MY NAME IS CAIT AND I'M GOING HOME

Much has happened in the last month, the biggest event of all being a surprise visit back to ENGLAND!!  I only booked my flight a couple of weeks before; I was supposed to be going for a week away skiing, but plans changed when I realised the mountain of destination was the mountain I’d be going to the week after anyway.  I let Tom know and my Mum – my Dad and sister never ever get surprised so I thought it would be nice to do that for a change.  Also my Mum would 100% have a breakdown if I turned up on the doorstep. And I wanted her to get me in lots of nice food and tidy my room. Selfish behaviour.

I called my Mum to let her know, and her reaction was a disappointing ‘right, ok’. In fact she even sounded a bit mad. I was like ‘Mum no I’m actually coming home in a few weeks, it’s a surprise for Dad!’ ‘So what happens about your year abroad now then?’ ‘It’s just a reading week…’ ‘So you’re going back?!’ ‘Yes I’m going back!’ ‘Oh good you aren’t pregnant then.’

SO MUCH FAITH.  Me and Jenny spent the week leading up to going home forcing ourself to the gym at 7am trying to prepare ourselves for jet lag – 10 days is very little time and we’d heard horror stories of feeling sick and lying wide awake at 4am for days.  I also tried my very hardest to get on the going home song on Greg James' show on Radio 1 but clearly coming home all the way from Canada wasn't enough to get me on JUST LET ME SING ON THE RADIO PLEASE.  My Dad kept calling every couple of days making it very difficult to hide the secret, and asked me every single question on the planet about my ski trip – every time I go skiing he thinks it’s to Whistler so I just let him believe that.  Because I live in Vancouver obviously.

Getting into England was WEIRD – everything seemed tiny and it was so lovely to not have people stare in shops every time I spoke.  My Mum was in floods of tears picking me up at the station – Tom told me she’d even started crying driving up the road so I believe my decision to not surprise her was definitely the right one.

Surprises were the best – I just sat in the living room and when my sister got in my Mum just said a weird shaped package had come for her. Hehehehee. She sort of stared at me until I spoke, and then cried a lil bit.  We pissed my dad off by leaving the key in the door meaning he couldn’t get in, and let him storm around the house angrily for a bit before finally coming in the living room – he completely looked round the room and missed me before doing a double take. So much fun!

The 10 days absolutely flew by – I don’t think I had a minute to myself!  I managed to cram in trips to Lancaster, Leeds and Manchester, a few days with the family and a few days seeing everyone at home, and before I knew it Sunday had come round again and I was off back to Canada.  Lancaster involved drunk bowling and FINALLY drinking cider and black, breaking lent promises and a 2 hour trip to find blueberries. Leeds involved SO MUCH LOVING AND REUNITING, stealing cats, 5am trips to Sainsbury's and beloved pub lunches.  Manchester involved CARL reunited, Just Dance, a horrendous Gangnam style that I hope never makes it onto Facebook, Alex’s embarrassing interpretation of Revs as ‘Revolution de Cuba’ (no it’s the same thing) and 100000 people in one bed. And home involved drinking so much Prosecco vomming occurred, snuggling with my favourites, piercings and bridesmaid dress shopping!

One big reason I wanted to go home was due to my attempting to get a job out here for summer – whilst I didn’t feel homesick then, and I still don't now, I would hate to go another couple of months and feel that way and have to come home early, or to feel like whilst I’m travelling I’m counting down the days.

I tried my hardest and managed to get my absolute dream job!  It’s at a summer camp in Vancouver for the summer, the money is amazing, the location is stunning and the timings are perfect.  But things are never quite that easy are they? Turns out visas for working in Canada are NOT easy to come by for exchange students, meaning that my last hope is clinging to some phone calls this week – and it’s looking like the job is going to have to be turned down.  I am beyond devastated but still proud I managed to beat off the competition, and there’s always next summer!

I have also now learnt a new meaning of the word poor after booking my travel plans for when school ends, but need to keep telling myself that the debt is worth it and opportunities like this don’t come around again!  Life in London has been crazy as usual with midterm after midterm, as well as surprising Tasha for her 21^st this weekend AND St Patrick’s Day yesterday.  It was potentially one of my favourite days at Western this year, we were blind drunk at an incredible kegger, it was sunny and the last thing I remember is eating sushi. I HATE SUSHI.

Today also marks 6 weeks until we leave London for good and I’m actually beginning to feel nostalgic and a little sad at the thought of leaving  the place – the town itself is nothing in comparison to Leeds but the people and the places have made it the most incredible year and I’ll be extreemelyyyyy sad to say goodbye to Western. Life stahp going fahhsstttt.

Ski virgin/Obama hunting!

I really need to manage my time better - every single blog post seems to start with an apology for belatedness but life really just doesn't seem to stop across the pond.  After a couple of weeks settling back into London life, a crash course in skiing was essential for WSF's biggest weekend of the year at Mont Tremblant, Quebec.

