Christmas in an airport

For all those at home in the UK, it just turned Christmas. For me and the many others here in Montreal Trudeau Airport, it's Christmas Eve. There are a lot of fed up faces. The queues have been excessively long. I spent 2 hours waiting to drop off my luggage, not even to check-in and get my boarding pass because I already had those. I have to admit though, the queue through security though long moved very quickly.
The past few days have been quite quiet, with people leaving one by one. Yesterday was really hard. The 3 girls left. I waved them off at the bus stop. Most of the remaining boys also departed. I didn't get to say bye to some of them.
I kept myself busy so as not to feel too sad and sorry for myself. I dropped of keys and books, did laundry and researched things for my project. I didn't have enough money on my card to pay for the dryer so I spent the evening watching a film and chatting to friends whilst blow drying my clothes. Second time this week that. Later on I also cooked all my food and boxed it up for today, then cleaned all my cooking equipment before shutting it away in Mihai's locker. This was an unusual arrangement considering I was leaving them for Gaston.
I slept in today on the reasoning that milling around all morning doing very little wouldn't be any fun whatsoever. I had just enough time to almost completely clean my room before Jeff came to pick me up. I said bye to Nico, feeling a little bad leaving him all alone on our corridor and departed Sherbrooke.
It feels weird to have left. I was so very grateful to have a lift to the airport instead of struggling with buses an public transport. Oh yeah, it saved me $30 dollars too :)
So now I'm here, at the airport. I've been here for 3 hours and at least 2 to go before my flight leaves because it was delayed. I should in fact be nestling myself comfortably into my seat but alas, Parisian airports and snow do not make for reliable transport links. I'm hoping that being delayed here, (where, with it's free wi-fi and an accessible plug socket, it's not too tragic) just cuts down my waiting time in Charles de Gaulle. However, that flight could also be delayed and I have been warned that I may miss it altogether.
It feels like the Christmas I was really ill, as in I'm not sure I'll be in much of a festive spirit. I'm listening to Christmas carols in a vain attempt to not become a female scrooge but it's hard because I don't want to leave and I don't want to spend Christmas day alone in an airport or on a plane.
So season's greetings, Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Frohe Weihnachten, С рождеством, Nollig Chridheil Feliz Navidad to one and all.
God bless.

T'is the season to be jolly

Thursday, 16h00 - perhaps even a few minutes earlier.  This is the moment when I realised  that my finals were done! Oh the relief. No joke, I spent the rest of the day bouncing. Technically it wasn't the last one, but Saturday's excuse for a final just didn't register as an exam. Well perhaps on the periphery, however it wasn't going to make me worry. My time to relax had finally arrived.  The sad thing is that I have no idea what I've done with myself since!I don't know what to do with myself. It's ever so slightly tragic.
Saturday, aside from the rédaction, for which I used the full 3 hours to write 506 words, was fairly entertaining. Hannah came up trumps by providing a corkscrew thus allowing me into the bottle of red wine that Victoria's parents had left. A group of us ended up joining Naiky in going to somebody's birthday party. Nicole stayed for a bit but left before the rest of us, so it was mostly me and some of the guy's discussing the art of draguer amongst other things. Oh it was fun. On the way back Mark plus friend were stood outside so I greeted them and stopped to chat. Chat mostly consisting of confusing the name Ishmael with smile and explaining to Mark that we call him rapist, what that means in French and why we call him that. It's not as harsh as it sounds I promise. On returning to my corridor I was beckoned to join Gaston and Florian who demanded to know why, if he's nicknamed rapist, I still talk to him. Ha.
On Sunday, Nicole and I decided to go shopping. I wanted to do something nice for the guys here because they've been so awesome but I didn't know what. In the end we put together little giftbags consisting of sweets and christmassy goodies. We attached ribbon and added their names as well as nicknames. I also bought christmas cards, just so I could add a personal message. We then set about distributing them and knocking on doors. Generally the responses were "awww that's so nice. Thanks!". Julian came out with "Why are you doing this? Nobody else is" Mate, we're being nice just be grateful! Bless him.

L-R: Me, P.E and Andrejean.

That evening was quite sad because I learnt that Andrejean and Pierre-Eduard were both leaving in the morning. So I hugged them plenty and helped them randomly with packing (and in Andrejean's case, drying of clothes). Victoria allowed me to see part of my Christmas present for the occasion. She's gotten everyone to write me a message in a little book. I was allowed to see theirs before they left. I had to try really hard not to cry. I was definitely teary-eyed. This was also the evening the girls put a bow on my head and presented me to the boys as a present. I'm sure I looked dashing. We also hung mistletoe in the kitchen but by last night that had been chopped off. No festive spirit!

The errr table

People are now leaving one by one. However, there were enough around last night to spark a random game of poker in the corridor. This may not have been so spontaneous for the boys but my involvement was. I can honestly say that they are some of the worst poker players I've ever seen and I don't claim to be a pro myself.
Most of the others also went to Siboire but returned on the last bus just after 12, which surprised me a little. Cup of tea in hand, I was roped into playing a game designed by the guys which involved answering all sorts of personal questions about yourself, from 'when was the last time you wet yourself?' to 'where do you see_____ in 10 years?' Entertainment a-plenty. I learnt that upon first impressions here I seemed uptight and very, very English. Nice.
I slept in late today and as a result was determined to get myself out of the residences. I went shopping and bought juice, butter and a flag for Victoria. It was our "Christmas" this evening. That is, we ate together and swapped presents. Following which we watched a Christmas film. Ahhh Christmas. I have only skim-read my little book so far and it is currently in Mark's possession so he can write something. I think I shall save it for the plane which may or may not be a good plan, depending on whether or not I end up bawling my eyes out.
I also discovered a boy from downstairs will be on the same flight as me to Paris. I don't know his name but he'll be on my flight! I'm hoping all of this ridiculous mess at European airports will be sorted when Friday swings by. If I have to spend any longer at Charles de Gaulle I will scream. Of course, that is not going to happen though. I shall get home without a hitch :D

Revise? I`d rather not...

So what with getting our final classes out of the way, I find myself trying to squeeze lots of typing up lectures and reading and general revision into a short space of time. To be quite frank i just don`t want to do it either. I`m slightly scared by the 2 literature exams (oh there`s another word my fingers don`t want to spell the English way)
Victoria and I delayed food shopping as much as possible and finished off the last of the turkey in the mean time (serious - that $10 turkey has been feeding us since Thanksgiving)
On Friday, we got the bus to Carrefour de l`Estrie,along with Nicole. She disappeared for a while and we set about trying to find her Christmas present. It`s the only one I have left to buy now. She appeared just as we were about to start our food shopping. I may have wasted the rest of the day. maybe, maybe not. i don`t know. Revision just blurs everything into one lump really.
Other than working, i was very excited to have finally organised to go out with Hannah and Nicole. The lack of nightlife has slowly been killing me, or at the very least driving me insane. I needed music and dancing. Saturday night this was. We started with pre-drinks and getting ready together. I spent half of this time wandering around in my pyjamas trying to cook tea also. We had a great time. It went a little downhill towards the end when Hannah stormed off and we couldn`t find her. She did eventually reappear back at the halls though so not the end of the world. Aside from that slight drama, my craving was satisfied. Get in.
Since then it has been all about getting the nose back to the grindstone. I`m now slightly confused that this is even a real phrase.
I made a chocolate cake. I don`t want to eat it because it`s a whole cake and also I have an ulcer the size of a penny (hyperbole much?). Nobody really seems to want it either! i think it`s because everyone is stressed and studying for exams. I`m still cheerful so at first I got asked if I had a recipe for happiness  and then if I was on drugs. This is by different people. What a laugh!
I`m currently in the library finishing off my notes so i can print them off. that way i can just read them through and be ready for tomorrow`s exam. As if by tomorrow I`ll have done half my finals.
I also can`t get my head around the fact that I`ll be home in less than a fortnight. It`s a really bizarre thought and I can`t decide if I like it or not....

