My Life at London
I know I haven’t updated for God knows how long, and Frank should have kicked me off the site ages ago, but here I am updating! You know what it took for me to finally finish an update? Being stuck on a bus for an hour and a half this morning. There was a major traffic jam as I made my way to work and I thought, what better to do than finish my coolgrrrls update?
Okay, so I am the Vancouver@Nite girl, but I actually don’t live in Vancouver anymore. I moved to London, England home of the lovely Mira Manga. I’m living here with my boyfriend (yes, who is English) and two wonderful flat mates. My boyfriend, Den, runs a weekly night here called Our Disco check it out! I don’t go anymore because I work Friday nights. I’m working at a crap chain pub right now. The people I work with are great, and so are our regulars, but the pub has no personality or character… it’s just a chain. I’m also working another job (where I’m heading right now on the bus) teaching radio production skills through a community based program called Ape Media. It’s a really good idea. It’s basically for people who probably wouldn’t have the opportunity to learn these skills and it’s getting ordinary people from the community on the radio and an output for their ideas. It’s in conjunction with the community radio station Break FM which you can listen to online.
I’ve also finally started a new band. I know, it took long enough! But it’s hard when you move to a new city. You need to meet the right people and that takes a while. We’ve only just started, so give us a few months to write some proper songs. We are called The Scandelles. We practice in my bedroom in East London. This is how all my bands seem to start, practicing in my room. I’m always the one who seems to have all the gear.
This summer I went back to Canada to visit, and I mean I visited the whole country… Vancouver to Halifax! I spent the first 2 weeks in Vancouver. Since this page is called Vancouver@Nite I guess I should talk about Vancouver a little bit at least. Well, not too much has changed since I moved away. People still love karaoke, they still have Mod Club, a Union type night, and Pat’s Pub. Vancouver was awesome. I hadn’t had a proper Vancouver summer in 2 years, so it was amazing to be able to go to the beach everyday for 2 weeks straight. I’ve never been very patriotic before, but moving away has made me appreciate what a wonderful place my hometown is, and Canada as a country.
The whole reason I visited this summer in the first place was because my mom moved from Vancouver to Halifax, which is on the complete other side of the country (7000km about 5000 miles away from Vancouver). Den and I went back to drive her car across the country for her. It took us just under 3 weeks and we drove through 8 provinces and 8 states. This is the journal I kept along the way and some pictures from our trip…
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Day 1: [30 Aug 2005|06: 01pm ]
I PASSED MY ROAD TEST!
Yeah, I just passed my class 5 road test, which means no more road tests EVER! I am out of the graduated licensing program forever!!! wooo!
It’s raining and I have a cold, and I still passed!
Okay, now I have to go pack and leave.
We only made it to Hope, BC the first night.
Day 5: [04 Sep 2005|02:49pm]
I’m in Winnipeg. Den is here. I smashed my face in Saskatoon…we don’t know how cos we were both so drunk… but I woke up with blood all over the pillow and I have 3 cuts down and around my nose…my nose is all bruised too… I have pictures.
My poor broken face.
That night was fun…we got to hang out backstage at a Billy Idol show! He walked by me twice but I was too shy to do anything, so I only ended up meeting Steve Stevenson, the original Billy Idol guitarist.
Billy Idol and some groupie girls.
Dan and Den finally met in Saskatoon and it was great! Lots of booze and hanging out with the bif naked crowd. Woo. Then we ate at a husky’s at 1am… and I made long distance phone calls on the husky phone at the table on my credit card…to my mom and dad…it was 4am for my mom. Ooops!
How happy and drunk do I look?
We also went to the West Edmonton Mall (the largest mall in the world) and I got to go to the World’s Waterpark, which I have wanted to do for 17 years (the first time I went was in 1988 and I’ve always wanted to go back). The mall is so crazy big, it’s got an amusement park, water park, seal shows, an ice rink, mini golf, underwater adventure, and more all in the mall!
We stayed above a bar that night in Vegreville, Alberta, and the woman who checked us in was missing a limb. The bar didn’t close until 3am and our room was right above the band.
We’re driving to the states today!
Day 8: [07 Sep 2005|11:30am]
We’re in Chicago.
My nose healing…looks a lot better.
We went to the biggest mall in the world in Edmonton …and yesterday we went to the second biggest mall… “Mall of America” in Minneapolis . They have a cool Lego store and an amusement park called Camp Snoopy in the middle of the mall… I didn’t realize Snoopy was so popular???
I bought Care Bear uno!
Oh, and we dorked out in Minneapolis, and played Lord of the Rings Risk with Alden’s room mates. We are geeeeeks!
Chicago has been really nice. I went swimming today in Lake Michigan at a downtown beach. The water was amazing! It was really clear and clean. We tried Chicago-style pizza, which was interesting, but I prefer regular pizza. Chicago style is just way to rich and intense. We stayed with a friend of mine, Kirsten, who plays in a band called The Capricorns, who are an amazing 2 piece keyboard outfit.
Look how clear that water is!
Chilling out in Downtown Chicago
Day 13: [12 Sep 2005|12:42am]
We’re in Toronto now. Saw Niagara Falls today! The American falls…yeh… really small! The Canadian ones are like 5 times as big. It was 33 degrees and full of tourists! I just wanted to jump in I was so hot.
Niagara Falls!
Toronto is rad. The first night we were here, we went to a Vice party with an open bar and saw Brutal Knight play. Last night, we went to a Fifth Column tribute with Kids on TV, Lesbians on Ecstacy, and Fox the Boombox playing at Sneaky Dee’s. I swam in Lake Ontario yesterday, which is my second Great Lake of the trip. I tried to swim in Lake Erie. We stopped in Erie, Pennsylvania but I couldn’t find a beach.
We made a detour on our trip through Ohio and around the American side of Lake Erie just so we could go to the Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. They have loads of different trinkets, costumes, and souvenirs from over the years, but I was most impressed with Jim Morrison’s Cub Scout uniform and Tiffany’s jean vest from the “I Think We’re Alone Now” video. They had a whole section on teen sensations, some of it wasn’t very rock’n'roll, especially the ‘N Sync stuff.
Day 16: [15 Sep 2005|07:22pm]
some good things and bad things…
- I lost my glasses in Toronto and now can’t drive or be a very good navigator
- We went up the cn tower
- I went to a blue jays game and they won
- I saw black dice, awesome, and some other band
- I saw the new Simpsons and family guy premiere way before the UK
- I visited the Parliament buildings and the infamous cat sanctuary on Parliament Hill
- I got new Vans
- I finally found a Nordiques t-shirt in kids sizes
- I finally got to visit the expo ball in Montreal, it’s see-thru!
- We’re going out for Poutine and Lee’s new Montreal night.
Day 18: [17 Sep 2005|03: 03pm]
So our last day, we drove straight from Montreal to Halifax all day and night, and since I lost my glasses, that means Den did ALL the driving. It was so nice to get to my mom’s at 3am and get hugs and see her dog, who I love so much.
That’s it for me. Now that I have updated from London finally after moving here over a year ago, I will do my best to keep you up to date on London happenings. Mira Manga lives in the west and I live in the east, and so I think we’ve got it covered.
Take care,
xx Mar
Leave a Reply