The weekend was bizzare, unexpected and incredible.  First the mountain, views and weather were so beautiful and it couldn'r have been more different to the hill I'd skiied at Boler, which is the local place in London we can ski.  The cold was like nothing I've ever experienced - down to -50 at the top of the mountain!  Even walking to the bar at night, the insides of your nostrils froze which was suitably distressing when you can barely walk/see straight.  But thanks to Goodwill I was actually perfectly warm all weekend, as the length of the runs soon warmed me up! Being an absolute beginner and only having experienced runs lasting less than a minute, 45 minute long runs pushed my fitness and my legs killlllllllled.  Snow plowing most of the way oops.  So embarrassing seeing little 5 year olds ski right past me effortlessly, but practice makes perfect and I'm determined to improve my skiing to a much higher standard!  My girlfriend and fellow beginner Dalek Jessie and I did have a couple of horrific moments, still drunk and spending 25 minutes trying to get skis on, until we realised that sometimes skis like to pretend they still have a boot inside them.  First time we gave up and went to eat burgers with the girls.  Second time we were halfway down the mountain and had no option but to cling to each other and wail.  The first day also came complete with a dislocated shoulder, lost phone and wandering so far out of the village we were practically in Narnia, but I am proud to say our shit lives did not ruin our spirits once!

Western had occupied two floors of the gorgeous little lodge we were staying, with an open-door policy and a hot tub, which meant when we weren't skiing, everybody was running into random rooms or soaking in the hot tubs.  Mainly whilst drunk, occasionally sober, but the atmosphere all weekend was so so great, I must have spoken to over half the people on the trip, people were so laid back and friendly and basically just wanted to get pissed and make new friends.

Post-Tremblant blues hit harder than I thought, it's been a while since I've been somewhere and not wanted to leave as badly as I didn't want to leave there, and it's gutting I won't get to go again next year.. Snowriders will have to make up for it I guess.  I hope Leeds can compete!

Spontaneous booking during our Christmas travels led to this past weekend being spent in Washington, DC. Smack bang in the middle of midterms, perfect timing as always, but it's pass fail, so who really gives a shit?  After writing a 2 hour exam in just 45 minutes (interested to see how that one turns out) we were on our 17 hour journey to Obama's hometown.  Since I've started travelling, we've gradually started getting used to longer and longer coaches, and I have to say even 17 hours wasn't that bad!  When it's costing you $17 to casually nip to DC for the weekend, you can put up with anything.

The weekend meant we got to meet Steph's friends from Boston, which meant we had a solid group of 12 Brits!  We braved the freezing weather whilst the sun was still shining and wandered round the famous memorial walk.  Washington is absolutely beautiful, the architecture is stunning and everywhere is pristine.  The weirdest thing was how few people were there - despite the cold, I did expect to see a lot more people, but I'm not complaining - it was a stark contrast to NYC and Chicago, but a welcome one.  Despite our best efforts we didn't run into Obama, we hung around his front garden hoping he'd come play out, but he never did :(.  The Whitehouse is so much smaller than I expected!  Obama needs to up his game.

The Washington Monument, WW2, Vietnam War, Martin Luther King and Babe-raham Lincoln memorials completed our trek for the afternoon - I liked Martin Luther King because he had an excellent pose and Abe because he is a babe.  Also the word 'gaylord' was inscribed on the Vietnam statues - after a few minutes of going 'Omgggg that's so bad someone must have scratched it in really quickly before it dried' we realised the sculptor is called Gaylord (lol).  All the places were so so cool to see in real life, the countless pictures and films that feature them makes them seem surreal until you get to see them with your own eyes, photos just don't capture a place.

A cutie park ranger told us about the Old Post Office tower which gave us free 360 degree views of Washington, where I finally got to be shown where Beyonce sang at the Inauguration.. completely chose the wrong weekend to go to Washington but whatever.  After popping by a few Smithsonian museums, we got to see Beyonce's stage up close at the Capitol!  After exhausting our cameras of photographs we got a bus over to Georgetown to a cool little restaurant, where I ordered badly but everyone else did excellently!  The Americans had started drinking already with wine, but us Canadians decided to wait to go to a liquor store, and got the shock of our lives.  Vodka in Canada is $25 minimum for a 750ml bottle, no matter the brand, Smirnoff, Absolut, Vodkva, whatever.  Vodka in the US?  Two litres cost TWELVE DOLLARS.  And that wasn't even the cheapest!  But it was the nastiest - a big night out in the city to Madams Organ ended up extremely messy but hilarious.. with half the group vomming and feeling like ass the next day.

Our final day came with yet another free attraction, a ZOOOOO!!  We saw pandas and zebras and leopards and lions and loads of monkeys and other things, it definitely cured my hangover.  Washington was so good for students on a budget - all the attractions are totally free leaving more money for alcohol and food!  On the first night we stumbled across a Nando's and had to satisfy British cravings, but on the second night I made my second visit to the Cheesecake Factory.. and ordered my very first steak!  Apparently it was a fake steak but whatever.  Us being so clever hadn't taken advantage of the fact it was Superbowl Sunday and had booked an 8pm coach home, meaning we missed the game and more importantly, the Half-time show!  I have caught up though and have become even more obsessed with Beyonce, if that's even possible.  However the 'Mrs Carter' world tour typically has dates for the UK when I'm in Canada, dates for Europe whilst I'm travelling and dates for North America when I will most likely be home.  I will find a way!

Sledgehammer Bingo

Is my favourite night at Western, I've decided.  You get pitchers of beer, free popcorn, and play Bingo.. win and you get to put on goggles and a poncho, sledgehammer some fruit, and take home some sex toys, pizza, or XL poutine.  Lose, and you strip or buy shots for a shrine of Honey Boo Boo.  Last night I won. TWICE.  And our team won a third time. Cock ring, family sized poutine and salt and pepper penis shakers.  Ceeps I love you!

New York City

So this is a fantastically belated post about part two of my Christmas travels - the Big Apple.  This has actually been the post I've been most excited to write about because NYC is fabulous, however the amount of things we crammed into five days is likely to produce an essay longer than I want to write or anybody wants to read, so I'll attempt to keep it considerably short and sweet.

