it's the royal we, just so you aren't confused.
so yeah, I think it's pretty obvious by now that I just can't be bothered to spend too much time here. it's been, what? two months since the last post? suffice it to say that I just haven't had all that much to write about. still don't in fact. clearly I just don't do the blog thing all that well.
but now we're back in school for one last semester of work and my writing skills are...rusty, to say the least. so here I am, dusting off the old blog for another spin.
I'm not going to lie to myself and say that I'll have lots of stuff to put up here, because clearly my previous attempts at regular updates fell apart like a cheap knock-off lego set.
yes, I know that was redundant.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
it's 2am and I'm writing this post...because I'm dedicated like that.
word for word from the log...pictures to follow sometime when blogger doesn't suck.
Wednesday May 13th "Wieliezka." (it's a giant salt mine)
Left Zakopane for Krakow, by way of famous salt mines. one of 12 original UNESCO world heritage sights. 3 hour tour. in polish. I don't understand polish. Nice guy waiting in line at the ticket booth thinger made fun of K's polish but in a kind-hearted way. 20 minute wait for the tour, but 50 something steps down into the the 1st level of the mine...
[okay, I should point out that I was really tired when I wrote this one originally and I'm tired now. Two wrongs make another wrong and all that. also, it was 53 levels of steps. over 150 actual steps.]
...Poppa Ski didn't go, he's done the tour once before, and frankly once is enough.
Mine was relaly cool. Some really neat rooms carved right out of the salt. The "salt lakes" were kind of a disappointment, however our tour guide was wicked. kept calling us "loved ones." get this: there's a complete church carved into the salt. it's amazing.
Krakow
first impression of the city = meh. Kinda slummy or dirty or something. I can't explain it. drive to the apartment was okay but it seemed as though it was in a slummy area. [first world problems, I know] Our building is really nice on the outside, unlike some of the others in the area. apartment is on the top floor (of course) with no elevator (of course) and 70 steps to the top. Totally worth it: 3 floor apartment. nice new ikea kitchen and bathroom on the 1st. living area with full double bed, pullout and really nice full bath on the 2nd, little sitting area, bedroom and roof walkout on the 3rd. steps from the old town. took about an hour to ourselves then walked to the old square.
second impression of the city = um...wow. seriously. really big and impressive old square. largest enclosed square in europe and it's huge. Loved every second of it. we walked around a bit, bought some worthless touristy stuff, then it was time to eat. we were looking for some restaurant recommended by the apt. lady but we couldn't find it. left the old square and eventually went back to eat at the "best steakhouse" in krakow. [for the record, poles don't really cook steak. they do pork.] food was okay, but the drinks were better. super cheap though. poland is like a dollar store for canadians.
Wednesday May 13th "Wieliezka." (it's a giant salt mine)
Left Zakopane for Krakow, by way of famous salt mines. one of 12 original UNESCO world heritage sights. 3 hour tour. in polish. I don't understand polish. Nice guy waiting in line at the ticket booth thinger made fun of K's polish but in a kind-hearted way. 20 minute wait for the tour, but 50 something steps down into the the 1st level of the mine...
[okay, I should point out that I was really tired when I wrote this one originally and I'm tired now. Two wrongs make another wrong and all that. also, it was 53 levels of steps. over 150 actual steps.]
...Poppa Ski didn't go, he's done the tour once before, and frankly once is enough.
Mine was relaly cool. Some really neat rooms carved right out of the salt. The "salt lakes" were kind of a disappointment, however our tour guide was wicked. kept calling us "loved ones." get this: there's a complete church carved into the salt. it's amazing.
Krakow
first impression of the city = meh. Kinda slummy or dirty or something. I can't explain it. drive to the apartment was okay but it seemed as though it was in a slummy area. [first world problems, I know] Our building is really nice on the outside, unlike some of the others in the area. apartment is on the top floor (of course) with no elevator (of course) and 70 steps to the top. Totally worth it: 3 floor apartment. nice new ikea kitchen and bathroom on the 1st. living area with full double bed, pullout and really nice full bath on the 2nd, little sitting area, bedroom and roof walkout on the 3rd. steps from the old town. took about an hour to ourselves then walked to the old square.
second impression of the city = um...wow. seriously. really big and impressive old square. largest enclosed square in europe and it's huge. Loved every second of it. we walked around a bit, bought some worthless touristy stuff, then it was time to eat. we were looking for some restaurant recommended by the apt. lady but we couldn't find it. left the old square and eventually went back to eat at the "best steakhouse" in krakow. [for the record, poles don't really cook steak. they do pork.] food was okay, but the drinks were better. super cheap though. poland is like a dollar store for canadians.
my cd is skipping, or, Europe Day 2.
seriously, my cd is skipping like mad. that makes me angry. also, forgive the terrible grammar and compete lack of structure and flow. I seem to have lost the ability to write over the summer. go figure. oh, and don't even get me started on all the confused tenses...
