The gist.

So I've rewritten this blog several times and I change my mind on what to write every time. This past weekend has really been one of a kind, not always in the best way. I found out some things about myself I never knew, for example just how angry one persons stubbornness and childish ways can really get me (enough to start causing a scene in a restaurant, good thing it was all in Russian).
But I won't be writing about it here. I've vented to the people that are close to me, and I feel like it would be really out of line for me to write about another person, because who knows, maybe they were having a bad day. So we'll skip to the good stuff!

My dad came to visit me this weekend in Paris. I had such a good time being a private tour guide for my dad, showing him around the city and taking him to places he wouldn't have known without me. I made him try snails (which he then ended up ordering at almost every cafe we ended up in), he took more than 1000 pictures (he was such a tourist with the camera! Selfies everywhere), and we drank a lot... like A LOT of wine.

I started to ruin the selfies, because that's just what I do.

Did I mention there was a lot of drinking that weekend?

My fam jam was also away this weekend, so every time I'd come home from spending the day with my dad, I'd arrive to an empty house (except for Igloo the dog), which really creeps me out. Not many people know this about me but I am really afraid of the dark, and of being along in a big, old house. So I decided to invite my friend to come stay the night with me. Then turns out my friend from north of France had come down so I invited her over too. Then we figured why not invite our Parisian friend and show her what it is like to live it up in the country.

Let just say we got real deep with our conversations, and played one of the most hilarious games that is made for children.

Then we got into the conversation of sleeping-arrangements.
Turns out no one wanted to sleep with me.... because I am a creeper when I sleep.

Every time someone stays the night with me I warn them that I tend to talk in my sleep. Little did I know, I don't just talk in my sleep;
The first time Irina spent the night at my place I had woken her up because I was prompted up and staring blankly at her. She began to calmly explain to my sleeping self that she is here out of invitation and perhaps I have forgotten who this is. Turns out this was enough for my sleeping self that I turned around to lay down and began laughing hysterically. I know... I know... Creepy..
So this second night she spent the night, I jolted out of bed and began rearranging things in my sleep.
We concluded my little sleeping outbursts are due to the fact that I had been drinking both nights, and perhaps that was the cause of my restless sleeps. I asked my boyfriend about these episodes and he said he has never noticed anything like this.... but then again he sleeps through his alarm clock (which is so annoying considering I can usually sleep later than him, but I still wake up to the horrible sound). At least it is something weird and interesting I learned about myself...

This past week I also had to say goodbye to une nouvelle amie who I met here. It is saddening that I did not get to know her as much as I thought I would, and that she had to leave so suddenly. However, it does give me reason to finally visit 'murica! The last picnic we enjoyed as a full group:

You thought there would be people here? Yes.. well so did I... then I realized it wasn't me who took pictures of our faces, but I did take pictures of our food... priorities. 

However I do have this picture of us enjoying drinks after the picnic (not all of us are present though). 

The rest of the week I have spent a lovely time celebrating my host dad's birthday:

Taking long romantic walks with the dog:

It looks like he has no head... but I assure you he does. I just found it hilarious how he was rolling in the mud. I found it less hilarious when he ran up to me all wet... so I ran away... he thought I was playing tag... I wasn't.

I also have dirt in my socks because I was gardening with the girls just now. This is my first time gardening, I hope something grows. 

Once upon a wine

So last week was sort of bittersweet as I happened to lose another good friend here in no-where-land of France. We first made time for some tea and food in our favourite café in Fontainebleau, followed by a crepe dinner a few days following. It is always sad to say bye to a friend here, especially cause you don’t know when you will see them again (but in this case, Berlin in July!!! See you soon girl).

Crepes for dinner, because when in france.. 

The weekend also started off so nicely. After seeing how inconvenient the train schedule was at night (i.e I’d have to sit on a sketchy bus for about 2 hours) my host mom suggested I take the Saturday morning off and just spend the night in Paris.

So Friday came and I left to Paris for a friend’s birthday party. The atmosphere, the people, and the music were just perfect. First there was wine, then there were familiar faces, then there was wine, then there were Russians, then there was more wine, then there was home cooked appetizer-foods, then more wine, then the guitar came out. Ah it was perfect! 

Unfortunately a blurry picture, but the only picture I took of the birthday girl and her musical husband.

