Made the big switch

A couple days ago, under the supervision of expert eyes, I took the plunge and stepped away from the PC world. I purchased a MacBook.
I'm finally opening the box to prepare for the big tutorial session tomorrow night. PCs, my muscle memory will miss you.

Bookmarked

I've recently added this to my bookmarks. I'm way too skeptical - everyone looks so perfectly posed. I believe that everyday people can create outfits that look this good (sigh, not as much in Toronto), but I guess, well, I'm sure the photographer gets his subjects to really work the camera.

Who needs a TV?

I'm back online, which means I'm back on track with Grey's Anatomy and have finished all of the remaining episodes of Project Runway Canada.
I have to figure out what show I'm going to latch onto next.

Everyone had the right to be inspired

A national pilot project at the Hershey Centre at the beginning of December has inspired me even more to move up the ladder.
I know I have no control over how far I can go - but darn it, I'm going to try to push it as much as I can.

Experience

It is my experience that Torontonians find Moon Boots a little bizarre. Darn. As proud of them as they are, I don't completely like the feeling of being an anomaly.

Winter coat

I need a new winter coat.
I was toying with the idea of getting a parka (my body hasn't re-acclimatized itself to Canadian winters yet), but after being bombarded with people wearing North Face and Canada Goose parkas everywhere, I'm not so sure. Oh, and I forgot to mention the countless TNA (from Aritzia) ones roaming the streets as well. Sure, they keep you warm, but I just don't know.
I'm hoping to find a fabulous wool (dare I say, cashmere?) coat somewhere. I'm vaguely interested in researching Mackage a little bit more. I was hoping to be inspired by Holt's (but to no avail).
I want that perfect coat.

Merry belated Christmas

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!
I've got to get around to taking pictures of all the decorations all over town before they disappear. Since I've returned to Canada, I've taken less and less pictures. It's disappointing. My digital camera is consistently having problems, so that in itself is a hindrance, but I'm always a little bit more self-conscious about snapping shots here in "normal life" compared to the "European experience". I should change that perception.
Due to various other commitments, I didn't have a chance to get caught up in the holiday shopping hype (both good and bad - apparently there was a line up in front of Tiffany & Co on a couple days leading up to C-day and that the customers were pretty gender imbalanced), but while doing some last minute shopping on Christmas eve, I'm pretty sure that I bumped into (literally) Ryan Gosling. I'm really bad at spotting stars (unless it's skating related), but for some reason, when we made eye contact after we almost knocked each other over (my fault, I was looking into a store instead of looking where I was walking) for some reason, I just thought it might be him. Now if anyone's a celebrity buff and is in the loop about these things, let me know if he was in the city at this time. This guy was sporting the scruffy beard, blue jeans and a black peacoat with the collar turned up. No shopping bags or anything. I decided to get stalkerish and look on a fan website to see if it said anything about him being in Toronto, and I did see a photo taken of Ryan from Dec 12th. Less facial hair (seems plausible that in 12 days it grew to what I remember) but wearing a black peacoat. Hmmm.

Back online

Just letting you know that I'm back online and hope to get writing again soon.

Update

I'm taking a break from blogging for little bit. I will try to start up around the New Year or so. I'm concentrating on getting into the grove of all the other things going on in my life right now, so I'm letting this commitment slide a bit for now. I'll update my bio at some point too. I'll also get around to finishing off all of the travel posts that are missing. Just because I'm not in Europe doesn't mean I don't have stuff to say, I just need to focus on some other things right now.
I promise I'll be back - hopefully complete interest in my small collection of readers won't be lost by then.

Mental note

Be here with a camera friday night. I'll be the one wishing she was part of the action, but not daring enough to do so.

