wow who knew …
that giraffe’s are so amazing!
ha!
for a team building day with work we went to the calgary zoo
we got to feed this cute giraffe carrots
and now i am obsessed with giraffe’s
i was happy. i love animals
i was a tad worried i would cry seeing them caged up
but they looked happy and the zoo keepers we met were amazing!
although i do think a zoo is no place for an animal to live
zoos are good and bad in a lot of ways
i thought it was really weird
they has all these dead animals on the menu for lunch at the zoo
kids and their parents were scarfing down processed chicken fingers
and beef burgers. i thought this was super strange
seeing animals then eating them
i had a veggie burger and fries
i guess when i was a kid i did the same
but an an adult it seems weird to eat animals at the zoo
i saw elephants and zebras too
i wish i got to see a polar bear
i love polar bears and have never seen one up close
i will now start to plan a trip to the arctic!
howdy calgary …
wow. blog catch up
my lady of leisure work from home
or working occasionally from the office
or tanning in south & central america life
has been changed to
5 days a week
8 hours a day
in an office
my new job is awesome!
i’m on a one year contract
working in the marketing department
and handle the radio & tv promotions for westjet
calgary is questionable
i’m going to bold that sentence
i don’t ever think i have bolded a sentence on my blog. ever.
calgary is a great city
it’s just not my city and i have to get used to it
i had to buy a car
barf. i hate cars
i ride my bike and use my legs
it is literally impossible to have a normal
standard of life here if you don’t drive a car
i had to break down and buy a vehicle
i purchased a chevy tracker sport utility
now i get to work in 12 mins rather than 1 hour & 30 mins
city transit here is brutal
i’ve been to a few fun places so far
we went to craft beer market for st. patrick’s day
and went to commonwealth bar last saturday
i like it at both places a lot
they may be my new fav places here!
adios toronto …
i had this vision of how my life was going to be
when i moved back from south america
… and it just wasn’t happening
i had to alter my life
i thought with my head this time
because i think with my heart way too much sometimes
you never know who will influence you the most
and who will inspire you do the things you do
bottom line is i decided to accept and make the move to calgary
jen rose picked me up the night before i left
because i was spending the night at her place
and she was going to drive me in the morning
her boyfriend carey’s snowboard buddies
were crashing at their place for the week
carey was out of town for work
we all had a few drinks at her place
then at the last minute
we decided to go for last call at a place on queen street
there was this crazy piano player guy
that started to play us a bunch of songs on the piano
we went back to the house
jen made us vegan mac and cheese
it was yum
went to bed way too late
and was up way too early
packed up the car
and flew to calgary for my new job
less is more …
i packed up my stuff (which isn’t much)
to move to calgary 3 weeks ago
i basically sold all that owned before i moved to argentina
i unknowingly did a total life cleanse at that time
i knew i was going to get rid of some of my stuff before argentina
but i didn’t realize just how much of the clutter
i was going to get rid of both mentally and physically
so now i own 2 suitcases of things
1 small suitcase with books, shoes and trinkets
1 large suitcase with clothes
plus i have a few boxes i stored in thunder bay with my parents
i carry everywhere i travel/ live my picture books and my bottle of shells and sand
my picture books are filled with pages from magazines of things i want in life
and experiences i dream of accomplishing
and i collect beach sand and shells on every trip
i love that all that i own is packed tightly into suitcases
i’ll have and nice house with lots of wonderful things in it one day
but for now i like my simple suitcases of only what i need in life :)
BUT somehow i accumulated lots of winter clothes that i had packed away
and needed to bring them to calgary!
so now i own the contents of about 3 suitcases!
you know how woman say they turn into their mothers
well i have turned into my father
he’s retired now though and is at home all the time
but he lived out of a suitcase for most of his life
and he has a million stories of traveling across canada for work
i will have the same amount of stories when i’m his age of traveling the world :)
jen rose is the coolest …
i met up with jen rose a few weeks back
we went to a place on queen street called…
oh darn. i can’t remember what it was called
it’s literally a few doors east of country general
something with an L maybe?
anyways …
the guy at county general suggested it to us
the bartender was from brazil
he was really nice to us
we talked about him moving to canada
and my trips to brazil and living in south america
jen and i drank a bottle of yummy chilean wine
that’s how the convo started of where he was from
they mis-wrote the wine as argentinean
but it was chilean!
he brought us olives and fresh bread
one of the bartenders was the sommelier for the resto
we talked wine for awhile with him as well
he was really nice too!
jezzzzz i’m horrible with names!
i can’t remember either of their names
but i could pick out their faces in a crowd of 1000 if i had too!
groove cruise part uno …
two years ago joanne (sydney blu) asked me to go with her from miami to the bahamas for this gig she was booked on called the groove cruise
we fully planned on a fun party but were both like
it will be chill …. we can hang in the sun and relax
after three days on the boat as we were walking off on monday morning
we both said “what the fack just happened”
i came home to the australian i was dating at the time with bruises
and all crazy exhausted
he was like “what happen to you hahahaha???”
good times bud, good times on the boat!!
last year i was living in the mountains of guatemala and couldn’t go
but i went again this year with joanne
but this time we seriously were like we are going to be good and we were :)
met up with chris lake and his wife gita lake and the rest of the dj’s that were playing on the boat that joanne is friends with
chris is hilarious! hilarious!!! and gita is the sweetest ever
i met thomas gold and his lovely wife verna
both are super awesome
and the two jackie’s (LA jackie & MIAMI jackie) and brittany
and met up with funkagenda (adam) again
all of them are sooooo amazing!!