Hostages

So Day 2 of our Quebec adventure. We spent the day with Georgie as well and had our day fairly well planned out, starting with breakfast. Oh OK, checking out came first but yes... breakfast. We found a lovely little place full of breakfasty goodies. Mmmm waffles. I didn't actually have a waffle saying that. Anyway, I forget in what order we did things. I think we may have gone on a postcard hunt and thus perused the nearby shops. I promise it's not all about shops!

We worked our way out of the walled part of the city and almost unexpectedly found ourselves outside the government building, a word I seem to be having problems with spelling in English. Oh dear. You can see the big wreath on the front. Classy. Manchester's idea of Christmas decorations is a gigantic inflatable Father Christmas outside the city hall. Poor in comparison. We couldn't get close to the building. Whether this is because you simply aren't allowed, or because the eager beavers were arriving to start the protest about raising university fees. At first I felt sympathetic to the cause, what with the brouhaha going on in the UK until I actually looked up the proposed changes. They pay c.$2500 per year. The increase is $500. Positively tame compared to the hijacking of English fees from £3200 to £7000+. I'm fairly certain they will still be able to afford an education. It seems these Quebecois don't know how good they have it!

Victoria at the choc. museum

Anyway that was totally off track. I blame the snow. It's gone to my head. From there we searched out the chocolate museum. There was even a free taste of chocolate on offer. It was however, much smaller than expected so after browsing the wares for sale in the shop we set off again. This time our destination was the plains of Abraham. Full of historical contexte and stuff that I have no idea what it is, it appealed to Victoria. We battled our way through the snow, which kept whipping up and seriously must be attracted like a magnet to the eyeball. There was also the problem of walking up a steep hill in the snow as well as avoiding the large piles of snow at the roadside. Crossing the street became a task equal to the hurdles.
However, we made it to the edge of the park before realising that one, it was frette à tabernak and well that there wasn't much to be done in a very snowy park. I made a snow angel and we attempted to make a snowman. It was definitely only an attempt since the snow was too fine. We did find boulders of snow though so we tried piling those up. Georgie then put her scarf on it, decapitating it in the process. It was quite the formless snow man. Whilst Georgie went to warm her cockles inside, Victoria and I tried to find sticks for arms but short of cutting down a tree, it wasn't happening. Instead we had a nosy at the citadelle, just next door. Sadly at this time of year it is no longer open for tourists such as ourselves. We went back to find Georgie. After drying ourselves off and warming up a little, we decided to head back inside the wall fro some lunch and to decide on the afternoon's activities. In our absence the protest had grown a fair bit, with plenty more students still arriving and the police shutting off nearby roads. Apparently they crashed a cabinet meeting. At least they didn't beat up royalty though.

After a little wandering we found a wonderfully quaint little restaurant. We opted for the midday special menu - thinking we were just getting the cheapest main course when in fact, we were treated to a starter, the main course, tea and a pudding. All for the grand total of $15. Bargainous meal!
Sadly with it being a Monday, it scuppered our plans of visiting the things we had missed out on within the walls the day before. We had a nice wander round and looked at a few things, just having a nice ramble after discovering that the Ursuline convent and a church were both closed. We ducked into some more shops to try to finish off the Christmas shopping. In one of these shops I found myself humming along to the music without really being aware what it was. In the end I had to ask the assistant if it was who I thought it was. My suspicions were confirmed when she came back brandishing a Mike Oldfield album. I am too cool for my own good.
From there we decided to hop on the ferry across the river. An artist we had spoken to the day before had suggested doing the trip just for the views. Not bad I have to say. I good view of Chateau Frontenac looming over the city. We didn't get off the ferry, simply staying aboard for the return trip. After a few more ramblings we made our winding way back to the hostel, stopping to pick up some food for dinner. However, once back at the hostel and checking my email, I discovered that our car-sharing trip has been cancelled. We panicked a little and tried to find out the bus times but we wouldn't make it to the station in time for the last one. We had to book ourselves in for another night. It was a quiet evening spent in the dorm, writing postcards, catching up on reading and not doing an awful lot really. We booked another car-share for the morning.
This should have been simple. Get up, go to station, go back to Sherbrooke. It wasn't. We ended up going to the wrong station so we missed our lift. Bad times. If we were waiting for the next bus we'd be there until 6pm, not exactly desirable since it would push up the cost of our trip by a large amount and also, we had work to do for class the next day. We went out on a limb and headed towards the Allostop office, hoping they would be able to hook us up with a lift. They did. This time, the woman gave us full and detailed directions to the correct place for our pick-up. We had a bit of time so we went for lunch. Again the midday menu proved to be a hit, if not quite as good value as the day before. Feeling much relieved to have a way home, we hopped on a bus. Arriving in plenty of time we found a nearby cafe and plonked ourselves there. Free wifi and warmth. Can't go wrong!
Thankfully Quebec did let us leave third time round (they always say that one's the charm) so by early evening we were back at the university having picked up something for dinner.
I hope next time I go to Quebec I manage to leave as and when I want!

Winter Wonderland

Quebec City - oh my, what a place! Our journey there went without a hitch (unless you count our driver playing Jon Lajoie to us). We were dropped off somewhere in Quebec but without having the slightest clue where or how to get to the old quarter. We asked a few people which didn't exactly help a huge amount. After finding the bus stop but no timetable we decided to pay a visit to the nearest hotel for a bit of information. The rather helpful man informed us that the bus came once an hour and we had just missed it. We opted for a taxi.
This saved us quite a bit of time and allowed us to drop our things at the hostel and go exploring. We didn't wander very far but found a number of things. It was dark already and snowing (it snowed pretty much constantly whilst we were there - it made taking photos at night kinda hard).
We stumbled across the German Christmas market. Sadly I didn't get any Glühwein, which makes me sad. By this point however, I had realised that my boots were NOT by any means suitable for this much snow and as a result I was wandering around with some icy puddles by my toes. Not so much fun. We managed to have a nice nosy around some shops, where I finally found something I've been dying to buy my god-daughter. SCORE! After some mooching we settled down for some dinner in a restaurant, which turned out to be down the road from our hostel proving that everything really is close together in the old quarter. I was most uncouth, taking off my boots and socks and using hand warmers to get some feeling back in my toes. Probably not what people want to see but I tried to be discreet about it at least! Although this was a fantastic idea and it made my feet feel about 100 times better, it did mean that this cupcake shaped hand warmer, courtesy of my mother, began setting itself off at random occasions all by itself. Hmm...
The next day we had a few things in mind to visit - first stop being shoooeeees! Man, I felt so much happier walking around in my new boots that kept my tootsies dry. We did a fair bit of shopping, I have now sorted all christmas presents with one exception. Sweet no?
I walked past one shop and saw something which instantly reminded me of my sister so I rushed in to buy it. Victoria was left not knowing exactly where I had disappeared to.

Our day wasn't entirely devoted to shopping. We visited the Basilic. Unfortunately, I seem completely incapable of pronoucing this correctly in English and often found myself refering to a rather large snake as appears in Harry Potter. Isn't it pretty? I like the wreath. The 2 candles say vigilance and espérance. Just to add some detail there. From there we went on a hunt for the Break-neck stairs. I was sorely mislead into thinking that these would be incredibly steep/narrow/some other sort of thing that would make a flight of steps particularly perilous but alas, they seem all to safe. The original steps, which may have been responsible for numerous injured parties, were replaced a long time. What a let down. They did however lead us to a very quaint shopping street. The photo doesn't really do it justice. It had classy christmas decorations!! I didn't even see tinsel in any of the shops. I think that this is because there wasn't any but you never know, one of the many snowflakes to land on my eyeballs could have blinded me somewhat.
Our aimless wanderings took us to many an interesting spot before we worked our way towards to Christmas market. First stop being lunch. I thought the christmas market was a bit of a let down to be honest - it was almost entirely food. I did get a nice sample of some ice cider which can compensate for it the lack of Christmassy things.
After the market, I followed my nose. Map skills? pah - who needs 'em. Besides the old quarter of Quebec City is so small before you know it you're back where you started. Getting lost wasn't going to happen. We walked along part of the fortification walls. where we found this snowman.  Isn't he cool? Looking all G, chillin' on a cannon. What a dude. I wish I could boast that we made him but sadly this is not the case. We continued along the wall and found ourselves back at the beginning (I said that's what happens!). We mooched over to Chateau Frontenac. That's a hotel but it's super fancy. We had a sniff around. I approve of the choice of Christmas decorations.
From there I think we returned to the hostel. We chatted away to teh Australian girl, Georgie, who was also in our dorm. The 3 of us went out for dinner. We went to an Irish bar. So cultural. I got a damn good burger though and some creme brulee. Yummy!
That's pretty much it for day one, aside from all the chatting and giggling that took place once back in the dorm. Day 2 can have a post of it's own - I'm sleepy!

