Claudia’s Trans-Canadian Adventures: Day 1
So here’s an important question that’s been bothering me since I got off the plane.
There’s skiing and downhill stuff in the winter Olympics, right? Duh.
So where in the hell for the 1988 Calgary Olympics did they actually have that stuff? ‘Cause all I’m seeing is this:
Either they built fake mountains or they made it all up, one of the two.
We also flew through some badass lenticular clouds, but I couldn’t get my camera out in time to catch them.
Anyway.
You may be saying “wait, hold on, back up, what the hell were you doing on a plane and why were you in Calgary?”
An excellent question.
I wasn’t exactly in Calgary, it was just a stop on the way to London, Ontario to check out the University of Western Ontario, who happens to have a tier 2 philosophy of science program and who happens to have accepted me into the MA/PhD program.
Cool stuff, huh?
So now I’m sitting in a creepy little motel room with a pita, Futurama, and no internet, waiting for the campus tour tomorrow.
It’s also 1 degree Fahrenheit outside.
But it’s not raining.
Rock ON.
“Citizen SNIIIIIIIPS!”
YAY, I’m in Moscow again!
So the first thing my mom and I did was go to WinCo to get groceries for the time we’re here.
A standard packet of shredded cheese cost $2.49
$2.49.
You can’t buy a head of lettuce for that price in Vancouver. WHAT.
So I bought two bags of groceries and it all cost less than $40. One bag up north usually costs $50 or $60.
Well, anyway, I’m back. We all need to hang out.
Today’s song: Warp 1.9 (feat. Steve Aoki) by The Bloody Beetroots
I’m conflicted
I don’t know if I’ve blogged about this yet (I don’t think I have), but my dad told me a few months back that next winter (December 2011 or January 2012, assuming the solar flares don’t kill us all) he’d like to take a cruise down south to Cape Horn (southern tip of South America) and…you guessed it…Antarctica.
I was jazzed about this for about 24 hours until I realized something: how appropriate is it to allow cruise ships to sail through the already delicate ecosystem down there?
The Princess Cruise website claims: “The most isolated continent on Earth, Antarctica is home to massive icebergs, majestic mountain ranges and diverse wildlife in a wilderness setting that has a purity as inspiring as it is remote.”
Remote until you catch sight of the five other giant cruise ships muscling their way for “scenic cruising” during the two or three months it’s warm enough for them to venture so far south. It strikes me as wrong on a certain level, you know? I mean, you all know that I’d practically saw off my arm to get the opportunity to frolic around Terra Australis, but not at the expense of unnecessarily disrupting the wildlife.
So as much as it kills me, I think I might have to say no to this solely out of principle. We’ll see how things go in the coming year, but who knows. I mean, trucking a crap ton of scientists down there is one thing…letting regular people disrupt the goings on of the animals/environment for the sake of taking a pleasure cruise is another.
I’m sure if I’m destined to go there, the universe will find a way.
Today’s song: Phazing (Tiësto Remix) by Dirty South and Rudy (the opening minute of this song is EPIC)
WOOO USA
HI PEOPLE!
I have returned to the states and am now sitting in my dad’s basement.
We totally need to do something fun while I’m back.
Sorry this is short, it was a long ride down here.
Today’s song: Kids (MGMT cover) by The Kooks
SLEEPYHEAD THERAPY
Ah, United States, I’ve MISSED YOU.
Milk does not cost an obscene amount and I can get a crappy sandwich at a gas station for under $8. It’s not raining incessantly and there are fat guys everywhere. America…FUCK YEAH!
So I finally took a break from calculus today to check my email. Got a $16,000 scholarship for next year and some check waiting for me for $1,000. I have NO IDEA why I’m getting this random check, but I’m not going to complain.
And I just might buy a guitar with part of it. Damn you, Sean.
Today’s song: The Champions by Era
Blog 1,487: Boston!
Holy crap, it’s 80 degrees here!
And it’s nearly midnight and I’m sitting in the hotel lobby frantically looking for a song for today. Luckily, guests get free internet. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring Vaio (for his safety) and have to secure one of the four open-use computers for my daily music acquisition tasks. Not going to be easy for these next few days.
Haha, sorry, long flight (San Francisco to Boston). I’m kind of zoned out.
Today’s song: Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim
HEY!
HEYHEYHEYHEYHEY!!!
.Antarctica. :)
Alaska!
Pictures!
Picturespicturespicturespicturespictures!
Will Play for Death Star
Today we were in Victoria, BC. And I saw Darth Vader playing violin. No joke. Picture:
All we need now is Luke Skywalker singing “Ice Ice Baby.”
Or something.
Haha, I like how he’s staring at my soul in this pic.
OH LOOK A CRUISE
Hello from the ocean, ladies and gentlemen! Well, actually, not yet. We’re still chilling in Seattle right now, but we’re on the ship. Safety drill thingy will commence shortly.
Yay Alaska!
UBC part II
HOLY CRAP is it big here. The campus is the size of Moscow (at least population-wise—seriously) and the psych building is like three times the size of the Kibbie Dome.
It’s ridiculous.
