It's getting better

I was going so crazy with my friends not returning my calls, not having anyone around that wanted to make the effort to see me, or just plain not having anything to do all of last week. But on Friday night, I finally got ahold of Silvia (through Josh!! arrgh) anyway, I felt like I crashed their evening as a birthday for Rob, but really on monday I was invited over to Etienne's for pre-boat cruise partying. Turns out Silvia didn't get us tickets (sold out) and I only found this out 3 hours before the boat would have left the pier.... So it turns out Etienne made a cake for Rob. It was an odd shape, but pretty yummy! people there: Etienne, Silvia, Rob, Josh, Nuri (civil girl), Mike (mech guy). And me. Oh and Diana came later. It was fun though. I wasn't having much fun alone in the house with my parents around. I had to get out. I even broke down earlier that night not being able to deal with how little the situation changed with my parents, etc.

After Etienne and Silvia went to the boat thing, I went with the rest of them to Brutopia for the rest of the evening. My feet were killing me from new shoes... But we ended up seeing Dana there, and also this guy Bertrand that went to high school with me. He was pretty nice, I mean, since I hardly ever talked to him back in HS.

Then I spent the weekend at my grand parents cottage and that was so much fun really. I had some cousins and it was great to be there again. I went for my first swim this summer. And we had strawberry shortcake (my first time in a while too) I got to play some piano (really enjoyable!!) and played Uker and Balderdash with cousins ;) heaps of fun.

Next week i'll be busy with training and discover mcgill and o-week and then it's uni and all the cool people are coming back from their vacationing so... YAY i'm happy again

and my parents are in France until sept 6th :) sweet as!

1st day in Montreal

Yes, I'm actually pretty happy to be back in Montreal. But in reality, it doesn't actually seem like I've been gone for 7 months. Everything is still the same or almost the same. My parents are the same, my sister's the same, the house, the streets, are the same and the cat recognizes me. The only thing that's different is the apartment building that's being built on Nun's Island that is now where the driving range used to be. That's about it.

Last week I was in 6 countries! Isn't that crazy??

There are still little things that I'm not used to yet. For example, I'm always catching myself walking on the left side of the sidewalk. In excalators too, I stop on the left side, but that's the "fast lane". I walk in zig zags pretty much ;)

Now that I'm back in Montreal I feel the need to talk more in french. I never really felt the need to because I'm more anglophone and my french sucks. But now I know I need to practice it if I want to get better at it! Being in Australia, where noone speaks french, you take every opportunity to read/speak french. It made me different, but I need to be good at it, and I'm not. I know Sam's gotten good from watching french movies so I def should watch more french movies. And I need to read more in french too, but it'll have to wait because i'm reading a book now (actually about France!) and the next one is Harry Potter :) Also, when we were in Thailand, there were heaps of French travelers. Everytime we'd hear french, I got excited that hey, I know that language. We talked a few times with some French that were traveling in the same area we were at. I was especially excited to hear Quebecois !! It was so much fun to meet so many travelers from Montreal (in Phi Phi islands)!!! And it was an opportunity to speak Quebecois!! haha Even here, when I got back, I hear some ridiculously funny Quebecois expressions and it really makes me giddy for some reason. I just really missed it I guess. It's such a unique language, makes you proud, actually, to know it. It seems some people from France are really intrigued by Quebecois as well, on how different of a language it can be. I guess it's like Canadian's are intrigued by the Aussie accent and vice versa! haha!! It's expressions that we use like "se pogner le beigne",and "peser sur le piton", that make me giggle! lol hilarious!

Last Day in Sydney

I arrived back in Sydney this morning, around 8 am, maybe sleeping 2-3 hours on the plane. It was a good plane ride, from Kuala Lumpur. We had 2 meals, and lots of refreshments including a Magnum bar!! and the pillows were soooo comfortable!! We probably had a choice of something like 50 movies, and 20 cd's to listen to, and tv shows etc. pretty cool. I watched the movie Shrek the Third (i'm glad I picked Transformers over that in Brisbane because it wouldn't have been as fun). I think the prince in the movie is Justin Timberlake - he looks and sounds the same... I also started watching this movie called Next with Nicolas Cage, but it cut halfway through because we were landing....