Alba gu brath!

Not that I did anything to celebrate St. Andrew's day besides having it written on my door, thanks to Katie. I should have told Andrejean to whip out his whisky. In fact my entire week so far has been spent in a studious mush trying to get as much work done as possible before our weekend away. I haven't got quite as much done as I would have wanted but it's fair to say I have progressed hugely.
Aside from studying and going to lectures (though I will add that we are yet to return to our grammar class), there's only one or 2 things that have gone on. It's been an exciting week...
Julian and I settled our differences after Thursday. I may or may not have mentioned that already. Anyway, we hugged and made up, which is always nice :) Gaston asked if I wanted to join them watching a film so I squished myself into his room with Florian, Julian, Alison, Gaston and Patick (Alison's rather large stuffed toy dog). We watched 99 Francs which is so French it's unbelievable and being based on a book by Frederick Beigbeder it was always going to be weird. I was absolutely freezing towards the end and was trying to snuggle up unnoticed between Florian and the dog. It was much easier with the dog. I do wonder what Florian would have done had I openly tried to snuggle up. (I'm sniggering to myself a little right now).
The girls and I were all fairly giggly last night. I put this down to a mixture of generally being in high spirits and the fact that the 4 of us guzzled a whole sugar pie. Sugar rush much? After that, with it being Thirsty Thursday all the troops appeared. Habillé span me round numerous times in the corridor as I was trying to get to Nicole's room. He also attempted to sing along to Michael Buble singing some christmassy song without knowing any of the lyrics. They then all admired my Christmas decorations. Before long they were getting the munchies so the kitchen was invaded. I took myself off to bed as Hervés rant about colonisation and alliances between random countries (he wasn't entirely making sense - he was talking a fair bit about rainbows) was coming to an end.
I really wish I knew how to work my radiator. Either my rooms is boiling or I open a window and promptly freeze. However, in comparison to the UK we are enjoying the rather balmy temperatures of around 1 degrees. Get in.

Thanksgiving equals family time!

I was so excited by the imminent arrival of my sister, yet when she actually arrived, I was more confused by how I had failed to see the bus so all I could do was stand, stare and say "How did you get here?" Not exactly the greatest of greetings in the world now is it. Before long I was hugging her senseless and introducing her to anyone that might be even remotely interested. I did make her a cup of tea, a must at the end of a long journey of course. Plus, I'd borrowed a mattress so she didn't have to sleep on the floor, which I did when I visited Strasbourg. Clearly Sherbrooke is of a higher calibre to Uni. Robert Schuman, with it's mattress-loaning facility.
Anyway, since she had a long day, the plan was to have an early night but it didn't quite happen like that. Ah well.
Thursday rolled around and I trundled off to my lecture as usual. This was followed by a group trip to the supermarket in order to buy all the things we would need for Thanksgiving dinner. We found a turkey for $10 - bargain. It does however mean I have masses of leftover turkey in my fridge now.  I made green curry for dinner but hadn't counted on it being spicy out of the jar, so I added a chilli pepper and well, it was a little spicy I'll give you that. Being Thirsty Thursday, of course everyone was rather merry and provided us with much entertainment, since they were mostly pleasant. Gaston was thoroughly entertaining. He finished off the leftover green curry, and was saying how yummy it was until he realised it was spicy and then promptly shoved his head under the tap. Bless.
Katie and I did bicker about how Friday would be spent, she wouldn't decide is basically it. Being sisters though it didn't last long. Gaston did ask her if she was my brother. I love that boy!
We agreed to spend the day in Sherbrooke as it would be rather expensive to go elsewhere. We started off with lunch and I made Katie order poutine (what? It's a quebecois speciality!) even though she couldn't have the cheese/curd stuff.

From there we went to the history museum which was clearly aimed at school children. The first exhibit was about the history of Sherbrooke and included some recordings of a guy with a horrendous accent. It just sounded wrong that he was speaking French!! The second exhibit was much more interesting, it was about the nativity around the world. I made a Christmas card for Katie. Well I was hardly going to turn down the opportunity of cutting, sticking and colouring in now was I! It was rather interesting to see all the interpretations of the nativity and how differently cultures portray it. From there we had a wander over to Lac-des-Nations but since it was freezing (il faisait frette à tabernak!) we didn't stay long and spent longer getting hot chocolate in a nearby coffee shop. Since it was still early, we went to the shopping centre. We had a mosey round and bought some Christmas decorations for my room. Sadly after we did decide to return chez moi  I put us on a bus going in the wrong direction. We had to get off and walk back. Even worse, I'm fairly certain it was the same driver when the bus finally appeared. Oops.

Saturday morning was a waste of time. Katie may have found it useful since she got on with work while I was at my lecture, but I would have happily spent the time sleeping instead. We didn't even do the essay so we'll have to do 2 next week instead of one.  After I came back, Katie disappeared to the supermarket (clearly my tour guide skills are so top notch she felt comfortable going alone) and I studied. I'm  hyper-cool! As soon as she came back we started on Thanksgiving dinner. Katie was in charge of the turkey. She got a little stressed as it's the first turkey she's done, the same reason why I got out of doing it! However, we rounded up the troops, peeled, chopped, (in some cases hacked) diced away and got the accompaniements on the go. The we offered out some free food to a select few (the remaining few still around and on the corridor this weekend) and by 7.15, so only 45 mins after our intended aim, we were reheating veggies in the microwave and serving up the turkey. The role of carving was left to P.E and Andrejean. It was like father and son! incredibly cute.

It took a while to convince Andrejean not to eat the incredibly pink turkey leg that looked set to poison someone. I also spooned up some veg on his plate. Mommaduck obviously just likes to mother people. Clearly, I also like to talk about myself in the third person. Anyway the meal was rather lovely, though my original shuffling of plates proved a futile attempt partly because I got the plate's owners wrong and partly because people swapped. I had tried to spread out franco-/anglo-phones (this also worked to spread out boys and girls) but we ended up with the 4 other girls together and me, cornered by the boys. Fail. Anyway, I enjoyed the meal! I hope our guests did too.
We had to dash a little afterwards as we had plans to watch Harry Potter. The boys, being the sweetiepies that they are did ALL the washing up for us without being asked. Unlike Georgie I won't be giving a whole review of the film, but to my surprise, it was much better than any other HP films I have seen. I admit this is limited to the first 2, but they were pretty dire and it frustrated me that they changed much of the story. However, HP is not at all a bad watch, even if I did hiccup loudly at inconveniant moments, much to the amusement of well everyone in the entire theatre.
We returned, rounded up P.E since he was the only one with his door still open and ate pumpkin pie. The kitchen was being used to play drinking games so we did have to put up with some loud, drunkeness but it was mostly enjoyable.

Yesterday was a little sad. I helped Katie pack and slipped in a few items that I no longer need i.e summer dresses, heels and birthday cards. We were able to hang out in the morning before I took her to get her bus to Montreal. I would have liked to go with her and if it hadn't been a Sunday I would have said let's make a day of it. Alas, a sparse bus timetable that offered only a 5 hour round trip with no time to do anything but wave my sister off in another town, convinced me otherwise. I would gladly have had her stay a little longer.
On the bright side, Victoria and I have booked to spend next weekend in Quebec City. This took a long time staring at maps of drop off points and bus routes. However it is feasible and our explorations have not yet ended. Hoorah!