Bratislava to Zakopane, Poland. 4 hrs and one sweet detour.
it’s 21 degrees celsius today. not a bad day, too bad we had to spend 4 hours of it in the car. sometimes scared out of our wits. whatever, we made it here alive.
we checked into the hotel at around 3ish. our room is on the top floor, no elevator. (looking back now, that shouldn’t have been all that big a surprise.) it’s a pretty wicked sweet though, even if I can’t stand up straight in our room.
left again almost immediately to catch the last gondola up some mountain (I forget it’s name, and it was in polish anyway), but we found out that we missed it. decided to go to another mountain, this one was essentially in the city. so we’re driving just out of the city and we pass a sign that has our mountain’s name on it. Mx doesn’t see it but Mx(female) does. rather than saying, “oh hey, here’s our turn off.” she says, “that can’t be it.” so we keep driving. a few minutes later we decide to turn around and what do you know? that was it. made me laugh a bit. though to be perfectly honest, it didn’t look like the proper turn off, since it directed us to drive under the highway.
huh…there’s a bazaar under the highway…that’s a creative use of space…lots of souvenir stuff and some really strange cheeses. no word of a lie, I totally thought the cheese was plastic.
anyway, the point of all that was for us to go up the mountain and see the town from up high. got to take a fun train/cable car thinger. gravity powered (two of them running in opposite directions using their own weight to move). neat. we went up with a bunch of really loud kids. we just missed a huge downpour, but by the time we got to the top it was sunny again. Top was neat, but a total tourist trap (which I suppose isn’t all that bad, since what else would we do in Zakopane?) Unfortunately for everyone involved, I was a pretty grumpy bastard on account of being so damn hungry. sorry guys.
Once we got back down we had some of those cool cheeses, which were very smokey and extremely salty. Kx and I got some little sheep souvenirs and I learned some polish swears like a good little foreigner.
Dinner at the hotel was nice and very polish: cabbage rolls and mushroom soup, and some wicked homemade fruit juice.
after din din we made our way back to the room and just sorta crashed. I somehow managed to stay awake until 21:30…
Monday, June 08, 2009
Europe 2009 - "The Trip of Up" Day 1
Vienna to Bratislava ~ 40 minutes driving at incredible speeds on fancy new european highways.
We arrived in Vienna around 8:30 local time (all times will be in 24h mode in keeping with the european theme of the blog.) The flight was uneventful and incredibly boring, just the way I like 'em. Flew Austrian airlines. they must have the oldest fleet of jets of any national carrier out there. The seats were nice and tight, but I had some leg room (ie, just enough so that I could put my knees in front of me for a few seconds before annoying the person in the seat in front of me.)
I took one of those fancy anti-anxiety pills before the flight, but I'm pretty sure I broke it because I didn't notice any less anxiety than normal. whatever. movies: surf's up, half of Gran Torino, Marley and Me, which I avoided like the plague. downside: the headphones were shit and the blugs were those stupid 2 prong thingers, so I couldn't even use my own. result: couldn't hear most of the movies.
Once we landed in austria we headed immediately to the rental booth to get our little Opel european mini-van/crossover/tiny suv-type-thing. We managed to tetris all the luggage in the back, and it was time to leave the parking garage. one problem...we couldn't figure how to get the car into reverse. by we, I mean M. either way, we eventually figured it out and got to the exit, where naturally, we couldn't find out ticket. the helpful but clearly exasperated austrian dude on the mic. eventually got us out of the garage and we were on our way.
driving in austria is like driving in canada. except the speed limit is 130km/h and you only use the left lane for passing. what a novel idea. at those speeds, we made it to the border pretty quickly, and let me just say that they get it there. seriously. we drove into slovakia without slowing down. I didn't see a pissed off border guard anywhere.
got to Bratislava around 11ish? not too sure, but it didn't take that long. however, we were too early to check into our hostel for the night, which sucked because we were all tired as hell. fortunately, the hostel dude let us put our luggage in the building so we didn't have to leave our stuff in the car, which was parked on the sidewalk just down the street.
