Vampire Weekend

What a night! For Alison especially, it was a night to remember.

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We were super disappointed a few months back when we missed out on seeing Vampire Weekend in Sydney at their small intimate gig! However I told Alison not to fret as we would surely see them somewhere along the way in either North America or Europe. It was purely coincidental that the one time I decided to research whether they’d be playing anywhere in Canada, was at the exact moment the pre-sale started, so naturally I snapped up tickets immediately; and just as well, general tickets sold out in no time at all.

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So the night finally arrived, and Tony and Luciano escorted us – as our dates. After a 30min wait at the door to get in, we got through the door, with all our ‘sneaky’ flasks confiscated. The show was amazing and we were full of energy after we left. Unfortunately the 50mins waiting in the parking-lot did dampen our spirits slightly, but we pushed through and decided to try our luck at the after party which was only a few minutes from our place anyways. $15pp. at the door seemed steep initially but once we were in, the music was cool and we were enjoying ourselves. The after party was advertised as having “DJ Baio – Vampire Weekend DJ Set”, Chris Baio being the bass guitarist for the band. We looked around and no one seemed to be excited about the fact that he was in fact Dj’ing, but we were excited. It was at this point that I noticed that at the small bar in the back, was a clumsy looking bar tender that looked mysteriously similar to the lead singer of Vampire Weekend, on closer inspection and questioning upon ordering a drink – it was in fact the lead singer of the powerhouse “Vampire Weekend” (Ezra Koenig) who was in fact fetching me a beer, and pouring Alison’s scotch. I quickly informed Alison of this development, whom in no other words “lost her sh*t!”. As cool as you like she wandered over and asked for a photo with him, he graciously agreed. She then proceeded to proclaim her love for not only his band, but in particular him – she then cuddled and kissed (on the shoulder) the man. Let’s just say he was not pushing her away. We both then chatted to him about the band and their upcoming plans, as well as discussing their previous shows at Splendour in the Grass – a solid 5mins of chatting before we let him return to his bar to continue serving.

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It was almost too much for Alison to handle, she kept repeating “did that just happen?”. Yes it did.

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We were then lucky enough to get Alison in a photo with the keyboard player Rostam Batmangli, and a photo of her ‘touching’ Chris Baio – dj/bassist. We hung around till the guys left on their uber cool tour bus, and we got a photo of Alison in front of it with her Vampire Weekend shirt on.

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So all in all it was pretty awesome. I’m a huge Vampire Weekend fan also, so it was great for me too, but it was a whole other level for Alison! It’s going to be hard to top!

Montreal, Québec City and Ottawa

Well we are now back in Toronto. And what a trip we had. We headed east of Toronto for 10 days, although it seemed like so much longer because we fit so much into such a short time.

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Monday morning 15^th March we caught a bus to Montreal, and upon arrival we were almost immediately blown away by how different it was to Toronto. Montreal for those that aren’t aware is part of the province Québec, which is French speaking Canada, and there is a noticeable European influence on the city. We checked into our hostel which seemed to be a small town house that someone had converted into a hostel – we later discovered that although this was the case, it definitely wasn’t small; a total of 5 floors of rooms made it quite a busy place. The first night we met up with a friend of mine Erik (whom I knew through Philli) who had recently relocated to Montreal, and his friend Seb. We headed out to a bar on a cool strip of pubs and clubs called the Crescent, and afterwards Seb drove us back to our hostel – detouring via Mount Royal, which is a mountain that sits in the middle of Montreal, and is a great vantage point to see the city. If you view the photos you may see the “nursery” (Wikianswers.com, 2010) of racoons; it was completely bizarre to see so many, and they were not shy of people at all –not that we touched them, as they are essentially large rats.

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Tuesday was spent wandering about Old Montreal perusing the buildings, lapping up the warmer weather (14 degrees) and introducing Alison to Québec’s customary dish ‘Poutine’ – which consists of fries, cheese curd and gravy. It looks awful, tastes average and will kill you if eaten frequently. That evening, we headed out with a few guys from the hostel to a bar that also offered Shisha’s, so to try something different we gave it a go.

