So the reason why I planed a trip to the east coast is Kate Walsh :P (for those of you who don’t know that’s my favourite actress ). During the summer hiatus of Private Practice she stars in an off Broadway play in New York called “Dusk rings a bell” but more about that later. Since I came to Canada I always wanted to see a bit of the east parts of the country so I figured it’s a good idea to combine my New York trip with a stop in Toronto. (btw my flight just got delayed almost an hour!!! WTF.)
So when I told Joanne about my plans to go to Toronto her “maternal instinct” took over and she called her brother Kevin to ask if he’s gonna be done in the fields by the end of May and if I can come visit the farm for a few days (Joanne’s family has a pig farm in Thedford, Ontario). He said I could come so Joanne and I looked into flights to London, OT! Spontaneous as I am (lol) Joanne and I booked my flight the same day I think :P So I was gonna fly on the 29th from Vancouver to London and then on the 2nd from Toronto to New York and back to Vancouver on the 7th !!!
A few days before THE Saturday Joanne started looking if she could get a seat on the same plane as mine cause her family kept asking why she wasn’t coming, too! Sunday was Kevin’s birthday and he had a big party on Saturday night so he really wanted Jo to be there as well. Eventually they figured it out and Jo booked the same flight but only her mum and her sister Donna knew that she was coming :D I was happy that I didn’t have to fly by myself and it def made it less awkward going to a family I hadn’t really met before :P (I only saw Jo’s mum briefly when she visited Vancouver).
So on Friday night before the flight I stayed at Joanne’s place so we could drive directly to the airport which was a good idea considering we had to get up at 4am cause the flight was really early. Joanne’s mum Jane and Kevin’s girlfriend Jamie were going to pick ”me” up at the airport. We had to change planes in Toronto. The flight to London is only 20 minutes and that was the smallest plane I’ve ever been on (yay they just changed the departing time for my flight: only 25 minutes late now :P) they only have 2 seats on each side and maybe not even 10 rows :P Looks like a private jet! The London airport is super tiny so we had our luggage in just a few minutes and went outside to surprise Jamie who was sitting with Jane waiting for us. Joanne went up to Jamie and touched the back of her neck and Jamie got totally freaked cause she thought a stranger was touching her so she didn’t turn at first and when she finally did and saw Jo she was so surprised she didn’t know what to say =)
We surprised Kevin before we went “home” to unload our bags and quickly change for the party. The party was at Kevin’s house. It’s an old not renovated farm house and has almost no furniture in it so the perfect place for a party. I met lots of Kevin’s friends and cousins and other family members. Way too many names to remember and me being pretty hammered didn’t make it easier. The party was a “keg party”. Kevin bought a Bud light keg for everyone! And I heard (well and did) the first time about a “keg stand”. It’s pretty self explanatory so what you do is a hand stand holding on to the keg and drink head first out of the hose of the keg until you wiggle your feet and the people holding you let you down again. Makes you drunk preeeetty quickly cause all the blood flows to your head. Needless to say I had a blast! We didn’t get home until after 3am :D More pictures are on facebook !In the morning Kevin and his friend Brian picked me up for breakfast at Andrew’s house. His girlfriend Sarah made breakfast for all of us and afterwards we went to see Andrew’s dairy farm. He did a tour through the whole barn and explained tones of stuff about the cows and everything. Was super interesting :D It was super hot again that day so we all went to Andrew’s parent’s house cause they have a pool! We spent the whole afternoon drinking beer at the pool :D and I got the sunburn from hell on my back :P Joanne spent the day with her mum. In the early evening the whole family came over for Kevin’s birthday dinner so I met all Joanne’s siblings and their kids :D I really enjoyed having a dinner like this cause it was just like with my family birthday dinners.
On Monday morning we got up pretty early and Kevin showed me their pig barn. I held a baby pig :D So cute! The whole barn stinks terribly but like the cow farm pretty interesting how the whole thing works and how organized everything is. Of course only if I don’t think about where they end up :P Jo laughed at me for saying they gave me a hangdog look :P
After a quick shower to get rid of the smell we made a girls trip with Jo’s sisters Amanda & Donna to Grand Bend and Bayfield where we met Jamie for lunch. Grand Bend is a super cute summer holiday town on the beach! It was pretty dead there though cause it’s not really holiday season yet.
In the afternoon we met Joanne’s grandpa and her cousin Nicole for a coffee at Nicole’s work. The cutest Diner I’ve ever seen! Such a lovely place! After that grandpa drove us around the Grand Bend area and showed us all of Kevin’s corn fields.
After dinner at home Kevin, Jo and I went to Jamie’s ball hockey game and afterwards we met Kevin’s friend Jeff in a bar in Grand Bend for a while until Jane called to let us know that Donna’s basement had flooded (they had lots of rain that night where she lives) so we drove home and picked up Jane and drove to Donna’s and helped carrying all the stuff from the basement in the garage.