Then my friend and I had to maneuver the last metro trains back to her place on the other side of Paris.

As we were getting out there was a drunk man who kept shouting at us. Saying something about Germans and Germany. Neither of us spoke German, nor look like Germans (although I guess it might be debatable in my case with the blonde-hair-blue-eyes) but for some reason he was insistent. He happened to follow us all the way down the street. At first I was calm and collected as I find “if I don’t look, they won’t bother me”. Then we watched as he walked a little further up and only then decided it would be safe to cross the road behind him and head in the direction of the apartment. As we began to cross he turned around, faced us, shouted whatever he was shouting, and started to slowly maneuver towards us. That’s when I lost my cool, and totally started to freak out. So we just fast-walked along and finally turned on the street we had to, escaping the crazy man.

OR NOT.

All of a sudden out of the corner comes this man!! You know how you watch zombie movies and you think the calm has finally commenced and then JUMP SCARE. Yes, that is exactly how I saw this event occur. So we, being the slightly intoxicated and not-so-slightly terrified girls, we decided to hide behind a car and call my friends fiancée to come get us.

To put everyone at ease, we got home safe after that and didn’t see the guy again.

Mom don’t worry, Paris is safe I promise!

The next day was kept pretty calm after some Indian food, salon hopping, saying goodbye to my friend, and then meeting up with another friend for some Starbucks. I swear I should stop with the Starbucks… it is way too expensive here in Europe. Like you Canadians back home think Starbucks is expensive, trust me Canadian Starbucks is like Tim Hortons compared to European Starbucks. Anyways, I can’t always explain my spending habits. Maybe that’s why I’m broke.

So on the Sunday I figured it would be a good idea to go to a free wine tasting with some girlfriends. It happened to be so, that I got an email about a free wine-tasting in Paris as long as you print out some coupons. Sounds like a trick right? Nope, I printed out those coupons and off we got our little wine glasses, which we’re filled immediately with wine (Come on we’re at a wine tasting what else do you expect our wine glasses to be filled with… oh wait there was cognac).

So fortunately for me I’ve had experience with wine tasting (Alberta + boyfriend + filled glasses of wine which we would down + little food + (- water) = den den holding my hair back while I threw up on the side of the bed in a bucket [sorry about that imagery. Unfortunately I am reminded of this finale regularly by den den]).  I learned my lesson from the last time and actually only tasted the wine rather than finishing every glass, and did not even bother to drink much of the wines I really disliked. Surprisingly, or maybe not for some people, this event was much bigger than the one in Alberta (wine population wise), and all the wine came from France! The one in Alberta had wines from all over the world and it was all in one gymnasium, this one had like 7 rooms (or more for all we know, it seemed infinite).

See you girls did make it into the selfie!

So after a very French day of wine and baguette we all headed home for a nice relaxing time of the Walking Dead (you see now why I used the zombie reference, and also why I am spooked in the dark now…)

Goodnight, don’t let the zombies bite.

Last published... December

Shouldn't people begin listing their "New Years Resolutions" sometime in beginning of January. I have clearly been off the radar for a while. I have no excuse. But I am thinking rather than trying to catch up on everything that I may have missed I will be posting (SOON!) a "Year in Review" blog post of 2013. I think that would be interesting. I will try to post more of course this year. Hopefully at LEAST once a week.

Anyways back to business.

Currently, I am back in Alberta. Combining this post with my previous post it seems like I never left. This time around I have not gone skiing but I did visit a wine tasting. I am so glad I went (even if I was awfully sick after and puked up almost my entire body weight...TMI?!) Visiting some kind of tasting was on my bucket list so I am very glad to have experienced it this past weekend.

The wine we tasted was wonderful. Big winners were of course the Europeans: France, Germany, Italy, Spain. 

Note to people who plan to go to a wine tasting: EAT! Eat lots. And also if you don't like the wine, dump it! At first I felt bad for the people in the booth serving their wine, but after I realized it is just an impossible amount of wine to go through and there is no point wasting your sip on wine you do not enjoy. 

This past weekend was also Valentines Day, and I just happen to be in Alberta, where my boyfriend works and lives. What are the chances??! We had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant with an extraordinary amount of food. Interestingly enough their menu portions were for either 2 or 4 or 6 people. Imagining third wheeling this dinner.

I will be jumping right on the writing soon! New post to come in the *near* future.