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Wednesday we headed into town and investigated some of Montreal’s underground city, which is a series of tunnels connecting underground shops and subways – a total of 32km of underground tunnel. Wednesday night being St Pat’s day, we met up with Eric for a few drinks and yet another Shisha at his apartment, we then headed out to an Irish pub to have the standard Guinness or two.

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Thursday was a little slow to start, but we eventually got up and moving and wandered around the area of the hostel, which was in a super cool part of Montreal. We definitely loved Montreal, people were dressed better, looked better and it just seemed cooler in many ways than Toronto. Not that Toronto isn’t cool – just a different kind of cool. Toronto has more of a North American cool, and Montreal a more European cool. In the afternoon we headed to Québec city. We investigated buses and trains and both seemed overpriced – so we trialled a system called Allostop, which is a ridesharing website in which people driving somewhere register online and people can hitch a ride for a nominal fee. It worked great and we got there for a quarter the price of a bus.

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Québec City was magnificent. We arrived Thursday night and trekked with our bags to our hostel. Québec city is the capital of Québec and is the only remaining ‘walled’ North American city, and the buildings in Old Québec date back to the 1600’s. So heading to the hostel which was in central Old Québec we were more than impressed. We didn’t have to walk far to the hostel, but we had to walk up possibly the steepest hill I’ve encountered, luckily we only had to walk to number 30 or so, and it was a real kick in the pants when we noticed that many of the buildings were number with fractions – you may see the photo of 17½. We made it though. We headed out that night to see some of the city. We had been informed by Erik that there was an event on across the weekend called Redbull Crashed Ice, whereby a steep ice track is set-up through the middle of old Québec containing obstacles, ramps, turns, bumps etc; people wearing hockey gear then race down this track. It was completely insane, the photos may give u a better idea, but it’s hard to grasp how bizarre this event really was. Maybe the greatest thing I’ve seen. We headed back to the hostel for an early night so we could make the most of Friday. Only we hadn’t counted on the worlds loudest snorer to be sleeping next to us. Murder was almost committed a number of times during that night, however common sense prevailed and hence I’m not yet in jail.

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After 45 min of sleep, we headed out on the Friday and toured Old Québec city, it was brilliant, such a beautiful city, and I loved trialling my French which (just ask Alison) is actually quite extensive when it needed to be. We took in the sites, and then headed back to our hostel to “use” the lounge – in other words sleep on the lounge. However at 7pm the bar opened, and as they say ‘when in Rome’. So we had a few drinks and headed out to the Crashed Ice - which by the way was only a 2 min walk; with a few of our famous ‘flasks’ to conceal our public drinking. Friday night was the time trials, so people individually skated –some great stacks, it was awesome. Check some of the photos, and if you have Facebook access I’ll try and load some videos also. Erik from Montreal mentioned that he was heading up to Québec for this event and offered for us to stay with him at his Aunt’s place which was right next to the track. So we stayed with Erik and his friends Charles and Simon. Friday night we had a few drinks and headed to bed.

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Al and I slept till about 1pm to catch up from the previous night, whilst the guys were off Skiing/Snowboarding. They guys returned and we had dinner and watched some of the Crashed Ice as well as the hockey Montreal (Charles, Simon and Alison) vs. Toronto (Erik and I). Toronto took it out in overtime for another pointless win, which meant bragging rights for the rest of the night. After drinks we headed to a nearby bar and continued. Afterwards, Erik, Charles and I headed to another bar that reminded me of somewhere in the cross, just full of French speakers. Walking home after the ugly lights had come on, we detoured via the ice track, which was heavily guarded, except in one spot. So me being me, jumped the fence and proceeded to ‘skate’ with my shoes down the track, we didn’t make it far before the security kicked us out with a stern warning.

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Sunday we farewelled the boys and headed to a cheap hotel – which was cheaper than a hostel and we made arrangements for the following day’s travels to Ottawa. Nothing to exciting, other than the fact that I told Alison the story of the dead woman that was found under a bed a month later, after the room had been rented out a handful of times. Full story here if your interested

http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-sony-millbrook,0,5452067.story

but all that to say Alison had very little sleep that night.