-side adventure- we somehow managed to miss our turn on the way into the city, which is stunning when you consider that everyone knew we had to cross the river before turning off the main road. anyway we turned away from the river and basically got lost on some side street. I was all, "relax guys, I got this." but no one was listening. (another theme of the trip.) I convinced M. to just listen to me rather than the 3 shouting ladies in the back and after a series of quick turns through a sketchy apartment complex I had us back on track. No need to panic. Easy. -end of side adventure/bragging-
anyway, back to the hostel...well, we left the hostel and headed to the castle overlooking the danube. oh wow, how impressive! they had scaffolding in the 10th century...wait, you mean it's under reconstruction and we can't really see any of it? oh. well then...yeah, this was another theme of the trip. showing up in may, outside of the high season for tourism, was probably not the best idea for seeing all the old buildings in good repair.
so yeah, the castle was totally in ruins until the 50s. It wasn't really all that impressive, but that's probably because it's undergoing a massive reconstruction at the moment. good views of the city though. we didn't spend much time there.
after the castle it was time for the old town, or at least the old centre of town. cool little place, and no cars, but that's probably because it was sunday. we stopped for a quick drink/ice cream break and I had some wicked cherry ice cream, though it tasted a bit like medicine. Had pizza after that, and it was also okay. whatever, at 1400 we made our way back to the hostel to check in...finally.
did two of the 3 s's and then had one hell of an e.p.i.c. nap on the top bunk. only 1.5hrs. but I was out like the dead. woke up with a completely dead hand due to the abnormal, on-my-back-with-knees-up-hand-behind-my-head sleeping position.
at around 1800 we made our way back to the old town square, which was filled with chincy souvenir stands and left pretty quickly. had dinner at "slovakia pub," which we never would've found without our hostel guy, and had a pretty decent meal. dumplings with fancy slovakian smoked sheep's cheese.
went back to the hostel, had one warm beer, and passed out again. oh...one more thing...on our walk to the castle in the afternoon we passed by some british tourists/backpackers. I think they assumed we couldn't understand english, but as we walked by one of them quipped, "wow, nice cans on that one." referring to kaiser. nice of 'em.
We arrived in Vienna around 8:30 local time (all times will be in 24h mode in keeping with the european theme of the blog.) The flight was uneventful and incredibly boring, just the way I like 'em. Flew Austrian airlines. they must have the oldest fleet of jets of any national carrier out there. The seats were nice and tight, but I had some leg room (ie, just enough so that I could put my knees in front of me for a few seconds before annoying the person in the seat in front of me.)
I took one of those fancy anti-anxiety pills before the flight, but I'm pretty sure I broke it because I didn't notice any less anxiety than normal. whatever. movies: surf's up, half of Gran Torino, Marley and Me, which I avoided like the plague. downside: the headphones were shit and the blugs were those stupid 2 prong thingers, so I couldn't even use my own. result: couldn't hear most of the movies.
Once we landed in austria we headed immediately to the rental booth to get our little Opel european mini-van/crossover/tiny suv-type-thing. We managed to tetris all the luggage in the back, and it was time to leave the parking garage. one problem...we couldn't figure how to get the car into reverse. by we, I mean M. either way, we eventually figured it out and got to the exit, where naturally, we couldn't find out ticket. the helpful but clearly exasperated austrian dude on the mic. eventually got us out of the garage and we were on our way.
driving in austria is like driving in canada. except the speed limit is 130km/h and you only use the left lane for passing. what a novel idea. at those speeds, we made it to the border pretty quickly, and let me just say that they get it there. seriously. we drove into slovakia without slowing down. I didn't see a pissed off border guard anywhere.
got to Bratislava around 11ish? not too sure, but it didn't take that long. however, we were too early to check into our hostel for the night, which sucked because we were all tired as hell. fortunately, the hostel dude let us put our luggage in the building so we didn't have to leave our stuff in the car, which was parked on the sidewalk just down the street.
