That White Girl’s Alive–Part Two

As I mentioned last time, I’ve had some recent developments in my life. Although, all developments I listed in my last post do not warrant their own post, they do warrant elaboration.

List from last post:

1. I’m still alive

2. Work has been chaos and has been eating up all my time

3. I graduated from school (eeeep!)

4. The Boy moved in (double eeeep!)

5. I lost internet at home for 5 long weeks

6. I just got internet back

1. I am still alive. Unfortunately, I lost my URL because I didn’t have it on auto-renew. Even though that hurts me on the inside, it certainly hasn’t and won’t actually kill me.

2. Work has been busy and will continue to be busy for the next little while but now has a different kind of pressure and deadline. We completed one big project, but now are dealing with the aftermath of it and cleaning up after ourselves. We’re also expecting some auditors in at the end of the year, so we need to be prepared for that and make sure that we in fact adequately cleaned up after ourselves.

3. I graduated from school and this warrants its own post, so I won’t go into any detail now other than to say, I did it.

4. The Boy officially moved in. In the 8 months we’ve been seeing each other, we’ve basically been living together for 5 months. Right around Thanksgiving, he stopped going home much and was spending most of his time here. I eventually gave him a key.

In January, we had the conversation about him officially moving in. It didn’t make sense for him to be paying rent to his room-mate for a place he doesn’t live in and he wanted to be able to help me with the bills instead. So, he gave his room-mate notice and intended to vacate as of March 1st. Over the next few weeks, he slowly started bringing stuff over. As the end of February grew closer, the loads got bigger.

With me being busy at work and not being around to help organize and go through stuff, the boxes simply piled up and remained unopened. Once work slowed down enough that I had an available brain cell, I was overwhelmed by the chaos and was minutes away from completely losing my mind. The Boy may or may not have heard all about it. Multiple times.

I ended up taking the past week off work and we spent most of that time dealing with the chaos, so now the majority of stuff has been sorted, stored, given away etc. The place is starting to resemble a home again instead of this mess:

5. The internet was being provided by my upstairs neighbour. Once the landlord moved out, his cousin moved in and continued to give the tenants internet. Over the years, the other tenants lost their privileges and eventually I was the only tenant left with this grandfathered perk.

When The Boy brought his computers over, I gave him the internet password and he promptly went to town on it. My upstairs neighbour promptly changed the password and I promptly lost my free internet. I called the service provider for my land line and requested internet be added. They had a fantastic bundle that would end up costing me all of $15 more a month.

And then, it took them over 4 weeks to get their shit together; I had to contact them 3 times in order for them to actually ship the modem out. And then I got my bill.

6. Moral of the story, I now have internet, even though it was a pain in the ass and the longest 4.5 weeks of my life. Luckily, I had a work-issued smartphone and was able to pilfer internet access through that data plan.

That basically covers everything from the last post, aside from the graduation, which will soon follow.

Met up with a friend the other day for lunch; the following conversation occurred:

Thanks LC. Although (I hope) you’re right about the lack of terrible dating stories in the future, I sure hope to prove you wrong about being boring and not having any good stories left to tell.

Cuba 1.0

As you already know, I went to Cuba a few weeks back. It was great! This is what I looked at for 7 days:

White sand beach, clear blue-green water, 30 degree (Celcuis) weather, unlimited alcohol and enough shade (yay, palapas!) that I didn’t burn to a crisp. I can’t really ask for much else.

Like Mexico, my MO was pretty much the same: Operation – Drink Too Much. I do think I kept it together a bit more than in Mexico. Perhaps because there wasn’t any tequila involved or maybe because I’m getting better at it.

I arrived at the hotel around 8:30pm local time. Having left my house at 3am local time (Cuba is 3 hours ahead), you could say I had a pretty long day. My mission once I hit the hotel was: find room, find food, find booze.

The resort was very small, at least compared to the resort I stayed at in Mexico. There was only one outside bar open at night, naturally, I went there to have some drinks.

Travelling alone, you’re bound to meet some interesting characters. This trip was no exception. A couple tables over, there was a large group of mostly older folks. One of these folks was a 60-ish British fellow who was rather intoxicated. Randomly, he would stand up and yell. Loud.

I found it amusing. The first night. By the third or fourth night, everyone had pretty much had it.

In that same group, there were a couple younger people. One of them was a 19 year old boy who was quickly adopted by a family that we met down there. He could almost always be found within arms reach of the two young kids. He’d play with them and take them swimming at the beach. All around, he was a good kid.