This is NOT how you make jelly shots

Saturday was just not a day for working, as much as I may have wanted (which I didn't) procrastination was the way forward. Nicole and I even joined forces which resulted in the idea of making jelly shots. Sadly I did end up calling them jell-o shots after a while. Darn Americanisms. Anyway, we rounded up the troops (i.e. myself, Hannah and Nicole) and set off for Carrefour de l'Estre. Essential for the SAQ where we picked out a nice bottle of vodka. We also ambled into the shopping centre where I kindly bought a plate and some forks, meaning that my sister, who shall arrive sometime today, can actually eat like a civilised person and not off the table or with her fingers. What a good sister I am.
So yes, upon our return we raided Victoria's room for the jelly and to tell her she would be joining us that evening. I've never made jelly before. There might be special techniques one can use but ours were pretty concentrated at the bottom. By this I mean, they were chewy, which in my mind should never be a quality imputed to jelly. The evening panned out with us consuming said vodka jelly shots and a few games. Hannah, the least likely to do so, was the first to head to bed, but did stay long enough to witness Nicole's very first shot. I think we are very slowly getting her used to alcohol. It was a most enjoyable evening, which as is becoming more and more regular, ended with my good self scribbling on doors. My favourite has to be demi-habillé's door. Following a previous discussion with Victoria about what meat actually was, I wrote le premier choix pour cannibalisme and muscle-icious. He is quite muscly you see. His reaction when he returned was pure hilarity. If anybody asks, it wasn't me. I seem to have convinced him otherwise for the time being, however, I did want to share this piece of comic genius.
My days since have been shared between attempting to study and ringing up countless banks. Oh and there was cake on Monday for Tara's birthday.
Making my day yesterday were 2 skype calls, allowing long over due catch-ups. I love that Charlotte's life sounds like it came out of a trashy film/novel, not that I mean her life is trashy but I can just imagine the opening sentence or monologue, epilogue? Oh film vocab is beyond me, it remains a mystery to me how I got a 2:1 in German film last year, because I had no idea what I was talking about. Enough of this tangent, aside from reiterating my excitement about Katie's arrival and/or complaining about a grammar class that I ought to go to but downright wish didn't exist, I have no news. My life definitely wouldn't make a good trashy novel at the moment!

Let's ignore the crying and talk about free pizza :)

The bruise on my arm, though inevitably in some form or other, is impressively not dramatic. Perhaps my bruising tendencies are fading. That would be awesome.
Plans for playing a mini match on Wednesday were scuppered by the rain. Wednesday was not the greatest day in the world. We got our grammar tests back. A respectable mark, but I wanted to clarify something with the tutor who promptly told me that my French was appalling. Even though I returned to my seat she came over just to reassure that my French really is that bad. I didn't stay long after that. So Victoria and I were sat in my room and Mihai walked past, so I asked him to tell me bluntly how bad my French was. Boys fail at being tactful. I got all worked up, not just about my French but about how I felt I wouldn't be able to get a good enough grade to cancel out last years. I cried. Victoria was all lovely and supportive. Mihai (and I will blame the fact that he's male) quite frankly was useless. After I had stopped crying, he just said "it's just a mark". I can't think of much worse he could have said!
I rang my mum afterwards and sent my sister many abusive messages for not being on skype when I needed her. I got all worked up again and cried down the phone to my mum. Making it the second time in 2 weeks and I am not a crying kinda of girl really. Perhaps this is why they have organised for my sister to come and visit next week. I'm very excited by this. :D She doesn't realise how much I am going to invade her personal space when she gets here.
Later that evening the boys kept commenting that I looked really tired and my eyes were red so I should go to bed. I told them it was because I'd been crying. After explaining, they thoroughly insulted the tutor, offered to bash her over the head and told me my French was good. There was a hug or 2 thrown in for good measure. I love these boys :)

Thursday evening unfolded quite nicely. It started off with no plan and turned into prancing around to classic rock and jazz before deciding that ordering takeaway was a brilliant idea. We looked up domino's and placed an order on-line. I noticed that we'd ordered too many cheesy breads so I rang up to correct the order. This didn't quite go to plan. The first order turned up, much to our confusion as well as the delivery man. He rang up and we sorted stuff out. Turns out the guy on the phone hadn't realised we were correcting an order. He told us to keep the extra food and just pay for what we wanted. There's us thinking, sweet, free cheesy bread! It wasn't long before the guy rang back. He hadn't been able to get hold of the second delivery and so told us to keep it, free of charge. We effectively got more than double our order. It was a HUUUUGE amount of food! We shared some out on the corridor and boxed up the rest as leftovers (I think I'll get at least a 4th meal out of it). We whacked on Mamma Mia to watch and sang along to our hearts content before being asked to quieten down. It was kinda late and I suppose we were singing pretty loud. There were lots of other noisy people on the corridor too though! Tsk, those French boys! It was a fun evening! After the girls had gone to bed, I stayed in the kitchen with the boys, generally just laughing at them.

Friday was quite dull, I didn't do much except prepare my cake for the souper international. It was more fun than I was expecting it to be. Only one of the 4 brought a main course so they ordered in pizza. That would have been pizza overload, so I avoided it and munched on lasagna instead. It was very chilled out, everyone was having a laugh and joking. One of the profs. had brought her chum who took out his guitar and sang for us. Somehow I got made to sing, only they picked Hey Jude and I don't know most of the lyrics! Totally made it up!

I've already had my class this morning but I sort of want to take a nap. I should get some work done but sleep is just so much more inviting!

I'll never be the Quarterback

Alright, my brain is struggling with putting things in chronological order this week. It's all a bit mushed up. At some point I went shopping, well I went to a Canadian version of boots. I treated myself to some moisturiser, some sleeping tablets, a face mask and a whole host of chocolate. It wasn't just for eating, it was for baking. I made a very lovely chocolate torte. I didn't exactly think it through though; crushing the biscuits took me forever and I resorted to using my hairbrush handle. The end result was definitely worth it though. Nom nom.
We had our second grammar exam on Wednesday. It was a little different to the first one. In order to revise for it, I had written out lots of rules and exceptions on my door in chalk. I used up the back of my door so I used the front too. It was kinda amusing for my corridor who clearly thought I was mental. I also taught myself 2 tenses (they were related) because it had appeared a lot in previous exercises and I thought I would need it for the exam. It did not. How irritating. However, I can now form all 15 tenses as appear in my 501 French Verbs. Hyper-cool? I think so!
Since I'd wasted time attempting to understand La Québécoite I had no time to read the book for Thursday's lecture. My solution was to find the film online and watch that instead. The lazy students' approach worked surprisingly well since in the lecture he actually compared the book to the film a fair bit. Get in. Thursday evening was blissful, in the way that I had no class to go to! I was able to spend my evening doing whatever the hell I wanted! woohoo! I actually spent the evening teaching/revising the subjunctive to/with Nicole. The use of our doors as a chalkboard is actually really useful! She got a little frustrated by some of the conditions which introduce the subjunctive so to prove to her that not all francophones have the slightest clue how to use it correctly we went to the kitchen and asked which of the following phrases lead to the subjunctive (we used je doute que, j'aimerais que, c'est une bonne idée que and je ne pense pas que) No one has yet correctly answered that all 4 should. Point proven, frustration alleviated.
I think Friday was as productive in so far as we did some food shopping. We had major issues at the checkout with our cards though. They just didn't like debit cards. Eurgh. I like having yummy food to munch on though :D Saturday morning should have brought us a contôle but something about the profs computer and printer having a fallout (that could be massively invented, I didn't really follow what she was talking about) so we didn't and instead did an exercise meant for 4 weeks time. Very bizarre. Could have been a good thing since I'd been woken up again by people on the corridor. They were very nice and did whisper and go elsewhere after I popped my head out but I had problems dropping off again. I made up for it with a nice nap afterwards. Oh yeah.
Last night was epic. Alot of people went for KFC and the cinema but we wouldn't have been ready in time so after getting pretty giddy over dinner, Nicole, Hannah and I took a round-the-houses route to Siboire (cheers Hannah). We kinda thought that was where they were going after the film but they didn't. We had a great time though! MMMM cocktails :D We had a disney sing-along in the bus station on the way back, which completely put us in the mood for prancing to music. We grabbed speakers and ipods and headed for the salon where we fond the guys. Not entirely sure whether they found our giddiness amusing or annoying but they all drifted off to bed (at fairly reasonable times), but once having the room to ourselves we cranked out Abba tunes and danced away. Nicole and I added a few decorations to people's door and in th process scared the living daylights out of Pierre-Edouard. Apparently hearing scratching on your door after having watched Paranormal Activity is pretty terrifying.  Oopsy.
Today, well originally I thought it would be quite lazy after such a late night last night, but Tara spotted some people playing american football and took me and Vincent to join in. It was pretty good fun actually! I had no idea who I was playing with, but it was fun! They all left after a while but Tara knew one of them so we borrowed the ball and the 3 of us had a bit of a throw about. I cannot throw properly to save my life. They spent ages trying to knock the rugby out of me and to make me catch like a footballer. Fun times. That's my exercise for the week. I think I am gonna have an epic bruise on my arm now though. Bleurgh.

