Set your face for disappointment

May 28, 2013

I had one of those nights last week when everything is left by the wayside (including dinner) because I was sucked into a movie. I’m not a huge movie fan- there’s something about sitting down for two or so hours (unless it’s with a book) that feels like time wasting.

But it was Ghostbusters 2, a childhood favourite that I watched countless times at my grandparents’ house (a VCR was a luxury not afforded to us).

It was fun yelling “We’ve been there!” at the landmarks but it also served to remind us of one of the most underwhelming experiences: New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

The old Times Square ball.

A timeline of NYEs

January 1st, 2011 12 am: drunk in a Paris park watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle no differently to every other hour of the night. “Imagine being in Times Square,” I said. “Let’s do it!” Almost at the end of a UK working holiday, we had vague notions of doing it again in Canada.

January 1^st, 2012 12 am: tipsy on a grassy hill in Marion Bay, Tasmania, watching the Kooks wrap up their set at the Falls Festival. “I wonder where we’ll be next New Year’s Eve,” I said. “Times Square?” Having paid off Europe-laden credit cards, we were beginning to squirrel away again with a less vague notion of Canada.

January 1^st, 2013 12 am: stone cold sober in Times Square watching the confetti sprinkle down six blocks away.

We weren’t going to attempt it. I’d done some research and discovered the fun police rules for a Spartan NYE. You weren’t allowed bags or drinks. But why would you drink when there aren’t any toilets?

The arrogance is quite endearing ­– ‘we know you’re going to come anyway so why should we bother?’

Our other option was to go to a New York ‘party’ at a pub with an open bar and free party favors. Party favors seemed to be the clincher on each ad. What the hell is a party favor?

Can you see? Me neither

On the off chance you didn’t want to hover awkwardly behind people sitting at the bar, tickets for these parties averaged around a couple of hundred dollars. Reminiscent of being a skinny kid at an all-you-can-eat, an open bar is kind of wasted on me. I could picture myself trying to get my money’s worth of grog and the elegant image of singing Auld Lang Syne into the toilet bowl. I’m sure the acoustics are great in the dunny though.

In the end we were sold on the idea of Times Square by the rather kooky guesthouse owner’s fairly logical advice: You’re here, you may as well. A lot of strategic planning went into the night. Following our trip to the laundromat (I was out of clean undies and didn’t want to bring in 2013 wearing swimmers), we cooked a spaghetti bolognaise for linner around 4pm, deliberately dehydrated ourselves and

Come where we treat you with respect

May 23, 2013

It’s a bit like when somebody explains, “I’m a nice person.” 

Having to tell you something that ought to be a given should set off alarm bells. Unless you’re me and stupidly optimistic about the wrong things (and doubtful of the right things).

The job title was “Servers, come where we treat you with respect”. To make my optimism even less credible, it was advertised on Craigslist (creepier version of Gumtree). But hey, the admin work wasn’t as fruitful as I’d hoped (more here) and what great flexibility to fit around my studies. All you had to do was email your availability for the week and get offered waitressing jobs at catering events. And I was going to make a whopping $15/hr to boot (for the lack of tips at weddings?).

I smashed the job interview; singing my praises in a banquet room with the other suckers watching on. I didn’t get invited to the owner’s house as I later read about on a red flag website but I did get invited back for training an hour later. What’s a girl to do for an hour on Dufferin Street? What else is there to do? My only option was Dairy Queen where I tried not to laugh as the cashier unenthusiastically turned my ice-cream upside-down. Supposedly you get it for free if it fails. I’d pay double.

A new party trick

I was a little suspicious on the ‘training’ that I rightly figured to be unpaid. But it was only for an hour and I’d gone all that way on the bus. Two hours later I was on my way home with a throbbing wrist and very late for dinner. In reality, waitressing is probably not the best career move for someone with a dodgy wrist (a self-diagnosed ganglion was recently upgraded to carpal tunnel– thanks Dr Internet). 