Confusion is always fun

See, the bonus of living in a high rise building is that you may be subject to 6.45am (it was really precise) fire alarms. Never fun when you're not a morning person and well, had your alarm clock set to a later time.
And well, you're not really sure if it's really the fire alarm because there are so many random sensor things attached to your ceiling. Oh and it's not like you're left any appliance on that will cause burning and you unit seems to be smoke feel and smelling normal. And since you've woken up, the carbon monoxide probably isn't the problem.
You're wandering around your unit, completely confused and trying to figure out how to turn it off before your neighbours (who probably haven't even moved in yet because there are flyers sitting in front of their door that have been there for days) complain about you (too used to the uptight Swiss folks - I was told to take off my high heeled shoes imediately after entering my apartment because they made too much noise on the floor and that the people below wouldn't like it. The person who complained lived on the same floor as me.) There's some weird panel by the front door which reads, "touch to silence", but it's not like there's a button to press or anything. I feel like I'm pushing a fake device only put there to try to calm you down if you're about to burn into oblivion.
I'm putting on big sweats over my PJs because I'm still not really sure if I'm supposed to be running for my life. I peer out the peephole to the same sight as per usual - an extremely well lit hall. Still looking and feeling like I just woke up (go figure), I crack open the door to see if anyone else on the floor as wandering around confused. Nope. Makes sense, especially if no one in my hallway has moved in yet. I do realize that the whole building is ringing and not just in my own unit. Doesn't necessarily make me feel better.
I'm flipping through the property manual that I'd actually sat down and took the time to read the day I moved in to find the phone number for the front desk and remind myself that I need to get on ordering a land line. I guess that cell phone I got for emergencies was a good thing - except when the 24 concierge doesn't pick up their phone during business hours and I'm send to an answering machine. I bet that the answering machine directs will put me through in an emergency (they book says to call in emergency) but luckily for me, the alarm stops before I hear any more of the message.
Still confused I cautiously return to bed, wondering if I'm safe afterall.

Turns out someone was stuck in an elevator or something (the nighttime concierge didn't know details of the story - which is a little disconcerting, I would have thought there would be a memo to all workers that day as I'm sure I'm not the only one who asked about it) and the result is a building-wide alarm for some reason or another. If there was really an emergency and evacuation was necessary, we would be notified through the speaker system (explains all of the speakers in the ceiling of my unit). I'm told, in case of an alarm, stay calm, stay in my unit and wait for further instruction. Good to know.

Pondering about people

- Why is it that people insist on taking pictures with a flash at events where photography isn't allowed? Upon entering the facility, you are told the rules. You are even reprimanded by on-site staff, yet you continue this bad behavior. English isn't your first language, so this could be the cause of communication errors, but I don't find that a good excuse. It's called show etiquette people. Same kind of issue with the people who stand beside "no picture" or "no flash photography" signs in museums and disobey. Grrrr.

- Watched a plain clothed lady standing by the token vending machines at Union Station selling tokens to those waiting in line. Kudos to her for arriving during peak afternoon rush hour. Was she making profit because she'd bought the tokens in bulk or before the last fare-hike? Should/would the TTC care that she was there? Did any of those approached think she was trying to scam them? Did they go with it to get en route faster? Were they just stereotypically nice Canadians trying to help out a lady trying to get rid of extra tokens? About 10 minutes of watching her resulted in at least 30 transactions.

People are fascinating

I love people watching and trying to figure out how people tick.

Two recent events:

1. I was with a group of people doing an individual activity which was supposed to get us to focus. On a piece of paper was a 10x10 grid with two digit numbers (00 to 99) labelled in each box randomly. You were to cross out the boxes one at a time in order from smallest to largest. It was a timed event. I finished mine and watch the people around me finish theirs. It was interesting to see the different techniques and strategies used. The body language and posture. Frantic, calm and everywhere in between.