So yes, got to Sydney, and wow I was so happy to be back in Sydney. I was away for 2 weeks in Asia and really missed the Aussie world. I really missed hearing the accent. I was constantly thinking of all the places I really wanted to see again before I leave, but I obviously couldn't make all the locations today. My lack of sleep made me really lazy in the morning. I wanted to nap but when midday came around I really needed to get up and do something. So I got dressed up warmly (not as hot as thailand!) and went to Coogee. I walked threw Randwick junction then walked down to Coogee. I hadn't been there in a while and everything of it reminded me of the study abroad/exchange student group of friends from the end of semester; and our weekly barbies, hanging out at ppl's places, and chilling at the rocks. Mike, Courtney, Harry, Dom, Joelle. I took heaps of piccies... I wanted to have a gelato at Gelatissimo on Coogee Bay road and go enjoy it at tarahonga rocks but it turned out that Gelatissimo was closed for renovation :( Instead I had a smoothie from the juice place next door. It was actually pretty warm for a while, and I walked around in a tank top, but eventually the wind caught up with me and I had to pull out the hoodie once again. I walked along the beach and to the southern rocks. I walked around there for a while. I tried to go visit our time capsule, but it seemed impossible. I got to the left wing and there was no way i could manage to get lower... maybe if Dom were there... Well, anyway, I sat on the ledge for the next 15 minutes, looking at the crashing waves, at the spot I last did the same sitting with Mike many weeks ago. It's really been a while.

So after Coogee, I took a bus into the city, and walked around. I had no real purpose there, so I just went for some last minute shopping. I've gotten so many souvenirs in total... I hope not TOO many!! nah... no such concept! That part didn't last very long. I just went back home, did some repacking, went to meet up with Matt at uni, then ran up from lower campus to randwick in less than 15 minutes to go have hot chocolate with my ex-flatmates, Nitya and Bo, whom I will miss dearly!!! :(

It's been a pretty successful day; I've done a lot of what I planned on doing. But now, I'm actually really really truly leaving Australia for good tomorrow (actually, today, it's past midnight!!!) All my goodbyes have spread over the last 3 months, so I'm ready to leave.

I'm actually looking forward to being back home. I wonder whats the first thing I will do when I get home. I wonder how it will feel and how I will ever be able to tell everyone simply what an awesome time I've had in Oz. The only answer to the question "so... how was it?" is something like "it was SO totally incredibly awesome and worth it!!!!" with an infinity of exclamation points, haha. I wonder what's the first thing I'll eat when I get back, or how Julie will react, or how the weather is, or how awkward I'll feel, or if I'll be caught up in the aussie way that i've forgotten how to act canadian, or what music and clothing is fashionable in montreal, or how jetlagged I'll be, etc. So many wonders, but soon enough, I'll see for myself!!

In any case, hopefully I'll get over the jetlag and be up for a party as soon as I get back. I've already got more plans than I have time for, which in my opinion is awesome ;)

See you so soon!!! xoxo mouah!!

Thailand continued...

My initial idea to come to Thailand was when Joelle and I discussed about doing a 2 week volunteer program followed by a 2 week adventure tour. But not only were the presented dates inconvenient but also the whole application process wasn't clear. So that fell through. But then, Catherine and I decided that its the perfect thing for us to do as a vacation before returning home.

So we first arrived in Bangkok, which we found wasn't that spectacular since it's really polluted and the city is so dirty. The better part of Bangkok was the backpackers' district, Khao San road, where at night it was really hoppin'! There were bars in the streets and street vendors with 20 baht Pad Thai (about 40 cents) and markets lining the streets. We met a lot of travellers from all over ther world.

