MADRID, SPAIN!

Ah, Madrid, the city where a typical week consists of urinating on the streets, attending public protests, stepping in dog shit, watching couples make out usually with someone they just met, or someone else´s boy/girlfriend, and standing in over-crowded smokey bars. I mean sometimes these bars are so over crowded and people are making out so much, that I´m pretty sure I can now claim that I have been part of a three-some. I love this city. Congradulations to me! As of this month this is the longest I have been in any place in 6 years!!! Half a year!!!!!And I actually plan to stay, until I have perfected my spanish (and paid off my debts)
These are the chapters of my life here:

The beginning

Well I arrived here last september, after working my ass off all summer planting trees in northern BC and painting houses in montreal. The beginning was hard, very hard. As I was extremely sick, I mean so sick that I went to the doctor without insurance, spent a fortune on a false diagnosis, only for the doctor to say, I think you have Mono (nucleosis) but i´m not sure, i need to run another couple hundred Euro tests on you. Anyway I was dying of death, living in a hostle, trying to find a place to live, and beginning to work, as I was perfusly sweating, couldn´t eat for two weeks, i mean i could barely drink water even, running a high fever, I was just generally not happy. I was really close to hopping on a plane to Dubai as I had a job offer there, and was not happy here. But anyway, I found a great apartment right in the centre of the old city. With a really nice sunny room, and a big bed, and a cute cat with an English woman. I started to feel relatively healthy after about 3-4 weeks and that´s when my problems began with the teaching.

But all has been sorted out and I couldn´t love life more than I do now, despite the few inconveniences I have now and then, but without those I would get too bored.

Love life:


A typical conversation upon meeting a new man will consist of this


¨So, where is your boyfriend tonight?¨


Half jokingly ¨My boyfriends? hmmm I haven´t thought of it, they must be with their girlfriends today.¨


To this, I´ll usually receive a response of a laugh and a ¨Welcome to spain¨


And a new boyfriend to add to my list for at least a week or two. I´m only slightly exagerating.


HEy at least most people are honest about their infidelity here, I appreciate that, haha





Work:


I have finally perfected my schedule. Work has been a bit of a nightmare. I came here to work for a company called THE BETA GROUP, which made me travel by metro FIVE HOURS a day. I´d wake up at 5 am and get home at 10 pm. It was a joke, And i was getting paid about half of what I make now (and worked about double what i do now) When I tried to quit the job she attempted to withhold my pay, Luckily the week before I had met a lawyer in a bar and he got the money for me.


Now I work as autonomo, i think that is freelance in english. I´ve been through about 20 students and several companies, and now have the perfect schedule, with pretty awesome students, and very decent pay. I never have to begin work before noon , except for telephone classes i do first thing in the morning. And I rarely finish later than 8:30. I´m hired by companies, like BMW, Repsol, and now recently, I work for the Spanish government again (I used to work for the ministry of defence). I also have several private students.





Nightlife





I don´t even know where to begin with that. They´re not into music and dancing as much as I thought they would be. But the nightlife here NEVER ends before dawn. And during week days, if someone invites you out for a copa ( a drink) don´t expect to be home before 3 am. I´m not entirely sure when these people sleep.. But I´m getrting reallly good at the lakc of sleep thing, and have become much better at hang overs, I almost feel 17 again.





Travel





The great thing about living in Madrid, is that I´m right in the middle of everything. It´s really cheap to go anywhere and its all really close.


So far I have been to
barcelona:
The first few days I was in spain were in barcelona, then I went back for New Years to meet up with my friend Jill. This was much good times!!!!

Zurich for christmas; This was a bit of a surreal situation. As my entire family lives in Switzerland. the strange thing about it was EVERYBODY knew who I was, they knew all my little stories and details about my life, which was weird, because half the time I didn´t even know how I was related to the person speaking to me. Also all the weird things my family always did and I didn´t understand made sence, it´s just swiss.
Anyway on ´christmas day, I went sledding down the alps under a full moon with my cousins and their friends and hung out in a bar on the mountains where drunken swiss people were yoddeling, Definetly a classic Christmas.

Fuerteventura (canary islands) and Toledo. Sam came to visit me!! The same Sam that came down to Harlem with me to sell christmas trees. this was good times, madrid was cold and rainy, so I felt bad that she came all the way from canada just to see ugliness and I needed a random adventure, so we hopped on a plane south and went to the islas canarias. It was pretty nice, Really nice to get out of the city.
Oh and toledo was cold and rainy, but nice none the less HOLY TOLEDO!

and Cadiz and Sevilla my brother had been working in France and Switzerland, and was heading back to Canada. On his way home he swung by Madrid along with my cousin Patricia. This was pretty cool. We hopped a bus south for 8 hours and ended up by the mediterainian sea in the city of Cadiz. A very old whitewashed little town. I liked it. then on our way back we stopped in Sevilla for a few days, watched some flamenco shows, drank sangria and mojitos. Good times indeed.

