NYC in T-minus 3 days..

I really cannot put into words how much I love New York City. The first moment I set foot there, it sucked me in, and it pretty much hasn't let me go since. I adore the hustle, I adore the bustle...I just love it more than any other place I have ever been. I will jump on any opportunity to go there. One day, and hopefully one day soon, I want to go there for like a month and just really sink into the city. I can't figure out a cheap way to do this though. Leasing an apartment for a month in Manhattan is hella expensive. Help.

I've always wanted to go to NYC at Christmas time, and it has been on my life goal list for as long as I can remember. I'm pretty sure the first time I saw Home Alone 2, I was insanely jealous, even though Kevin was all by himself, making friends with homeless people and getting chased by criminals. MARV!

So finally. Finally!! I will be flying to NYC on Saturday, bright and early in the morning. And I will come back on Tuesday night, full of Christmas spirit, and hopefully with a knock off designer purse on my arm. I cannot even wait. I am going to pack as much as I possibly can into these three days-window displays, museums, shopping, Central Park, Strawberry Fields on the anniversary of John Lennon's death, ice skating, drinking, dancing, theatre, Christmas, and lots and lots of photos. Also...I'm finding Carrie Bradshaw's stoop if it's the last thing I do.

I'm getting itchy feet, so I'm glad this little trip is coming up soon. Sometimes, I just need to be somewhere that is not here.

Tonight is the Christmas Party for the Humane Society, and this is always good times because it involves all you can eat Chinese food from the Mandarin. They basically rent out a giant room and all the staff and volunteers go. Mmmm Mandarin. I never usually go, because it's expensive and I can't eat enough to justify paying $25 for dinner. However, free? I'm all over that!

Also, I just found out about this The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, and I'm going to give it a go. And by give it a go, I mean, do it when I feel like it. As much as I would like to say I will post every time, there is no way in hell I will post every day. I'm just not interesting enough. Basically there are prompts for everyday, but some of them I know I am going to have absolutely nothing to say about. Welps, we'll just see what happens. Pretty much, I will use these prompts when I can't think of anything else to write about. Nothing like half assing it!

Without further adieu (I'm a day behind):

December 1- Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?

Best trip of 2009....

I have only taken one so far, but it was a great one! I went to Europe and went though Munich, Berchtesgaden, Salzburg, Prague, Olomouc, Krakow, Zakopane, Budapest and Vienna. It was pretty damn great. Favourite cities? Munich and Krakow for sure. Munich is probably my favourite city in Europe (that I've seen so far), and Krakow was just so much more amazing then I was expecting. I was expecting, I don't know....grey and boring, and it was absolutely the complete opposite. It is beautiful, and there is an incredible amount of interesting history there. Munich! What else can I say about Munich other than, if you ever go to Europe, don't miss it! It is an amazing city. Amazing.

City that did not meet my expectations? Prague by far. I mean, it was beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it was just not at all what I was expecting. I think what turned me off was the sheer number of people. You couldn't even turn around without walking into somebody. Nothing like being carried across the Charles Bridge in a wave of people. If I go back to that area, I'm going to opt for Cesky Krumlov.

This trip was incredible, and I met a ton of amazing people that hopefully I'll keep in touch with forever. Rheana and Yolanda (otherwise known as Deanna and Leslie in my travel stories), are both awesome and it was so much fun to hang out with them. The British boy, who I haven't talked to in forever and despite certain circumstances, was a totally cool guy and so fun to hang around with too! One of the best parts of travelling is definitely the people you meet along the way.

December 2 Restaurant moment. Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?

Ummmmm, honestly, nothing is standing out. In anticipation of tonights dinner, I'm going to say, my favourite restaurant moment is going to be tonight at the humane society Christmas dinner. Really amazing people + unlimited Chinese food=win

Alright, we can all see how good I'm going to be at this blog challenge!

Travel Tuesday-Part Three

If you have missed them, you can read part one of this story here, and part two of this story here.

The bus drove away, and I slowly broke away from the group hug.

“Well, I feel dumb!” I said

“Don’t even worry about it”, replied Allison.

For someone I had hated with an intense passion the night before, I sure was glad she was there now.

The four of us (Me, Allison and two other girls) walked back to our hostel. We decided we would meet up later and go explore Budapest some more.

I wandered up to my room, which felt extremely empty now that Deanna was gone. I stared for several minutes, then went and hopped in the shower.

In about an hour we all met downstairs and made our way over to the Budapest Castle, stopping for lunch first in the market. As we walked along the dusty streets, weaving between crowds, we chatted about Paul.

“I knew it”, said Allison, “I knew it the night we had dinner in Zakopane!”

