11 posts tagged “adventuring”

so i went to chinatown on sunday while i was downtown doing some major christmas shopping.
i was walking down the central street and i hear a rattling of sticks.  i turn to look and i see an old man sitting stooped on a stool shaking a bamboo cup of wood sticks.  a cardboard box sign sat propped up in front of him. "Chinese face and hand reading. 50 years of experience".  i stopped and approached him.  he looked up and smiled, cataracts making his eyes a dull blue.  "What do you do?"  he stopped shaking the cup.  "I tell your future, i learned from my father and my grandfather and my great grandfather, i'm very experience."  I was curious, really curious now. i hear about them all the time, chinese fortune telling, and heard of people who consult fortune tellers all the time, but this is the first time i have ever been able to do it.  i hesitated.  my future, all told to me, true or not, i would know it and i would always remember it and it would always hang over my head.  alright, if the price he's asking is within the amount of money i have in my wallet, i'll have a go. "How much is it?"  "$20".
tough luck old man. "Thank you very much"  I nodded politely to him and left.

finally.
i bought something for myself.
two things actually.
a pair of etienne aigner 100% cashmere leather gloves for $30, which is a very good brand here in canada according to a friend of mine scratch that, i researched it online and apparently its a very old reputable brand for old ladies.
whatever, its warm inside and cashmere. thats all i really care about anyways. as long as it doesn't make my hands look butt ugly.

and drumroll please....
a $130 winter coat.
i'm going to call my dad and let him know. i did ask if i can buy a coat before, but he said it was up to me, and it was more expensive than this one. so it should be ok. if not though, i'm going to have to return it.
but i love it so much :( hopefully it doesn't happen.

so i went downtown (montreal) for the third time and we went to chinatown to this all you can buffet.
OMFG
BEST SHIT EVER
i haven't had good chinese food since i left, so i literally have been craving it for about a week now.
so my german  friend, who has family here in montreal, took me to this place.
for $15, i can eat all the chinese food i want. including some dimsum stuff, some taiwanese stuff, some everything chinese stuff.
it wasn't the best best, but it was good. damn good. especially for the price.
i was like bowing down to my friend and thanking her a million times.
compared to royal buffet or chino buffet, they have nothing on this place. i don't even know the name, all i know is where it is. but then thats the only thing i really need to remember :D

the best thing?
no msg. period. haven't felt a single dot of numbness.
next best thing?
lunch is only $10
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

just 5 minutes ago, i sang scientist by coldplay along with this german guy playing the guitar in front of 3 german girls.
i was so nervous and anxious and felt like running away afterwards, but i really badly wanted to sing with someone else playing the guitar, just to see if i was any good without music.
apparently i was, they said i was good :D
just needed to be a little bit louder.
and i definitely wasn't singing my "best", i mean i almost choked up and stopped in the middle, i was so nervous.
one of them even asked me if i was in a band :D
that makes me feel good :D

at the end of the tunnel.
well a good tunnel, because although everyday was jam packed with stuff, its was bs stuff, not requiring real thinking.
i still have tom to vegetate but then the scary part begins :/ i really don't know how i will handle college work, but all i do know is that i am going to try my best to "adapt".

so basically, since there was nothing to do, i went out with these two german girls i met and we ate PHO!!! in chinatown. omg, good stuff, but expensive :( all the food is at least 1-2 dollars more, and the clothes, almost 30 :( living expenses are seriously a lot higher here.
and then it was just me by myself, with 4 hours to kill before the concert started. so i basically got lost several times trying to look for different places, got some exercise and accomplished nothing. well nothing tangible, other than getting to know my way in the city.
but it was nice, just being able to do whatever i wanted in the middle of a city with so much to do.
they were having this montreal world film festival and the mall had a bunch of free french movies playing.
pop montreal is going to be in october, i'm so excited :D i want to go to everyday of that :D:D

concert was good, generally good concert, nothing fancy, just great music :D
and then took the metro and the bus back home.

i've been so busy for the past week, when i finally get a break and have nothing to do, i want to get up and do something :/

i've gotten so many dam bug bites, i hate it :( they're especially attracted to asians i think, this japanese guy on my floor had like 10 on his back :( i have like 8, but 4 are on my face :(

so last night, i went to my first REAL club. the club i went to paris is really just a bar with a dance floor because it was small, i was with a whole bunch of white girls and they played disco all night.

so this club, club 737, which is on top of a skyscraper, is probably the 2nd best club in montreal, and my school got us onto the guest list. we got in at 1130 and didn't leave until 2. 