Talking about a busy day!
The next day was “check out” day already. I could have stayed there for weeks. So quiet and just super relaxing and just what I needed :D Joanne’s family was suuuuuper nice and hospitably. I had a great time!!! (btw departure time back to 16:50 ... I’m tiiiiiiired!)
So we had planed to leave in the morning with Kevin and Jamie to see Niagara Falls and meet Jo’s cousin Rob and his wife Jen in Hamilton for dinner and then stay in a hotel at the airport in Toronto for the night. Kevin wasn’t feeling good in the morning so he decided he wasn’t gonna come so another ladies trip for us :P This whole time made me realize how big Canada is, well, not how big it is – I knew that - but more like how different people see distances and driving from place to place.
The 3 of us a had a fun time on our little road trip. We stopped for Tim Bits, cookies and IceCaps on the way and did the whole touristy thing in Niagara =) After lunch we went to an outlet mall on the way to Hamilton. We did pretty good there only took us 1.5 hours to go through everything I think even though Jo&Jamie are little “shopaholics” lol We made it to Hamilton for dinner and a tour through Rob&Jen’s house. They have a cute little brownstone town house :D The area looks a little sketchy though. We made fun of the people walking in the streets :P But the house is super cute on the inside. Kinda reminded me of our house at “home” home.
I think we were at the hotel in Toronto about 11pm (after a really amusing stop at Wallmart where we unknowingly kinda stole pyjama pants. The cashier was just really tired and we had a little misunderstanding there, right Jo?!). Those stupid people at the hotel actually want you to pay for parking even though you stay at the hotel, like seriously?!
At least they had free WiFi so we looked at all the pictures from Saturday night Jamie had posted on Facebook. Apparently I didn’t remember everything I did :P
In the morning we took the shuttle to the airport and were perfectly on time until the lady at the check in check counter told me I need to fill out something online for to enter the States. Apparently they changed the thing with the green paper they used to staple in your passport but nobody told me. I think when you book a flight to the states they should tell you that you have to do the online thing. Anyways she gave us a link and told us where one of those internet station things was to go online. (such a thing as free WiFi at airports doesn’t exist here :P) Everything would have been fine if the internet was working but it was so slow that the page did never fully load. And the time was running. I still had to go to customs and security and the boarding started in less than an hour! So we called Graham (7am his time) and we gave him all the information and he typed it in and gave us the final number the lady at the check in needed! Thank God Jo and Jamie were with me or else I would have totally freaked out! I still can’t believe it but I actually made it to the gate in time :D I was lucky that the lines at customs and security weren’t too bad.
So here comes the next chapter of my trip: New York City. Talking about “Culture shock” going from a farm in the middle of nowhere in Ontario to New York City :P
I really don’t know if it was just because of the big change from one hour to another or if the city is really crazy (now that I’ve spend 5 days there I got used to the whole city vibe, all the people and crazy traffic so I guess it was just the farm-city changeover but still I don’t think I could live there. Don’t get me wrong I like living in the city but New York is def a bit too much :P) Anyways I landed in NY Newark which is actually in New Jersey even earlier than supposed to and made my way to the train station. So far so good - everything easy. Getting the right ticket and on the train worked out fine, too with the help of the nice airport “ask me” person :P Idk if I took the wrong train or what was wrong but I paid for the cheaper one with lots of stops and I thought I had to change trains too but it just went all the way to New York Penn station. The conductor didn’t say anything when he checked my ticket so I have no idea what was wrong lol but I was in NY way quicker than I thought I would “just” at a different station so I had to find a subway map and figure out how to get to the station from where I could walk to the hostel (it turned out later that I could have easily just walked all the way to the hostel it was pretty close. As long as you walk blocks from north to south or the other way around you can easily just walk 10 blocks!) I stared at that map for at least 5 minutes to come to the conclusion that walking to the next station from where it’s only one subway line and one stop to the hostel would be the smartest thing to do. So I found the right exit and street to walk down and got totally overwhelmed by all the people on the street and it seemed to be even hotter than Toronto. Needless to say I was sweating all over pulling my suitcase and carrying my little bag and my purse :P Let me tell you something: taking the subway with a big suitcase is not a good idea :P They don’t have escalators or elevators and it’s really hard to get the suitcase through those turnstile things with you. But believe it or not I made it to the hostel without getting lost.
(I’m on the plane to Montreal now :P one of those pretty small ones. And hells my feet are freezing! The air on the floor is super cold!!!)
Okay so I made it to the hostel and checked in. The hostel was all right. No European hostel standard but I didn’t expect that anyways. Was def good enough just for sleeping. I changed into something a little more appropriate for the heat and asked for a map at the information desk before I made my way to Times Square. The hostel’s location is pretty good just a few minutes from the Empire State Building.