Life in general

In general life is good, I´m always meeting new people and have some good friends I can count on (most of the time). My spanish is not anywhere as good as I thought it would be after 6 months. But its gotten much better considerign I haven´t had the chance to take classes yet. I´ve probably learned more english than spanish though. I´ve had to teach myself SOOO much english its not even funny. I never realized how little grammar and vocabulary I actually knew. But I´m such a good teacher no one has noticed yet, hahaha... There´s never a lack of things to do here, almost every week I discover a new part of this city i didn´t knwo existed. The food is fantastic, and the wine and drinks in generalare just as fantastic and fantasticly affordable. Luckily I walk to most of my classes now, So I walk a lot, so I haven´t had to buy a new wardrobe! HA

The weather is great, mostly sunny, and summer is on its way!

So i can´t complain too much.. though i do enjoy it so much sometimes

Future


Well I will work in a summer camp during July teachign a class of 15 kids, possibly august as well. I plan to make a trrip back to canada at some point in the summer. And am seriosuly considering a trip over to china in october/november, to meet Josh and Richard for a reunion.


I also want to walk the camino de santiago in june just to clear my mind and body from 8 months of living in a mass city. But these aren´t solid plans, It all depends.


Also I´ll probably have to move, as I don´t want to continue paying rent while I´m not living in the apartment. But I want to stay in my location, its the best location in madrid, in my opinion!!!!
By the way I now speak fluent Spanglish!!!
That´s all for now, I think next week I´m goign to morocco for the Easter holidays.

Mini Blog

Where am I: MADRID, my new home
What am I doing: teaching english, not sick from mononucleosis anymore, meeting great people, eating good food, probably drinking too much, and getting robbed, and stumbling upon riots near my home, and lovign the spanish sun
Near future plans: pay off my debts, see more of europe, try to learn spanish
My new phone number +34 608123680

From Vanderhoof to Montreal

Probably about a month ago now I packed up my tent and planting bags and crawled out of the middle of nowhere to Vanderhoof (still the middle of nowhere, but at least it had some kind of civilization). The nursery (tree) had some problems so we had two weeks off before finishing the last 3 weeks of planting. I couldn't afford to stick around for two weeks of paying for hostels and drinking far too much, so i decided to head home to paint houses (again) with Andrew.

It took about a 12 hour drive south to get to Vancouver. I hopped a lift with one of the other planters, Ian, who was heading there also. He had bought a car that same day. We drove straight for probably about 10ish hours, when the car broke down, he ended up scrapping it and we hopped a bus for the last two hours. HAHAHA

Vancouver was great!! I met some really cool people at the hostel. I hung out mostly with this Scottish guy, and several Australians guys. I checked out Stanley Park, and the Aquarium; I decided the otter is my new favourite animal, God they're cute.

I also hopped over to Vancouver Island (nanaimo to be specific) to visit my friend Bev, who I travelled/worked with briefly in Australia.

(Bev and I in Nanaimo)

I then had to figure out how to get from Vancouver to Montreal.

I checked out "craigslist" to see if anyone was headed the same way. Turns out there was a girl with a van leaving when i wanted to leave, going straight to Montreal. As dodgy as it was it ended up turning out to be pretty cool!!!! She was a really cool hippyish chick, that had been driving from California-to Vancouver- Montreal STRAIGHT. There was another cool chick and her dog for a part of the way.

We picked up a REALLY sketch hitchhiker with a broken arm and lots of eyeball boogers. He appeared to be in severe pain as he moaned the entire 7 hours it took to take him to the hospital he wanted to go to. anyway he appreciated the ride. We also missed hitting a deer by about 2 cm. Also a truck shot a rock at the windshield, and shards of glass flew at my face while I was sleeping. HAHAH Sandra (the driver chick) flagged the truck down (I'm talking bout an 18 wheeler) haha and made him pull over, so she could get his details.

It took us about 3 and a half days driving straight to get to Montreal. It was a much easier ride home then when I drove from Montreal to Prince George. Sandra had lots of blankets and pillows and tons of room in the back of the van, so i was able to sleep comfortably.

Anyway now I'm back home, painting my heart out and working my ass off and absolutely loving the summer in Montreal, Its been awhile since I've experienced it, and I forgot how much I love it here when I'm not freezing my ass off. As of September I'm going to be out of a job, and I still have NOOOOOO clue what I'm doing next. But I'm sure something will come along, i still have a month to figure it out.