people grinding and doing sex on the dance floor dances all over the place. i danced with my group, went outside, blah blah just danced basically. so that was fun, really great stuff.
until it got later and later, with guys getting drunker and drunker, drunk enough to sidle up to me and ask me to dance because i was "sexy".
unfortunately, i drank enough that i was just like, heck, i've never done it before, and its just dancing, so i'll just try it.
but then the dancing THEY wanted to do with me was up and up grinding shit that i completely DID NOT! feel comfortable with.
so all in all
three guys trying to grind up on me (aka dance with me)
1 guy who offered me a drink (DON'T TAKE DRINKS FROM STRANGERS!), and then later wanted to drink with me at the bar
god.
i mean, i know thats what guys usually do at clubs, but sorry, that is so totally not the way i intended on meeting guys. period. they're drunk, horny, high and stupid.
i am not doing that shizzles again. going clubbing with friends to dance is all fine and dandy, but when the next guy tries to dance up on me or "pick me up" the answer will be a big fat "NO".
in a way i feel a little ashamed that i did dance with them a little, but there would be no other way for me to find out how strongly i'm against it until i see for myself.

i also realized how different people from different places are. one of my puerto rican friends from new york, who is an AMAZING! dancer, was dancing all over the place with some random guys from the dominican republic, and they were seriously dancing those orgy dances.
but then she's from like harlem where everyone dances like that at school dances.
differen strokes for different folks i guess :/
 

moved in and everything, got more crap, still need to get more crap :/
my roomie is understated, from seattle, wildlife loving cool person. kinda. we share similar views on a lot of things, which is a good thing, but she is such a light sleeper :/ and she goes to sleep at 11, and i go to sleep usually at 2. and she can't sleep when my light is on :(
that really isn't too big of a deal because
i think i have a bladder infection, and caught it last night.
omg, it hurts so fkn bad :(
i have no fkn clue where or how i got it, all i know is that i seriously need to get some working painkillers because i really can't be dealing with the continuous urge to pee while i'm sitting in orientation >:(
and continous burning pains >:( >:(

but other than that, everything has been going pretty smoothly. :D
i love all the new people i meet :D:D
a german girl, a french girl, and i think a french canadian girl :D
the hot guys/good looking guys are idiots, so far.
first night in rez and they're already getting drunk on beers, all crowding into one room with a bunch of other girls, and looking for a lighter to smoke weeds/pot/illegal drug substance.
they probably were just drunk and looking to do something stupid,
but still,
if they really did it, the whole building would have to evac and those water sprinklers in the rooms would all set off :(
idiots.
hopefully i find a non idiotic guy friend
crossing my fingers and praying

so today my parents and i were invited to this parent special reception tent thing and we were talking about stuff and then my mom starts to cry.
that made me feel really bad about going so far away from my parents (that was what started her crying)
and the weird thing is, my dad started to cry.
i understand that both my parents will be feeling really emotional during this time in their lives (and mine)
but i have never seen my dad cry in my 18 years of life on this planet and it was realllllyyyy weird and awkward, so much that i was jokingly blocking them off from my field of vision with my hand.
because if i kept seeing them cry, i would start too :(
i would've except for the fact that:
a. we're in the middle of a huge crowd of over 150 people at an opening reception for the parents of mcgill students
b. they weren't going to leave for another two days, which means i would still see them multiple times.
c. it was daytime.

i'm waiting until the last day they leave, then i'll try as much as i can to hold it in.
and if i can't, i'll just bawl my eyes out.

next awkward moment?
so my mom has a lot of coworkers who work here in montreal, and she was going out drinking with them at around 9 pm. she invited me to go with her, and i kinda had to because my mom told me that these were the people i was going to be going to for help if i needed anything over the next year.
so i went.
kinda slow at the beginning, but then since my mom wanted to "train" me in alcohol consumption again, like before i went to paris, so that i could see what my limit was in front of my mom (safe people to get accidentally drunk with) for my own experience, they ordered a pitcher of beer, of which i drank a cup of. and then she ordered me a kamikaze.
i was ok until the first gulp of the kamikaze.
then i began feeling tipsy :/
they all told me i should drink the rest of the drink.
so i did.
by the end of the drink, i could only really listen to half of their conversation, while stupidly nodding, smiling and laughing loudly at the other half that i heard but didn't really pay attention to.
there were a transvestite couple (both men turned into girls) that got crazy drunk with a 50-60 year old couple, a pear shaped woman and a fat man.
the fat man was drunk as shizzles and got really *woo* so he started feeling his balls through his camel toed pants.
and then he proceeds to dry hump his wife, feel up her boobies, stick his hands up her shirt
and then checks out all the girls closest to him.
meanwhile, the transies are all throwing themselves all over other people, and each other and dancing awkwardly.
so by the time we get out of the bar (its this really nice rooftop bar on top of a hotel), its about 1:30 am. we go to one of the only restaurants open at the moment, a greek fast food joint, and we all eat huge meat kabobs, fries, and gyros.
then that made me feel lots better :D
awkward thing is:
a. my mom was the one who took me out drinking
b. i went out with her coworker friends of whom i had only met one of them once
c. second time really going out drinking
d. they were all encouraging me to drink more, well until they could see that i'd reached my limit

so lessons of the day?
don't let my parents drink wine when they are feeling emotional
beer is just like water, tastes like it and makes you pee it all out an hour later
kamikazes taste sweet and light but are as strong as shizz
when i start feeling like i'm mindlessly babbling and the world seems like its slightly moving, i'm tipsy, and probably shouldn't drink too much more
eating good carb foods like bread and fries afterwards does a body good
getting wasted and drunk is stupid and makes you look stupid and feel stupid

or rather two days :/

Quebec is beautiful, in a wildernessy way.
and an old european way.
and in a french way.