-side adventure- we somehow managed to miss our turn on the way into the city, which is stunning when you consider that everyone knew we had to cross the river before turning off the main road. anyway we turned away from the river and basically got lost on some side street. I was all, "relax guys, I got this." but no one was listening. (another theme of the trip.) I convinced M. to just listen to me rather than the 3 shouting ladies in the back and after a series of quick turns through a sketchy apartment complex I had us back on track. No need to panic. Easy. -end of side adventure/bragging-
anyway, back to the hostel...well, we left the hostel and headed to the castle overlooking the danube. oh wow, how impressive! they had scaffolding in the 10th century...wait, you mean it's under reconstruction and we can't really see any of it? oh. well then...yeah, this was another theme of the trip. showing up in may, outside of the high season for tourism, was probably not the best idea for seeing all the old buildings in good repair.
so yeah, the castle was totally in ruins until the 50s. It wasn't really all that impressive, but that's probably because it's undergoing a massive reconstruction at the moment. good views of the city though. we didn't spend much time there.
after the castle it was time for the old town, or at least the old centre of town. cool little place, and no cars, but that's probably because it was sunday. we stopped for a quick drink/ice cream break and I had some wicked cherry ice cream, though it tasted a bit like medicine. Had pizza after that, and it was also okay. whatever, at 1400 we made our way back to the hostel to check in...finally.
did two of the 3 s's and then had one hell of an e.p.i.c. nap on the top bunk. only 1.5hrs. but I was out like the dead. woke up with a completely dead hand due to the abnormal, on-my-back-with-knees-up-hand-behind-my-head sleeping position.
at around 1800 we made our way back to the old town square, which was filled with chincy souvenir stands and left pretty quickly. had dinner at "slovakia pub," which we never would've found without our hostel guy, and had a pretty decent meal. dumplings with fancy slovakian smoked sheep's cheese.
went back to the hostel, had one warm beer, and passed out again. oh...one more thing...on our walk to the castle in the afternoon we passed by some british tourists/backpackers. I think they assumed we couldn't understand english, but as we walked by one of them quipped, "wow, nice cans on that one." referring to kaiser. nice of 'em.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
reporting the hell out of this...
yeah, so it's been a while and sorry, no story on bald farmers. at least...not yet.
so anyway, everyone's favourite budding journalist went to the TDSB Bored (mistake intentional) meeting last night to cover the vote on Toronto pools in the public schools.
there was a protest there. kids chanting and what not. anyway, below are some pictures, just because I can.
yeah yeah, I know this one doesn't look like a protest, I just like the way it turned out.
also, after over an hour of typical bored meeting bs, the trustees voted to delay making a decision until June. um, what? seriously? I just sat there, bored out of my mind (hence misspelling) for you guys to decide not to make a decision? wow.
funny story: I was sitting beside a guy from the Toronto Sun. Full-time reporter type. At one point, he got up and left the bored room (I'm not giving up on my bad joke) for some reason. He came back in a few minutes later, sat down, and asked me, "What are they talking about?"
"Man, I have no idea. I think they're still amending ammendments or something."
"Huh. figures."
after that, every few minutes the guy would shoot me a look out of the corner of his eyes that said, "what the hell are we doing here?" I'm glad I wasn't the only one asking myself that question.
oh, and get this. after the trustees came to their non-decision they had the gall to stand up and applaud themselves! "way to go guys, we put it off for two months. yay!"
on the plus side, at least my story and two of my pictures will be on the front page above the fold. that's like, the gold medal of newspapers. or it would be if it were even a half decent paper.
so anyway, everyone's favourite budding journalist went to the TDSB Bored (mistake intentional) meeting last night to cover the vote on Toronto pools in the public schools.
there was a protest there. kids chanting and what not. anyway, below are some pictures, just because I can.
yeah yeah, I know this one doesn't look like a protest, I just like the way it turned out.also, after over an hour of typical bored meeting bs, the trustees voted to delay making a decision until June. um, what? seriously? I just sat there, bored out of my mind (hence misspelling) for you guys to decide not to make a decision? wow.
funny story: I was sitting beside a guy from the Toronto Sun. Full-time reporter type. At one point, he got up and left the bored room (I'm not giving up on my bad joke) for some reason. He came back in a few minutes later, sat down, and asked me, "What are they talking about?"