Remember Remember

I went for a nice run, well sort of a jog on Tuesday. It was an attempt to up my motivation. It was freezing outside and I wish I'd worn gloves. I ran the whole way around campus and didn't walk any of it. Proud? Just a tad :) The boys told me I was mental. Exercise felt good though.
Wednesday strolled around and I had barely done any work. Well I`d actually done 2 weeks work not 1 the week before so I was OK for grammar. The reading for my afternoon lecture wasn`t exactly finished either, nor for Thursday's lecture. (Did I even mention that I got my results back and didn`t fail?? Go me, I'm in the 3rd quartile). I plan to do the reading at some point before finals. I feel so American saying finals so it's all good.
I felt rather icky on the Thursday actually. I been kept up with a migraine the night before. Boo. Our evening class didn't exactly help. One of the tutors said that I was a bad student and a bad influence on Victoria. Even after I said that I was really insulted by this, she carried on. Victoria said nothing. The best I got was Astrid's interjection that it wasn't that, it was that Victoria was a good influence. After all the work I've been doing, to the point where my corridor tell me that I work too hard, it was really offensive to be told that and it hurt even more that Victoria just smiled, as if to affirm it. I made my excuses and left, skyping my mother and sister at what was for them stupid o'clock in the morning so I could have a good cry.
I was awake when people started drifting back from a party somewhere, so I chilled out in the kitchen, helped Nathan make chips and gave out chocolate. Sadly, for one night only my insomnia came back. I just couldn't sleep. I got up and did stuff, like getting my mail at 6am. I skyped my sister around 7am for which I was told off for being up so early. I then went and did some shopping. I did actually take a nap in the afternoon, after Nicole and I had planned the rest of the day which included shopping for things for that night.
It was Bonfire night and I was determined to celebrate it. I didn't think we'd really get away with a bonfire or fireworks on campus. Instead, we attempted to make parkin. I say attempted. I think the video will explain all. I have no idea what went wrong!! Oh well. We also made an effigy. He had a face, hands and shoes and a name tag. We rounded up a few people and went outside, shoving our stickman into the remains of a snowman from the first snow the week before. He didn't burn very well. Oh well. We played with sparklers. None of the Canadians or frenchies seemed it get it and very quickly went back inside. Ne'er mind, at least Nicole and Hannah got into our very British celebration.
Afterwards we were a little bit silly and used the extra paper and markers that we had. The girls, after a joke that arose in Toronto made a sign for my door that says (in french) Because of hugs Seòna is pregnant with twins. There are 2 fathers :O. This clearly has got people's attention, though I wish they'd read it properly since Nathan asked if I really was pregnant. We've also told most of the boys that they are one of the fathers. It's quite entertaining.  I've now taken the sign off my door.
Victoria and I were quite spectacularly late for Saturday's class yet it didn't seem to have started. We got all our work back. It stretched out a little bit but soon enough I was back in halls having lunch whilst everyone else munched on breakfast. Nicole and I went swimming. Most energising I have to admit. I wasn't counting my laps bit I swam a fair distance. Then I did some diving. Just off the side of the pool. I was not joining in with the group of boys who were throwing themselves off the diving boards any old how. I swear sometimes that it had to hurt.
I've spent the rest of my time trying to read a book for Wednesday. I say trying. It is so obscure and ultimately boring that, no word of a lie I have fallen asleep 3 times whilst reading it. I still don't have much clue what it's about either. The author doesn't seem to want to stick to one langauge or write in full sentences. Mighty confusing.
Somehow it's reached Monday again. Time escapes me sometimes and I don't really know where it has gone...

Hallowe'en

After such a wonderful week it was hard to get back into the swing of studying. I hadn't exactly made it easy for myself. Although I'd taken a book with me, with the best intentions of reading on the bus, I managed to get about a third of the way through before the lecture. Better than none I suppose. I also had a 5-6 page essay to write about time management. Clearly I was demonstrating nothing of the sort since I was finishing it and printing it off just before the class. Doing this actually kept me hidden away until Thursday evening so when Hallowe'en weekend swang by I really wanted to do nothing at all!
On Friday afternoon we shopping for some fancy dress. They go all out over here. We didn't want anything too fancy though, just some wings and masks. We joined the masses heading over to a campus party in G-13. Well there was free beer, of course it was going to attract people. I put on a party dress and heels for the first time and donned my wings and mask. The mask was feathery and I kept geting feathers up my nose and in my mouth everytime I drank, spoke, breathed... There was music and dancing! 2 things I have missed muchly. Despite knowing I had an exam at 9am the next morning, I didn't care and was convinced to join people heading for maison jaune. I was wrongly under the impression that this was a bar or a club. It was not. It was somebody's house and no-one seemed to know whose. It was also a trek away. Lots of walking  in heels? Hannah and I were no so impressed. We did have Gaston walking in the middle of us though. He was enjoying looking a bit like a pimp most likely. Well until we stopped so Hannah could throw up into a bush.

Not a clue what was wrong with her - 1 beer is definitely not enough to do that. We spent a fair amount of time in this random party house running to the toilet generally pushing to the front of the queue. Definitely time to go home. The problem? Neither of us had anything more than keys and a student card with us, we didn't actually know where we were and despite having come with a big group, could I find anyone? No. I left Hannah by the door and went on a hunt. I found one person and came back to find Hannah being chatted up. The guy did not appreciate me taking Hannah away. She looked like she very much did! We went outside, asked a random guy for directions to the bus stop and went. Pierre-Edouard caught up with us. We had a half an hour walk to the bus stop. At one point I took my heels off but Sherbrooke pavements were littered in things that are not friendly to bare feet (it felt like walking on glass) so much so that heels were preferable.
We did manage to catch a bus and were back at the residences by half 12.  Not that this means I got an early night. That would be asking a bit much now wouldn't it.

The test went quite smoothly for the little sleep I'd had (I also got up early, though I did have a good breakfast as a result). In fact,  I got 91% which funnily was the class average.  We had planned a night out for that Saturday, which was the real reason we had bought masks and wings, but with Hannah not feeling good and Victoria not really liking clubs it didn't happen. Doesn't matter. I WILL have a night out eventually. I spent the rest of my extended weekend (so until Tuesday) doing no work. It was wonderful. Well I did say I was totally unmotivated. I watched lots of TV instead. It was a sad moment when I realised I was fully caught up on every series I've been keeping track of. As a result it was hello Megavideo, Glee season 2? Yes please.

Niagara Falls

My role as Mommaduck continued but although I got us safely to the hostel, we kinda did circle the block first. It was dark and I missed the street sign!!!

passing the American falls

Although we had 2 nights here, we only had 1 day. An early morning it was! As appreciative of the free breakfast I was, the teasing kettle but no teabags was just a little too much to handle. Instead I filled up on toast before we trekked down to the centre of the action. We bought ourselves an adventure day pass, which gave us access to most of the main attractions. I think it lasts for a weekend, but we were going to cram it all into one day. The first attraction was the Maid of the Mist. How could it have been anything else?? It was possibly the last weekend of the year that she was running.