SOME PLANTING PICS:

(the view form where I was planting)

(Kieren, my planting partner, and I hiding under the tarp from the hail)

(wasting time=no money made)

(Chilling by the camp fire on a day off)

(the crummy)

Tree planting; life as a rookie

After 50 hours of straight driving with someone i never met before I arrive at my destination ( a month ago):

UGGGGHHHHH, I don't even know where to begin or what to say. Tree planting is hard work, much harder than I expected. I thought since i did all this fruit picking and other manual labour work I'd be prepared, but i was wrong. Anyway things are getting better/profitable/less painful slowly, I've been out here a month already, and I'm still making progress. I'm literally in the middle of no where northern ish BC.

Just to give you an example of how my days work:

I wake up at 5 am every morning to the freezing cold (literaly its usually below zero) I peel myself from my steemy warm sleeping bags and 3 layers of clother+scarf and get dressed and stumble out of my tent to breakfast.

-Make my lunch with the stuff provided

-Wait in line for breakfast; Eat breakfast

-Load into the crummy (the bus thing that takes us to our block)

-Drive for an hour

- plant plant plant (this involves having 300-400 trees strapped to me all day and pounding into the ground with my shovel)

-finish at 5ish

-drive for an hour

-wait in line for supper again

-eat a spectacular supper at 6ish

-some randomness for about an hour or so

-go to bed by 8-9 ish

thats about it, we work 4 days on one day off. Just two more months to go...uuughhh,...

it sucks, but yet i like it, hmmmmm

(home; my tent, well JEff's actually, maybe he'll get it back one day)

(at work the first week with Michelle)

(This is where my camp is (half hour from fort st. James, we were in a gravel pit out previous camp in quesnel), I wake up to this view every morning)

on my way to prince george BC in a car with a guy I've never met before

So I just spent a month in Ottawa and now I'm ready to head to B.C.
I'm no longer taking a 3 day bus, I'm actually hopping a lift with one of the guys who will be planting with us. Should be good times.
I leave Montreal the 25th, first stop is Toronto, where I will be staying with my older brother and meeting up with Richard.
Who is Richard you ask? Richard is a friend I met in the midst of a hurricane in Progreso, Mexico five years ago. We were both doing our teaching practicums there, I then later convinced him to come to China with me, where we ended up living and teaching together for 6 months, he later went on to marry one of my students and is now living happily (more or less i imagine) in Toronto again.
Its really nice being able to meet up with people I randomly travelled with. Every now and then it feels like my stories are a figmant of my imagination, and when I get a chance to meet up with people who shared these journeys with me it confirms my stories are infact reality. I love reminissing!!!
Well besides that I haven't a clue as to where I'll be stopping and who I'll be seeing, all I know is I have to be in Prince george by the first, where I'll be meeting the entire crew at the hotel. the morning after we will head of into the wilderness to start planting.
I'm antisipating excrutiating pain, and mass fatigue. I'm so out of shape that my body is goign to punish me hard for pushing it to work hard for 10 hours a day. I think the first two weeks are going to be brutal until I get used to it. IT better be worth it!!! And I better not break a leg or twist an ankle, or get mauled by a bear or anything to keep me form doing this job, oh man I would not be a happy camper!!!
well until then enjoy your summer, adn think of me slaving away in the middle of nowhere being consumed by mosquitoes!

Woops, i kinda dropped off of the face of the Earth and forgot to tell anyone!

So a couple weeks ago i sporadicly decided to go visit jeffy in Ottawa. I didn't really tell anyone because it was just supposed to be a few day thing. Anyway 2 weeks later I'm still here, just so everyone knows I'm not in Montreal. So I'm here doing random things, mostly cleaning up after jeff and his roommate (cuz they're dirty) and walking their dog. Jeff's girlfriend hooked me up with some random jobs which is cool too. Anyway since i've been here i got offered a job in BC planting trees. So that's where I'm going in less than three weeks. I haven't told too many people about that either, but now I am. I'm going to get home on the 22nd of April from Ottawa, and I'm leaving for BC on the 27th (I'm taking a three day bus across Canada) . And then I'll be gone for 3 months in the middle of no where working my ass off. OH and just in case you wonder, I have been to both a naturalist AND an Allergist it appears I am definitely not allergic to trees, hmmmmmmmm.
anyway, unless something stupid happens in the next 3ish months i should come home in great shape, no debts, and not quite as broke, ready for my next journey somewhere....
and sorry for not telling anyone where i disappeared off to