Day 1

8 hours later than planned due to snowstorms and cancelled coaches, we got our first view of the city by sunset, driving along the entire skyline from across the Hudson river.  Everyone was equally embarrassing and started listening to any song about New York (Empire State of Mind was mine) whilst sort of excitedly squeaking and shouting "IT'S SO BIG!" (no innuendo intended).  But it was.  It's fucking MASSIVE.  So bizzare seeing it in real life after seeing that skyline a thousand times over on photos and films.  Due to it being so late, we dropped our cases off at the best hotel a minute from the station, right opposite the New Yorker and five from Times Square, and went to get our first glimpse of the Square.  It was as if it was daylight at 8 o'clock at night with the glare from the lights!  It was such a bustling and exciting place, you sort of felt like something out of a film was going to happen at any moment.. sadly no flash mobs BUT I did meet Woody from Toy Story.. anyone who knows me will know what this meant for me.  We bailed to bed early after a meal at an Irish pub and sampling NY crepes.

Day 2

Up and out by 9am, we went to rush tickets for a Broadway show - this is where you get in line to get heavily discounted tickets for a number of shows, and we ended up with some amazing seats in Avenue Q, a risqué puppet show made by the creators of Sesame Street.  It was a matinee performance so slotted in halfway through our day and was hilarious and so cleverly directed, it was exactly what we all needed to wake us up as New York is unsurprisingly exhausting to visit.  The morning was spent experiencing our first subway which wasn't as terrifying as I expected and visiting the Met.  The best thing about the majority of the sightseeing we did is that it was either free or extremely inexpensive - to visit the Met was free, but to get in special exhibitions you donate however much you want.  I guiltily donated just $1 to see an Andy Warhol exhibition, but the staff were lovely and explained they have the system so students like us get to experience the museum.  Who was in the same tiny exhibition as us but James fucking Franco?!  He literally must have been right next to me at one point but I was too busy looking at the stupid art to notice.  However the exhibition was incredible which I didn't expect to enjoy.

After Avenue Q, we decided to take a stroll down 5th Av and sample the shops.  I say stroll - 5th Av is one of the longest streets in the world, so we took a subway to Macy's instead.  Macy's is the biggest store in the entire world!  Literally.  Think Primark in central London - but bigger.  It felt like 100 stores crammed into one, and the products made me sick with envy so I left as soon as I could.  This is when we discovered New York's downfall - unless you know the city really well, or have thousands of dollars to blow, the shopping.. isn't all that great.  There are countless Forever 21's, Steve Madden's and Zara's, but how many can you realistically go in without getting bored and not finding what you want?  The stores were all messy and disorganized and the staff were rude, but I think this may have something to do with it being New York at New Year - the busiest time!  My favourite shop of the day was Toys R Us in Times Square!  It was five floors high, with a ferris wheel right in the middle, a Wonkaland, life-size Barbie house, almost life-size dinosaur which moved and roared, plus more toys than anybody can comprehend.  I will NEVER take my child there unless I want to go bankrupt.  We were in here until about 11.30 and the place was still crawling, the city actually never sleeps.  As we were climbing into bed, Ryan comes knocking at the door and drags me and Jess for a spontaneous night out with other people on exchange from Leeds at his uni.  It was a ridiculous and hilarious night out which involved cameras almost getting robbed, running on NYPD cars and breaking into a 4* hotel with security chasing us.. not that I can remember, I'm just glad I didn't get arrested!

Day 3

Still drunk, we got the subway to the Natural History Museum via Grand Central.  Grand Central was beautiful and magnificent, and more impressive than I expected it to be.  Some people were running in all different directions just trying to get to where they needed to be, whilst others stood staring around and taking pictures - we were the latter, and I got the same feeling I seemed to have all week that we were in the middle of a film!  The Natural History Museum was a perfect hangover cure, but honestly you could spend days in that place and not get bored, it was so so huge, and took us hours to pass through without reading any of the information.  Midway through the day we took a wander through Central Park to get to the Rockerfeller.  Like everything else in the city, Central Park is SO big.  We must have covered such a tiny portion of it, but it was my favourite part of the whole trip.  Snow was still on the ground from the day before but it was brilliantly sunny with not a single cloud, and the park was so stunning.  We passed by the biggest of the lakes, the fountain, the boathouse, the ice skating rink and the row of trees featured in so many famous films, I was pretending to be in SATC the entire time.
The Rockerfeller, besides NYE, was the busiest place we went to on the trip.  Ice skating?  Not a chance.  You could barely get a good look at it, never mind get on it!  However the Christmas decorations, in particular the tree, are as impressive as they're hyped up to be.  New York does nothing by halves!  The prospect of a 4 hour line up Top of the Rock caused us to cover a little more shopping, grab some famous dollar pizza and retire to bed.

Day 4
The final day of 2013 began with an early morning trip to the Empire State Building, where I REALLY wanted to be Elf and press all the buttons in the elevator.. but thought the Chinese tourists riding up with me might murder me.  The views were mind blowing, you forget the expanse of Manhatten, never mind Brooklyn and the surrounding areas.  The wind got the better of us and we retired after about half an hour, not before picking up a half-price snowglobe out of Elf (again)!  Speaking of Elf, the entire week was spent trying to spot/re-enact scenes from it.  Obsession gone too far.