"Man, I have no idea. I think they're still amending ammendments or something."
"Huh. figures."
after that, every few minutes the guy would shoot me a look out of the corner of his eyes that said, "what the hell are we doing here?" I'm glad I wasn't the only one asking myself that question.
oh, and get this. after the trustees came to their non-decision they had the gall to stand up and applaud themselves! "way to go guys, we put it off for two months. yay!"
on the plus side, at least my story and two of my pictures will be on the front page above the fold. that's like, the gold medal of newspapers. or it would be if it were even a half decent paper.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
just for shits and giggles.
someone give me a topic. any topic.
I'll turn it into an essay. consider it a creative challenge for those of us that are being creatively stifled by constant news writing.
if it helps, we can pretend it's practise for writing columns when I'm out of school.
yeah...practise.
I'll turn it into an essay. consider it a creative challenge for those of us that are being creatively stifled by constant news writing.
if it helps, we can pretend it's practise for writing columns when I'm out of school.
yeah...practise.
Monday, February 09, 2009
eff it.
it's staying white. I mean really, who even reads this thing other than myself?
so white it is.
also, in case someone is actually reading this, stop tagging me in your "25 random things about me" surveys on facebook. I ain't doin' 'em.
not now, not later, not ever.
my reasoning? who the hell wants to read 25 random things about me? and more importantly, why should I spend time filling that stuff out when no one's going to read it?
sorta like this blog really...
so white it is.
also, in case someone is actually reading this, stop tagging me in your "25 random things about me" surveys on facebook. I ain't doin' 'em.
not now, not later, not ever.
my reasoning? who the hell wants to read 25 random things about me? and more importantly, why should I spend time filling that stuff out when no one's going to read it?
sorta like this blog really...
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
changes coming?
I don't like the look of this thing. I really don't. if I liked the look of this thing, maybe I'd post more often...or maybe I'd just find other excuses not to write anything.
I want it to look...different...somehow...but none of the blogger templates are all that good/interesting. back in the day I could probably have gone through the .html code and changed a few things around, but I try to be less like a geek these days.
so jan. 12 marks the beginning of the second semester. all the writing courses are done, and now we get to learn things like "advanced interviewing techniques", though I'm not entirely sure what those could be. maybe we learn how to interrogate people. that'd be neat.
also, next thursday marks the first day we'll all be working on the East Toronto Observer, an actual real paper (though it has a circulation of about 2 000 or something like that). it's also online at www.torontoobserver.com so hopefully I'll have some basic news pieces for my portfolio over the next few weeks. (and no, I'm not excited about that, because news writing is extremely boring and formulaic, but it's something).
so what happened over christmas? did lots and lots of driving. in fact, it felt as though I spent about a week in the car. doesn't matter, fun was had by all. got lots of movies, two tv shows (of which one is the complete series), some clothes...you know, the usual. ate way too much food, resolved to get back to the gym ('cause I'm fat ya know?), resolved to not leave school work to the last minute like I did last semester (though that worked out well...)
...of course, we all know what happens to resolutions...
but I'm serious about the gym. seriously.
I want it to look...different...somehow...but none of the blogger templates are all that good/interesting. back in the day I could probably have gone through the .html code and changed a few things around, but I try to be less like a geek these days.
so jan. 12 marks the beginning of the second semester. all the writing courses are done, and now we get to learn things like "advanced interviewing techniques", though I'm not entirely sure what those could be. maybe we learn how to interrogate people. that'd be neat.
also, next thursday marks the first day we'll all be working on the East Toronto Observer, an actual real paper (though it has a circulation of about 2 000 or something like that). it's also online at www.torontoobserver.com so hopefully I'll have some basic news pieces for my portfolio over the next few weeks. (and no, I'm not excited about that, because news writing is extremely boring and formulaic, but it's something).
so what happened over christmas? did lots and lots of driving. in fact, it felt as though I spent about a week in the car. doesn't matter, fun was had by all. got lots of movies, two tv shows (of which one is the complete series), some clothes...you know, the usual. ate way too much food, resolved to get back to the gym ('cause I'm fat ya know?), resolved to not leave school work to the last minute like I did last semester (though that worked out well...)
...of course, we all know what happens to resolutions...
but I'm serious about the gym. seriously.
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