Trying to remind myself there's a good reason why I'm broke and cold and have to work my ass off for the next few months

So my life continues to play cruel little jokes. Just as things start to look good and jobs start heading my way, I get a job at a hotel. I went out bought myself some suits, and started working my ass off to learn everything there is to know, a week later they cut my hours (cuz the girl that originally left wants her hours back). So technically I still work there, yet i haven't worked in a week and a half, and any other jobs I may have had a chance with are now also gone. So now I have to start all over again in my hunt, but on the plus side, i now know i look pretty damn good in a suit, hahaha. Anyway I plan to go plant trees in northern Ontario in May (assuming my appointment at the allergist goes well, beause trees and I haven't been the best of friend lately) and until then I'll just try to find whatever job I can, or if something better comes along I'll stick with that for awhile. either way I have A LOT of work to do before I can head out on my next adventure...

Until then I spend a lot of my time looking at these things, just to keep my sanity and remind me that the reason life is being a bitch is because life was unbelievably amazing and beautiful not too long ago:

A whole lot of nothing

So last year I added this cool thing to my blog called "Stat counter" This thing tells me how many people actually read my blog and what part of the world people come from, and how they find my site. Anyway I checked out the stats the other day and realized I still get an average of 50 hits a week from all over the world. So I figure since people are still bored enough to read my rants, I'll entertain them and write about the very uneventful time I've had since I came home, just over a month ago.


Well I came home and fell immediatly into the rut I thought/feared I would. Ugh, well first, friends of mine from Aruba (the same ones that took me to Miami twice with them a few years back), offered for me to go down and visit them in Aruba , which would have been cool, but that fell through, then I was planning to go back to New York to visit a friend, but i backed out of that for personal reasons. And then I decided I wanted to go to South Korea to teach English, but to teach there legally (to get the visa I need) I need to have my bachelors degree, but in order to finish my bachelors degree, I still need to do 40 hours of in class teaching, So you see the problem I had there, So I abandonned that idea. I've also toyed with moving to calgary.

But alas, I am still a bum living in my parents house, mopeing around and bitching at everyone. UGHHH I dunno why this always happens to me when I come back home.

Anyway I'm having a really hard time finding a decent job. Which doesn't surprise me, my french is just too crappy for anything in Montreal. Makes me kinda wish they changed that law where "any kids of non-english speaking immigrants have to go to french school" one year earlier that they did ( I just missed it). Also, I should have taken my dentists advice when he told me I should date more francophones to learn french as opposed to wasting my time with all these spanish speaking boys. What good will spanish do me here??!?!? MIERDA!!!

Anyway I have a place i want to move into around cote de neige which has been waiting for me since the first week i came home.

I can't in the least bit stand the West-Island (no offence). But the people here are just too superficial/ annoying and just smell too much like perfume, hahahaha. And I just don't understand why every chill little Pub they have here has been turned into a half-assed club by gay music and skanky annoying teeny-boppers. Also I'm sick of being so far away from everything.

Today I spent the last of my new york bakery money to join the gym. So now I have a reason to wake up in the morning, and get dressed also I have somehting to keep me busy so I don't have to spend all day waiting for someone to call to give me a job. Umm I've also been catching up with old friends and drinking too much...and getting myself in to some trouble just like the good ol' days in Montreal ...
I miss the friends I made in Australia, I really do, they were good times, in fact I miss Australia all together, If it weren't for the stupid christmas tree crap, I'd probably still be there with a pocket full of cash I made from picking Mangos and a nice tan and a BOX full of tasty wine, my visa doesn't even run out until Feb 14th!!!! Can you tell I'm bitter???? ?!?!

..awww man I hope I find a job soon!.. I'm sick of being completely useless..and in a complete shit mood all the time..

I got a random message from a friend from mexico who I haven't heard from in ages while I was sleeping last night. He said:

"
****@hotmail.com says:
oh girl, I hadn't read your update about the tree-selling period, really sorry things didn't turn out the way you planned them
****@hotmail.com says:
anyway, remember that what you have in your life, some other people envy....so you can't be doing things so wrong
****@hotmail.com says:
big hug - Raul "



Anyway eventhough I've been complaining and bitching about everything lately and re-evaluating the entire way I've lived my life, He did make a good point, and it made me feel a bit better...i guess...