The other younger person, was a female of indiscernible age; she could have been 24 or 39. But, let me tell you, Trainwreck Sally was a sight to see. Every time I saw her, regardless of time of day, she was absolutely hammered. 3am? Sure, makes sense… So am I. 3pm? What? Already??

As someone who enjoys the sauce (and has trainwrecked through a week in Mexico once or twice), I’m hesitant to judge someone on this, but I will.

She did and said a lot of inappropriate things while under the influence, but the icing on the cake was one night when a bunch of us went to the disco to dance. She showed up after us because she kept getting distracted by things along the way. We’ve all been there. At least I have.

Her dancing was… interesting. It started out with her twirling around, arms spread open, face turned upwards. I was pretty sure she was going to fall down or throw up. She didn’t. Then her twirl-fest morphed into, what can only be described as, an interpretative/artistic dance.

I’m being very diplomatic; she basically rolled around on the floor. In a dress. And had no clue that what she was doing had any effect on what her dress was doing.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a point where she rolled right off the stage. Sure the stage was only 4 inches off the ground and sure she seemed to work it into her “routine”, but I can guarantee it was not planned.

A girl I met down there agreed with me and she decided to say something to Sally that night.

Apparently Paulie came out the asshole in that conversation. The next day, Sally was going on about how someone was very rude to her the night before; they told her that she thinks with her vagina.

You could say she got the context wrong; all Paulie meant was that everyone in the club knew what Sally’s underwear looked like.

You could also say she got the person wrong; she thought I was the one who was brutally honest with her.

Back to School

I had all the intentions in the world to write this post sooner than now, but I’ve been MIA from the blog world for a bit and before I knew it, it was already half way through September. For that, I’m sorry. But that didn’t stop me from writing this post! You’re welcome.

My mother has ruined every vacation I’ve ever had.

When I was a kid, summer was the most glorious, long-lasting, time of doing nothing in my whole life; my days were filled with watching bad TV, bugging my mom for money because the ice cream truck was coming and having my mom yell at me to get out of the house and do something. But, no matter how awesome my summer was, it always came crashing down because of my mother.

Like all parents she counted down the months, weeks, days to when we were going back to school and getting the hell out of her face. That’s one thing; I get that, kids are annoying when they’re hanging about all the time. It’s another thing that she reminded us every chance she got that she was actually counting down the days. Once August hit, it was her objective to remind us as often as humanly possible that school was fast approaching.

It seemed like a long way away, but then the timeline got shorter and shorter.

By the time Labour Day weekend rolled around, Mom was positively giddy about the whole situation, by the last night she could barely contain herself.

She managed to “work it into conversation” every day of that last “not long enough” long weekend. It was crushing.

Now, I’m an adult and summer has gotten shorter and shorter (you could say it's over before you know it) and it’s no longer a 2 month vacation. In fact, I have to work through the entire thing and I’m lucky if I can get two weeks off during the summer. But no matter when I take my vacation, no matter how long of a vacation I take, my mother always ruins it.

As I lay in bed on the last night of my vacation, inevitably tossing and turning because I’ve messed up my sleep schedule, I’m plagued with one thought and one thought only.

Just goes to show you that you never quite out grow the teenage “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you” stage.

Just kidding, Mom, I love you.

 

 

Just kidding, you guys, she doesn’t read this!

“Santa” is an asshole… and so am I

A few weeks back I came across a funny ecard on facebook, so I shared it on my wall.

I believe my caption was “Glad I’ve been good”. My mom saw the post and commented saying something along the lines of “I’m sure you’ll get a CD”. I responded with “Mommmmmmm. Noooooooooooo!”.

Fast forward to yesterday. I received my Christmas package in the mail from my mom. In it, was a present from “Santa”.

And yes, I am 32 years old.

I burst out laughing because, if you can’t tell by the picture, it’s very CD-shaped. So I took a picture, posted it on facebook and tagged my mom to get a reaction out of her. I also tagged “Nickelback sucks A$$” in the same picture.

All at the same time, my mom sends me an email:

Mom: The package is at your front door.

TWG: Thanks – I got it!

Mom: You can open the one from Santa…

TWG: I’m pretty sure I already know what it is.

Mom: Really?

TWG: Yes!

Mom: How?

TWG: … … I tagged a picture of you… (keeping in mind this was all in the FB inbox)

Mom: You did! LOL

*she calls me because emailing isn’t good enough*

Mom: I saw your picture! It’s cute!

TWG: Thought you’d like it.

Mom: But how do you know what it is??

TWG: Did you see who else was tagged in the photo?

Mom: No…. … hold on, I’ll look … … …. Nickelback Sucks… Oh.

I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

Not only is “Santa” an asshole, I just ruined Christmas for my mother. Shit.

