BONNERS WEEKEND!!!

This year, the weekend got off to a slow start, owing to the fact that Josh who was the designated mini bus driver had a job interview that morning, thus we sat around on the grass for few hours before he turned up (we had only just decided to crack open the beer!). We arrived at the church hall where we were staying and some people went off up Blencathra, while me and Amy went for an explore around the village and met Heather, Rob and the others who had come up late. I and a few others cooked tea that night for all 20 of us which was quite an achievement, by this time it was about 10pm so most of us went to bed as we were having an early start the next day ... others (Toby and Joe) decided to go up Blencathra, in the dark. The next day, we met Bonners while we were circling a roundabout just outside of Keswick ... (funny times) and everyone except me and Matt went off to Raven crags with him. I and Matt set off up the Honister pass on our epic climb up Great Gable. After the walk in, we geared up and waited for a group of three to pass. The multi-pitch was 3 pitches, we did Engineer slabs (VS* sustained). I carried both our rucksacks as it was a hard climb for Matt to lead. There were a few tense minuets in the chimney on the second pitch which was very polished, and on the slab on the last pitch which was smooth except a lot of very small finger pockets. Anyhow, we topped out and fell ran off Great Gable as we needed to meet the mini bus at 7pm.

Standard meal with Bonners that is ... thi food and a group photo ... epic man ... horrible feet though. The next day me and Becca got up at 6am to cook breakfast for everyone, and then I, Matt, Joe, Strugs and Rob headed off to St Sunday crag to do Pinnicle Ridge, although conditions were misty and we couldn’t see a lot for most of the time, it was a most enjoyable scramble. Being grade 3, we used a rope on a few tricky and exposed areas. All in all, a hard, but very enjoyable and successful weekend, a true club (and famous mountaineer) bonding trip.

''Back in the saddle again ...'

Home week - Back home in England, me and mum spent two days washing all my clothes and unpacking all my papers and Canadian treasures while I regaled many stories from the year. I saw a bunch of my friends on the Saturday at my surprise party which I had known about for about a month. Jon’s 21st party was good fun too and I basically just spent the week catching up with friends and family.

Lancaster month - Having moved in with Amy and her house mates, I settled into a new work routine. AKA; out into the field, back to the library and so on. This mad month was broken up with a few climbing trips including the Chris Bonnington weekend and a visit to Robin Proctors’ Scar which incidentally, is located at the valley entrance to my field area. I also spent a lot of time celebrating the end of the year with certain climbers and members of my course, a typical night entailed a visit to Grad bar with Strugs, Gary, Sam and Brennan or sitting on Bonny steps or in Strugs and Brenan’s kitchen with a few pints. The climbers went to the Carlton for the annual pioneers bar crawl one Wednesday, all of us dressed in bright lycra and wearing harnesses. I won’t say too much about my field work apart from that I’ve had a few successful outings with either Sam or Strugs as my field assistant, and we usually manages a pub tea and a pint every now and again to celebrate a hard day’s work. My dad even came up one day to see what all the fuss was about; he had a kip in the field while I was hard at work looking at rocks.

Mapping Field Trip in the Cannadian Bush!!!

Okay, so this week and a half is contains my last Canadian memories ... it was kind of bitter sweet, although it defiantly ended on a high. We took two minibuses and two cars up north of Lake Huron to Whitefish Falls near Espanola ... a ‘fine paper town!’ where we stopped off for food and drink supplies. We stayed in log cabins on a small river out of Lake Huron. The first day we spent driving around the area stopping off at lots of small sites to get to know the area and its geology. On the second day we were assigned field partners and given a traverse to complete from the roadside through 3Km of bush, swamps (where I almost lost a leg) and cliffs. having done a fair bit of navigation in the past me and my field partner made it out alive only one degree off our initial north bearing which we were to keep for the whole 3km, although we were looking very bedraggled. After sorting out with the local natives about aspect into our field sites for the next week we returned to the cabins and all had a BBQ and a well deserved pint with the very laidback professors. Over the next week or so we were up at the crack of dawn and out into the bush to map our areas. I was the designated communicator in my area (area D) and had the challenge of trying to understand the awe full reception on the walkie-talkie between Patricia, Laura and Oz as they bush-waked and canoes around the islands to rescue us in our hours of geological need. I won’t go into all the detail of mapping as I would need a whole new blog site for it. We spent the evenings transferring our field map and notes to our office copy and then meant up with the rest of the group for a social drink and chill out or a reading of the original fairy tale book which are more like horror stories.