.. anyway I am coming up with random things I want to do int he near future, but everything is still just ideas that I'm toying with. I'm sure life will start rolling eventually... at some point, in some country! Hopefully sooner or later

BAH!

for now me and Lisa will just continue pretending we're Zoolander:
"It's not easy being really really ridiculously good looking"

Thinking back to the Tsunami 2004

Though I don't like to admit it, the tsunami two years ago had a huge impact in my life. I'm thinking back to the day now, and a certain instance is standing out in my mind.
It was after the fact, maybe even a day later, Derek and I were sitting on the stone stair way leading up a mountain to the temple. the one that we slept outside of the first night. There were a few of us sitting there. We didn't want to go back to ground level, because we still don't know what happened, every now and then we'd ask someone and there was alwasy a different story, one point someone said it was somethign that broke out form an earthquake in Tazmania, close enough. Some people had they're FM radios, and listening to it religiously. There were constant rumors of another Tsunami coming, everyone had a diferent time of when it would come. SDo there was no way we were going back to ground level. the instance that touched me the most was, when other people were looting one an other, or just running away, there were these two ladies, that we recognized as living just down the street, that had lost everything. They were walking around, and up these stone stair in 40 degree weather, with packets of rice and curry and a huge bag full of drinking water. They were handing them out food an water to everyone, not asking for anything in return, just completely selflessly helping other. They were good people. People like that make me hope Karma really does exist

HAHA my NYC JOKE of a LIFE

OHHHHH MAN!!! I have to say for the past two weeks I've done a lot laughing at the weird way my life likes to play with me, including some crying about it aswell.
This entire year I've had one plan with my life. JUST ONE that would last a month, and that plan was to go to HArlem again and sell Christmas trees. Well everything was planned and I was ready to go. I came home from Asia/Australia early due to these plans, set it up with the bosses, and got Andrew onboard to come with me.
Obstacle #1 started when They wouldn't let Andrew across the border in New York. So I felt bad leaving him in no mans land all by himself, so I got off the bus, and walked back to Canada with him. I never have problems with any borders so I didn't see it as a problem. So we got back to Berri Metro, we got Andrew his documents and hopped on the next bus back to the border. This time they didn't let EITHER of us across, and not only that, they let the dogs loose on my bags and apperantly it smelled like drugs so they tore the ENTIRE thing apart, all over the place.
Anyway after some more questioning we took the walk of shame back to Canada for the second time. Ok, the next day I got all my documents ready and with a very juicy bribe recruited an old friend to drive me across the Vermont border, with Andrew's friend Sam (andrew gave up at this point). Anyway they questioned me for an hour and a half, and went through all our stuff, and finally we made it across. YESSS! I made it, or so I thought!

So I get to Vermont, met George and the rest of the X-mas tree gang. We hop in the trucks and are on our way. I slept most of the way there. I get to NYC at about 2 am, sleep on a freezing cold floor of our apartment (because everyone else already took the air matresses) and start work the next day. It's all good, within hours I meet up with all my regular Spanish Harlem friends, we set everything up! The first 2 days go great, then my hands start to itch "hmm just parinoia" I think. But that night I woke up with massivly swollen hands and lips and for some reason my heart is racing a million miles a minute!! just like the last week of x-mas tree selling last year. "SHIT allergies, FUCK not again on DAY THREE!!!!!" So I tell my boss who happens to also be a doctor. She gives me 9 that's NINE!!!! pills to take everyday. Its all good, I don't mind, I feel a bit naucious but my allergies are fine. I spend all day building the stand selling trees, and talking to the locals. At the end of the day I'm sitting around having a chat to Max, when all of a sudden I feel like I'm having a mass asthma attack. FUCK, I gotta get out of here! I was biking back to my apartment (oh ya I was biking back and forth from my apt to work which is about 15 minutes away) thinking of how i would get in contact with someone to take me to the hospital incase (Max and Ace)
my lungs colaps (I was actually really scared for myself,and if you knwo me you knwo that doesn't happen easily). I got to the apartment and realized I just can't sell trees,just no way. Everytime I get a reaction it gets worse, and next time I would probably need a shot at the hospital, I had to give in. Its not risking my health or having to owe an american hospital tens of thousands of dollars.
So completely defeated, discouraged and lost I called my boss and told her. I am now jobless, after everything I did to get to New York and everythign that was counting on this job, I had to give in.

At this point my boss came to give me a big spiel about how they're so sad that they're losing me and yaddayaddayadda! he gave me a lot of bullshit, and told me it would totally be fine if I stayed at the apartment for awhile until i figure out what I'm going to do.
Two days later, after wandering through central park ponderting life he calls me and tells me I'm abusing the fact that i'm staying at the apt and I have to get out because I'm causing "friction" with the others (just one of them infact, cuz he's a complainy bitchy bastard) Eventhough no one even ever saw me there, I made an extra special effort to be invisible to everyone there just cuz I know the last thing people want to do after a long day of selling trees is deal with someone aroudn the house.
Anyway I'm now lost and homeless in Harlem.
When I run into the crazy man who asks me for 2$ once in awhile, I complain about life to him and he offers me a place to stay. Man let me tell you this guy is insane, really nice and hospitable, but CRAZY. I got woken up just before 5 am with violent banging at my door with him yelling "ISABEL FOOD YOU GOTTA EAT GET BREAKFAST IIIISSSAABBBEELLL WAKE UP" Oh god just to give u a tiny example of his crazyness hahahah..