I mulled over my uniform requirements: a buttoned long sleeve white shirt, buttoned long sleeve black shirt, black pants with black belt, black tie and a black button up vest, and wondered how many hours I’d have to work to make back the money, especially now the ‘contract’ we signed before we were let out specified $10.25/hr. My old friend, minimum wage! Obviously

A Real Space Oddity

May 18, 2013

You might not know who this guy is if you haven’t been close to a Canadian TV lately or aren’t one of his one million followers on twitter. No, he’s not a new recruit for “Guess Who?”. He’s Canada’s biggest celebrity.

I wasn’t overly interested in Chris Hadfield’s journey to begin with, although he was in the news more regularly than the prime minister (deliberate omission of name to highlight un-newsworthiness) or embattled Toronto mayor, Rob Ford (I’ve always wanted to use that adjective). It wasn’t until Cmdr Hadfield was nearing the end of his five months in space that I sat up and took notice. The Chris Hadfield highlight reels went on high rotation and given his prolific tweeting, singing and all round good-guyness, there was a lot to recap. From shaving in space to a good old fashioned sing along with Canadian schoolkids, there was nothing he didn’t do.

If you watch the sing along song he co-wrote with the dude from Barenaked Ladies, you might wonder if Canada is just a big country town. I don’t know but when I switched news channels because I’d seen his simulated space exit too many times, they were doing birthday shout-outs... for adults.

ISS- Is Somebody Singing? 

Warning: listeners may experience uplifted spirits and an earworm for a few days.

There’s so much to like about the guy– he genuinely wanted to bring the world with him to the ISS by sharing his experiences. But there’s a lot to make you feel very, very awkward.

On his last days in space, he filmed his own rendition of Bowie’s Space Oddity. It’s tumultuous viewing– fantastically produced by his son and sung so earnestly I had to bite my hand. 

The Chris Hadfield Drinking Game

Have a shot every time:

~ He looks wistfully out the window. Make it a double if it matches the lyrics.

~ A guitar is spun in zero gravity (what’s the carry-on baggage limits for space travel anyway?).

Play it soon though, David Bowie’s only given permission for one year of viewing.

The whole mission may appear to be

2 weeks worth of thanks

May 16, 2013

A quick note to thank everyone for making the last two weeks of scribbling notes like a nutter worthwhile. I dread the post "Blogging killed my relationship"... So thank you all my followers from Canada, USA, Australia, Russia and Germany. Keep reading and feel free to tell your friends!



Sending you a virtual box of Roses chocolates courtesy of this 1994 ad.
(I thought you weren't meant to hear accents when you sing!)

E.A.

Make like a tree and leaf

May 14, 2013

Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if this was one of those fake 
maple leaves they accidentally put on the new $20 note.

There are a lot of grieving Leaf fans today. And an equal amount of people revelling in their misery.

You’re not Canadian?

What do you mean you don’t know who the Leafs are?

Huh? Leafs is a totally acceptable plural of leaf.

A quick summary for those who don’t know: Toronto Maple Leafs (hockey) were playing the Boston Bruins in game seven of the playoffs. In case you’re not familiar with the North American take-all-your-money style of playoffs/finals, each round is the best of seven games. If you’ve made it to game seven, both teams have had three wins.

So, Toronto were winning 4-1 towards the end of the game. They were going to be that 7% (the odds of winning the series from 3-1 games down). Boston scored twice in the last 30 seconds to tie the game. They won in overtime.

Hold up! Best of seven games?

Precisely. Talk about a cash cow! Particularly when the going rate for Leafs tickets were $300-400 for the nosebleed section. The maple leafs are the most expensive team to watch in the NHL. An average ticket for a regular game is $125 or twelve hours of work

It's almost believable that I went to a Leafs game rather than the lower division Marlies.

For an Australian comparison, the Leafs are kind of like the Collingwood of the NHL. Not because they’re the team you love to hate, but they are one

Cherry blossoms are da bomb! [too soon?]

May 12, 2013

What’s the most innocent activity to get you caught up in a controlled detonation by the bomb squad? 