Back to the bush ... me and my field partner spent the whole day terrified of bears about 2km into the bush tracing out the sandstone/argillite contact in blistering heat. on the 5th day ... we woke up to a full blown blizzard, abandoning the mapping, we drove out to the islands for a day’s fiend trips which proved to hazardous driving and most people were unprepared for the unforgiving conditions so we turned back after the first few sights as we couldn’t see the rocks for all the snow, ice and horizontal hail and gale force winds anyway. The rest of the week the weather was back to being hot and we finished our mapping in enough time to start having mid afternoon maps … sandstone can be very comfortable =].

IT'S 'MY KIND OF TOWN ... CHICAGO IS'

With the year drawing to a close, I packed up my bags for Frank Sinatra’s kind of town ... Chicago. The travelling there was a slight epic, although I’m not complaining about the many interesting stop offs we made all through Michigan state although I don’t think I shall be returning to Detroit any time soon unless I develop the need to be stabbed down a dark ally. I only had a few days in the city and spent it wisely ... or a wisely as my studying shrived body would allow me. Collin and Gina who I was staying with provided me with a great base for my explorations in a beautiful apartment building on the outskirts of the city centre. I spent the first day exploring the southern end of Chicago including a lot of Lincoln Park and the zoo along the river which took me out of town to the suburbs and the baseball pitches.

The second day I took myself for a scenic walk down Michigan Avenue past the Chicago beach and down the main shopping street. I met with Gina ho was working in an elite hotel just over the bridge and then learnt all about the city’s history and arcutecture on a boat tour for a few hours. That evening I went down to the Ferris wheel (the first one ever built in the world). I headed back to Canada the next day and slept most of the way.

BEX AND EMMA IN CANADA!!! =]

The weather is getting warmer and Bex came to visit me!!! I’ll never forget the moment we jumped on each other when Bex came through the doors at the Robert Q bus station!!! We had a great week, talked into the night (most nights!) and did a tonne of cool unforgettable things =]

The first day Bex explored campus while I had class most of the day, then we went to ‘Lob Food’ Haha to get some supplies. On the Tuesday, we explored campus and London and went to a ‘Sketchy’ shop downtown and bought belt buckles!!! (So shiny!!!). That night we went out for tea at the symposium … hmmm baileys and hot choc =]. It was Lilly’s birthday that night, so … as is 3East tradition, we all waited till 12:01, and then burst into her room with the beer funnel!! (A 7 ft tall funnel with four pipes with taps for four people to drink out of). Wednesday was St. Paddy’s day, and I and Bex spent the day snowboarding at Boler … in 20°C!!! I managed to break my board before I had even started, and lots of screw drivers were involved!! We managed to get down some blue runs in one piece without falling over by the end of the day then spent about an hour sunning ourselves by the road waiting for the bus and just plain chilling =] We got back to rez to find most people asleep after st paddy’s partying (this was 5pm!!!) so we ate, then went down to the Spoke for some green beer and music.

One night, the whole floor went for a few games of laser quest!!! It’s amazing how fun running around in the dark maze with a laser gun can be … and how competative people get … and how scary Andrew and Marco look in their black ninja outfits!! On the Friday, we took a trip to White Oakes mall and spent a good hour in dollerama … some interesting things resulted from the particular shopping trip!! We went to see Alice and Wonderland that night too.

Saturday night was ‘Race for Life’ While Bex went to the mall, me and the rest of 3East headed for the UC dressed in Deli traditional ‘tight and bright’!! We spent the night running round the UC, eating free ice cream and pizza and watching film's for breaks until the sun came up … over 1000 people turned up, it was a great event for raising money and awareness for cancer. As a result, Sunday morning was a slow start as we were pretty shattered. We met Lizzie and Ashley for waffles at Angelo’s and then headed for church. We walked home in the sun with ice cream. Bex packed and we managed to squeeze in 10Kg of my skiing and climbing equipment for Bex to take home too!

It was a sad goodbye … but not long till I go home now.

MARCH IS HERE = Snow + Sun

*Note – This post was supposed to be posted a few weeks ago. New blog coming soon!

Yes, the weather is getting warmer!!! Were still buried in snow, but it’s sunny and clear skies most days now =] since New York a lot of things have gone on. Although the ski instructing season is over, we had one last trip, up to Kitchener for a race to end the season. I managed to get a lift to Boler in the morning as the buses don’t run at 6:30am =O I ended up saying over at Apol and her daughters house, we watched the Olympics that night then had breakfast muffins in the morning for breakfast! Had a good mornings skiing then occupied myself with organising everyone for the race as my student didn’t actually turn up. Stayed at Alpo’s house that evening for dinner which was nice.