Thailand 1.2

So, picking up where we left off in Part 2… We got back to Bangkok, we saw some temples, we went shopping, we went home. The End.

Boring, right? Now, on to the anecdotes!!

After we left Bangkok the first time, I held some resentment. Between the heat, the humidity, the cars, the dirt, the lack of palm trees, the smell…. Let’s just say I wasn’t that happy in Bangkok. My resentment may or may not have consisted of:

My friend didn’t really get it. She kept saying “It’s not that bad. I like it”. When we got there the second time, she looked around with a disgusted look on her face and said “Is it just me, or did this place get dirtier since the last time we were here?”. No. It’s exactly the same!!

When we left Bangkok the first time, we were on our way to the airport with a taxi driver that didn’t know much English and was money-hungry. Bad combo. Let’s just say that a misunderstanding occurred that led us to believe that he was out to rob us and led him to believe that we weren’t going to pay the highway tolls to the airport. Long story short, for a brief moment we were pretty sure he was taking us away to murder us, but he ended up dropping us off at our (already checked out of) hotel. We had to get another taxi. Which doesn’t sound nearly as terrifying as it was.

A nice helpful lady at the DMK airport helped us get a shuttle and ferry from the Surat Thani airport to Koh Samui. We paid 650 Baht for the 3+hour trip (just over $30 CDN), we found out that our airline had coupons for 350B for the same trip. All in all, we paid $10 CDN more than other people, but the person I was with made it seem like we paid $1000 more than other people. She kept bringing it up and bringing it up… Over. And over. Again. It wasn’t too far into the trip where I thought it might be easier to just give her the 300B that we overpaid rather than hear about it the rest of the time. I’m white. You get ripped off when you’re in Thailand with ThatWhiteGirl. I’m sorry. Get over it.

Going to the beach one day and I had to wait around for half an hour while my friend put her makeup on. To go to the beach. So that we could go swimming.

That’s what swimming looks like when you’re trying to keep your perfectly manicured face above water. Clearly I’m not that girl.

Even though my friend is pregnant, she wanted to “party all night” a few times, which consisted of us going out and around midnight her yawning and saying “I’m tired”. Safe to say, that I didn’t overdrink and/or make poor decisions. Which is why this trip was so unlike me.

Yes, that’s a tea cup… I was trying to portray that I’m all proper and shit. I’m sorry. I know you expect more from me. Don’t worry I’ll go back to Mexico soon!

I got sunburned on a cloudy day. I’m not surprised… why was everyone else?

I didn’t eat any weird shit. I was scared of getting sick and anytime I found some street food that I was willing to put in my mouth, my friend was like “30B… Is that safe??”. My adventure-meter declined significantly and it doesn’t have that large of a scale to begin with.

In Bangkok the second time, we found this night bazaar that had so many strip clubs nearby that we were accosted like a million times for ping pong shows and whatnot. I was like “Soooo… you wanna go??” and she was like “But what if they put ping pong balls in weird places????”

She wouldn’t have any of it. So, I didn’t get to see ping pong balls shoot out of vaginas. I’m sorry.

We did a tour in Bangkok the second time around. But our tour was self-hosted, so we pretty much found a tuk-tuk driver that was willing to drive us around. It ended up being too cheap to be true. He kept taking us to these “stores” that we didn’t want to shop in. And when we came out 3 minutes later, he was like “Stay longer next time!”. Turns out, he gets coupons for gas if he takes tourists to stores, but only if they seem interested. We told him we didn’t want to shop, we wanted to see temples, so he dropped us off at the next temple and then ditched us. It took us almost an hour to find an available taxi/tuk-tuk.

I think that’s about it. I’m sure there’s like a million more stories, but you’ll get bored and so will I. So let’s quit while we’re ahead, shall we?

Thailand 1.1

Picking up where we left off in the Thailand 1.0 post… We arrived in Krabi; we gave the hotel name to our taxi driver and he dropped us off in front of this restaurant. I was certain we were going to have to get into another cab and go to the real hotel, because there was no way there was a hotel attached to this:

Except there was. We felt pretty sketched out about the whole thing, but the room ended up being nice and there were no giant lizards, so all-in-all, not a bad deal.

We basically only had one full day in this place, so we did a speedboat tour of the neighbouring islands. Beautiful Koh Phi Phi.

It was great, we went to a bunch of the different islands, had lunch and went snorkeling. Snorkeling is an amazing thing and I wasn’t quite prepared for it.

The next day, we went to Phuket. A 2.5hour bus ride on an AC mini-bus turned into a 6.5hour bus ride on an AC mini-bus that did not have much AC to speak of. Most people were pretty grumpy by the end. Myself included.