Checking out cherry blossoms would have to be up there.

I was a latecomer to the cherry blossom party, i.e. I didn’t know they were big outside of Asia. Judging by the dreamy instagram pics on BlogTO, I was the only one in Toronto who didn’t spend last weekend picnicking under the trees. So out we went, mistakenly thinking the grey, drizzly weather ten degrees cooler than last week would keep High Park relatively empty.

The cherry blossoms were pretty nice. The people dressed as samurais were a little strange. I took the mandatory wanky manual focus photos.

No, I don’t have a smartphone and therefore no fashionable app to over-saturate my photos to what photographers spent years trying improve on. 

And anyway, all you smug instragrammers don’t know the thrill of lugging a SLR around all day, getting it from the case that’s inside the backpack, untangling the strap, remembering to take off the lens cap, missing a photo op because you can’t be bothered getting it out. But I digress.

There were a couple of news vans in the park. Were they just time-filling with a cherry-blossom-fever story, or did they have something to do with that police car blocking the road? 

Public curiosity is contagious. 

We went to investigate. The solo police officer was making a vague attempt to stop people

Hot town, Summer in the City!

May 8, 2013

Well, not quite summer but after a long winter, the 20°+ has felt just like that. And we’ve had a ten day stretch of it! It’s a welcome break after winter dragged its heels to the last week of April. In fact, in four months the temperature barely changed, except for the odd day here and there.

On a gorgeous 8° day (?!) I unzipped, yes, unzipped my coat and pumped my old man’s ‘Summer of Love’ album on my ipod.

From winter flowers to...

“You came at a good time,” everyone joked on our January arrival. I still think we did. I’d much rather arrive in winter and see the progression into summer than witness the reverse. I loved winter– the snow, the slush, the ice. (Strangely enough I was colder living in Manchester. Even an Australian winter without heating is more intolerable.)

Winter left me wondering,

Minimum wage… ouch!

May 4, 2013

Currently I have three jobs and almost no money coming in. 

Not enough to cover rent. How did this happen?

It began back in Newcastle (Australia) when we took the short lease option because we planned to go to Canada for a working holiday. Working holiday? Surely that is a misnomer. We had hoped we could stay in the house for an extra month or so but the owner decided to sell. Very quickly our January departure became November and we rushed to get our work permits processed in time.

Not allowed to work with children nor as a stripper.

To work as a teacher in Canada not only requires sorting it all out with the school board of the province you wish to work in before you arrive but also a different type of work permit, requiring a very expensive medical and an extra six or so weeks, time we just didn’t have. “It’ll be nice to have a break from teaching,” I said breezily.

Oh, the naivety of a well-paying job!

My brother warned me– “You’ll get paid shit in Canada.” 

But he was forgetting the tips. Over a hundred dollars a night they said. Maybe it's true,

I've been Peta Panned

May 2013

In a bout of not-really-insomnia last week, I realised something. 

All these years I’ve been joking about people I know with Peter Pan syndrome and really, that’s kind of me. 

The ever-trustworthy Wikipedia definition is a little more extreme than what I had thought– I wouldn’t call myself socially immature and despite the short hair and ownership of garments to the contrary, I’m also not a man. None-the-less, when you look at my life on paper, my name is Peta Pan and I haven’t grown up:

Serendipitously, a Peter Pan statue is just a
few kilometres from where I live in Toronto! 

• I had the elusive permanent teaching position in a challenging but lovely school. I chucked it in.
• I (with my significant other, Peter Pan) had a gorgeous rental close to Newcastle Harbour, steady-ish jobs and an enviable lifestyle. We chucked it in for a working holiday in Canada.
• In December I will turn an age you shouldn’t, living back in my childhood bedroom, broke and unemployed.

Too close to thirty and not yet grown up? Way past thirty and not yet grown up? Already grown up and wishing you weren’t? Follow me on my journey in North America as I try to fit in everything before I grow up (or old!)

E.A.