There have been a few tense hockey games over the last few weeks, the lounge has been crammed every time and everyone gets so hyped up! I still can’t believe our luck in the last few minutes of overtime in the final against USA!!! I must say, I’m proud to be part-time-Canadian!!
Me, Jessie, Derek, Olivia and Nick have FINALLY finished our EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment). After many hours in Taylor library, meeting up and many hours of working late into the night we finally finished it … looks so professional =]

Jim picked me up on Thursday night as I was staying over at his and Apol's that night and we were leaving at 5:30 Friday morning to go for a day’s skiing up at Devil’s Glen. Spent the evening with Apol’s family which was very eventful! Left the next morning and travelled for about 4 hours up north which I slept through most of. It was the most beautiful day, the sun was shining and the snow was crisp … ahhhh =] me, Apol, Jim, Frank and Alice skied down a few blue runs for a warm up then me and frank headed over for the double black diamond runs!!! The runs were actually quite steep and I spent l=most of the day working on my off-piste skills and had a few eventful encounters with some moguls. It was quite a sad day at the end as I said goodbye to some great friend’s id met over the course of the ski season. Got back to deli that night quite late and spent the rest of the night working on a dance with Brittany in the formal lounge for her soph interview which was great fun!

Spent Saturday working on my dissertation in Einstein coffee shop on campus and went to see Western Mustangs hockey play-off against Lake Head with Ashley, Chin, Linda and Paco in the evening. It was quite a violent game with three major fights breaking out … anyhow; we lost 5-2 … grrr. Sunday was again another gorgeous day! Breakfast out and church as usual with the gang in the morning, then over to Pete and Karen’s in the afternoon for lunch and a chill.

Went down to the Wave on Sunday night with Lizzie, Ashley and Braden to see Article one – a local Christian band, and to hear a speaker. It was a really good night, started off in concert with some of Article one’s new music and ended with a worship session after the speaker. Dave Lane was the speaker and he clearly demonstrated how people tend to focus on building earthly treasures for themselves when we should be focusing on those heavenly spiritual treasure … it’s like a piece of rope that goes on forever, most people focus on the tip of the rope … what about eternity? He spoke on a lot more stuff that was really relevant to me also and I defiantly felt the Holy Spirit coming over me that night, it was all I could do to stand up at times in the end worship session. I suppose this is all part of Gods plan for me to change my life and get back on track, that’s what I’ve felt like he’s been trying to do this year … only realised this in the past few weeks.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!

Frank Sinatra said it best … NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!! I was originally planning on going it alone and meeting up with a few friends and making some new aquantinaces out there, however at the last minute I managed to find a willing soul to drag around the city. After a lot of bad luck in getting to Toronto, I finally found Barbara and we set off on the overnight journey on a crampt Greyhound coach for the Big Apple!! I revised my plans on the way and flipped through the guide book once more then we ‘tried’ to get some sleep. I don’t think I slept at all and we were all herded off the bus at some ridiculous hour in the morning in Buffalo to cross the border.

DAY ONE – Coffee, Central Park and the Museum of Natural History!
We arrived in New York at about 8:00am, managed to find the subway and due to my awesomeness in planning ahead and subway instinct we got off a few stops down and walked a few blocks to the hostel where we were greeted by in interesting array of people. The hostel was great! Run by students who had graduated recently and were trying to make their way in New York, it has crazy stairs all the way up to the fourth floor and carrying bags up made you feel terrible off balance! There was a kitchen and a huge living space in the basement with thousands of DVDs and a TV. Me and Barbara were both pretty shattered after the journey so we hunted down the nearest star bucks and got ourselves loaded up with cafeen (Mocha for me … straight coffee makes me feel sick as there aren’t any calories to give me energy and I end up feeling drunk all day) and we had a muffin too =] It was a beautiful day so we headed for central park and decided to walk the few blocks to 81st street, taking in the ‘New Yorkness’. It had snowed over the last few days and the park was crisp in the sun. We spent a good few hours exploring and were surprised how warm it got at mid day (I think I had forgotten what warm felt like after living in the midst of a Canadian winter for the last few months). We walked across Great Lawn and up to the reservoir and looked over to the elitist Upper East Side! In the afternoon we headed to the museum of natural history … which is huge and covers four blocks!!! We managed to suss out where the free tours were and got shown around all the main museum treasures then visited the planetarium as we got free access for buying the city pass (a pass for all the main city attractions). We hopped on the subway and stopped off at a supermarket on the way back to the hostel to buy some food for the trip. Cooked tea that night and made friends with a Scottish guy who was from Dundee! (Small world). Spent the evening hunting down the best places to get cheap ‘on-the-day’ Broadway tickets and found a place way downtown Manhattan =O. Mary and the rest of her crew had arrived that day and we exchanged first day stories in the dorm that night before I promptly passed out onto my pillow and had the best sleep of my life.