We donned the ever so attractive ponchos (the first of 3) and went aboard. The foamy stuff by the pier looked absolutely disgusting. We plonked ourselves by a railing at the front of the boat (I hope my lack of nautical terms here doesn't upset my dad) . I was sort of vying for my spot with a young girl. I felt kinda mean. I also accidentally elbowed her in the face apparently. Clearly I am a horrible, horrible person who should watch her elbows when taking photos around shorter people. The Falls themselves aren't actually as big as I thought they were; I knew they weren't the biggest in the world but still. They were still damn impressive. Oh and you get REALLY wet in the pool of the Horseshoe falls. The spray goes up higher than the waterfall. Sadly, my poncho wasn't really long enough to stop my legs getting drenched. After we had disembarked, i sought out a hand dryer. The one I found was broken so I resorted to dabbing my legs dry(or drier) with paper towels. I'm so cool. In the meantime, Hannah was yet again indulging her love of squished pennies and getting any available by borrowing all sorts of coins from anyone and everyone.
From there we headed closer to the falls for our next 2 attractions. Sadly, on our way there I asked a passerby to take a photo of us.  >>> Said passerby managed to take the photo but then dropped my camera and broke the lens. My history with digital cameras is appalling. I shouldn't be allowed to own one in truth, but as though that's going to stop me. I was gutted. The woman was also feeling pretty guilty and gave me money to get it fixed. So my photos looked like this.one below. Bad times

Amazingly, whilst mooching around the gift shop at Table Rock, after some prodding, poking and generally abusing my camera The lens went back it. Trying my luck, I wondered whether it would come out if I turned the camera on again. AND IT DID!! It focused and did everything a good little camera should. WAHEYYYYY!!!
Stop 2 was Niagara's Fury. Sounds interesting enough and we were given another poncho. It was a 4D effects things. Yes I know, what is 4D? It means that the floor rumbled and moved and we got wet. A bit. It was a pretty effective way to explain the history of the falls though to be fair. By this point I was starving, but since we had an allotted time for Journey Behind the Falls (at least I think we did) we didn't have time for lunch, just a quick snack. Chocolate and crisps : Healthy!!
Stop 3 was less exciting than it sounded but it got you pretty close to the falls and you also got another poncho, this time in a sexy yellow colour. It had lots of information about random Fall-related things. Did you know the first person to go over in a barrel was a 63 year-old woman who said no-one should ever do it again?? She took her cat with her. The poor thing.

By this point it was raining and it was definitelhy time for lunch. We took some rail thing that took you about 50m (if that) up a hill purely because it was free. We then hunted down a restaurant.
We found a pretty good one. Do you know why I think it was so good?? Because, well not only was the food pretty darn good though I have no idea what I ate any more, IT HAD UNLIMITED TEA!! The waiter may have gotten fed up with sending him back and forth to refill my teapot but I was making the most of it being UNLIMITED. Potentially the best $2 I spent all day. The meals were also really big so we stayed there a while before moving on. We had to go back the way we came getting another ride on the rail thing. Our last stop was supposed to be some other Falls related thing but we arrived a little after the last tour had left so we couldn't go. By this point it was raining a fair bit but we weren't too far from the hostel so back we went.  We spent a while debating where we would be able to find the rest of the souvenirs that people wanted without trekking around in the rain.
Thankfully the rain stopped so we went back to the town centre and explored the excessively touristy main street. We got all our souvenirs though, and more which we can't say for Toronto. After some grand old purchases I insisted that everyboy ate something, even if just a snack. 3 meals a day and all that jazz!
Weighed down and realising it was pretty late we went back to the hostel to pack up our stuff.
Our bus left at 7.45 and the hostel owners were kind enough to put out breakfast early just for us! It included teabags!! I was happy. Not so happy that we didn;t realised the time and I got 1 burning hot sip before we had to run out the door.
We have reached Sunday, the last day of our travels. It was spent exactly thus. Travelling. 2 hours to Toronto, 6 hours to Montreal and 2 hours to Sherbrooke and the 20 minutes to the uni. We had a 4 hour layover in Toronto.We deposited our bags in a lock which put my stupidly good packing skills to the test and set off. We had been told that Kensington Market might be a good place for souvenirs but it was in fact a slightly creepy area. We hurried away as quick as our feet could carry us and went to the mall. Yes I'm using the word mall. Much more success, especially after a H&M trip. I bought hair accessories. Shiny, pretty ones :D Then we went for lunch before getting back to the bus station. By the time we got back to Sherbrooke, which was quite late, my bum cheeks were killing. It was an excellent week's worth of travels, even if it did rinse me of money. I love travelling!

I'm a good mommaduck

We started the morning off with a bit of repacking before heading down for breakfast. Hannah and I made it down considerably earlier than the other 2 so we weren't all eating at the same time. It was a BIG breakfast though. I still haven't quite got used to the size of the portions. Our day was fully planned this time, so having checked out and deposited our backpacks into a locker, we set off with map in hand. Once again I was the navigator which led to me being named mommaduck. I think this came from a Hannah quote about wandering round in circles without me. The other 3 are my ducklings :)

Our first stop was Fort York, formerly used by British soldiers. Apparently, Toronto used to be called York, no doubt after the English original. Those Yorkers sure got around a bit, I mean it was my second city in a matter of days to be named after the place. Anywho, I'm getting off track. The Fort wasn't the greatest attraction but it only cost us $3.25 so who can complain. We got to see cannons and wander round old buildings with random things on show. We only have one audio guide between us and it was pretty quiet so either we crowded round it and didn't move or we just gave up and wandered around regardless. We probably like the armoury best. There was a bit which played songs that soldiers would have sung/played to chill out and you could sing along. So "tow row row row row row row row row row of the British grehehehenerrrrrrdieeerrrrrs!". There's a video and I must admit I look like I'm having far too much fun in it. I'm cool really!!!
I feel like we may have gone for lunch after this, or at least that we should have but I can't recall doing so.

Second stop was my choice of activity : Toronto's Music Garden. It was designed to represent Bach's suite no.2 for unaccompanied cello. It probably looks better in summer where things are flowering but I enjoyed finding all the different movements and things. I have no idea how it represented a piece of music but I'm sure some genius thought it out. Actually, these little signs may have explained it. I should have read them more closely.... Och weel.
From there we moved on to Hannah's choice. By this time we had decided that her messed up accent was kinda South African so we set her the challenge to sound American for the day. To level the playing field we all had to put on accents. Nicole was trying to be English, Victoria was putting on a convincing Russian that reminded me far too much of Liudmila (a professor from Sheffield's Russian department) and I was trying to be Irish. The slight problem with that is that I sort of drift between Irish and Scottish and a dreadful mixture in between. It was ever so amusing to us. We were supposed to be carrying on at the Brewery (our destination) but everyone else gave up. The barman was trying to guess where we were from which we told him would be difficult (the concept of 4 traveller's from different places seems unheard of). His response, and I quote "what did you spin a wheel and decide, hey, I'm going to be South African today." Ah, it was of great amusement to us. The brewery tour was pretty good. We got 2 glasses of beer and a free glass in the price. The beer wasn't my favourite but it was free so naturally I was going to drink it!
Having accomplished all of our aims relatively early we set off on a souvenir hunt. On the way we found a Mexican restaurant. Nicole had been craving it for days so it seemed a perfect stop for lunch. Wow we had a late lunch.... It was really good food actually. I spent a fair amount of time trying to complete another crossword because somewhere along the way I had found another metro crossword.
So after some scrumptious food, we headed for the market. As lovely as the market was, it wasn't so useful in finding souvenirs or postcards.