The rest of the entire day was taken up by the military operation that is Times Square on NYE.  Reviews told me "it's something you have to do once in your life, but never again".. perfect description!  It was a long day of highs and lows and delirium and no toilet trips and pens and cheering and games and rationed water but at the end of it total EXCITEMENT.  We had a mini countdown every hour as the rest of the world welcomed in 2013 which was really cute, but despite being only one block back from the stage we could barely see anything as the screens all still showed adverts bar one!  Naughty Times Square.  However the final hour, the atmosphere really was electric and the countdown was the most exciting I've had by miles.  Afterwards the streets were pouring with people shouting "HAPPY NEW YEAR", throwing confetti, blowing horns, even the people in bars were waving and shouting, it was so much fun.  Exhausted and forgetting to get alcohol we were in bed by 2am, the most sober I've been on NYE in years!

Day 5

The first thing we did in 2013 was go to visit Ground Zero - not the most uplifiting start to the year!  It's very difficult to make a graveyard into a tourist attraction, but the memorial is absolutely stunning.  When you look around, you still see all the damage to the surrounding buildings and it's hard to comprehend what actually happened there.  I was sort of milling around struggling to really think of it all as being real, when a woman stood next to me shocked me out of it by talking to me.
She pointed to a name and nudges me, saying "Guess what? I used to date him."  I just sort of looked at her in shock and stammered some sort of apology.  "Yeaaah," she sighed, "we had a bit of a thing in our 20's then just lost touch, but when I saw it on the screens I knew he'd have been the first one in there."  "Was he a firefighter?" I asked, literally not knowing whether to give her a hug or start crying. "Yeah, but don't worry, he'd have loved to die how he did, saving people."  Then she just smiled at me, says "Have a good day!" and walks off.  That was definitely enough for reality to kick in.

Trying to lift all our spirits, we wandered through Wall St, feeling like total scruffy ants, to get the subway to find some decent shopping with most of our cash still sitting in our pockets.  Today shopping was far more successful, after stopping by the New York public library we headed to Soho, where cool shops lined a maze of cobbled streets, and was much more manageable than 5th Ave and alike.  Just next to Soho is Little Italy, which felt like holiday, with gorgeous little streets crammed with restaurants.  The meal we had that night was beauuuutiful, the entire menu was in Italian so despite the waiter translating some it was sort of a guessing game, although it was hard to guess wrong as it all looked incredible.  I wish we'd had time to go again!

Day 6

Our final day in the city began with another of New York's infamous attractions, yet again free of charge; the Staten Island ferry.  Back down Wall St we went to take the 20 minute trip out to Ellis Island.  The damage from Sandy meant we couldn't go onto Ellis Island and walk around, but the ferry gave us the best views of the skyline and the Statue of Liberty, despite being almost as cold as Montreal thanks to the wind!  I wanted to pretend I was Carrie when she goes to the party with all the firefighters BUT the bit on the ferry she gets to go on was closed off.  Boooooo.

From the port we walked along the harbour to the Brooklyn Bridge which was SO cool.. another SATC moment, Miranda and Steve 4lyf <3.  The pedestrian walkway is in the centre of the bridge so you get the two lanes of traffic driving either side which is cool, and all along the bridge there's bunches of padlocks fastened to the sides, with a couple's names and their anniversary or other romantic messages.. slightly sickening but very very sweet.  The views again were fantastic and very movie-esque, then we headed to another random area of the city to do some final shopping.  Wandering around we discovered a cute little waterfall in between some apartment blocks and a cafe.. it's little quirks of the city I want to be able to see next time I come back, whenever that may be, one week is not enough to do somewhere like New York.. although one year most likely wouldn't be either!
Another giant meal ended the trip, this time at Applebees, with a coach journey spent entirely sleeping dropping us back in Toronto, which after the craziness of New York really felt like home.

Our time in Toronto was planned to be intense sightseeing for Steph's sake.. yet once we met up with Tasha all we wanted to do was catch up and get drunk.. which we did.  And it was so much fun, despite a lost phone and spiked drink.

Sooo.... short and sweet this wasn't.  But a week in NYC cannot be kept short and sweet.  Frost week back in London has been unsurprisingly hectic, especially with the added stress of attempting to learn to ski before my trip to Tremblant this weekend.  Skiing is so much fun, and Tremblant sounds like all you do is ski, get drunk, ski, get drunk.. sometimes simultaneously.  I cannot wait!

White Christmas in Canada

My fantastic luck has resulted in my wonderful Christmas break in Montreal ending with 5 coaches to New York cancelled.. leaving us with a 9 hour night in the bus station, and everyone at home with another riveting update from me!  Canada has finally decided to show us some traditional winter weather and show over half a metre in 12 hours, which was suitably magical but extremely inconvenient when you're supposed to be heading to NYC that evening.  NEVER MIND.

View from the apartment..

Bye car :'(

Fuckin Canada snow ey

Driving up to Montreal I honestly thought we'd never make it, I've never seen as much snow as we did on the way up, at one point the driver got stuck in a car park where the snow was so thick you couldn't even see any paths or roads and I thought we'd die on a coach load of French people.  But we MADE IT despite missing connecting coaches, and all turned up initially extremely shocked at how French Montreal is.  It's basically France, just a lot more snowy and there's Tim Horton's as per.  I'd got it into my head that Lauren speaks fluent French so we were all fine, but she basically just took it at A Level so with some awkward hand gestures and crappy GCSE French we made it on the Metro and to the apartment.  We'd been 'upgraded' to the 19th floor, which just meant literally the same apartment 10 floors higher, which did have a much better view of Mont-Royal, to be fair.  It was cosy to say the least but once we were all unpacked it was perfect for the 7 of us, all I have to say is it's a good job we all get on!