2. Taking the Spadina streetcar south at the end of morning rush hour. Waiting in the extremely long line at Spadina station, it was apparent that there was some kind of delay. We were there for quite some time before 5 cars came in a row. Watching how lines formed. Some single file, others clumped. Dirty looks and pushing forward even when cars hadn't arrived yet. Frantic looks to cellphones and watches, reading and leaning against walls. Someone comments loudly to no one in particular about the price hike in a couple of weeks and how it doesn't reflect the service provided. It's a very mixed group of passengers, age, gender, race. The streetcars arrive to cheers and jeers alike. Claustrophobic people - beware. The first car is full and the doors are ready to close and a teacher yells at the half of her student group that got on the car to get off. There is an exchange of bodies, and words as well. The doors are closing and a couple people arrive out of nowhere to push in front of the door and yell some strange words to the driver hoping to get on board. Car number two arrives and I'll be getting on this one. Someone asks the person beside them not to push. Others push back. We're on and the driver's getting ready to go so he voices on the loudspeaker that passengers need to step up off the stairs for the vehicle to move. Passengers oblige and we're off. First stop en route, a couple people jostle to get off and too many want to get on. There is a problem with communication at the front with a passenger not stepping up and while the driver is calmly trying to explain the situation, a couple other passengers further back yell instructions. Rudely. We're moving again, but now more passengers are tittering. Laughing, sighing, quipping and trying to make light of the situation in general. Rude lady Number 1 almost hacks up a lung. A medical practitioner beside me (I eavesdropped on her cell phone conversation to her secretary while in line at the Spadina station) rolls her eyes. More barely audible comments which are created loud enough to get a reaction are uttered. A moment of connection between complete strangers and then life goes on, people go their separate ways.

Fascinating.

Trying to look on the bright side (until situations change)

So one good thing about commuting crazy distances, sometimes through areas that I haven't been exposed to in the past three years and I think are more extreme in certain ways is that I get to eavesdrop on teenaged banter.
Teenagers are so facinating. How they act and react. How they present themselves. How they articulate their feelings. The constant word garbage.
I miss my kids.

Mystery of the game show solved

While flipping TV channels in Europe, I would invariably come across a game show. I've seen similar incarnations in Italian, French and German among other languages in my travels.
I could never quite understand what was going on. The contestant is picking from numbered boxes (the French version had different French city names instead of numbers), hoping not to get 1 million euros (or whatever currency it was). I figured out that the goal was to get really crappy amounts of money, as those amounts would be crossed off a big list of possible prizes. The confusion on my part was what amount the contestant would win if they stopped before all of the boxes were open and also why there were two columns for the prize amounts. There was always a old school telephone in a table which would ring and the host would be told some message to be passed on to the contestant. Usually the contestant ended up in tears. The boxes were opened by average looking people who didn't seem to have any prize incentive for being there.
I finally figured out that it's just Deal or No Deal.

Marc Jacobs does it again

His lateness I mean, not his ability to make amazing accessories and shoes.
At the Spring/Summer 2008 Louis Vuitton show, he was an hour late (which I guess is better than the two hours at his own RTW show in New York) which for the snotty French folks, was not a good thing.
And yeah, he couldn't even redeem the tardiness with a great collection. Barf. I hate the LV monogram even more. Last time I went to their showroom, I saw some beautiful coats and other classic items, but this collection - yuck.

Don't spoil it!

Well, it's official, I'm closing my ears to Grey's Anatomy until I can get a source for downloaded versions on DVD (the computer I'm currently using has no sound) or until the season comes out on DVD legally.
I was lucky enough to catch last week's episode (#2) while I was in Vancouver, but I didn't get a chance to watch it tonight and don't think that I'll be able to be in front of a TV at 9pm on Thursdays for awhile to come.
So yeah, for those you are still watching, I hope it's good, but you'd better not ruin it for me. Unfortunately I'm not a continent away from the gossip, so I'll really have to stay in a bubble.

Free Musical Celebration in Honour of Richard Bradshaw

Darn it, I can't make it, but hopefully you can.
Richard Bradshaw, Director General of the Canadian Opera Company died suddenly this past August, and the COC is holding a FREE concert on Thursday, November 1st in his honour.
Tickets are available as of Saturday, October 27 beginning at 8 a.m. Tickets are limited to two per person and must be accepted as assigned. Tickets are not
replaceable.
What's better than (free) beautiful music in a beautiful new concert hall commemorating the life of a beautiful man.
Hope you can make it!