“Yeah, you guys were like, oblivious to the world”, chimed in Mel.

“I wish something like that would happen to me! I’ve been travelling for months now, and nothing!” said Jen.

“So, what are you guys going to do after??” Allison said.

I knew they meant well, but all I really wanted to do was to tell them to please stop talking because I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t really think there was anyway to have an “after”, so thinking about it just made me feel worse. On the rest of the walk to the castle, I heard countless travelling love stories. About how so and so met so and so in Australia, but one of them had to go back home, but months later they were reunited and got married. Stories like that. And believe me, everybody has one, or so it seemed.

By the time we made it to the castle, talk had drifted to other things, like how the hell we were going to climb that hill in such heat, and how badly we wanted to be at the top of the mountain. We eventually found the elevator which brought us up to the castle. The Budapest Castle is weird; it is like an entire village unto itself. Winding streets lined with shops, restaurants and statues everywhere. You wouldn’t know it from the bottom, but Budapest Castle was huge! For some reason, we decided it would be a great idea to go explore the Labyrinth. Just a forewarning to anybody who is going to Budapest, don’t go into the Labyrinth unless you can somehow scam the student rate, otherwise you’ll be pissed. It’s basically miles and miles of long tunnels and huge cavernous rooms that were used as bomb shelters in WW2. There is one area that says “enter if you dare”, which ended up being just a series of pitch black rooms. You walk in, the door shuts, and you can see absolutely nothing. The only way to get out is to follow a rope which winds itself all the way around and through the rooms, finally leading you to the exit. The whole time in there I thought I was going to shit my pants because I was expecting someone to jump out and scream, but no, we just followed that damn rope for a good 20 minutes. I have never been so excited to leave a room in my life.

Anyway! The day continued as such. We went out for dinner, hung out on the patio of our hostel with some wine, and went to bed relatively early. I was in my bed, just falling asleep, when the phone started ringing. I immediately panicked, as one does when the phone rings late at night. I jumped up and grabbed the receiver.

“Hello???”

“Megan?” crackle, crackle. “It’s Paul!” crackle, crackle, crackle. “I hunted your new room down!!”

I was filled with an extreme amount of happiness. “Oh my gosh, it’s so good to hear from you!!”

We discussed how depressing the bus scene was earlier that day. He told me all about Bled, which is apparently the most beautiful place in the world. I was so bitter to be missing it. I told him about our wanderings around Budapest and about a random cat sanctuary we found.

“You are not walking anywhere at night by yourself are you??” he questioned.

We chatted until his phone ran out, and I told him I would call him soon. I went to bed happy.

The next morning, Allison, Jen, Mel and I decided to meet and go to Hotel Gellert for the day. We were all dying for some pedicures. My last day in Budapest was so much fun, and we were all giggly and happy, and it was one of those moments that was just…perfect. I caught the train to Vienna that night, and when I arrived, quite late at night, I was hit with extreme loneliness. I was absolutely alone again. The trip had gone full circle.

It was pretty late, so I caught a cab and went straight to my hotel and went to bed. I woke up the next day ready to whip out the German language skills I had acquired in Munich and Salzburg and explore. And explore I did; I walked for hours every day. I was in Vienna for four days, and during that time, Paul and I exchanged a flurry of emails. It turns out he was going to be in Austria the day after I was leaving. I finally got ahold of him on his cell phone the night before I flew home and again we chatted until my phone card ran out.

I left for the airport the next day with the feeling that I would probably never see him again. It made me sad, but it just was what it was.

I got back to Canada and slowly got back into my routine. I got random phone calls from him, but I never managed to catch them. One of them was from 11 o’clock my time, which was about 5am his time. I finally got him on the phone one day as I was walking to work…I inquired about the 5am phone call.

“Oh yeah, umm, I was out with my friends, and missing you, so I called. I didn’t wake you did I?”

We chatted until I was at work.

That was the last time I ever spoke to him on the phone.

Now let’s fast forward two months (does this story ever end, you’re all wondering?? Well, I reply, I hope so).

I had basically moved on at this point, and I honestly did not expect to ever hear from him again. Like I said, it just was what it was. Then one day I signed on to MSN, and a message popped up “Paul has added you as a contact”. Interesting, I thought. Over the next several weeks, we chatted several times, often for hours. Then randomly one day he said, “so, how far are you from New York City?” To which I replied, “Fairly close by plane, and about 8 hours by car.”

He went on to tell me that he was thinking of going to New York this fall/winter, and maybe we could meet up there. He wanted to rent an apartment and really spend some time exploring the city. He was looking into places to stay, yada yada, and I said of course I would visit him. I didn’t even hesitate because 1) New York City is my favourite place in the world without a doubt, and 2) I wanted to see him.