Food was the main priority since we're all fatties and it was Christmas just a few days after, so we went out and did a huuuuuuge food shop for the week and for Christmas day, shopping mainly at a local French store just round the corner which was cute and felt very much like we were on holiday, not still in Canada.  $26 was the grand total for everything which was amaze, and we cooked risotto, ravioli and fagitas, plus more Christmas food than is even imaginable, so for once life was not scrimping and saving like students!

Montreal is beautiful and definitely feels much more European than the rest of Canada I've seen so far, the streets are narrow and lined with lots of little pretty houses and buildings, and it doesn't feel quite so vast and spread out.  Everybody speaks French, more so than I expected, but it just added to the holiday feel and I actually quite enjoyed it.

On the first proper day we ventured out into the snow, which was perfect powdery little snowflakes which just brushed off your clothes but didn't soak you, out to the Biodome and Olympic stadium.  It was pretty cool looking round the Stadium and seeing how they've changed it all, as the Biodome used to be the Velodrome but has been renovated into a sort of zoo with five different habitat zones with animals from all over the world!  Since I didn't get a chance to make it to London 2012 it was amazing to be able to walk right down by the track and see how huge it is, it makes you feel like an actual ant, it must be so intimidating to be an athlete!  In the evening we watched a firework display at the port in Old Montreal which made me feel so festive, and got us all hyped up for a night out!  We ended up in a pretty studenty club and it was amazing to be in a proper club out of London playing decent music!  And beers were $3 so can't complain.

Family portrait

Biodome

Shnowy

Yay

Majestic

Birds copulating (flirting and sexing)

Kool penguin

Becky's meal

Old Port fireworks

Obviously a pre night out

Hungover Sunday was spent eating shitloads of naughty food at local markets and exploring the 'trendy' (lol) shopping district on St Lauren Street, watching Christmas films being generally cute, and testing out the swimming pool and sauna living the high liiiiife.  Except the pool was awkwardly freezing despite our best efforts flailing around to keep warm but stilll WE HAD A POOL.

Christmas Eve was a stunning clear sunny day which was SO cold.. -17 degrees but the sun really did make up for it, as the temperature was so cold that the snow which had fallen stayed all glittery and powdery covering everything and hadn't iced over and gone all slushy a la England.  This day we went to properly look round Old Montreal, and this was when we really discovered that we were one of the few tourists, which suited us perfectly as we had the freedom to explore and take photos without getting in anyone's way. Old Montreal is absolutely beauuuutiful, we went to the port and watched all the locals ice skating but were all too terrified to try as the Canadians are soooo good at it, even the actual children were whizzing around it was crazy.  The edge of the river, clock tower and a big indoor market to escape from the cold filled our morning when we went on the hunt for a creperie and stumbled across a maple cafe which was incredible.  If you bought something from the little food and drink counter you got free access to the museum downstairs where you could sample all the different types of maple syrup.  I shared the maple brownie and muffin, both of which were so good that I actually can't stop thinking about them and regret not buying 7 of.  I also learnt some excellent fun facts about maple syrup which make me feel very Canadian and no doubt will aid me in a pub quiz in the future.  I also saw a legit snowy owl in the street which felt very Harry Potter-ish.

Notre-Dame

Christmas day family portrait

The Notre-Dame Basilica was one of the more cultural sights I decided I wanted to see before I came here so went in to look around - it is absolutely stunning inside.  How anybody could be arsed to paint the inside so intricately I'll never know, but it looked so so good.  I also came over all holy and emotional seeing as we usually go to church on Christmas Eve at home so lit a candle and shortly afterwards gave a tramp 2 dollars, festive spirit and all that.  We then took the metro up to another part of town we wanted to explore, particularly to find a bagel place which is supposed to be the best in Montreal.  We found it and demolished it, a solid 10 out of 10 from me, which kind of ruined our plans to treat ourselves to a Christmas eve meal out.  However with all of us being used to going for a drink with friends on Christmas eve at home, we found a highly recommended little Irish pub which was absolutely perfect, so we got drinks and ate nachos and sweet potato fries, came home and watched Christmas films with our presents under the tree ready for the morning.

Christmas was AMAZING!  And I was so apprehensive about it, but with some brief skyping and overexcited present opening we were all very merry and happy and somehow managed to cook a dinner to rival the one I have at home, despite the oven and hobs breaking and us having to make gravy in the coffee machine.  We got a lil bit drunk and played games and stayed giddy for most of the day, and I actually really loved it.  We have awkward jokes about having family portraits every day before we go out but we have become like a lil fam and I don't want us to split up in NYC :( wah.

Boxing day felt very much like a traditional one at home with a walk up Mont-Royal, basically a huge hill at the back of McGill's campus with a view right across the city.  The snow had stuck and the temperature was the coldest it had been but we made it to the top fairly fast, passing by cross country skiers and kids sledging down the hill which was bizzare.  The walk was gorgeous and the woodland made it so picturesque, literally straight off a Christmas card, it's hard to believe when you were walking through that you were actually in a huge city, but I've found that in lots of cities in Canada so far actually.  Montreal has a massive jazz and blues following so we found a tiny jazz bar called Upstairs, there must have been about 30 of us in the place watching a couple of live jazz bands with some cocktails, so cool.  It feels like Montreal has so many little areas to explore it'd take you much longer than a week, I'd love to go back in the summer when festivals are on which is one of the main things it's known for.  We only discovered Underground City today once the snowstorm hit, which is a mahoooosive shopping and entertainment district covering almost half the city, but underground to avoid the weather.