Shopping was good in Bangkok but not as good as in Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai was so incredibly cheap. When we later moved to the beaches areas, I missed the cheapness of Chiang Mai. I didn't really have that many souvenirs to shop for but faced with so many inexpensive goods, I felt the need to buy something. I did buy something, but still had to hold back hahahah! Chiang Mai was really great though. We went on a full day trek, which actually didnt have that much trekking per se, but we rode elephants for an hour and did bamboo rafting for an hour too! And we got to visit my home tribe as well... one of the ancient traditional hill tribes in Thailand is called Karen!!! though the tribe is really poor and I definitely didn't feel like I was home ;) In Chiang Mai, also, we took a day cooking class - that's right, now I'll be able to cool thai food, if I find the ingredients in montreal..... We went to the markets with the cook and he explained all the different types of vegetables etc, very interesting!

After Chiang Mai, we flew to Phuker through Bangkok and then took a ferry to the famous islands of Phi Phi (pronounced P.P.) It's basically a party island. There are two Phi Phi islands actually - Koh Phi Phi Don and Koh Phi pHi Ley. which I think mean big and small phi phi islands. Phi Phi Don is where the hotels are and where the partying happens. It's a really great place. It's defnitely more expensive than northern Thailand that's for sure, but it's a a great place to be! The hotel we stayed it was pperfectly central - a personal bungalow with a personal bathroom, breakfast included and a pool too. It was 800 baht a night for the both of us, but that's about 16$ each, which is really cheap for a nice place like that if you were to find the same place in Canada. Every 2nd shop in Phi Phi was a dive shop so it'd be stupid if we didn't take the oppprtunity! An intro course with two dives was about 1/3 of the price in Australia for sure. Apparently a diving certification is just a bit more than one intro dive day in Cairns (where the Great barrier reeef is in oz). SO naturally, we did go. I did have a hard time at first, but after relaxing, I finally managed and then had a great time. Though since I was concentrating pretty hard on breathing slowly, I sometimes forgot to take a look around, so I missed a lot of cool fish.... but I saw lots of nemos!!!! they were so cute!

So Koh Phi Phi Ley, the smaller and uninhabited island, is where the movie The Beach with Leo Di Caprio was filmed. I'll have to rent it so that i can say "I went there!" during the whole movie!!! hahah

we went to railay beach (so expensive) and are now in phuket (cheaper) and flying out tomorrow. I have to go, internet is out...

im back n montreal on the 17th!!!! miss u and see u soon!

Thailand emails i sent

July 30th

I just flew into Bangkok, Thailand safe and sound this evening. It's crazy to think I'm in Asia! We haven't been into the city yet, and I assume the city will actually look like a city. It's been a bit hard trying to communicate not knowing any Thai, but our guidebook has some helpful phrases. "kurpkoon ka" means thank you, and "sawut dee ka" means hello. Catherine and I found a nice place to stay, thanks to a Canadian couple we randomly met in the streets on old City. It's pretty clean (Cat is afraid of encountering cockroaches) and the room has air conditioning. The weather at landing was a humid 31 degrees, and that was about 4 hours ago, and it's still really warm - we couldn't wait to change into something more summery!

Catherine and I aren't sure about certain things like water. We'll try to drink from bottled water all the time, but the food is pretty safe I think. Thais really pride themselves with their food, so you're likely to get something good. My dinner was Pad se-ew noodles, which was really good. Thais eat 6-7 times a day, so thankfully the portions weren't as big as when you get take-out Asian food in Montreal. The exchange rate is that 100 Baht is about 4 Australian dollars, which means, dinner, at 80 baht wasn't even that much. I'm not used to thinking in Canadian dollars anymore, but when we exchanged our AUD for THB at the airport, it seemed like Australian and Canadian currencies are pretty similar at this stage. I'm not sure what this means for the economy, but at least it won't be as weird for me when I come back! But that's a bit off topic...

