Tag Archives: travel

ready, set

Posted in everyday kimli by

T minus 3 sleeps until GO.

My excitement and trepidation are nearing unbearable levels. I am mentally and physically ready for a vacation (I forgot my laptop at home two days in a row last week), and although I will desperately miss Ed and the cats (this will be the most time we’ve been apart – I think the longest to date has been 6 days), I’m looking forward to this time of quiet reflection all the goddamn adventure I can cram into 25 days.

I have a big list of things I want to do, but beyond the list I’m looking forward to:

  • ADVENTURE!!
  • Being on my own schedule. If I wanna sleep in, I can. If I wanna spend 3 hours in the V&A garden, I can. If I wanna go to a spooky-ass cemetery and walk amongst the dead, I can (and totally will).
  • No helmet hair for almost a month.  I love my scooter, but goddamn I’ve had some wicked helmet hair recently.
  • Eating all my meals at M&S
  • M&S in general
  • Pretending I’m a wealthy lady of leisure; an International Kimli of Mystery
  • Angry shoulder dancing
  • Asking for a large Diet Coke and getting a North American medium
  • Finding out the deal with Stonehenge
  • Pret.
  • Sharing my adventures both here and on Instagram #shamelessplug #unitedkimdom

Just .. all of it, really. I’m even looking forward to the 9+ hour flight, which is a sure sign of ocean madness (aka “Aqua Dementia”, the deep down crazies, the wet willies, the Great Moist). I’m hoping this trip will kickstart my heart my desire to write again, but even if it doesn’t, I won’t be beating myself up over it. No agenda. Just good times.

I am grateful for this extremely lazy caturday, but I can’t help but wish Sony picked any other time to do maintenance on their servers – I have to get enough underpants video game time to last me for a whole month.

LET'S DO THIS

LET’S DO THIS

manic pixie starter kit

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On a whim, I purchased something called an “Anywhere Travel Guide”. It’s a set of 75 cards for “discovering the unexpected, wherever your journey leads”. I thought maybe they could be a fun writing exercise while in London, for when I get tired of writing things like “omg London” “I’m never coming home” “I miss my cats”, etc.

I finally got around to opening the box of cards yesterday, and realized that I didn’t just buy a box of writing prompts – I bought a Manic Pixie Dream Girl Starter Kit.

Bring a book you love out on a walk. Leave sentences from the book wherever you go.

Someone thought this sounded all romantic and mysterious, but to me it’s just a logistical nightmare. Okay, here’s my favourite book. Now what? Do I also bring an xacto knife to cut passages out of the pages to leave around? Not only am I destroying a book, but I’m also littering. I could copy the sentences out by hand, but now I need to bring a notebook and pen and I’m still littering. And what happens if your favourite book isn’t full of romantic or vaguely inspirational passages? What if you have truly terrible taste in books?

“I don’t think I can. I’ve told you, on the one hand, the hunger — the thirst — that, deplorable creature that I am, I feel for you. And I think you can understand that, to an extent. Though” — he half-smiled — “as you are not addicted to any illegal substances, you probably can’t empathize completely.

“But…” His fingers touched my lips lightly, making me shiver again. “There are other hungers. Hungers I don’t even understand, that are foreign to me.”

Or worse still,

Jamie knows Adam always gets nervous before they head out to sea; he can tell by the way the man walks, the slight tremor in his hands, the hitch in his breath. It’s not that Adam is afraid of the ocean, the man just desperately does not want to get sick. He wants to participate, to feel the satisfaction of seeing one of his builds not screw up for once. He wants to cheer alongside Jamie as the rig they worked on for months performs just as it’s supposed to, to hug the man when it’s over, to hear the whispered words of praise the other man wouldn’t be caught dead saying to anyone else.

It’s a cute idea – sort of – but if you stop to actually think about everything involved, it becomes laughably convoluted and just plain rude. Don’t deface books. Don’t litter! And don’t ever, ever make me look up Mythbusters slash to prove a point EVER AGAIN.

Walk through the city while listening to music that you love. Let the words of the songs tell you stories about things that you pass by.

Makin’ my way downtown, walking fast, faces pass, and I’m homebound ..

Whisper a secret into the wind. Follow it as it flies away.

What. No. Why. Stop this at once.

Ask someone where to find something really strange.

Wanna see a dead body?

Collect voices. Dark, light, funny, sweet, whispering, slow, loud, soft. Imagine them as a choir.

STAND STILL I’m trying to collect your voice now where did I put my stabbing knife?

Choose a person on the street. Make this person your guide. Follow him/her for as long as possible.

Call home with your one phone call. Ask them to sell mother’s prized horse figurine collection to make your bail. Imagine your happy place during the cavity search.

Look behind you, look above you, look beneath you. These are your surroundings.