Les Mis and an Italian were the treats for our final day, half the girls cried at the film it was hilariously embarrassing but it was an excellent film.  We're now more than a little bit delirious on the coach station floor like tramps re-enacting some of the scenes.  Well Steph is mainly.  And we've got a whole 5 hours yet to go and try and fight our way onto a coach to the Big Apple which is still REALLY EXCITING ahhhhhhhh.  I more can't believe half my time at Western has flown by so fast, and with some spontaneous booking of trips to Washington DC, a full term of skiing and Spring Break to already look forward to, I'm worried my second semester will be gone in the blink of an eye, I'll be back home and having to start thinking about being a grown up. Boooo.  Travelling > everything.

Procrastination for the nation

So I haven't bothered updating this since I went to Chicago as I actually haven't left London for an entire MONTH.  Longest time since I've been here!  However I have been nagged by some losers to update people on my life, so here is my life update.  Quick warning; it's not been particularly exciting, therefore this post won't be particularly exciting..

Right after we got back from Chicago Jenny had a friend from back in Newcastle come to stay, so showed her the sights of London.. in about an afternoon.  I do like London as a place to go to uni but there really isn't as much going on here for daytime fun as in the huge cities.. still, the weather was beautiful that week and London is very pretty just to wander around, especially as there are too many parks to even know the names.  After caving in to a night at Frogs which was rammed half full of models, half full of Chinese people gangnaming, Ryan arrived for the weekend to celebrate my 21st!  We now just refer to Ryan as omnipresent as it seems like he's always over to visit, it's got to the point where we don't meet him at the coach station anymore, he just turns up at the door.

We spent the evening at a bonfire then got caught in a fucking BLIZZARD walking home.  The weather has been surprisingly non-stereotypical of Canada so far, literally about three rainy days, lots of sun and maybe two mornings of snow that have melted by midday.. yet we manage to get caught out at 1am in some freak snowstorm.  Then obviously my shit house (more about that later) wouldn't open with my shit key, and with all my housemates being away we were on the verge of throwing Ryan on the roof to batter through a window, but managed to batter the door open instead.  Great success.

Tash arrived the next day and we all got ready for my celebrations!  I'd completely forgotten how to get ready for a big night out, back in Leeds we all fake tan, wear a fair amount of make-up, use hair extensions and whack out a little dress and pair of big heels.  Yet since being here, all of these things have remained untouched in the back of my closet, purely because I just haven't found the need to do anything like that when we go on nights out, everything just seems much more casual which I actually like, much less hassle.  Feeling suitably Essex'd up, I basically just got hammered drunk and went to one of the only clubs with music I like in London called Cobra.  I'd been warned to get guestlist and get down early, and since people predrink over here at 7, 10.30 would have been late, but something about being almost 21 and having had too many shots made me cocky..

So I stroll up verging on midnight, demanding that I'm on guestlist with 20 people.  "Hello my name is Cait and it's my birthday and I'm on guestlist" "Name?" "C....A....I...T" "You're not on the list." I actually gave her the filthiest look. "Yes I am, and I'm 21." (I wasn't) "Did you submit guestlist online or did you speak to somebody?" "....I spoke to somebody." "You did?" "Yes, I spoke to Paul." "Paul?! Oh I'm sorry, go right in the queue".  First of all, what the FUCK.  Second of all, who the FUCK do I think I am?  It gets worse.  I decided I wasn't going to pay entry either.  Stroll up to the ticket lady, look at her, then walk away.  "Excuse me you didn't pay" "I did, look in my purse" so I hold open my purse, empty because I'm holding my $20 in my hand, quite blatantly. "So where's your ticket then?" "You tell me" Big black bodyguard looks at me like I'm going to get killed. "Sure you paid?" "Yeees" "Alrighty then".  I am the luckiest most idiotic creature alive.  Aaaannyway it was a suitably wonderful and drunken and shameful night to celebrate joining the OAP club, topped off with breakfast out the next day and opening early birthday presents of English Galaxy, Heinz Soup and Robinson's squash from Ryan - nobody except study abroad friends will understand how exciting this was.

My actual 21st was strange.. I'd been feeling apprehensive all week not knowing how it was going to feel or be.  I'd been getting loads of parcels and cards in the post over the few weeks leading up to it, but since my family's birthdays are all around mine, it was a time I'd usually spend at home for the weekend, and it was the first time since I've been here I started to feel a little homesick.  Despite having class at 9.30 I actually had the best day!  The gifts and cards from home, the weather being the most gorgeous it's been on my birthday since I can ever remember and having all my friends together in the evening made it a lot less weird than I'd expected.  Different, but then again I am in a different continent!

The worst part about this month has hands down been the worst goodbye to my favourite foul-mouthed Aussie.  Unfortunately most of the exchanges only come for a semester, and since we know a lot of them it's going to be so strange not seeing as many familiar faces around campus and going on nights out.. in particular Lucy!  We spent an emotional little goodbye night drinking milkshakes before having drinks in an Irish bar to say the real goodbyes with everyone :( she's off travelling as we're all studying and I am beyond jealous, and am determined to make it over to Australia to see her.  Being here has given me a horrific case of the travelling bug and now all I want to do is see everywhere!