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Monday we caught the 6am train to Ottawa, and arrived about midday. Ottawa is the nation’s capital, chosen in a similar fashion to Canberra in that it was on the border of Ontario and Quebec and was more or less equidistant from Toronto and Quebec. Monday we strolled the streets checking some of the sights. Simon and Charles (from Québec City, brothers I might add) live in Ottawa so we stayed in contact with them. On the Monday night Simon – a chef, invited us to his restaurant for a cheap meal. We were treated like royalty, and had the most amazing 5 course meal ever! It was a bit of change from the super cheap meals we’ve been having. After dinner Charles met up with us and we had a couple drinks at a bar nearby.

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Tuesday, the weather was somewhat dreary, but we headed over to the National Museum, and looked around, and we also saw some of the sights such as the Rideau Canal locks, and looked around the Byward Market. But we called it a day and headed back to the hostel.

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Wednesday we had originally planned on heading back to Toronto, however Simon offered to let us stay at his (and his gf Alison’s) apartment, and we decided to stay one extra day. The weather was much nicer, so we were much happier to see the sights. We headed to Parliament Hill and did a tour, which ended at the top of the clock tower, which enabled us to see the entire city which was pretty cool. So we toured around, Ottawa downtown and walked a bit of the Rideau Canal – which only 2 weeks earlier we could have skated, it becomes the world’s largest skating rink in winter stretching 7kms and is lined with cafe’s and bars along the way, ‘twas a shame we missed it, but we know for next time to get there earlier. Wednesday afternoon we headed out to a bar with Charles for a few drinks (before he played ice hockey that night), and then headed to Simon and Alison’s apartment, together we all headed out again and continued our debauchery. We stayed the night and awoke early (10am) to hop on a bus Toronto bound.

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We are now back in Toronto and glad to unpack for a short time. We are home till good Friday, at which point we will head West to Vancouver to meet up with Helen amongst others. Lots to do and people to see in the upcoming days in Toronto, as we now only have 9 or so days left here!

Brazil

Better late than never..... So the winter was too much to handle for me in Canada. Hibernation in crazy cold -6 degree weather was making me restless and the thought of warm water and sunshine was so tempting. Instead of being brave and smashing through the next 2 months, I decided to take a detour to South America and defrost in Brazil. I met up with Tam, Claire and Georgia and partied it up at my first stop.... Carnival in Salvador. Quite a culture shock at first witnessing how people in a second world country lived but in saying this loved every moment spent and every aspect of the country. Carnival involved copious amounts of drinking a Brazilian beer called Skol (only $1 real which is equivalent to AUD 45c), long sleep in’s to recuperate just in time for the following nights festivities, lots of booty shaking that tried to resemble samba, many nights feeling like popcorn in a crowd of thousands and a memorable night of being the only “gringos” in an all local Brazilian bloco. Too much fun!

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A detox was exactly what we felt like after Salvador but those caipirinhas were just too tasty. (A Caipirinha is the national drink of Brazil made toxically with only cachaca, an intensely sweet Brazilian style of rum made from sugarcane juice, ice, sugar and lime). We travelled down the coast, this involved numerous overnight bus rides (some almost 19 hours long and a 3 hour stop over at 1am at a very dodgy bus stop that resembled a homeless shelter) along to a small little hippy/surfy town call Itacare. A town that possessed a lot of character and the most beautiful coast line of beaches I have ever seen. We did our one and only tour of Brazil here just to get a closer glimpse of these beaches and wow it was worth it!! Starting off with a trek through bushland and reaching the bluest water I have ever seen. From here we walked through to several different beaches each having their own spectacular views and warm water. The tour ending with a swim at a freshwater waterfall. I took some awesome photos with my new top of the range “waterproof” camera that turned out to be not so waterproof. So unfortunately these are where my photos stop. (Check out facebook, Tam, Georgia and Claire kindly took ample photos from this point onwards).

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From Itacare we reached another small town, Porto Seguro that was just as captivating. The relaxing continued with more sunshine and beaches. We found the child within us and visited the coolest water park I have ever been too. Another picture perfect day. Of course followed by endless cans of cheap beer, homemade caipirinhas (thanks Franco) and toxic cocktails.

