girls must have rubbed up against it (she painted hereself brown and went as a Rastafarian).

Saturday night was more of the same really, we headed down to Neil Wycik which is the other student residence just down the street for a kegger. And I'll tell you what, that place was WAY too small for something like that. So I decided to leave that early as well. So, overall, an interesting, yet uneventful Halloween. except for when my camera kinda broke. Now I have to go through all this insurance shit. I just want someone to fix my camera guys. Is that too much to ask?

Also, what the hell am I gonna do with this fishing rod and my now?

Oh, it was also daylight savings today which I wouldn't have know if my laptop hadn't changed automatically.

Oh, yeah, and it was also totally snowing the other day. It was absolutely amazing. I can't wait for winter!

I think that's all.