A couple of days after this New York conversation, I decided to try and look up his blog that he had mentioned in passing, during one of our conversations in Europe. It was so easy…all I did was type his full name plus “photo blog”, and it popped right up. And what was right there as the newest entry? Pictures from a recent trip he and his girlfriend had taken to Amsterdam. Yup, his girlfriend. I went back further in his archives, and low and behold, this was the same girlfriend that he had back in April, pre Europe trip. The one that he told me he had broken up with.

I felt like the biggest moron on the planet, and quite frankly, like a huge sucker. For a while, I tried to justify it, thinking maybe that they had broken up before he left for Europe and got back together when he got back. But that wasn’t true, and I knew it.

I emailed Deanna after I made this discovery, and her reply: “what a massive tool”. And I guess it was true.

It’s been, oh, about a month now since I’ve “spoken” to him, and I still don’t know what to think about the entire situation. Aside from the obvious douchy behaviour, he is still one of the cutest, more charming boys I have ever met. And I guess it just is what it is. Or was what it was rather. Part of me wants to send him a slurry of emails telling him off, the other, self preserving part of me wants to just let it go.

What I do know is that next time around I need to be extra careful about the cute ones with accents.

So that concludes this three part series! The next travel Tuesday will involve no cute British boys!

Travel Tuesday-Story Time

Alright, today the story continues, last week we left off in Zakopane, Poland...today, we travel on into Budapest!

If you missed Part One of the story, you can read it here.

We left the restaurant and followed our group to a bar on the main strip of town. He bought me a drink and we continued to chat the night away. On the way back to the hotel, trailing behind the rest of the group, I told him how in university I took astronomy, and I pointed out different constellations that I remembered.
He replied, “you know what I always like about stars and the moons and all that? No matter where you are, it always makes you feel closer to the ones you love, because you know they are looking at that very same sky”.

Was this guy real? Never in my life had I come across someone quite like him. His next question came out shyly, like he was all of a sudden a small high school boy again.
“So, who do you normally sit with on the bus?”
“No one really, whoever has an open seat”
“Me too.”
“So, did you want to sit together tomorrow?”
And thus plans were made. We both went to our separate rooms, and I continued down the hallway with my two friends, Leslie and Deanna.
“Oh my god you guys, I love him!”
After they finished mocking me for a couple of minutes, Leslie said to me, “you know, he has been asking about you”
Swoon. I stopped briefly to think that I shouldn’t get so attached.
“We are sitting together on the bus tomorrow!” I squealed and headed off to my room.

I woke up in a panic. Oh my fucking god, I slept in. I’m not going to get a seat on the bus, and we won’t be able to sit together. Our tour group had become known for getting up extra early just to get a good seat on the bus. It was practically impossible to get a seat with someone you wanted if you got on the bus after 8am. I booted it out to the bus, and just as I suspected, everyone was there already. Silently cursing, I climbed on. I heard, “Megan!” from the back of the bus, and there he was, saving a seat with his photography bag.

We talked the whole bus ride, which was a good 7 hours. Through the bumpy backroads of Poland and on into Hungary, we talked. Every once in a while one of us would point at something out the window: “A poppy field! I’ve never seen a poppy field!”
You can cover a lot of ground in 7 hours.

Budapest is beautiful at night, it is in fact one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Paul was snapping away with his camera, and I was enjoying the free drinks provided on the boat cruise with the rest of my tour mates. When we got back to the dock, we all decided to walk together to a bar to experience some of the legendary Budapest nightlife.

Upstairs at the bar, one of the girls from my tour, Allison, was all over Paul. I felt irritated at her, but more irritated at myself for getting irritated at her. He wasn’t mine, he wasn’t my boyfriend, not even close. He was a guy that I had just met, who I happened to really, really like. Deanna told me to not worry about it, but I couldn’t help watching Allison. To his credit, Paul looked like he was completely trapped. With one arm over each of his shoulders, Allison had him completely encased. Her neediness made me cringe.

“So”, I heard her slur, “are you allowed to hook up with people on the tour?” My stomach knotted, and I felt something that I have never felt before, at least not so intensely: complete jealous rage. I wanted to run over to her, pull her hair, and scream, “hey bitch, that’s my man!”. But THAT would have be ridiculous on a number of levels, so I just told Deanna that I had to leave. As we walked past Paul, I said, “we’re going now, night!”, and he said, “I’ll come with you”, and he ducked out from under her arms. As we broke out into the Budapest night, Paul whispered, “okay, walk faster, she might chase me”. We hightailed it back to the hotel.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked him
“Wandering probably, talking photos”
“Me too.”
“Want to wander together?”
“Yes, I’ll meet you anywhere”.
Silly girl. Silly, silly girl.