meeting new people who are super fun and lovely is really the best!
groove cruise friday & saturday …
sydney’s first gig on the boat was in the main room on friday night
jezzzzzzzz it was a rave
but like on a cruise ship!
it was the funk farm party that funkagenda was hosting
we had a super fun time dancing
LA jackie made me laugh a lot that night
she is awesome
i was the official picture taker (i usually am)
it was an amazing night of dancing and being mesmerized by crazy ravers! ha!
but then we were tired and went to bed
told you we promised to be good!
we woke up on saturday and headed to the island party
the boat (or shall i say cruise liner) anchored
chris lake kept calling it a cruise liner
thomas gold was playing a sweet set in the sun
MIAMI jackie and i were on a serious people watching mission
there were some pretty redic people on the ship
this guy was all crazy dancing
i could not take my eyes off of him. hilarious.
the camera guy did a sweet interview on the beach with sydney
then we decided to head back to the boat
we grabbed a snack then back to the room to relax for a bit
these bones can only handle so much these days
actually these bones could only handle those crazy party animals so much that day
sydney and chris both played in the smaller room that night
it was a sweet party we had going on in the room
somehow i was forced to drink too many vodka red bulls that evening. oy!
sunday day groove cruisn’
by sunday we were plotting how to get off the boat!
we were having tons of fun
but there was 2300 people on this thing
that’s a whole lotta crazy party people
lots of girls with fake body parts walking around half naked
i’m sure the guys loved it
but i was tired of seeing girls jiggle bums
i must note …
it is quite unusual to see a girl with a crazy fit body and 50 year old looking face
how does that happen?
not enough sunscreen on face???
anyways that day we spent in the bahamas!!!
there was a party at the wyndham hotel we were attending
we hopped in a cab and went to the party
but then diverted to the beach instead
gita, joanne and myself just wanted to hang in the sun!
i NEEDED to dip my feet in the ocean!!!
it was a good day relaxing for a bit in the sand
we left and went back to the ship
ate a snack and watched the sunset
we all know by now with reading my blog my obsession with sunset’s
I LOVE WATCHING THE SUN SETTING!!!!!
it brings an end to the day and the start to any night. love it <3
sunday night finale …
for our last night on the groove cruise they had set up a dinner
with a few of the dj’s and contest winners from nextaid
lauren from nextaid was lovely
she is a great woman with a beautiful heart
dinner was yum and the winners were all nice
we headed to one of the lounges after to have few vodka red bulls with our little group
then we all hit the final sunday night party
even though i was quite ready to get off the raver boat
i was really sad to leave my new friends
we danced the night away
and decided to create an all girl glow stick band. haha!
fantastic times on the groove cruise
it certainly is a massive production those guys have organized
and everyone who i met was wonderful!!
joanne and i stuck to our be good motto the whole weekend
and i came home with zero bruises :D
thursday night in miami …
joanne and i met up with helen for dinner
we went to barceloneta
this cute tapas place
dinner was yum
went back to joanne’s to hang for bit before her gig at cameo that night
somehow we got on the subject of helen having broken her femur bone
and the metal bar in her leg
there was this facebook group that was started
and people posted pics of their broken bones!
helen showed me a bunch of x-rays! hahahaha!
what a start to the night
sydney rocked it at cameo
like rocked it!
i had lots of fun
we all jetted after her gig
helen and i went to la sandwicherie for a snack
a gypsy woman came up to me
and started telling me i was an old soul in a young body
and was predicting my future
i may have had 8 too many vodka cocktails in the evening
because my memory is foggy of what she said to me
BUT i do remember she tried to get a bunch of money from me
i gave her 10 bucks
(she said she had kids - i’m a sucker)
then helen and her got into an argument
cause she wanted more money and helen told her to leave us alone
gypsy woman freaked out and said helen was bad vibes and i was good vibes
hahahahaha! what!!!!! helen is awesome vibes
i swear she was about to put some gypsy hex on helen
then she was carried away by her gypsy husband
some random dude thought it was a good time
to make his moves on us at that point
i just wanted to eat my sandwich and drink my diet pepsi
he passed me his card blabbing about something and then drove off with his buddies in a car that i swear was worth about a million dollars
ok maybe 100 thousand dollars, but whatever
it was some crazy expensive car
meh fast cars, if he had a crazy bicycle i might have called him
awesome night :D
"as you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others."
- audrey hepburn
shrimp & vegetable stir fry
makes 2 servings
what you need!
2 cups of shrimp (fresh or pre-cooked)
4 cups of vegetables (i used snow peas, asparagus, broccoli and mushrooms)
2-3 dashes of pepper
2 tbsp soy sauce
5 tbsp olive oil
what you do!
clean shrimp by rinsing under cold water, remove shells and tails. there was pre-cooked in the fridge so i used those. but preferable you should try for fresh shrimps! set aside clean shrimps. rinse and clean veggies in water. in a large pan sautee veggies in 3 tbsp of olive oil over medium to high heat. if you are using fresh shrimps add those in right away with veggies. if you are using pre-cooked add to veggies after 6-8 minutes of cooking. in a small bowl mix soy sauce, and 2 tbsp of olive oil and pepper together. pour on top of stir fry and sautee for another 2-3 minutes, remove from heat, serve and eat! if you like you can make rice or noodles to eat with the shrimp stir fry. i like eating it with just with vegetables.