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Rio de Janeiro was where the relaxing ceased and the partying commenced once again. Although it rained pretty much the entire time we were there Rio was unbelievable!! We stayed at a hostel called “Girl from Ipanema” (yes just like the song) and shared a 13 bedded mixed dorm. Many laughs and memories were created in that tiny space. Lots of things were planned on being done and only half of those things were accomplished, mostly due to self inflicted alcohol induced pain. No regrets though! Tamara and I made sure we made it Christ the Redeemer. I don’t consider myself a religious person at all and know nothing about architecture or construction but once I was up close and personal with this structure it totally blew me away. The view of Ipanema and Copacabana was priceless; pictures just don’t do it justice. We also visited another part of town called Lapa and took a little joy ride in a rickety old tram to the top and visited a cool place called Santa Teresa.... picture postcard Brazilian character.
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Our most memorable night (or not so memorable for some) was the night we took on a “favela party” (it is actually advertised using this title). Bit of background info for you; Favela is Brazilian Portuguese for slum. Basically these favela’s were formed in the late 19^th century and was a place where former slaves (predominately African Brazilian’s) with no land ownership and no options for work lived. In time many freed black slaves moved in and these days the favelas are occupied by poor blacks who are pushed away from downtown into these far suburbs. I’ll paint a picture for you..... Imagine ghetto, dilapidated housing, extremely high crime rate, most dangerous place in Brazil to plant yourself. So why did we decide to party there for a night you say???? Because it was awesome! This underground party was massive, kind of like an old warehouse turned night club. There were at least 3000 people inside, 98% black 2% gringos (us), a really bad Brazilian DJ that played some okay local music, 1$ real skol beers and lots of booty. Were we out of place???? Of course. Probably the most entertaining night of my trip although there were a few close seconds.

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Made some awesome friends in Rio from all over the world. Many nights spent congregated at corner bar. (A small shop on the corner from our hostel that resembles a sandwich canteen that sells alcohol and makes potent caipirinhas). Not going to lie a few hangovers were solely induced by this sandwich canteen. Making the friends we had made here it was tough to say good bye to everyone, so tough we unintentionally missed not one but two buses we had booked to our last stop Sao Paulo. One of those “you had to be there stories” will save it for another time.

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Arriving in Sao Paulo was the wind down to my month long trip in Brazil. Sadness started to kick it when Tam woke me that morning with a sombre look on her face and I realised I had only three days to go and I would not only be leaving the sun and beach behind but Tam and the girls too. Living together with these girls for a month I found myself quite attached and in ore of their continuous company, stomach hurting laughter and unforgettable experiences. Brazil was a “warm-up” if you like, for Europe and it introduced me to the simple life which I fell in love with. I’m not going to lie..... Sometimes not showering for a few days or not changing clothes for a few days was not uncommon practise. I became a master at the inside-out undie technique. My last night in Sao Paulo I actually decided to shower, change my underwear and even put some make-up on.... and it went off with a bang. Unhealthiest and one of the messiest nights of my life. It involved an awesome club, insanely expensive drinks, a not too bad DJ, lots of D&M’s and farewell heart- to hearts. As I recall the night ended for all of us at 9am the next morning with a Claire and Alison conversation that debated the question “if you could be any animal right now what would you be?”.

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After a restless 2 ½ hour sleep we struggled to pack our bags and depart our separate ways. A few tears were shed but after a long 24 hours of travelling I was back home in Toronto with Nick (which was a surprise) waiting for me at the airport. (I missed a connecting flight so instead of waiting 15 minutes he was waiting for three hours.. God love him).

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I started out writing this with the thought that I’d keep it short and sweet but this triggered memories of experiences that I had to document more for my sake than anyone else’s. Our blog is starting to become like a personal diary for Nick and I. We have no idea whether or not anyone is reading this so it’s just as much for our benefit as it is to update you guys.

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The next week was spent pretty much as a desperate housewife (without the hot gardener)catching up on some much needed sleep and emails while Nick worked so hard supporting us both with his $12 per hour (before tax) job . Our next journey commences the following Monday morning.... Nick will fill you in xo

Toronto 2

Hello again,

I’m going to try and write every couple weeks on this, so watch this space – hopefully every entry will then only be short and I won’t keep avoiding it!