This is a word. People breathe oxygen. Cars go fast.

Run four steps, walk slowly for five steps, run ten steps, and turn around a corner. Stop suddenly and stand completely still.

When Joseph Gordon-Levitt catches up to you and asks what you’re doing, tell him you’re following the secret you whispered into the wind. Bask in his adoration as he openly admires your free spirit. Smile and count the polka-dots on your vintage lace chemise as he realizes you are from two different worlds and could never make it work. Skip away, promising to plant kisses in the dirt for him every spring on that hill you climbed together on the day you found out you were terminal.

Start running. Run for two blocks. Can you smell something?

You may want to take a shower.

Hide in different places throughout the day – under a chair, behind a wall, between some trees.

Get stuck. Die slowly when no one comes looking for you. Spend your final minutes on this mortal plane cursing the whimsy that led you to be trapped under this chair behind a wall between some trees.

—

The entire deck of cards is like this. There are more cards suggesting you leave things places, other asking you to pick things up off the street and mail them to someone, and a lot of talking to strangers. The entire deck isn’t completely useless – there are several things that might be legitimately fun to try, like picking a random restaurant and ordering the 3rd and 12th things off the menu or walking into any place and asking someone where their favourite place in the city is – but the vast majority of the prompts are complete 500 Days of Summer Paper Towns Breakfast at Tiffany’s Virgin Suicides Garden State MPDG bullshit. This isn’t to say that I am beyond doing random-ass things – quite the contrary – but I am not some slip of a caricature of a girl. I am a fierce, independent, anxiety-riddled weirdo. My quirks are not for you!

If you need me, I’ll be dancing with my cat in the centre of Times Square while wearing a dress made of tomorrow’s newspaper and dead roses.

be the most me

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Gill posted a link to this really good article about travel writing as a woman. I leave for my trip in 63 days, and while my trip isn’t really long enough to generate a book’s worth of content, I’m really looking forward to writing while I’m gone.

I’m aware that the writing I do isn’t travel-book-material – I couldn’t begin to tell you where to find the best martini in the city, or where the beef carpaccio is so thin and tender it melts on your tongue and leaves behind only a whispered promise of sun-drenched Tuesdays – but I’m pretty sure there’s no danger of my falling into the privileged white world of eating, praying, or loving. I haven’t fooled myself into thinking that anyone would read an entire book of my words. It’s a fun daydream to have, but at the end of the day, who am I writing this for? If it’s not ultimately for myself, then I’ve failed whatever vague and unknown goals I may have had.

I find myself torn between wanting to classify my trip as an attempt to find myself in 25 days or less, or laughing at the whole damn genre and just going with “vacation”. It’s true that I’m feeling a little lost and aimless these days – my health and inability to participate in life has affected me in ways I hadn’t expected – but I don’t know that this adventure is going to be the thing that makes everything come into focus. I’m excited as all hell to go, planning on getting out of my comfort zone as often as I’m able, and will be giddy with freedom and possibility the entire time. I could probably produce 400 eeee-heavy pages on my every thought during those weeks, but why? No one needs that.

I’m going to write whatever comes out, and you’ll get random updates about what went on around me. There will be swearing. I might get lost. Maybe I’ll find myself on the cliffs of Dover. I’ll definitely get too close to the edge and will try hard not to fall off. I’ll take a train to another country and maybe retrace my steps to the Eiffel Tower dildo I regret not buying the last time I was in Paris. I’ll hang out on bridges and wonder about the things that brought me to that place at that time. I’m going to be the best and most Kimli I can possibly be, and see what happens. That’s enough, right? It’s gonna have to be.

never wear yellow in brighton

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Our trip to London and surrounding areas wasn’t just for fun – along the way, we learned some Life Lessons I will now share with you bit by bit.

The first lesson: Never wear yellow in Brighton. We woke up ridiculously early on the morning of my birthday, and made our way to the train station to spend the day in Brighton. Things were going well – we wandered the town, found an amazing market lined with quirky shops, saw some incredible graffiti, and had lunch at Bill’s. We were full and happy and making our way towards the pier when we stumbled upon the Royal Pavilion Gardens, complete with gorgeous wildflowers, a huge castle-thing, and lush inviting grass just begging for bare feets. The sun had finally come out, and we strolled through the gardens basking in the sheer delight of being in Brighton. It was good.

Then the bugs happened.

See, one of the things I love about the UK is the many, many flower gardens all over the landscape. These aren’t groomed gardens meant for looking at and/or smelling, but rather specific pockets of pollenating plants and flowers set up to entice insects to do their thang. They’re gorgeous, and the fact they almost killed me aside, are awesome.