(Derek and I)
Anyway the next day when he left to walk his dog I took all my things and RAN haha back to the trees that is. When I called Tafa. He's an artist in the area, with really impressive work, he's also one of the most coherent people in the area, I always enjoy speaking to him. I complained about my joke of a life when he offered for me to sleep on the floor of his art studio. No one is there during the day and its safe, secure, quiet and warm! PERFECT! this is where I am staying now. I have a queen size air matress I blow up every night and a mass comfy comforter with a wolf on it. I'm quite happy sleeping there. (where I slept in Tafa's studio)
I got up the next morning to buy my coffee and croissant from the moroccan/french guy across the street, and as I had been doign for the past 3 days, I complained about how life was being a bitch, he responded "Hey you want a job, I need help!"
So that is life now, I sleep on the floor of an artist amonst crazy abstract paintings and paint fumes, and during the day I practicly run this bakery which is about 10 meters away. all of this of course is next door to the trees I used to sell. I'm sure Max is sick of seeing my face about 5 times a day. I think I'm sticking around a few more days then coming home,

(the bakery I worked in for nearly 2 weeks) life is too strange here.
Today my bakery boss showed up 2 hours late for work, so I took the day off to wander around downtown NYC what a crazy world it is here!!!well this is the condenced version of my life up to date! see u back in montreal soon!

Oh an here is teh web-site of the guy whose art studio I'm staying in
www.tafagallery.com

(sam,ben and I coming home on the 6 train)

(Rockafeller centre)

Last few days in Bangkok-MONTREAL

The last few days I just hung out around the guesthouse, didn't do too much. I went on a mass shopping spree for random things. Ran into some guy who practically lives down the street from me.
I had some issues sleeping so I went to the pharmacy to get some sleeping pills. The pharmacist gave me some no name white pills in a baggy. She told me it was Xanax and she promised they were weaker than valium, which is what I wanted. Anyway i popped two, and they kicked in just as expected and I slept great. I woke up however completely out of my mind! My god, i was completly messed up for the entire days, I just sat in a chair all day, and slept for the rest of the day. I could barely move. Crazy thai lady drugging me with no name drugs BAH! Needless to say i threw the rest out...
Anyway the day later Debby came back into town after having a crazy adventure in near burma, it was great to have her around. We snuck into the 5 star hotel across the street and did some sun bathing and swimming...
I left to go to the airport a day later. It was good to have her around, it was nice to have someone to say good-bye to.
Anyway it took over 30 hours to fly from Bangkok to Montreal ( via tokyo and chicago) ! Not a very comfortable flight at all with way to many stop overs.
I've been home about 18 hours now. I'm still a bit overwhelmed and confused and cold! But I'm still glad to be back! I'm going to go join the gym today to keep myself busy for the next 3 weeks until new york, and buy a new phone, since i realized the crazy french girl stole that too!! damnit! heh
;)

30 degree difference?!?!?!?!?!?

So i booked my ticket about 15 minutes ago now. I WAS really excited until i realized at the moment its 32 degrees,and I'm walkin around quite comfortably!!
IT'S 3 DEGREES IN MONTREAL!!!!!!!
I am going to die a very cold and painful death especially considering I own no winter clothes, not even a jacket as of a few days ago i didn't even own shoes (just a pair of flip flops). I had to go on a mission to buy myself some. I haven't had shoes on my feet in months!!!
what am I doing?!?!?
I don't know
hah, but i'm still excited

Koh Samed

So i bussed/ boated my way to Koh Samed. It was nice, i went on my own, but met a really good group of people on the boat over. Though i was feeling pretty anti social. I went out with them one night and got reminded how terrible Thai whiskey was for hangovers. I spent the rest of my time on the island trying to cleverly avoid them, though they always tracked me down. I spent alot of time just lying on the ebach and did lots and lots of swimming!
Now I'm back in BAngkok, and guess what I did 5 mintues ago>!??!?!?!
I BOOKED MY FLIGHT HOME!!!
YAY!

ARGHGGHGHGHHG!!!