On our way back to the hostel we stopped to explore the church across the road. It was getting late and they wanted to shut the doors so I had enough time to light a customary candle and mutter a quick prayer. The Queen visited this church earlier in the year. It was on their notice board. I also had time to look at that clearly!
So we collected our bags and things from the hostel, bought some postcards there and made a very non-beeline for the bus station. We did have plenty of time so it wasn't a problem. We eventually found some souvenirs in a shopping centre in a Hallmark shop - yes a card shop. Toronto is not the most touristy of cities, but I quite liked it that way. Not as much as I liked New York.
It's very easy to navigate even if it was freezing. I was volontarily wearing 6 layers, never mind Nicole. She didn't get a choice. I wasn't having her getting any more ill, so she had to stay wrapped up at all times. She also got cold and flu relief shoved down her throat. I'm a good mommaduck!
Aside from some people watching at the bus station that is it for Toronto!

Being stalked by the Terracotta Army (Torono Style)

We arrived in Toronto a little after midnight, after a much more pleasant bus journey, jumped in a taxi and headed for the hostel. Not so much an exciting start to a city, but after spending all day on a bus, my bum cheeks were incredibly happy. It was a little strange changing out of pyjamas into other pyjamas. Yes, I had got on the bus in my pyjamas, but they could be mistaken for joggers. Maybe?
The next morning was a little confusing for us. The 2 girls who had been in the dorm also had both gone, suitcases and all. However, there was a LOT of stuff and belongings that was still hanging around, things like shampoo, a toothbrush, magazines, drinks, cold medicine... Goodness knows how long some of it had been there.Anyway, having all sufficiently cleaned ourselves up for the day, we went in search of breakfast. This wasn't hugely successful and we ended up at subway. It did however allow us to whip out the maps and plan the day properly. Actually, no it didn't. We just worked out how to get to The Royal Ontario Museum - Victoria's choice.
The cold had definitely caught us out. It must have been at least 10 degrees colder than New York (celcius that is, just to specify).
So yes, a short walk to the subway, where I picked up a free metro newspaper. Not that I read any of it but I did pass much of the rest of the day absorbed in the crossword.  :D

As we approached the ROM, the others noted a few signs saying that the Terracotta Army was in town. I sighed. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that army stalks me. I tried to convince them it wasn't worth seeing. I failed however, the $8 surchage did the job.
I promised them that this was just as good. It also turned out that there were miniture versions for sale in the gift shop which is almost better seeing as they copied the ones with complete faces and with no limbs missing.
We spent a good long while mosying around the museum. It had plenty of things to look at and an exhibition for everyone. I got all excited by the Chopin one. I don't even like Chopin. Well, I have nothing against the man or his playing but I find his compositions a little samey. Nevertheless, the exhibition was good.
Thursday is obviously a day for school trips because there were school children (of varying ages) running around all over the place. Ok so not all of them were running, most of the older ones were in fact wandering around with clipboards occasionally taking note of something of interest (though mostly their faces suggested anything but). We found Dorey, or a Dorey look-a-like in the wildlife section. Did you know that if my species were picked at random I would be a plant? Not even a specific type of plant, I could be a tree, or a flower or alagae, just a generic plant. This was around the time that I discovered Hannah's surprising knack for recognising animal skulls. We lost Nicole and Victoria for a while but found then hiding out in the dinosaur section. After a while our tummies began to rumble so it was time to leave the lovely big museum and find lunch. We went to so egg specialist place, at least I'm fairly certain everything on the menu included eggs. Apart from my tea. That was egg free. Thankfully.
After lunch, which took us to the mid afternoon, we planned out the rest of the day which included an onward march towards Casa Loma. I was the chief navigator :) I always get us where we are going and 3 minutes before last entry. Oh yes.

Casa Loma was Nicole's choice. It's a mock medieval chateau built by some scottish general. As a result there were several Scottish flags around :D
We all sorted ourselves out with a leaflet and an audio guide each. I was very good and got both in French. I was only one to get the audio in French. It was quite easy to understand. Well when it wasn't hopelessly dull so I stopped listening. There's only so much I need to hear about a dining table and I'd had enough after 5 minutes. I wonder if he said anything more interesting... I think the Princes may have visited at one point. I could be making that story up though.
We realised that the place was wanting to close so we didn't actually get to see all of it, but the majority at least. Time had slipped away from us so we went back to the hostel. We were planning on going out on a bar crawl that night so we wanted plenty of time to eat and get ready.
Once back at the hostel, Hannah promptly fell fast asleep and Nicole, who had picked up a cold, also looked like she could use a good night's sleep (and a healthy dosage from me and my travelling pharmacy). Around half 8, Victoria and I decided in hushed whispers to forsake the night out and set about finding takeaway instead of ushering the others out of bed and off to a restaurant . A good choice over all I think. We had delicious pizzas which were very large and left us contently stuffed for a "quiet night". Since when was it a quiet night with 4 girls in a dorm room though? I think it accumulated in singing "Be Our Guest" from Beauty & the Beast at the top of my voice around midnight. Not exactly the most considerate for my neighbours sadly. The next morning, whilst wandering down the corridor with Hannah, a girl actually said "Oh you're the singer from next door." Half embarrassed, half shocked I didn't get much of a response out. So before I start day 2, I'll post this, so I don't get too far behind.

Never Get a Greyhound bus

So I'm very slowly getting up to speed but I figured, rather than taint the loveliness of my travels, Greyhound can have it's own post, just for a rant. Also I haven't yet got around to writing my complaint, mostly because you don't seem to be able to do it via e-mail and I feel the company is worth neither a stamp nor a phone call.
We got ourselves up bright and early on Wednesday to make sure we were at the station at least an hour before the bus left, which considering the debacle on the way here seemed a great idea. It possibly was, but we had a slightly grotty breakfast at the grim bus station and a whole hour waiting in a queue of 4 people (yes we were half that queue).
The bus actually left on time. 3 minutes early in fact. Somewhere along the route we lost those 3 minutes and a further 55. The unscheduled pizza stop probably had a fair bit to do with it. I was blissfully unaware of this until the last stop before the border brought us a whole host of grumbling passengers. Then I started to be a bit anxious. Nicole and I , when booking our bus tickets, had in fact only left 35 minutes between buses.
Then we stopped for a toilet break (there was a flipping toilet on the bus??) and duty-free. Definitely not on the agenda. Worried about the time, I found 2 men dressed in greyhound uniforms but who weren't the driver. I asked them if they were officials on the journey and they happily said I could ask them questions. I asked why we were so late. The response was pretty snooty and rude. They told me we weren't but were completely on schedule. They said that if anything would make us late it would be customs. I didn't quite believe them since it had taken 45 minutes to get from Montreal to the border at night and we had 50 to reach customs, go through and then crawl through Montreal's rush hour traffic.
Customs took a grand total of 10 minutes. (I probably didn't help by leaving my travel documents on the desk and wandering off causing a the customs officer to chase after me.) Therefore customs did not delay us.
We set off with 25 minutes to be on time.
Not wanting to disturb the driver, I went to ask one of the men in uniforms if they had ID numbers. He got all defensive and had a bit of a go at me saying he had nothing to do with this journey, calling me "lady" and being plain rude. I told him I didn't think he was being very polite to which his response was "yeah maybe am bein' a liddle loud witcha" - loud? the whole bus could hear! He kept telling me that it wasn't his responsibility blah blah blah. He didn't take very kindly to me pointing out that whether he is on duty or not whilst wearing his uniform he is still a representative of his company thus he should not be speaking to a passenger in such a rude way. Nicole couldn't believe the way he'd spoken to me either. Sucks to be him because he was wearing a name badge. Named and shamed Eduardo Lopez, named and shamed.  
Our 35 minutes of overlap were slipping away as we crawled through traffic. By some absolute miracle, Hannah and Victoria had convinced the next bus driver to wait for us. They texted me for regular updates as to our location, which became more and more frustrating the closer we got to the bus station but the slower we went. I actually contemplated getting off the bus and running instead. We pulled into the station more than an hour late, grabbed our bags and literally ran to get on our next bus. I wanted to hug the driver but he might not have appreciated it - hugs from a random stranger, well it's not everyone's cup of tea now is it?
So, if you want a bus that will be on time? Don't pick Greyhound. If you want staff who are polite and helpful? DEFINITELY , whatever you do, do NOT choose greyhound.
If you want a bus that will wait for you when running late and then proceed to make up the lost time and arrive 5 minutes early? Pick Megabus. It's also far cheaper.