Louise Bourgeois' Maman

Canada does have some pretty amazing things.
When I went to Ottawa, I was so impressed with the Galleries and Museum that they had there. Toronto has a lot of catching up to do - I guess since there's been such a big renovation with places in the city, things are looking up. I'm looking forward to visiting the new and improved Gardiner Museum, of course the Royal Ontario Museum looks finished on the outside, but it's nowhere close to being finished on the inside and the Art Gallery of Ontario just closed for it's big transformation.
Anyway, the point of this post is to say that Louise Bourgeois' massive spider sculpture is back on display at the Tate Modern in London. It'll be there until January 20th, 2008. The link to Canada is that there is a bronze version of Maman outside of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
I love sculpture. I find it fascinating. Thank goodness I'm not afraid of spiders, because this piece is so imposing that it probably wouldn't be a good scene. I love the proportion of the legs to its body. Ronald Weasley would be freaking out if he saw it.

What's up with that?

Okay, in the past couple days, I've seen at least three Vietnamese Pho restaurants which use an earringless La Vache Qui Rit picture. I swear it's the same cow.


Update: I get it now. Someone explained it to me.



- picture courtesy of www.lavachequirit.com

Grey's Anatomy - Season 4 Premiere

Well, I just finished watching the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy at pretty much the same time as everyone else. It was the first time that I had to sit through a whole hour for one episode.
See, I only started watching the show in January 2007 courtesy of DVD box sets. In six months I watched all three seasons, sans commercials. I even caught a couple episodes from Season 3 in French on the TV (they're not that behind on the old continent), but even those weren't a full hour, there was maybe one break for a short commercial, but even that I'm not too sure about.
I was so frustrated with the commercials. They just kept going and going.
Good thing is that I probably won't have time to watch the show live anymore, so I'm hoping to just catch up at the end of it all when the DVD's come out, or when someone gives me all the episode courtesy of the world wide web on a CD. Europeans know where it's at - no commercials!
Anyway, nothing too interesting happened in the episode. It was good, but nothing mindblowing.

Marc Jacobs RTW Spring 2008

In the past three years, I've become girly and started caring about fashion. I guess that's what Europe does to you.
Anyway, I still think it would be such an incredible experience to see a fashion show, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to happen. One can always dream...
So yeah, Marc Jacobs' RTW Spring 2008 show in New York had people buzzing for a couple reasons. Among them, 'cause the show was uber late and people talked lots about him being all diva and with his personal struggles and the fact that fashion people are all slightly crazy, well it got out of hand. Also, the accessories of the show. Hello, bags and shoes!!! Swooon!
















Oh, and I've decided that I need a beautiful black clutch. Longish would be preferable.
- pictures courtesy of www.vogue.co.uk

Normandy, France (May 17th-20th, 2007)

I knew this trip would be special. I thought that having done the Remembrance Day, WWI sights in Belgium was enough, but I was wrong. During/after a trip like this, you stand taller. You're proud to be Canadian. You appreciate those who have fought and are fighting for our country. You want to do something. Saying that it's a life-changing experience is pretty bold...but perhaps it's the truth.

I've never really known of a place (for me personally) that I felt like I needed to go to in my lifetime. I guess that's not entirely true. At some point, I would like to visit my family and see my heritage. I guess that's the same idea - so many people come to Normandy to see and visit the beaches, cemeteries, museums and memorials. I guess these people are seeing their family and their heritage. So I do understand.

Upon arriving to Caen, we went to visit the Caen Memorial Museum. This museum was huge, and would require a pretty good chunk of time to go through. It's heavy stuff. There are some excellent films to see and a range of expositions, going through all of history. The history of war. Lots
of different insights and perspectives. Very up-to-date as well. Highlights (it doesn't feel right to call them that) include pieces of the Berlin Wall and Fragments of the Twin Towers. This museum may have been the best one that I've visited. Ever.