Well I went Kayaking again, just as much fun as the first time. Right now I am in a jam AGAIN!! the last month has been pretty stressfull for me.
Well I haven't gotten my taxes back from Australia yet. They were supposed to come in a week ago. Well anyway my credit card maxed out, which leaves me with 0$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (literally)
BAH! oh the stress! Debby decided to go volunteer on the Burmese border with orphan children, which is cool, I was tempted to go aswell, but i'm not in the right frame of mind to do anything like that now, I've got my own (much smaller ) problems to think about!
Anyway i'm freaking out about a bit. I can't make up my mind as to what I'm doing, and the Tax guy is beign a GIGANTIC JERK!!!! and avoiding me!! I smell a scam!
BAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anyway i catch a bus to Bangkok in a few hours, i'll take it from there

Found my new favourite place in Thailand

Well I spent almost a week in Bangkok. I hung around Kao Sarn for a day just shopping and bumming around. Then moved back To Suk 11, the same hostle I've been staying at for years now. There I met up with Derek. Was preetty much the same old stuff. I ate some Good Somtem (papaya salad) from the lady in the back, and had a Banana Roti from "happy" down the road. I also met (yet another) crazy English girl from London. Anyway we both didn't have any plans so we decided to hook up and head to Kanchaniburi. I've never been here before but it has been recommended by several people. I absolutly love it here.
This is where the bridge over the river Kwai is.
Well lucky for me, Debby is one of those people who loves to do things and get things done!
So in the past 3 days I went to the tigre temple ( I got to pet a tigre). Went for a hike up the most beautiful limestone water falls. I didn't swim in the pools though, Eventhough we had been hiking up-hill fo 3 hours and i was sweaty and hot and the pools were gorgeouse and blue. And the water was clear, so you could see each and every one of the fish, and there was lots of them, So i chickened out (ask me to pick up a snake, hold a spider, no problem, but swim with fish? Forget it!!)
anyway after that I went to Hellfire pass. which is where POWs and asian labourers built the way for the train to go through, many people died there, and also hung around the Bridge over the river Kwai.
Today I went Kayaking down the river Kwai, which was amazing!! We saw a pretty blue bird .I liked it so much I'm going to do it again tomorrow.
The reason why I love this city SO much is the people here are just so amazingly smiley and friendly and food, MY GOD the food, is just too good. Actually the only reason why I'm going kayaking again is to have a reason to stay one more day to eat more food!

thailand...sigh

Well I hopped on a bus and then a ferry and ended up on Koh Phi phi in Thailand! This is the island where "The Beach" was filmed. It was really beautiful... but unofrtunatly you can still see the mass damage the Tsunami did to it, but they're recovering well and have plenty of tourist to give em lots of money.
(Koh Phi phi, where the movie "The Beach" was filmed)
Unfortunately the second day we were there, or was it the third?? hmmmm...Mikey got some bad news from home, and immediatly flew home. I hopped a plane with him to Bangkok, because I figured bumming around on the islands on my own would be a) boring, b) too pricey.
So for like the MILIONTH time I am wandering around Bangkok confused and alone. It kind of sucks because I'm really burnt out from travelling, I was really looking forward to slowly and casualy meandering north with a friend (who was just as easy and hassle free about evrything as I am). Meh I guess that's travelling for ya.
Well the imfamous Derek is somewhere in this city at the moment aswell, though I haven't been able to reach him, I'm sure we'll meet up. I'll try to come up with a rough plan as to what I'm doing within the next few days!

Malaysia

(Mike and the trishaw driver)
hmmm what can I say about Malaysia. It was a pretty neutral place. I probably would have liked it a lot more had the air been half decent. I spent just over a week and only travelled through 3 cities, including Malacca, Kuala Lumpu (the huge twin petrona towers were nice except they were barely visible with the smog.) and Georgetown which was an island off of Penang. We really didn't do much but wander around and watch movies, we actually couldn't find more to do.. maybe we were just being lazy, i dunno...
anyway our stop after that was Koh Phi Phi which was that island where they filmed "the Beach"
(these are the Petronas, usually you can see them clearly form this tower, but thats how smoggy it was)

(on the trishaw with Mikey)

Singapore! cough, cough

Monday morning we had all our taxes figured out, We bought a plane ticket and flew to Singapore a few hours later. Hmmm what can I say about singapore. We didn't stay long at all. It was a weird country. The way I would describe it (and this is only after 3 days of being there ) is Singapore is to Asia as North America is to Europe.
Let me elaborate on that; In europe you have lots of different countries, each country having its own unique culture and way of life. then you go to North America, which is filled with people originally from europe all from different parts however. Because of this North america has no real culture or religion or one way of life, its just one big mess of everything. And in my personal opinion I felt like Singapore was exactly that to Asia. There were so many different Nationalities that it was just a big mess of randomness, plus everyone spoke perfect english ad drove fancy cars ( real clean looking fancy cars) and listenbed to 50 cent. It was strange..nice, and clean, and friendly...but strange...
what did we do there? hmm lots of walking around and taking the train all over the place..nothing too exciting, then again i don't think there was much more to do.