I spent the entire next day with him and it was one of the most amazing of my whole trip. We wandered around Budapest for hours, going from one end of the city to the other, stopping for lunch, and stopping for ice cream twice. We played in fountains, saw the worlds biggest egg timer, took photos, met famous Hungarians and explored castles. We talked about meeting in Austria in a couple of days, and made a map of our travels. Because of this day, Budapest will always remain one of my favourite cities in the world: how could it not?

The next day, the bus was set to leave. Half the tour group was continuing on to Slovenia, half the group was ending the tour in Budapest. I was staying, he was going. Me and the other girls not continuing on the tour walked to the bus to see our tour mates off. Everybody hugged and told each other to keep in touch. I hugged him, and all I could think to say was “well, email me.” His reply, “so lovely to have met you”.

The bus drove away, and my eyes teared up. I missed Deanna, I missed Paul. I hated myself for getting in this situation, but I was just so sad. I was engulfed in hugs by the girls left over from my tour, and Allison, the one I was so irritated at the other night, simply said,
“Wow, you really like him, don’t you?”
I nodded yes and continued to cry. She had no idea.
Standing there on the bustling streets of Budapest, crying like a complete fool, I ached.
Silly, silly girl.

Okay, tune in next week for Part Three and the conclusion of this travel tale!

Travel Tuesday: Story Time!

I went away on vacation to Europe last May/June, and I honestly had the time of my life. I went by myself, and it was probably one of the greatest things I have ever done for myself. I have tons of stories, as you can imagine, so I'm going to start writing some and posting them on here. I need to get them down somewhere before I forget. Here goes! Some will be fact, some will be fact mixed with fiction; I'll leave it up to you to figure out which is which.

The first time I saw him was an early morning in Prague, way to early to be thinking about making a good impression. He’s cute, I thought to myself, as I walked past him on the bus. I picked the seat across and one down from him, not so much because I wanted to sit by him, but because that was one of the only seats left. As the bus started chugging away from Prague, our tour group slowly relaxed and began talking to one another. It was the usual awkward, getting to know you stuff, but I find people move past that quickly when travelling; you have to. Everybody bonds over the excitement that is found in discovering a new place and embarking on an adventure.

I was craving human interaction. This bus tour was happening on the end of a long, solo journey through Germany and Austria. Weeks had gone by where I barely talked to anyone. Maybe that’s a lie, I talked to people, but as it happens when you are travelling, people flit in and out of your life, and sometimes you can walk around with them for a whole day, have pictures with them and have no expectation of ever seeing them again. One minute they are there, and the next they aren’t. Perhaps that’s one of the best things about travelling, the ability to make fast friends for a day with a complete stranger. You learn about their life and where they come from, and you make a connection that would take months or years to forge at home. Regardless, after about three weeks of hoofing it around Europe by myself, I was ready to meet some people, and stay with them for a whole week.

I wasn’t expecting him. Little did I know, this decision to travel in this particular group, with this particular company, would leave me feeling completely, well, lost.

He was on our tour as the companies official photographer, and for the first couple of days, that was all he was. He was the cute British boy taking photos; he was working. I barely exchanged two words with him as we toured through Olomouc, Kutna Hora and Krakow. Our interactions were limited to simple polite exchanges: “have fun on that rafting trip”, “lovely weather today isn’t it?”

We were at a restaurant in Zakopane, Poland and he wasn’t even sitting beside me at first. I’ve thought about this moment, the catalyst for when everything changed, and I wonder if I would do it all again? Of course, despite the "what ifs" that still pass through my mind, months after I’ve returned home.

He switched spots with my friend Leslie so that he could have easier access to the giant plate of meat that was being served up on our table which was your typical Eastern European fare: meat, meat, more meat and some potatoes. All of a sudden, there he was sitting right to the left of me our arms practically touching.

“Hi, I’m Paul, I don’t think we’ve officially met”
“I’m Megan, nice to finally talk to you!”

After that it was all over: my heart had swum up out of my body and was whirling around in happy little circles above me. I wasn’t thinking rationally, I was only thinking about this gorgeous British boy talking to me.

We talked all through dinner, it was like nobody else was even there. I told him all about my life back home and he told me all about his photography, his cats, his family. Never, not in my 26 years of life, have I ever connected with someone so instantly, so completely, I mean, I felt like I had known him forever. Like he was the guy who lived down the street from me, and we used to play together in the summer, running barefoot through the ravine in search of rattlesnakes. That’s how it felt. But I had just met this guy, this Paul.

to be continued...