If you are looking for details on Alison’s trip, I’m sorry to disappoint, but she will do her own separate entry in the coming weeks. Her top of the line waterproof camera couldn’t cope with the super fun Alison was having and got water damaged – hence it needs to be repaired. Alison will provide an entry once she has her photos to compliment her blog. However, she had an amazing trip and she got home safely.

I ended up getting a job at Tony’s work ‘Pi Media’ it wasn’t exciting or high paying but it stopped me from spending and kept me out of trouble. I was working in a warehouse mainly moving furniture in and out of trucks – I feel as though I have definitely mastered the art. My Pi Media experience only lasted 2 weeks though, as I decided to move on to bigger and better things.

I had a couple of good quality ‘boys nights’ while Alison was away, I headed out with Tony, and friends, to a couple of good spots and went a little crazy – slipping down the stairs in my snow drenched shoes in front of what seemed to be a thousand people was definitely a low-light, but rocking it out with a cover band playing the Beetles was awesome. Luciano and I seemed to hop to 10+ clubs looking for the right one, but we never actually found it, but as they say it’s not the destination, it’s the journey – and we had a top night.

The cottage: just before Alison and got back, Craig, Tony and their brother Alex decided to travel north to Craig’s cottage for a weekend of bonding.

5:40pm We headed up on Friday night battling the traffic whilst watching Wedding Crashers on Craig’s 2 inch screen.

7:25pm We stopped off at Wendy’s for food on the way up - and I was persuaded to tackle 2 of the ¾ pound triple cheeseburgers, it took every ounce of strength to not vomit all over the restaurant and then the car. But I got them down, and that is where they stayed.

8:10pm We continued on our journey.

10:15pm We finally arrived. We then had to trek through waist deep snow to get up the driveway and I was nominated to carry a 35kg coffee machine, along with my bag, and snow boots (that’s right, I carried my snow boots in my hand whilst wearing running shoes in waist deep snow).

10:25pm By the time I was at the door I was sweating like I’d just run a marathon.

10:27pm We discovered the heating was not working.

11:20pm An hour of fiddling with the heating system and no luck, we called the repair man and decided to test the water.

11:21pm Apparently Niagara falls had temporarily moved to Craig’s cottage basement. So this meant – no water, no heating.

11:25pm Back on the road Toronto bound.

1:30am Back in Toronto and ended up going back to Craig’s and watching a movie.

4:30am Fell asleep just in time to get up at 8am to get Alison from the airport.

It was quite a laugh, so I can’t complain – hopefully we’ll get back up to the cottage soon and stay for longer than hour.

The following morning Alison arrived home so I met her at the airport and we headed home. She was glad to be home but sad to have left Brazil at the same time. It took a couple days to settle back in, but now she’s ready to venture out again.

I worked this past week and Alison manned the apartment. Throughout the week though we finally got to head out to a Maple Leafs game. Although all tickets were sold out many months in advance, we went along hoping to snatch some tickets from a scalper, and we were not disappointed. There were SEVERAL scalpers trying to dish out tickets and we were able to snatch some up below cost which was great! However they screwed us when we got inside - $14 for a beer; robbery! But we had a great time, decent seats, Maple Leafs won and I can now die happy.

Friday night and we headed out with our friends Philli and Jen, Trent, Leigh and Jacqueline; destination – Medieval Times. You’re going to have to check out the photo’s for this one, because words cannot explain the awesome that was Medieval Times. In short, it’s a dinner and show with knights and horses. We got to wear cardboard crowns, and eat with our hands. It was definitely a place that needs to be visited with children, or drunk, we choose option 2 and hence had a great time. Afterwards the whole team headed back to our apartment where we drank and reminisced and pondered how I somehow had acquired a sword with flashing lights.

With Alison’s excitement to travel still strong, we decided to venture out of Toronto temporarily to see a bit more of Canada. So as of tomorrow we shall be heading east of Toronto to Montreal for a few days followed by Quebec City and then to Ottawa. We haven’t booked much and are just going to take it as it comes. So we are looking forward to our bus ride first thing tomorrow!