They have this one abnormally wide road in Caen. It's perfect for the trams in the city so that there's room for the tracks separate from the car lanes. I could just feel, the reason this road existed was for the tanks to drive along. And when you see pictures of places you've been, looking exactly the same, yet in black and white, with dirt or stone roads instead of pavement, and with tanks instead of cars. It becomes so real. I'm so lucky to have never seen any of these things in person, so it's hard to imagine it...but just like I've learned from pedagogy classes, when you can put something into context of something that you've experienced it stays with you. You've learned it forever.



The next day, the first stop on our day of _________ (how can one word do justice?) was the Canadian cemetery. You know, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was set up very much like the site in Ypres for World War I.

























The Juno Beach Centre felt like I was home. We'd walked along the beaches to get there, and it's a great time to reflect. And to imagine. No, that's the wrong word - imagine seems too "make believe", visualize might be better. You visualize the landings. You visualize the fear. You visualize the courage. It's right in front of you, the distance that they had to cover before there was any chance that you could catch your breath and not be seen for a moment or two. I felt so exposed.
Looking up at the dunes and at the other locations, it was worse - cliffs. You can't even see what you're up against. If you think about it, if you really think about it, the bloodshed was inevitable. It's the number of hearts against the number of bullets. I can't even...
Oh, for anyone who knows of a university student who might want an amazing experience, the Centre hires students to work there. Our guide was an Ottawa University student who would be studying to get his B.Ed (I/S level, French) the upcoming September. While walking the Centre, I just felt like telling everyone I was Canadian.

When we got to The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, I knew this was the real deal. Hopefully no reads my writing like I take it all very lightly, it's just sometimes things don't hit you until...something. This was like what you see in all of those American feature films. Crosses. Row upon row. Even in the John McRae poem, In Flander's Fields. It's something that we're brought up with in Canadian culture. So a certain extent, that's why the cemeteries in Belgium,
while of course the sheer volume had an impact, it just, I don't know. For me, seeing those crosses hit.
We were steps from the beach. "Omaha" by code name. The Americans wanted to bury their soldiers as close to where they fell as possible. Walking through,
getting to know those who fought. There were so many who fell the day they landed. The movie, Saving Private Ryan was inspired by two soldiers who are buried in this Cemetery. There are two Roosevelts in the cemetery. One is a WWI soldier who was relocated to be closer to his relative. He is the only non WWII soldier buried here. On the way out of the cemetery, we were honoured to see the flags being brought down for the night. Carried away by a veteran. For someone who has a bad memory, I still remember the visit so clearly in my mind. I'm not the most eloquent in the best situations, and trying to put into words an experience like this is proving to be pretty much impossible. Really, words cannot describe an experience like this. I'm glad I can share my pictures.




The final cemetery that was visited was a German cemetery.






It was interesting to see the similarities between the cemeteries from the WWI and from WWII.






The headstones, style, mass grave...again, I don't know why I would expect anything different.







Between visiting different cemeteries, we visited various battle sights. Of course I know that the war happened, and that tanks roamed the land and huge guns littered the area, but when
you see it...when you really see it there. You can imagine where the boats landed. You see the craters created by the bombs. The remnant guns look like something out of a sci-fi movie or a computer game. Yes, it happened, but you never expect it to look so...horrible.






Oh, I experienced quicksand. It was really interesting. You don't sink too quickly, and just like it's
supposed to, you sink the more you move. It is possible to get yourself out, you just have to do it slowly, deliberately and carefully. On such a serious day, I have to admit, it was kinda fun playing in the stuff and doing wild and zany things while being stuck. And then you realize that
just where you're playing...nothing changes. It's still the Normandy Beaches.










Mont St. Michel has nothing to do with WWI, but visiting it is a magical experience, so it fits right in.