DAY TWO – Broadway, Wall Street, Ground Zero, Times Square!
Up the next morning and went down to make breakfast. We managed to make it to get Broadway tickets (Im still surprised how we only got mildly lost once on the whole trip!) for hair (BIG MISTAKE!!!) We decided to do the whole financial district next and had an explore down Wall street all the way up to Ground Zero and on the way we got out photo taken in a news stand with a random man … just for fun! Stopped off for a sit down in a diner at some point during the say. Hopped on the subway to 34th street and payed Macy’s a visit … there were so many people we gave up and scouted out the empire state building and Times Square before heading back to eat and get ready for Broadway!!! So here’s the deal … I have danced since I was about 6 years old and have done a number of shows (some more professional than others) as mostly a tap dancer (Cray for you – A Broadway reproduction) and it was my dream for many years to perform on Broadway … to the events that followed this night upset me a bit. I read the review of ‘Hair’ before we bought the tickets and it said that children over the age of 10 are only allowed because of the content – you would think this was referring to a use of bad language or the odd mature comment … however, after sitting through half an hour of seeing odd sex positions and hearing disgusting comments … I decided to leave (Barbara came with me) I asked to speak to someone at the desk (turned out to be the manager for that night … eek) and told him quite politely I didn’t think the description of the show was a good representation of the mature content … Im proud of myself for making a stand, especially when I found out from Chris later that night that there is some element of naked dancing at the end of the show! (Shattered my Broadway dream a little too = [) soooooooooooo after walking out of Hair we went to Times Square, and saw EVERYTHING! From a huger Toys ‘R’ us with a freeis wheel and a real Barbie house (I’ve never wanted a Barbie sooo badly before!!) to the hard rock café! We headed back at about 11pm.

DAY THREE – Docks, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Brooklyn, Empire State Building!
Day three in the Big Apple!! It was a big day today!! Had a look around the docks and then decided to go and see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Got on the ferry and arrived on Liberty Island first. After looking around the island and the statue and after lunch I found … ANOTHER FREE TOUR!!! Learnt some pretty interesting things about the statue which I won’t bore you with now. Headed over to Ellis Island next where all the immigrants were processed through … trying to push my luck as always I went over to the desk in the welcome centre ‘Where do we go for the free tour sir??’ … ha-ha, he just smiled and pointed over somewhere … yeah …. I had New York sussed. Again, Ellis was a pretty interesting island and by the time we got in that night I felt like I could take a course in New York history!! We were feeling pretty adventurous and while on the subway on the way back to the hostel I decided we should change trains and go across the East river to Brooklyn … why I don’t know as there was not much to see … I think we ended up in a really dodgy part … or is Brooklyn all like that!? Chilled with Barbara, Chris, my new Australian friend (I think he may have been from Cairns!!) and some others in the basement for a bit then crashed.
I think it was this night (Valentines Day) that me, Barbara and Chris went up the empire state building … to me, this was the highlight of the trip. Looking out on the whole city going about its night, seeing the Manhattan skyline stretch out almost in infamy, surly took my breath away. I waved across the Atlantic to everyone back home =] did you see me!!?!?! … Wow it was cold that night … thermals required.

DAY FOUR – Broadway take two, a night out in New York and Subway rides!!
The next morning we headed downtown to get tickets for Mamma mia and we saw the show that night … and it was AWESOME!!! We got in that night at about 11pm and I managed to get dragged out again in all the confusion and found myself on the subway at midnight heading for the New York night life! We managed to find a place that didn’t card check and had a few Margaritas courtesy of Mary. There was some confusion on how we were getting back and people end up talking cabs in all different directions back and forth for a while before we decided to explore the subway … I think we went on about 10 different trains all over Manhattan and we caused ourselves rather a lot of amusement along the way! Got back to the hostel at 4am!!! Up and out by 8 the next day (New York is the city that never sleeps!!) and saw Chris and a few others who we lost the night before walking back down 88th street … just coming in from the night out … hardcore!!