anyway I just got to Malaysia a couple hours ago to a city called Malacca. So far I like this place...
However, YAY for me, just in the Isabel way I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time again, Singapore and Malaysia are currently covered with a really bad haze. Its caused by forests they're burning in Sumatra, Indonesia. So everthing here is really dense and smoggy and the sky is grey (eventhough its sunny out) and its unbarebly humid and hot. My lungs hurt!
Stoooopid smoke!!!

here's some news about it
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/10/5/nation/15633707&sec=nation
(No DURIANS! HA! Durians are stinky fruit, I thought it was funny they forbade them in the subway)

Good-bye Australia

Life in Darwin has been pretty boring. At first it was alright, but i've been here over a week now and it a small town and I've run out of things to do. Anyway, while beign here I've been doing a lot thinking. And a lot of spending money, on NOTHING!! Where did it all go?!?!!?!?
Well with all my thinking and all my money spending I came to a conclusion. I don't have enough time left to work again, and I don't have enough money left too travel a month and a half in Australia, so i decided, I would go to Asia instead. I've got plenty of moula for a month and a half there. Mike decided he would want to come along too, so that should be cool
So that's what we're doing, we're waiting for our tax return, then booking our tickets. We might leave today, or in 2 days.

(good-bye my roadtripping friends)
Our flight will be landing in singapore. Then we plan to bus our way through malaysia to Thailand. Woohoo good times!
I can't wait to be back in Asia!
All in all Australia's been great times, I met some great people and did some cool things, but I'll ready to leave now, I've had enough, for now

5000 km, 5 people and a Ford Falcon

On september 12 th we picked up our grey Ford Falcom and jammed all our stuff in the back. It was a bit cozy with the five of us squeezed in the back and all of our stuff , but luckily, driving still makes me sleep so I slept through most of it. We managed to cover nearly 5000km within 10 days. It was a lot of driving.
We started off from Cairns did a small detour to go visit 2 of our friends from work, Dan and Jacinta from Melbourn, in Mossman.
The 7 of us spent the evening having a few drinks in the CAR. hahaha it poured rain most of the night. It was a bit of a nightmare.

(having drinks in the car with our co-workers fromChilders, Dan and Jacinta)
From Mossman we went to Mt. Garnet, which was cool, it had hotsprings, but it still rained more of the day.
(in the hotspring)

Mt. garnet- Normanton

Normanton was cool, it was really hot day, but this place had a nice, pool and a warmish jacuzzi, good relaxing times.

Normanton- Mt. Isa
-

Mt. Isa- Devils Marbles

Devils Marbles had to have been one of the coolest places of this trip. This place literally looks like someone dropped gigantic marbles all over the place. We found a free campsite here and camped amongst the marbles under a gorgeouse clear sky. Some random Japanese people camped here as well and put on a bit of a fire show for us ( a la full moon party in thailand).
Mike also SWORE a kangaroo kicked his foot in the middle of the night, right mike!


Devils Marbles- Curtain springs

We saw a wild camel,
And I FINALLY got my campfire. We chilled around it, had a few beer, roasted some marshmellows, as James busted some tunes on his guitar. Two Dutch girls joined us for the night. Was a great night all in all.

ULURU (aka Ayers Rock)

This is the giganticly huge Rock in the middle of australia (it's one of the wonders of the world )
We hung around for sunset, really was amazing...
We also saw the Olgas, which was more cool looking rock formations.

Uluru-Renner springs
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Renner springs- Kakadu

Kakadu was a nice little rainforesty place, with a tiny waterfall (cuz its dry season now) and cool little lakes (though we are advised to swim at our own risk cuz there's Crocodiles everywhere! )

anyway our last stop was Darwin.
thats where I am now. Mel flew to Perth yesterday so I no longer have my travel partner (after 4 months of living and travelling with her. I'm going to miss her, she was great times!!! The other English guy, Rich and the scotish guy, James are headed to go pick mangos in a few days. and the Canadian guy, who knows
as for me I have no clue what so ever either hmmmm
for now I'll just relax get some sun and enjoy the 35 degree weather

here's a link to James' page, he put up some of the photos. have a look at that until i've finally get a chance to put mine up