This beautiful cathedral was built after an angel descended multiple times to tell this special guy to build the place.







After having the angel's finger burn a hole through his forehead, he finally built it.




Anyway, the place is crazy cool because of the tides. At low tide, you can walk on the sand right up to the "mountain". A guide is definitely












recommended for this, because quicksand sucks if you don't know where to go. At high tide the one lane highway is pretty much the only way to get to
Mont St. Michel, and you have to get dropped off because the parking lots are underwater. No joke. The tides change pretty quickly however. We arrived at high tide, and just 15 minutes after we arrived you could already make out the painted grid on the parking lot.





















The last night in Caen, I walked around town and was amazed by the beautiful buildings and lighting. Europeans do it right. Maybe I'm not close enough to the actionin the T-dot to actually see what's up, but they way they care about how their monuments and buildings look on the old continent. It's great.

On the way back to Neuch, we had a free afternoon in Paris. It was a sunday, so I had to make due with gazing longingly into all my fav stores (Repetto, anyone?). I did though, use to opportunity to beef up my Amelie obsession.



It's M. Collignon's shop! Wheeeeeeeee!

Dubrovnik and Split, Croatia (April 8th-12th, 2007)

At this point, I'm just happy to get this post up. Hopefully I'll come back and add more, but don't count on it. There are way too many trips that I still haven't written about.

We went to Croatia and called Dubrovnik our home base. It's quickly becoming a tourist hotspot and a place to be seen, so if you get the chance, visit it quick, before it gets out of hand. I can understand why it's booming...it's beautiful there.

Dubrovnik has a great old town that's walled in and is so...it has so much history, character...it's so different from North America, I loved wandering the streets and alleys. It's residential and commercial at the same time. Completely touristy yet authentic.

The bell tower at the center of the old town. If you look really carefully, maybe you can see the bronze sculptures of the two boys hammering away at the bell.













The old town. Look at the ground. Cobblestone, but not enough of a gap between the stones that you would wreck your heels.




The cafes are filled up even late into the night. I love it.




On the island of Lokrum, just off the coast - a 15 minute ferry ride from Dubrovnik. No smoking allowed! You wouldn't want any forest fires, would you? The island is small enough to visit in an afteroon. There's beautiful paths through the forest and great places to have a picnic and to go swimming in the sea. There's even a little tide pool where children can go swimming. Someone's kindly installed a rope for the kids to swing on!










This is the courtyard of a former monastery. Just look at the lush vegetation.


Dubrovnik as viewed from the top of Lorkum. You can imagine what it looked like a long time ago. A-ma-zing.





Now back on the mainland. Lorkum island in the distance, with the beautiful red terracotta roofs of the old town in front.




A side trip to Split. Taking a local commuter bus (think: Greyhound, but Eastern European style) and going through Bosnia (borders are all weird there). Like any European city, there was a historical centre, but I would say that I enjoyed Dubrovnik better. If you want to go shopping, go to Split. If you want a feeling go to Dubrovnik. Either city will get you access to beaches and islands. Bottom line, you need awhile in Croatia to see everything and have a car at your disposal if possible.


The bell tower in Split. We'd taken a commuter bus there (not very pleasant in the hot, hot sun - too many people and not enough air circulation) which did give a nice view of the coast (it drove all along it).




The open forum outside of the tower. You can see that there are cushions on the steps. A cafe was smart enough to use the space for themselves. What a great idea.



At the top of the tower, looking down.











If you go to Split, I would highly recommend walking (so much more interesting than cab or bus) out to the Mestrovic Gallery. While you're out there, hike down the hill to the coast.

Random vibes from Dubrovnik...could potentially be one of my fav trips of Europe.


I really hope that this guy owns a little store and on has hung a sign on the front door that says "gone fishin".







"somewhere beyond the sea
somewhere waiting for me
my lover stands on golden sands
and watches the ships that go sailing..."