DAY FIVE – Chilin’, The Met and home =]
Last day! … What did we do!?
Last night we shifted our stuff into the next dorm as a Spanish group had taken over our room and engaged in a very interesting conversation about Malaysia with another Australian till late, when one of the students who runs the hostel came into our room as he couldn’t sleep due to some very loud conversation down the hall on his level. So on the last day w packed up to our things and headed for a coffee shop where we just chilled for the morning, read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and worked on my songs a bit more while watching the streets and people go by. I’ve actually started a song about New York! It was really cold and snowy that day so we visited the Met and used up the last few tickets on our city pass. Ended up losing Barbara in the mid centaury European gallery so later I headed back to that coffee shop, wrote my post cards and worked on my songs. Met up with Barbara at the hostel later and we moseyed down Columbus Avenue stopping off at a fruit and veg shop for me to get some long-bus-journey-home supplies. We took the subway and got off at Grand Central, found the greyhound station, got on the bus … ahhhh =] We drove through and stopped off in Pennsylvania … nice state! At some point we got to Buffalo border cross again and I think I did actually sleep the last few hours into Toronto, and then onto London. Got back onto Campus at about 2pm.
Note – At some point in the trip we went to see the public library (the one in The Day After Tomorrow film!), New York University and Columbia University (Its Ivey!!!) and walked down the Hudson river and Chelsea Piers… , but we did so much I have no idea what day we did this … anyhow it was all pretty awesome =]

To conclude – Top city, felt like I met a lot of interesting people, stretched my urban navigation skills and proved myself a useful person to go travelling with as I like to get lots done in every aspect … on a budget.

The weeks beween te frost and the city that ever sleeps ...

I’ve decided to blog my thoughts and some events over the last few weeks much to my annoyance as I have a tonne of assignments due and Im planning a trip to NEW YORK BABY!! After frost week, we all found it easy to submerge ourselves however reluctantly seeming, into the endless dark abyss that is uni work. Many hours have been spent in the map library (that’s right … a library … just for MAPS!!!) and the GIS lab mapping and modelling drainage basins. I gave myself a break on the first Friday after a week of shockingly hard work, and went to the geology society social at a friend’s house on Horton Street. Met a lot of new people and was taught how to play baseball, which is a cross between flip-cup and beer pong, which I was surprisingly good at! The next Friday, me, Lizzie, Ashley and about 20 others from West London and Alliance church took a trip up to St Mary’s to go snow tubing! After shooting down pristine powder free sloped in a rubber ring at phenomenal speeds holding on to three other people whilst trying to make a movie, we had got quite silly and started trying all possible combinations of positions and formations of how to get down the 200m slope in one piece … and in one incident we nearly ended up on a frozen lake after going way too fast in a line, hitting the barriers, richoshaying off them at an angle … all in the name of good fun though. We warmed our hands by the fire after and enjoying a Canadian delacasy ‘Poutine’ (apparently).

I’ve spent every Tuesday down at Boler mountain ski instructing for a few hours and getting a few runs in myself before getting a life home of a lot of nice people. Monday and Thursday night are spent in the karate dojo training for a few hours.
Most of the floor went to see our floor mate Kyle play at a local pub last Friday. He plays the fiddle; his brother plays the guitar and his other brother, the piano. Sounds an odd combination, but the instruments really complemented each other. We had an epic getting there though and were nearly the cause of a police car chase (joking … *cough*). Other recent floor activities have included spin classes at the rec centre … well we are the ‘healthy living floor!!!
I went to see the mustangs play Guelph in a basket ball game on Saturday … the atmosphere was incredible … I like basket ball (nothing to do with high school musical!) … Anyhow, the women’s team beasted Guelph and won, I didn’t stay till the end of the men’s as I was off to an international cuisine party!! A friend of mine from Singapore had organised a get together at their house in town, we all brought a dish and swamped traditional food ideas. I was a really fun evening, with about 20 people there. I now have friends from even more remote corners of the world than before! Were off skiing on Wednesday for an evening at Boler Mountain. Got back to rez at about 10 and made a new friend, Ben, in the hall way who told me he had been trying to find a church for aaaaaages, so I invited him along to WLA today and he loved it =] Their services are so upbeat to praise God, and so connected in the moments of quietness and prayer. Im sure our weekly escapades to Angelo’s for waffles for breakfast make it all the better too! After church I met up with Jessie, Derek, Olivia and Nick in Taylor library to work on our Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) project … I must admit, we fried our brains and I never want to asses any major forest clearing projects again. SUPERBOWL!! That’s right, a few hours later Braden picked me and Lizzie up and we headed back to WLA for a super bowl party with lots of chilli nachos (yum) and hot dogs (eww). Peter kindly explained the game of American football to me as I’ve only seen one live game and a few on TV and still don’t really understand it yet! Back to rez for 10ish and chilled with Shauna and Kerri for a bit while the guys periodically filled us in on the score. In the end, the New Orleans Saints won … grrr.
Went skiing to Boler Mountain to teach Lizzie the basics tonight, which she got in a flash! Just got in now ... windows wide open ... bed covered in snow =O

I must be learning a lot this year … my wisdom teeth are coming in!!