HOME SWEET HOME!

Leaving for CDG now to catch my twenty hour trip to Vancouver, which includes a five hour layover in Seattle. Get into Vancouver at midnight.

Drumroll please.... I'm HOME!! The trip in wasn't as smooth as I had expected. Well in all honesty, I knew it was going to be a painful trip but I think 33hours is pushing it a little too far. The flight to Seattle took 7.5 hours and since we were going backwards in time, the sun stayed out the whole flight. I was sitting at a window seat so with the light shining through all the cabin windows and the heat coming from my window (even with the cover down) I didn't get much sleep at all, maybe an hour at the end. Like I mentioned above, I had a scheduled five hour layover in Seattle before catching my night flight to Vancouver. I occupied my time with my book and a few glasses of wine at the terminal wine bar. When it was time to catch my flight, my five hour layover turned into a six hour layover...and then 6.5hr and finally a 15 hour layover due to the flight being eventually cancelled. Apparently all four of Horizon Air's planes were down for maintenance on the engines and they had no other available planes to use. Anyway I got scheduled for the 9AM flight the next morning and they put me in a hotel for the night.

After a few hours of sleep at the hotel, I caught my 9AM flight to Vancouver (a short 30min flight) and made it home safe and sound.

I want to thank you all for following me as I went through my days in Europe. It was a great trip and a very worthwhile experience filled with many laughs, memories and photos that I will keep with me forever. A few highlights includes meeting the family in the Netherlands, partying in London with my old friend from Hong Kong, trying my first Guinness at the Guinness factory in Dublin, visiting the UN headquarters in Geneva and seeing Michelangelo's David & Botticelli's Birth of Venus in Florence. I was able to meet a lot of people throughout my fourteen week trip and a handful that I will keep in touch with for life.


Now it's time for me to slow down for awhile and begin my life in Vancouver, without any travel plans in sight for the next little while. I start CASB (CA School of Business) in a few weeks so that gives me some time to unwind a bit and try to find a part-time summer job. "Adulthood" starts in September when I start back at Ernst & Young as a full-time. That gives me five more months of living the good life...and what better place and time than a summer in Vancouver, the most beautiful and the most wonderful place on Earth.

Sending my final love to you all!

xoxo
Alexis

Tough days...Tough, tough days...

My last few days in Paris have been on my own lounging around in the sun along the river and in parks. Summer has unofficially started in Paris. The days are warm, the parks are filled with flowers and the trees covered in cherry blossoms. The kids are out playing in water parks and the coats have come off and the ice cream parlors have opened.
My friend Alexis (it is a boy's name in French hehe) came to visit for a couple of days from Normandy but left today for an urgent business meeting. Last night I sat along the river with my book and some sorbet until the sun set and then stopped by the boulangerie to get a baguette for dinner. The day before I went to the park and sat in the sun with a few beers and people watched. There were a lot of dogs out and I think that was the best entertainment for the afternoon. So many dogs excited to be out with their owners and so many Parisian owners unaware of what they got themselves into. Parisians don't really like to be energetic and fun, haha, sorry for that generalization...maybe it's all those cigarettes they smoke.

Today I'm going to do the same thing and finish up with my packing. I've managed to get al my stuff into a small suitcase and a backpack. Not back, right? I think the fact that I brought 2/3 of the stuff home when I went back for my root canal might have helped a little. Anyway time for me to get myself up and out the door. It's my last official day in Paris so let's make it a good one.

Love to all! xxx
Alexis

A Bientot, Mark!

It's Mark and my last day together...tear. He is leaving for Abu Dhabi tomorrow morning for a friend's wedding and wont be back until after my departure home on Friday.