It seems the shopping will be very good. I don't have anything that I really need to buy but I'm sure I'm going to end up purchasing a couple of things. Cat inquired at a couple of places on prices and once they offer a price, which we were just interested in knowing so we say thanks and walk away, but they want to sell so badly that they instantaneously drop the price about 50%. And things are really cheap in the first place!! Everything is open for barter. I'm definitely not good at bargaining, but I think the walking away trick works really well, so far!

So it's only been a couple of hours. We're going to be in Bangkok for the next few days before heading north to Chiang Mai.


August 1st

Hey everyone! Sawut-dee ka!

I know it's only been a day or two since my last update, but so much has happened that I just feel like I need to update!

Health: Both Catherine and I have a cold, sniffling here and there, an occasional cough, but all in all, we keep ourselves hydrated, always buying bottles of water, and we buy fruit a lot of the time (mangoes, papaya, mangosteens, other weird thai fruit...)

Food: Thais eat 6-7 times a day so the small portions served make it really easy for us too to adopt that eating regime. Last night we had dinner from some of the many street vendors. The food is really good (and well cooked) and for such a low fee (about 20 baht = a bit less than 1 AUD). After dinner, we sat out in an outside bar, and met some other pretty cool travelers, and had some cocktails. One thing you can't really bargain for is alcohol, but the prices, however fixed, we still good. Tonight, we went to chinatown and ate at a seafood restaurant. I had seafood in thai soup which was excellent.

Weather: There are three seasons in Thailand - wet, dry and hot. All three of them are ahave temperatures between 25 and 35, but now it's wet season. It rains really hard for about 5-10 minutes around 2-3 pm then for an hour or two around 5pm. The weather is still really hot, so a little rain isn't a big deal. After the first whole day here, we decided today it was a good idea to bring an umbrella. It doesn't rain for too long, but it rains pretty hard.

Activities: We live in a backpacker area, on a street called Khao San Road. All day there are markets and food stalls, but mainly the street comes alive at night. We often buy food from the street vendors, or some souvenirs etc, but also there are bars on the streets at night, live music, and lots of enthusiasm! We spent the evening on Khao San every of the three nights so far, and we have one more to go. We've travelled in a tuk tuk a few times; tuk tuks are cute open 2 passenger-1 driver cars that are a bit unsafe and shaky but are heaps of fun! They're really cheap if you bargain and they can drive you around short distances and even wait for you for the ride back! Yesterday, we visited the standing buddha (stands 26 m high), the sitting buddha temple (nice and quiet, and a guy there taught us how to do a prayer to the buddha), and finally we went to the Grand Palace (where the king Rama 1 first lived) and the temple of the Emerald Buddha. The Wat (enclosed temple) where the Grand Palace and the emerald buddha is, is really well preserved and really beautiful!! I tried to do a prayer to the Emerald buddha but I'm pretty sure I did it wrong. The Emerald Buddha is the most sacred of the Buddhas in Thailand, so I'm sad I messed up that prayer. Today, we woke up bright and early to go to the famous floating markets. We tried a bunch of different fruits, but a lot of them had a similar flesh to a lychee. Our favorites are the mangosteens. There are purple on the outside, and spherical, with a dark pink peel the color of raspberries, but the flesh is white are parted just like a pumpkin, and look the same color as lychees. Very sweet. the vendors all have a boat and they are packed with heaps of fruit or other goods, and we get into boats of 6people and stop the boat or vendors when we want to buy something! It was quite an experience!! We rode along the Chao Phraya river (running through Bangkok) on the ferry numerous times today. We also visited the Wat Arun, also known as the Temple of Dawn, which is decorated by lots of broken pieces of porcelain. It kind of reminded me of the Gaudi buildings in Barcelona, I think, even though that was a long time ago. Tomorrow, the plan is to go the Dusit park, an area for monks with beautiful gardens, a palace and a zoo. Then we will go into downtown to do some shopping!

That's it I guess. Going to Chiang Mai on friday!