(Finally made it on the last plane on my way home. I hate changing planes in Montreal cause you have to get your luggage and stay in line to check it in again and go through security all over again. And they do the best job with the security stuff from all the airports I’ve been to so far. You’d think they care in New York but not really compared to Montreal :P I’m sitting here with my Dell and the guy next to me has an iPad lol :P anyways back to New York)
After the bus tour I walked back to the hostel and had pizza for dinner. I thought I wouldn’t like the whole numbered street thing but I have to admit it’s actually way easier cause you don’t have to remember all the street names as long as you know that the numbers go up from south to west as well as from east to south.
I slept pretty good and didn’t even here all the people leaving before me in the morning (thank god for ear plugs. The ones I have are awesome you don’t hear anything around you!). I got ready to go meet with Amanda and Emily in front of the Empire State Building and had Starbucks for breakfast on the way. It was kinda weird meeting the two cause I’ve seen pictures and talked to them so I knew them before but didn’t at the same time so that’s just kinda weird but we totally got along and it was super nice to have some people to do stuff with instead of wondering around alone! After they had breakfast at McDonalds we went up the Empire State Building. Surprisingly there was almost no line so we pretty much got up there right away. Well there’s not really much else to say about that other than you see the city from up high :P Even though the weather was really good it was kinda foggy so you couldn’t even see the Statue of Liberty clearly.
Afterwards we walked 5th Ave all the way up to Central Park where one of the Apple Stores is :P We checked out the iPad and checked Twitter :D Also at that corner is the Plaza Hotel (from “Bride Wars” :P) and all the horse carriages are parked along the street. After the Apple store we wondered through the FAO toys store. I don’t know if it’s the biggest in the States or something but it’s def big :P They have those awesome huge American style doll houses and everything else a kid can dream of!
Next point on our itinerary was picking up our tickets for the play. It said on the confirmation e-mail that one can do so the next after purchasing up to 5 minutes before the play but apparently that’s not the case cause the cute guy at the box office told us he didn’t have them printed out and we should just pick them up on the day of the play shortly before. So the way to the theatre was for nothing but at least we now knew how to get there and how it looks. We were all hungry so we had lunch just around the corner. I had a really yummy tuna salad wrap with salad :D All fed we walked through Greenwich Village to me the nicest area of New York. It’s nice and quiet, no high rises and cute little brownstone houses! On the way we had a suuuuuuper yummy red velvet cup cake from the first original Magnolia bakery. Oh and we walked by the Friends building. I never watched Friends so I didn’t really care but still kinda cool. Then we walked to Washington Park where the arc that is built after the “arc de triumph” in Paris just way smaller :P Kids were swimming with their clothes on in the fountain :P And we still weren’t done walking (needless to say our feet definitely did hurt at that point)! The last stop for the day was Union Square were we went a little bit shopping at Forever21 and watched those random people who got in an argument and everyone was standing around them filming with their phones and they even called the cops. Welcome to New York :P
(Random thought: the part of Canada I’m just flying over looks like a gigantic grass field with tones of small puddles on them. Seriously :P )
Afterwards I went to the hostel and took a quick shower and changed for the play. Even though the theatre isn’t that far from the hostel I had to walk quite a lot cause the subway only goes from up and down and not across (and I didn’t dare to take a bus considering the subway was complicated enough to figure out :P). Good thing I had been at the theatre with Amanda and Emily before cause otherwise I’m sure I would have got lost on the way cause the area dosn’t look at all like there would be a theatre.
Here's a short vid from New York 1 about the play:
We knew from other people who had been to the play before us that she had come out afterwards almost all the times so we went upstairs (the whole room is in the basement pretty deep down from what it seemed riding the elevator) and waited outside. There were quite a few people out there waiting besides us!
(They just made the “is there a doctor or nurse on board” announcement on the plane lol don’t know what’s going on though)
We waited quite a while but eventually she came out! Someone told us she had a meeting afterwards so she couldn’t stay to sign and stuff but seems like she felt bad for all the people waiting cause she stayed for what seemed long but actually wasn’t much longer than 5 minutes :P Her face looked kinda annoyed when she first came out the door but she was suuuuper sweet talking to us, signing programs and taking pictures. We took a group picture with her :P I was to perplex to say anything but Brit and Amanda told her about starting the website and that Emily, Lauren and I are the best members lol. I don’t remember what else we or she said but we were all hyper and super happy after and the whole group went for dinner together and rambled on and on about how awesome it was! We were all super sad when we had to say goodbye :(
Anyways I was really sad the best vacation ever was over already and I really liked New York after the first post-farm overwhelming had stopped :P I don’t even wanna add up how much money I spend on the whole trip but every freaking penny was SO worth it!!!
Wow that’s the 9th page I just started. Nobody is gonna read this :P and sorry for all the Kate rambling but I couldn’t leave that out :D
If only I had a 9 hour flight after everything interesting I do then this blog would have way more posts :P
About an hour left of my flight and it’s already 12:15am for me and the stupid air condition on the plane has my nose all congested...