the best things we did?

visited plateau petite-champlain (i think thats what its called), which is a small block of knick knack shops, cafes, restuarants, artist galleries.  its a throwback to quebec's european roots, charming buildings, people taking pictures everywhere.

wall mural!

eww brown water

rainbows from metal oxides! the government is trying to poison our water supply!!

and then some more scenic pics from the top

ON TO MONTREALL!!

view of montreal

first impressions of my soon to be home away from home?
it is the city of my dreams.
i've always loved/idealized going to cities like boston, seattle, san fransisco, paris, all those, i guess people would generalize, "indie cities" (excluding paris), and the minute i saw the buildings and the people of montreal flash past the window of our rental car, i smiled to myself, in awe of how much i had instantly fallen in love with montreal. because, this, this was all of those cities i had dreamed of living in, combined. i don't know how to descibe it properly, but, here goes.
its like a rugged paris. parisians, french, bits of french culture, all set properly down in the midst of the canadian wilderness.  everything is green here, pine trees, and other "forest" trees litter the hills and the countryside. the weather is deliciously perfect, the sun is out, bright and shining, yet the wind and temperature is warm enough not to make you shiver, but has enough bite in it to be refreshing.
neat bostonian looking houses all aligned neatly in rows and rows in squares.  Most of the buildings are old, but they have this old world charm to it that keeps them from looking ancient. 
the people are nicer than parisians, but still not "nice" enough :D. they answer questions with curt replies, with a friendly tone, but hurried and rushed enough to make sure that you don't up too much of their time.  they speak french with a rounded type of accent. the closest i can think of to compare it with the states would probably be like a chicagan accent.  camping shops are everywhere, advertising sleeping bags and mountain bikes.  these people are parisans, minus most of the snobbiness and decorum and procedure and with a whole bunch of "rugged frontiersman".
 
well, this may just be a bit of moonshine, but i feel like this is where i'm supposed to be, this is where i want to be, at least until i'm done with college :D

now. on to the other stuff :/

i'm kinda slow on a lot of things. so, surprise surprise, the sad stuff didn't really hit me until i got into the car with my parents to drive to the airport.
i sat in the car, running through all the things in my head, last time i would see this until i come back, last time i will be close enough to hang out with my friends, last things this, last things that.
and my parents were chatting on and on, then they asked me, "so how are you feeling alex?"
by this point, my eyes were almost ready to flood over, so all i could say was, "Sad."  and then they went on to say how excited they were for me etc etc. but even the excitement didn't get to me until a LOT later :/ 

i watched rachel's cd slide show for me the minute i got onto the plane, and that almost made me burst into tears.  i think i watched it three times :D thanks for that rachel, i loved it so much :)

when i got off the plane and we touched down at the montreal pierre elliot trudeau airport, thats when i raised my hands and yelled in the airport, "I'm finally here!!"

so.
right now, conflicting feelings, sadness and happiness at the same time.
maybe thats why i haven't full out cried yet.
because i feel it, inside my heart, but i try to supress it whenever it starts really getting to me, so that i don't ruin what is going to come.
the sadness i'm feeling is deeper, too deep for me to dig out and show to the world.
when i wrote that letter to rachel, i didn't cry onto the paper, despite what i expected to happen.
all i could feel was this pain, and this solid knowledge that rachel and me will end up A okay :)

theres this weird finality of it all that i keep feeling, but the weird thing about it is the fact that its not like i'm going to be gone for 10 years. i'm only going to be gone for 8 months.
the finality part of it is the fact that the whole world can change in those 8 measly months.

rachel, i'm rereading this, and it may sound a little different than my letter to you, well maybe a lot different :D but just know that everything i wrote in there, despite the hesitancy i feel now, which you probably have already gone through, is completely what i want for you.
just know that this is most of what i was thinking, while we said our last good byes, while i wrote your letter, and while i snuck around to avoid being detected to deliver it :D.
so don't let this break open the closure you feel now.
let it be more of a "I may have seemed calm and collected in the letter, but it didn't come without its struggle" type of deal. that you aren't the only one feeling they way you are feeling. or were, hopefully :), feeling. so now that i got all that out, i kinda have my closure too :D
rachel.
let's start our new lives,
whether or not you're there physically or not, emotionally or not
whether or not i'm there for you physically or not, emotionally or not,
you will always be in there, in my heart.

i don't know what is going to happen, or become, or disappear.
but the only thing i do know is that i am who i am.
i will do what i can do, what i want to do, what i must do.
and in the end, may the pieces fall as they may.