But only a few more nights out, nights spent watching Rick McGhie and Christmassy evenings spent at the light switch on were allowed before finals began.  I worked out this term is 16 whole weeks long.  That is INSANE.  At home we're only there for 11, one of which is Freshers so absolutely does not count, and we have no exams in those 11 weeks.  And then an entire month off for Christmas.  When I finish in a week, I'll have done 8 exams and two assignments, and I have the smallest workload out of anyone I know, only having taken three classes this semester - how the Canadians do this for four years I'll never know.  And then we get just over two weeks off before starting back again!  However.. I have just worked out that because I put effort into my other tests, I've already passed two of my classes without even sitting my final two exams.. and for the one last Saturday I only needed 10%.  Study abroad is a joke and I urge anybody ever to do it because I literally just get to play 90% of the time yet for some reason it looks amazing to employers.

So since my tiny brain finally worked that pass/fail literally means I just have to pass.. to not fail.. I have become ridiculously distracted with planning my Christmas travels!  I'm feeling more Christmassy than ever, with my shopping all done, a real tree in the living room and Christmas songs and Christmas Tim Hortons cups everywhere you go.

Steph arrives on Sunday after almost 7 months without not seeing each other and I cannot wait to see her.. aaaand luckily for me she's staying for 5 weeks!  We leave with everyone else for Toronto next Thursday, before spending a week in Montreal over Christmas, 6 days in NYC for New Years and a final 2 days in Toronto before finally coming home, then I get the treat of having a snuggle partner in my room for another two more weeks.  I have already been disgustingly nerdy writing packing lists, making documents with all the amazing events going on in the cities and trying to figure out how I'm going to cope with Times Square on NYE.. 8 hours in a crowd of a million people, faaaack I'm EXCITED.  But possibly my favourite part about this whole trip.. I get to see Al in New York as a little bit of home!  It's looking like I'm going to be the only one over here who won't be going home or seeing their family at all during the year abroad, which is a little daunting, but I think seeing a friend who is as sarcastic and hideous as I am will make me realise nothing's changed back home.

England, miss ya loads, hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas time and feeling festive and great and happy and blahhh, and hopefully when my life becomes less boring, so will my blogs!

Oh and about my shit house - it's falling apart and we have new pet mice and I can't lock/open the doors.. that's about it.  And someone stole chocolate from me in the library and I still haven't got over it.  AND my Mum sent us advent calendars and the fat motherfuckers at the border have definitely eaten them, the bastards.  OH and the new Twilight film is shit, what the fuck happened there?  If you want to see a really good film, go see Flight, I almost cried it was so embarrassing.  Don't watch it if you're scared of flying though because you WILL cry.  Now I'm just talking shit.

We ain't ever gon' get to Chicago!

I felt my first ever visit to the USA should be incredible, and where better to lose my virginity than Chicago?  We only booked a couple of weeks ago as a sort of spur of the moment, you only live once trip, and ended up booking it so late that the coach had gone down by $100, woooo yeaaahhh.  The coach only took about 8 hours travelling time, plus an hour spent trying to get over the border which was suitably terrifying.  Americans are SO strict!  There were legit signs prohibiting smuggling aliens.  Seriously wish I had photo evidence.  We crossed in Detroit at about 6am and I was not in the mood to watch Chinese people get interrogated before it was my turn.. turns out the Americans do actually love the Brits and they laughed and joked with us and gave us a green card.  Easyyy.

The relatively sleepy and uneventful journey suddenly changed when 7 fucking insane deer ran out onto the highway, bearing in mind we were in the fast lane I saw one dart through two lanes of traffic before getting mowed down by our coach.. sorry to be graphic.  It felt like we'd hit a car and we were all in total shock whilst the deer sort of lay by the roadside half dead and the driver drove off.  However the locals from Detroit barely blinked and one large black woman sat opposite me sits up in her seat all angry when we hit the deer and goes 'We ain't EVER gon' get to Chicago!' then sits back down all pissed off.  Took all my strength not to die laughing in her face.

After our first cab ride and wowing at the amazing hostel we went straight out sightseeing on very little sleep and very empty stomachs.  The weather the entire weekend was absolutely perfect, not a single cloud, a gentle breeze and not too hot or cold, we were the luckiest ever.  Our first meal turned out to be a similar experience to the rest; the Americans we met in Chicago were not the friendliest!  Being used to Canadians and living in a small city where people obviously have more time for you, the people who served us barely gave us a second look, and as we discovered later, our British accents actually seriously worked against us!  A guitarist sang a few English songs for us as we ate, and we made our first stop at Millennium Park, which contains Cloud Gate, or 'The Bean', a big concert ground, ice skating rink and various sculptures, all alongside Lake Michigan.  Cloud Gate totally tripped me out and I fucking loved it, it was much more impressive than I expected, I was so in awe.  The city is so clean and vast, the land they have isn't stuffed with every possible thing they can fit in, instead all the attractions are spread out and beautifully presented which I really did love.

We then headed down Michigan Avenue, or the 'Magnificent Mile' as it is famously known; this is basically Chicago's high street with all the major shops and attractions.  The main aim for the day 1 was to explore the mile but not go in any shops, as at the end of the mile sat the John Hancock Tower, where we wanted to visit to get the recommended best view of Chicago!  Our impressive willpower meant we only popped in a couple of shops, and I was beyond excited to go in them properly.  Chicagoans have impressive style, and I found myself wanting every single thing I saw, both in the shops and on the people walking around the streets.  The walk took longer than we thought though, as we were all just wandering and staring at all the buildings and shops and people, the buildings in particular are beautiful.