The Big Apple

Alright. So after wanting to visiting this city for many, many years I was finally standing in a grim looking bus station, probably looking equally grim after spending the night on a bus, but feeling oddly awake and potentially grinning just a little bit from excitement. I whipped out the guidebook Hervé had so kindly lent me (it took me a while to realise that Le Rockerfella Centre and Le meatpacking district don't have the le in English. I'm smart I am). Having worked out where we were and where the hostel was, we decided to head for the corner of 5th avenue and 42nd St. just so I could take a photo of the streets 2 Mancunian clubs are named after and just so happen to be frequented by many of my friends. In doing so we found ourselves outside the NY public library. I had a photo with Patience, or Fortitude. One of the lions. I wonder if anyone does actually know which lion is which....
Having kickstarted the sightseeing so early, it was definitely time for breakfast. We ambled around looking for a) somewhere open and b) somewhere that didn't look like it might be home to a family of cockroaches. Mission accomplished and with full bellies we hopped on a subway and headed towards our hostel. We weren't able to check in yet but they did give us towels, point us in the direction of the showers and give us directions to the locker room. The hostel was fully decked out in Halloween decorations. It was a huge hostel. Goodness knows how many people can actually stay there at a time. Nice and clean though which is always a bonus.
It felt rather nice to be all clean and showered - I even put on some make-up. I was slightly inspired by the girl showing her friend how to apply foundation, and I think I may have been waiting for Nicole as well. However, feeling wonderfully refreshed and a whole host light for losing the baggage we decided to start our day in Central Park. It was beautifully sunny and warm, plus it was just 2 streets over. Perfect start!

Obelisk perhaps?

There was a massive sponsored walk going on for breast cancer so it was full of people in pink making lots of noise. Escaping the main routes, we discovered plenty of the park's monuments (most of which I couldn't tell you who it was of) and other such things to do. It was full of dog-walkers and runners. It was hard to keep Nicole from running over to every single dog whilst cooing "Puppy!!!" There was an aerobics class in front of one of those big Egyptian pointy things. Sorry I've forgotten the name of it. We also climbed a tree. Just for kicks.
We found ourselves by the Belvedere Castle and naturally went in. As we were climbing the very narrow stairs which were difficult to get up due to the volume of people trying to go down at the same time and being unable to see if anyone was coming, I was stopped by a little girl of around 9 years who boldly asked me straight out who I was. A little taken aback I told her my name. I don't think she really cared. She told me I look like Bella from Twilight then merrily skipped down the stairs. Oh well.
We moved on, jaunting merrily round some twisty paths were a man recognised my shoes. (very odd I know) before acquainting ourselves with Hans Christian Anderson who was so kind to have the little duckling open and ready for a bedtime story as well as Alice in Wonderland and all of her merry friends. How lovely :)
We left the park and hunted down some lunch. We had by this point been wandering around for a good 3 hours and it was nearing the afternoon.
Following lunch we headed towards the South of Manhattan Island. We plonked ourselves on the Staten Island ferry. This wasn't so much as to go to Staten Island as because it was free and afforded decent views of the harbour and the Statue of Liberty. It was a little windy and it was not nearly half as warm as it had been that morning so both Nicole and I found ourselves buying NY hoodies from a street vendor so as to keep warm.
We headed to Chinatown and Little Italy for dinner, stumbling across Wall Street and the mighty stock exchange on the way. Chinatown was so un-Chinese it was unbelievable, well apart from the haggling. I restricted myself as to what I bought but Nicole was on a souvenir mission. We found a nice little Italian for tea which, for $9, gave us all you can eat pasta. Not as in a salad bar, as in yummy, steaming plate of hot pasta. We could only just fit in 2 plates each and it was yummy. Oh and the cocktail menu was pretty damn impressive too. So, if ever you happen to be in NY, look up Focolare. Nom nom.
As if I have only just reached day 2. This will be an essay and a HALF! Sorry folks.
We didn't start the day quite as early as planned which is entirely the fault of me and my love of sleep. It was still a respectable start before anyone thinks I slept in until noon. Not at all. We had a leisurely breakfast (I have discovered that Americans cannot pronounce this word it's an 'eh' sound not an 'eeee'!!!) before heading back to South Manhattan, this time in time for the ferry to Liberty Island. The queue for tickets in itself was not long, but the queue for the ferry? OOF!! As a result, dinner was had in the queue., It consisted of a hot dog which was so disgusting I threw away the sausage and simply ate the bun on it's own. Nicole, having forgotten a jumper, found herself buying another hoodie.  I would say the wait was worth it. We didn't get off at Liberty Island since we didn't have monument tickets but we did explore Ellis Island and the museum about it's history as an immigration port. This took up most of our afternoon. We had enough time to go back to a shop we had seen the night before and let Nicole try on lots of dresses. She found one she liked and we headed for the hostel to make ourselves beautiful for Broadway.
I don't think I have the words to explain just how AMAZING the performance was. It was bloody awesome! It's easy to see how it's the longest running musical. At the interval, I made a mad dash for the toilets, determined not to be stuck in the unavoidable queue for the ladies, practically jumping over chairs on my way. It paid off, there was only one person in front of me and by the time I came out the queue was tailing off somewhere in the distance. It was hard to tell precisely where because of the people milling around. Our seats actually afforded us a much better view of the stage that I had been expecting so I was definitely very very pleased.
Following the show, we opted for a late time snack in a restaurant across the road. I ordered a small house wine thinking this meant a glass. It did not. We stayed there a while so I didn't have to rush my wine by downing it or something else wholly unsuitable for a young lady in a posh frock. We were on the edge of Times Square by this point so headed there. We discovered that some of the French boys were also there so we met them briefly on the red steps. It was getting late however so Nicole and I took a taxi back to the hostel.
Aha , we reach day 3 - our last in the Big Apple. It was no less busy than either of the previous 2. We were much more organised though and having marked on the map everywhere we wanted to go, we planned the most efficient route. First stop - Macy's. That shop is actually mahoosive! It had a glee section, which probably let it down a little. Who needs Glee clothing?? However, the girl from the MAC counter liked my eyeliner, which I still had on from the night before. My sister would probably call me a skank for that.

This was just around from the Empire State Building. Despite being prepared for lengthy queues, we wandered straight in, bought the tickets and up the lift to floor 86.The sky was pretty clear so we got some wonderful views of the city. Oh and a photo with King Kong. Don't know what he was doing there ;)
We moved on from there finding our way to the UN centre. You can go in and have a guided tour but we didn't. I might work there one day, who needs a tourist tour then!!! ha ha. We got some lovely photos of all the flags. I recognised barely any of them. There are far too many countries in the world.
From there we mooched to Barney's, F.A.O Schwartz and it's big piano (vue massive cheesy grin for getting a go all on my lonesome yeahy), Saks, Bloomingdale's and that might be it for the shops. We were out of place in most of them. Oh we also checked out the outside of the Rockerfella centre which just so happended to have a giant lego shop next to it. Hello lego statues. It's kinda impressive what can be made with lego!!
Having thus spent all day walking, we headed towards Times Square, this time with full camera batteries and a need for some food. It took a while to pick but we found somewhere where we muched away watching some dodgy Italian dating gameshow.
We raided M&M's world. There was a 'mood predictor'. Apparently I should be a yellow M&M because I bring sunshine into people's lives everyday. I'm a little ray of sunshinnnnneeeeee. We spent lots of time in that shop before crossing the road to the Hershey's shop. Yes, it's all about Chocolate. We met up with 2 of the Frenchies again. They wanted to go for a drink but since I was the only one over 21 and thus legal, this didn't happen. It was getting late so we bid them goodbye, and hopped in a taxi to pack away our stuf, which seemed to have doubled in size and to finish our time in New York. Sad times indeed.