We started the day off with a home made breakfast of over-easy eggs with smoked salmon, toast and fruit. All energized up we were ready to tackle what was on the agenda for today: shopping! No, not for me :P for Mark. After spending summer after summer with just basketball shorts and tank tops, he needed a few things for the posh Abu Dhabi culture. We first went to pick up his tailored suit for the wedding and it looked great on him. We then went looking for a white dress shirt (check), khaki pants for his business class flight (check), smart casual shoes to go with his new khakis (check) and a black belt for his suit (check). It sounds like we were pretty efficient but that having to go from place to place took us awhile...a good five hours I'd say. It's amazing how tired you can get from just looking at clothes and trying them on. As a girl I am used to it (plus it's way more fun shopping for boys) but I could tell that Mark was pooped.
We made our way back and decided to get Thai for our last dinner together. Mark took us to this restaurant in the Bastille area that I had never noticed before. It's so modest on the outside (just a small sign and a simple door) but then you enter into a type of tropical paradise with bamboo trees and waterfalls and pink orchids everywhere. The restaurant was huge too - it must have been able to seat at least 200-300 people. After two appetizers and two main courses (not each haha) we were too full to order dessert. We went home to digest a bit and then took a night time walk along the river. We got ice cream and sat by the river for a bit and chatted about this and that and then went home for the night. Mark finished packing and I read a bit before falling asleep. 

xoxo

Alexis

Brussels: Round 2

Mark emailed me last night letting me know that he had bought us two train tickets to Brussels for this morning. Anyone who knows me knows that I like to travel spontaneously so of course I was happy to join him on a weekend trip to Brussels! My last trip to Brussels was with Dad in February and that was more of a sightseeing kind of type. This trip was more geared towards drinking on sunlit patios and experiencing Brussels nightlife.
We woke up super early this morning to catch our 8AM train from Gare du Nord. We arrived in Brussels without a hotel to go to so we found an internet cafe and booked a hotel off of lastminute.com. Mark's friend from UBC and his co-worker were staying at the Sofitel Hotel and from the looks of it on the map in was bordering a large park and in the heart of the European Union buildings. So we go onto lastminute.com and see the "secret hotel special" whose description included "bordering a large park and in the business district". That HAD to be it, right? So we booked. It was the secret hotel special so they wouldn't give us the name of the hotel so as it was processing we waited anxiously with our fingers crossed. Up popped "Husa President Star Hotel" nowhere near the Sofitel. Just our luck! Oh well, we kept it and turns out it was a nice hotel, just a bit far.
We met up with Kevin, Mark's friend who works at RBC in London, and his co-worker Ewan. We basically spent the whole day drinking on patios and laughing uncontrollably (on my end) - turns our Ewan is quite the comedian! It was a lovely day and a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Tonight we went for dinner at a super fancy restaurant that Kevin's friend had suggested to him. There were old men wearing sunglasses, little kids in proper school uniforms and dolled up housewives sitting around us...I think it was the old man in the sunglasses' birthday. Dinner was fabulous but I was excited to get out of there to a less formal atmosphere. We ended up at a club that was in an old church in the city. Very cool place with very beautiful people but it wasn't pretentious at all so I really liked it. We got a table in the middle of the club with a couple of bottles and danced the night away, as they say. A few hours later we were pooped and ready to go home. Kevin and Ewan went back to the Sofitel and Mark and I got a gyro and cabbed back to the Husa. Nightlife in Brussels gets a thumbs up from me.

Love,
Alexis

PolyTech kids can tu/toi whoever they like...