Our hotel appeared to be in the middle of nowhere, but turned out to be quite close to “Old Kata Center” which was a quaint little town near the beach.

The beach wasn’t nearly as spectacular as ones we had become accustomed to, but we spent a day there regardless. And because it was overcast, it was my first day on the beach without having to apply copious amounts of sunscreen.

Naturally, I burned the shit out of my back.

In order to keep my mind off the pain from my sunburn, I thought it would be best to inflict more pain on myself. If only to act as a distraction.

But also because it’s pretty. No, it wasn’t licked on by kittens and, no, it won’t come off in the shower, regardless of how much I thin my blood while I’m in there.

Next up was Chaing Mai, so we flew north and found our way to our hotel. Which ended up being so magnificently amazing I questioned how we were able to afford to stay there.

We ended up doing three tours, one included the zoo/aquarium, complete with elephant ride.

But also, pandas were involved.

The next other was a temple tour (but believe me, these were not the first, nor the last temples we would see… not sure if I ever have to see a Buddha again). Regardless of quantity, the temples were amazing, and the pictures don’t do them justice.

Last tour involved many animals. Including a monkey show, that was way more of a show than the last one.

And also tigers, even though I didn’t pet them.

And 10 levels of waterfalls that weren’t worth it after the 6th.

Seriously – I think that was the best one and we spent more than an hour walking up never-ending staircases to get to the top.

Did I mention we did this while in the jungles of Thailand? And that it was 35 degrees Celsius and humid as fuck? Yeah, I wasn’t super stoked with this part of the day.

And back down to Bangkok we went.

Next up – part three. I’ll finish off the snapshots of my snapshots and will provide some amusing anecdotes, that I’m sure you’re all waiting for.

Please note – aforementioned anecdotes do not include underage debauchery or ping pong balls.

Thailand 1.0

Here’s my attempt at summarizing my holiday in Thailand in one post. Highly doubtful, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum because if we learned anything from my last round of Mexico posts is that too many posts leads to more than a month between the start of my vacation and the end… and that was only a week long story.

I arrived at Bangkok International Airport and found my shuttle with no problem, albeit a lot of walking because BKK is the largest airport ever (well, that I’ve been in anyway). My friends showed up at the hotel shortly after I arrived and we went out for lunch shortly after that. As I was walking down the streets of Bangkok, I was stunned at the heat, the humidity, terrible air quality and dirtiness of the streets. I attempted to eat my lunch, but it was like eating fire, so I had to switch meals with my friend’s husband. Glad he likes spicy food. That’s about the time my body went into complete shock. I did not feel well.

Went back to the hotel for a nap, after which, I awoke with my body having come to terms with being in a foreign country. We went out clubbing to celebrate. There’s this street known as Cowboy Street… most of the bars are strip clubs with hot Thai girls (sometimes ladyboys) outside trying to get you to go in. There was this one club that had a girl outside holding a sign; the sign said “Over 50 hot girls inside. A few ugly ones and even a couple fat ones”. Seriously. I should have taken a picture.

We found a club that had a live band. It’s quite funny watching a cover band singing English songs realizing that they probably don’t speak English and have no idea what they’re singing about. This was the funniest song they played. (Turn down your speakers – it was loud and maxed out my camera mic.)

Pretty Fly for a Thai Guy

The next day we went to MBK, which is a ridiculously large mall.

Keeping in mind, I was already on the third floor. Still, picture doesn’t do it justice.

Day after that, we flew south to Koh Samui. We spent one day on the beach at our resort.

The next day we did a tour of the island.

Viewpoint:

Penis rock:

I was chatting with some Australian boys at this point of the tour; one of them said “It looks just like it did in the picture”, I said “Really? I thought it would be bigger”. It took him a split second to process what I said; if he had been drinking something it would have been a spit-take. Safe to say we were buddies for the rest of the tour.

Monkey “Show”:

Which consisted of this monkey climbing a tree and knocking down a couple coconuts. It wasn’t much of a show.

Mummified Monk:

Story is that he died while meditating 30 years ago… so they left him in that position and made it a tourist attraction. I just wonder why he was meditating with a pair of Ray Bans. Not very monk-ish.

That night, Ree went into the bathroom to shower. Within minutes of her being in there I heard “Oh my God. OH MY GOD!!” I called out to her and she said “You have to come in here and see this… maybe with your camera!” I went in and this is what I saw in our shower:

It was probably 6-8” long (not including the tail). And it scared the crap out of me.

The next day we moved again, this time to Krabi and this time to a hotel that wouldn’t let giant lizards into our room.

Stay tuned for part two.