There aren’t any quantitative students here, but there are two of us prospectives, so who knows.
Oh, AND it’s sunny and about 67 degrees here, as opposed to snowy ass Moscow in February. Go figure.
UBC
I’m in Canada, bitches!
After flying to Seattle and then renting a car to drive to Vancouver (weather problems were a factor, which is why we didn’t fly the whole way), I am now sitting in a fancy hotel, waiting for tomorrow, during which I shall go examine UBC and see if I want to go here.
I’ll probably have to, but whatever.
I do not feel like working on my philosophy homework, but I have to.
Also, why is Hulu working?
Goodbye warmth
Yay Hawaii!
The best part of Hawaii was chilling in the warm water late at night with Matt. At least we didn’t get stung by jellyfish, eh?
It was also very cool walking around downtown and discussing crap. Fun times indeed.
OMFG PARASAILING
PARASAILING WAS AWESOME!! Even though I felt like I was going to throw up as we were coming back down/heading back to the dock.
Hawaii Adventures: Football Edition
GOOD LORD WHY DID IT HAVE TO RAIN?!
And why couldn’t anyone realize that we had to sit SOMEWHERE, we couldn’t just be invisible?
Oh well.
Additional note: Matt + drunk chicks at football game = hilarity.
Additional additional note: don’t sit in the cheerleaders’ section of the bus if you want to keep your sanity.
Hawaii Adventures
Fun fact: a group of college band geeks can take approximately 5 times longer to get across the island of Hawaii than any of them thought was possible. And take far too many additional buses.
But aside from that, we actually got to Pearl Harbor today. The video we watched was very informative.
HAWAII!
HOLY FREAKING CRAP, HAWAII!!
It’s so weird to be down here. The flight was uneventful, plus I got pictures of cool clouds.
I miss Aaron already, though.
Adventures in Boise: Day 5…kind of.
I have literally very little to say today because all we did was drive back from Boise. It was a great time. Can’t wait for Band Camp to start!
Adventures in Boise: Day 4
We didn’t do squat for the first half of the day today. Really. We just hung around the hotel room going, “what should we do now?”
But then the day improved because we went to dinner with Matt and his mom. Then I went back to their house and Matt and I watched “The Butterfly Effect,” a movie I hadn’t seen before. Holy crap, that movie will stay with me a long time. I recommend it.
It was a very good night.
Matt, I shall miss you until band camp! Not too long, now!
Adventures in Boise: Day 3
Today I went two places I’ve never been before:
1) Target (I bought pajamas!)
2) Chili’s
And then I did two things I never thought I would do:
1) Go to a Harry Potter book premiere (I know, Shannyn, it’s shocking!)
2) Go to a Harry Potter book premiere dressed as a pirate
Yeah, so tonight totally rocked. I went with Matt and his friends around town to gather pirate paraphernalia in order to go to the new HP book midnight premiere dressed as pirates. So we go there and realize that we probably won’t be able to get in and get a book, so we leave (after pirating around a little) and go to Starbucks and then downtown for a bit.
It was grand fun.
Adventures in Boise: Day 2
Hooray for Boise! Today my mom and I went downtown and dinked around for about five hours. I like Boise. It’s nice.
Then Matt and his friends (who are awesome, by the way) picked me up from the hotel and we went to IHOP and then downtown. Fun fun!
Adventures in Boise: Day 1
Hoorah! So today my mom and I packed up our crap and drove the 200 some odd miles down to Boise. That was grand fun (sarcasm). But then we got there and I got to see Matt for the first time all summer, which was very nice.
We went to see the new Harry Potter movie, and I must say, I was impressed. I haven’t seen a HP movie since the first one came out. Very nice score. Very interesting story. I can see how it can become an obsession (*cough*Shannyn*cough).
It was fun.
I’m back–your lives can continue
Yay! Bow to me! I am the Master of the Universe! You are all my slaves! BWA-HA-HA!
Okay, I’m done. Anyway, it feels good to be back. I missed my computer. Except for the last day (Sunday), it was very very fun. And now it’s time to be lazy in my home state.
No apology yet.
“It’s not real, it’s Canadian!”
Holy crap, it’s hot here in Victoria–at least, compared to Alaskan temperatures.
Apparently the U.S. dollar is at an all-time low. When we got here, I exchanged $20 U.S. into Canadian–which worked out to be about $22 Canadian. Odd.
So I bought some happy little Canadian stickers and some other little thingy. And a Snickers.
Pretty slick for a white chick!
Let’s start with the beginning of the day. We got to Skagway, which is a little bitty town which seems to have constant wind. We took this awesome dog-mushing ride through the woods with a team of 16 sled dogs. ‘Twas much fun.
Here’s something I’ve noticed at every place we’ve docked so far. The ship from the Norwegian cruise line has, each time, had to tender their passengers (that is, take them by lifeboat to the shore because there’s not enough room for them to actually dock). Poor Norwegian. They’re ships have to compete with Holland America and Princess–two much bigger lines. Oh well.
Now on to dancing! I rock. That’s all there is to say. I got applause by all these old ladies who were there. It rocked.
Eigenblogger 