By about 3.30 we made it to the John Hancock, with the idea of going up still in sunlight and waiting until it turned dark to get views of day and night.  This was the best idea we had, the view as we went up was absolutely gorgeous, all hazy and sunny, and the tower was situated one block from the lake so the views stretched right across the city.  Everyone got snap happy and we waited for the sun to go down, there were plenty of attractions to busy ourselves with for an hour or so, and I managed to get a spot inside the bar/cafe area where the view looked right out over the sun setting.  The sunset was a bit of a 'wow' moment for all of us I think, it was like a huge red orange pink ball and it was potentially one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen, in such a different way to the natural landscapes and scenery I've seen so far.

At the bottom of the Tower conveniently sat The Cheesecake Factory, so it would have been rude not to go in for a meal!  Meals out were very cheap, and I managed to get a pulled pork sandwich, drink and the BIGGEST slice of cheesecake you've ever seen for less than $20.  And it is DEFINITELY no lie about the American portions!  I actually hate cheesecake but had the Red Velvet and fell in love.  Oops.


Considering we'd been up for over 36 hours, night 1 was spent passing out ready for Day 2.. shopping!  We first stopped off by the Buckingham Fountain and for a peek at the lakeside, unfortunately the fountain was turned off as the cold weather is approaching, but the lake front basically looks like the city is on the coast and we got some gorgeous views of the skyline!  Shopping was hectic but AMAZING.  Absolutely my favourite ever day shopping, never have I had to stop myself buying so much stuff!  The shops are so cheap when you convert them back to £, with the exception of Topshop.. I actually wanted to cry wandering around looking at everything I needed in my life and realising the prices were literally double what they are at home.  Second homesick moment since moving here!  Macys felt like Selfridge's but I did treat myself to a little bit of Mac.. it would be rude not to.



One of my favourite things about visiting the city was listening to the accent.. Chicagoans have SO much attitude and I had to stop myself laughing on so many occasions.. personal highlight was wandering past a 14 year old boy frantically shouting in his mum's face 'IT'S 2.15 MOTHERFUCKER GRAB YO' SHIT'.  Almost died on the spot.  I also loved their style, and the performers on the streets playing music.  Also the fact that every McDonald's was decorated as thought it was a proper restaurant.. I suppose as it is the birthplace I should have expected that!

Saturday evening was spent watching the Christmas Lights Parade!  The parade was the perfect length of time and the floats were suitably over the top and incredible, with Mickey and Minnie Mouse leading the way shooting sparks out of their float at the end of each section to turn that street of lights on!  Wish I'd been five years old again so my excitement was appropriate.  We also got talking to some locals who recommended us the best deep dish pizza (think Chicago Town pizzas on the huge scale and not from Sainsburys..) and it was only one block away at Gino's East!  We skipped an hour long queue and were seating in five minutes.  The restaurant was so cool, every single possible surface had been graffiti'd on, my personal favourite saying 'Dave loves Jessica (crossed out) Mindy (crossed out) Kim'.  Good luck Kim.

However this was where we discovered a pattern in our meals out.. at the Cheesecake Factory we'd been shortchanged $20.. luckily Greg spotted it and the waitress instantly handed over the $20 without questioning it which made us suspicious.  Then this evening we counted properly, as the bills are all identical and so confusing.. yet still ended up being short about $15.  We all paid the extra when I realised I'd put in $20 instead of $1..  and we didn't get that back.  The combination of student + tourist + British definitely = easy target.  It was the only fault of the weekend!

The newly lit streets made for a stunning and Christmassy walk home, and we ended the night playing the most hilarious night of Cranium in the hostel seeing as we aren't 21 and were fucking shattered.  The last day saw us splitting in the morning, four of us went to the Shedd Aquarium away from the downtown on the waterfront.  We paid just $5 for General Admission just to see the basic attractions.. yet realised security is not tight whatsoever and we literally got to see the entire aquarium, only with the exception of the dolphin show!  Sea Life Centre seems like a puddle compared to it, we saw penguins, otters, every single fish you could imagine, giant turtles, frogs, stingrays, dolphins, and the most amazing Beluga whales, a mother and its two pups.  Jenny almost cried.  It was hilarious.  Being overexcited and underestimating the length of roads as is usual in North America, we met up with the others at Navy Pier a little late.. Blackpool pier eat your heart out, it was so huge we couldn't even be bothered to walk right to the end!  Poor form from us.

We were all feeling gutted that hometime was calling soon and went exploring all the rest of the Mile that we'd already missed, making sure we made the use of every last minute.  Our coach was at midnight and checking out was at 9, so with some creeping around the hostel and sneaking off for a final deep dish pizza, we timed everything perfectly and were fortunately not homeless tramps in downtown Chicago.  Not ideal.

The weekend was absolutely perfect and we were the luckiest people ever in every possible way, I am desperate to go back when I'm 21 and explore the bars and clubs!  At 6am changing in Detroit we got chatting to a girl who goes to McGill in Montreal, yet her job involves hosting parties and looking after celebrities.. she'd just had an all expenses paid weekend in Chicago staying at a $700 a night hotel and attending parties with Richie Hawtin and Loco Dice.. I almost died!  Turns out she's bezzies with Richie and was determined to show us the best of Montreal, as it's exactly one month today until I get there, and swapped e-mails promising to tell us the best of the tourist attractions and to get us into the best of the clubs and DJ nights.  Excitement would be an understatement!  LOVE YOU CHICAGO.

Empty Buckingham Fountain

Greggles at Lake Michigan

TJ?!?!

Immature as always

Beluga whales!