I met up with Shelly tonight for a couple of drinks and to see a friendly face. Shelly went to high school with our mutual friend, Janice, and is now doing her Masters in international development (I believe) at Sciences Po. After a pretty quiet day of laying around in the sun and cleaning the apartment a bit, I met her and her friends at Odeon Metro station for them to take me around their university hood. I've always knows that the Saint Michel area was what they call "cool" but they took me to corners of the area I had never seen before. I guess that's what they mean when they say it's always better knowing a local. We went and got a drink at a cafe near Saint Sulpice Church and I had some good conversation with two of her girlfriends who are also doing their masters at Sciences Po. Their names have escaped me (I am horrible with names!) but one was from Taiwan and the other from Singapore. I talked to them about my time in SE Asia and Hong Kong and it made me nostalgic and I sent messages to all my HK friends as soon as I got back to the apartment. I've been thinking and I would really like to live and work in Hong Kong at some point in my life. I want to brush up on my Cantonese but taking classes when I'm back in Vancouver and then hopefully I can get transfered there for a couple years with E&Y or whoever I'm with at the time. Anyway we then moved on to this retro bar that Shelly likes and ordered a pitcher of amazing sangria where one of her friends (the guy from Paris) told us about this weird unwritten rule among the different universities that draws light on the hierarchy that exists in the school system in Paris. Apparently when you meet someone, you are only allowed to "tu/toi" people (informal greeting) when they are from the same university as you but you have to "vous" (formal greeting) to everyone else....EXCEPT for the kinds at PolyTech, they are allowed to tu/tois whoever they like! We finished up and they all went back to the books and I went and got a crepe for my walk home. Lovely night and now ready for bed :)

xox
Alexis

Counting Down the Days

I caught an afternoon flight back to Paris yesterday (March 29) and check out the picture I got flying over the French Alps! I imagined myself in space looking down on Earth because that's the exact imagine I would expect to see (minus the wing propeller). I was back in the apartment by 3PM and was overjoyed on my way in seeing the spring blossoms on the trees. The parks are now lined with tulips and trees are no longer skeletal. I spent the afternoon doing laundry and organizing my stuff so I won't have to do it all last minute when I leave next week. Mark arrived home late so not much time for hanging out, but we did get a "Hi...goodnight, love you" in there.

Today I went to Shakespeare and Co bookstore and got an economics book ad brush up on my econ theory before CASB starts in May. It's a very comprehensive and to the point book and I'm enjoying it a lot. The author also throws in some applied econ in there too. There was this other book on modern economics and how econ theory is not suitable to be applied to the economic problem that we face today. I looked really interesting but at EUR25 I think I'd better try to get an e-copy or find it on amazon or something. Another late night for Mark...."Hi, goodnight, love you" and another day begins for him in the morning. I just messaged one of Janice's friends from school, Shelly, for drinks tomorrow so that'll add some excitement to my day. 

xoxo

Alexis

The Acropolis and Its Many Wonders

We met up with our friend Gen today who is currently working in Athens and headed straight up to the Acropolis for a day in the sun. The Acropolis hill, so called the "Sacred Rock" of Athens, is the most important site of the city and constitutes one of the most recognizable monuments of the world, the Parthenon. It is the most significant reference point of ancient Greek culture, as well as the symbol of the city of Athens itself as it represent the apogee of artistic development in the 5th century BC. As you walk up the marble ground became more and more slippery and just as Rania was taking a picture of Gen and I, I lost my grip and almost went tumbling down the side of the hill. I'm OK though so no worries. As you come up the hill, the first thing you come across is the Propylaea - the monumental entrances to the sacred area dedicated to Athena, the patron goddess of the city. Built by the architect Mnesicles with Pentelic marble, their design was avant-garde. To the south-west of the Propylaea, on a rampart protecting the main entrance to the Acropolis, is the Ionian temple of Apteros Nike (the goddess of victory - where the brand name Nike comes from), which is now being restored. When you get to the "back" of the hill you get a 180 degree view of the city (actually it's more like 270). We took a few photos and then headed down to get lunch. Again I insisted on Greek food so we went to this strip Rania and I saw last night that had a great view and was crowded with greeks. We had greek salad, fried potatoes and greek sausages...plus a beer for good fortune ;) Gen then went home to get a couple of things done and Rania and I did some more relaxing. What a hard life we have, eh? We met up again for dinner on the pier and said our sad farewells and until next times. Although a short trip we made the most of it. I really enjoyed Athens and given that people say that it's by far not the nicest part of Greece, I have a feeling I would love to come back to see more of the country. One day, I have no doubt. 


Goodnight! xox
Alexis