My birthday started out a little cloudy, so I wore my favourite dress and a bright yellow sweater to make some artificial sunshine. As we were walking through the garden, I noticed a tiny beetle trying to pollenate my sweater. I gently brushed him off, then another, then another, then another, then .. shit. I was *covered* in tiny beetles trying to have sex with me. Ed and Heather helped me brush all the bugs off while Renee laughed at me, and we continued our walk. I looked down while pausing to fountain, and .. more bugs. More manhandling of myself to get them all off. We eventually reached the waterfront, and I figured I was in the clear: no more gardens means no more bugs, right? Time to do birthday pier things! Except .. no, I was still covered in bugs – more than ever. Ed counted as he flicked them off me, stopping when he got to 30 or so. The bugs LOVED my yellow sweater, and were crawling all over me in an attempt to feed off my delicious juice. I gave up at this point – it was warm outside anyway, so I took off my sweater and shoved it in my bag (after shaking it out for a solid 60 seconds). Wearing yellow in Brighton was evidently a huge mistake, one I won’t be repeating anytime soon (not because I know better, but because I am too far away). Also, bugs love me. I am delicious.

Next Life Lesson: that time the UK almost killed me!

here there be so many bugs
i love graffiti.
bill’s!
brighton shore
random castle-thing
happy couple
brighton pier
terror fabulous

utter failure

Posted in adventure, angst, international kimli by

Guys, this didn’t work.

This trip to London was supposed to get it all out of my system. I’ve spent a total of six weeks in the city – each trip a week longer than the last – but I’m not done. I know my love of this city is a little irrational, but have you met me? There’s something here that wants me to stay. I can feel it. No vacation, regardless of length, will ever be enough here .. I need to live in London. I know this as well as I know anything.

This isn’t just the idle rumblings of someone who isn’t quite ready to return to reality, either. I’ve only felt like this one other time in my life: when I was wholly convinced I would shrivel up and die if I didn’t live in Vancouver. I was supposed to be in BC, and every passing month I spent languishing in Calgary was killing me with angst. I needed to be on the coast, so I worked my ass off (and did so much fast talking it became a habit) to make that happen.

I still love Vancouver, but I love it like I love Fresca Victoria – many fond memories, and a permanent place in my heart. It doesn’t really feel like home anymore though – there are so many things I’ve been done with for ages now – and the urgency I felt years ago has been long sated. I feel it here, though. I’m supposed to be a Londoner. So how do I make that happen?

Complications. So many of them, least of which is qualifying for that Visa. I don’t know if anyone truly knows how hard it was to convince Ed that Vancouver wouldn’t kill him, but that would be like asking Ed if he’d like a blow job in comparison. The house. The cats. The sheer amount of money it would take to make it happen. So many obstacles .. but they’re the same obstacles I’ve faced, and conquered, before.

I can do this. I have to, because a force stronger than my ridiculousness is driving me to.

20140701-113036-41436050.jpg

i’m gonna live here one day

drawing to a close

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The first truly bad weather we’ve experienced this entire trip has given us an excellent excuse to do absolutely nothing today. I feel a little guilty, given that we only have two full days of London left before we leave for home on Tuesday, but we’re kind of exhausted and desperately needed the rest. Tomorrow we’ll be back to our usual routine of DO ALL THE THINGS, but today .. well, couch. And bed, and football, and pizza.

I love London and everything about it, but I really miss my cats. We’re both looking forward to going home – this is the longest we’ve ever been away, and I think I drastically underestimated just how long 22 days really is. That being said, we’ve had an amazing time. We’ve done almost everything on the London List, and will likely bang out all but two (a cemetery, and Camden Town – I’m just too tired and broke) in the next couple days. We come home on Canada Day, which is fitting. I will miss London – I’ve been trying very hard not to look at these last few days as “the last time I’ll lounge at the V&A, the last time I’ll be able to find a Pret 15 feet in any direction, the last time I can reach out and touch the Tower Bridge and lick Big Ben (even if they’d really rather I didn’t)”, etc. It’s still a goal of mine to live in London someday, and since I didn’t crumple into dust on my birthday, it could happen.

But first – Paris! We had three days to explore the city, and that’s just what we did. It was Ed’s first time there, with my being a seasoned Paris vet with almost 9 full hours under my belt. We did traditional tourist things, because of the aforementioned first time – the Eiffel Tower (which almost killed Ed because heatstroke), the Louvre (which almost killed everyone in our vicinity because crowd rage), the Notre Dame, and a day of random wandering during which we accidentally found the Persian sex district. We made great use of the bus tour tickets I bought, and braved the Metro multiple times to get around. It was a busy trip within a trip, but we made the most of our time there. It’s interesting, though – even with more time to soak in all (well, more) of what Paris has to offer, I find that my initial thoughts on the city still hold true: Paris is just not for me. I’m super glad I got to experience it not once but twice, and with Ed this time (who, ironically, feels exactly the same way about the city as I do), but to me, it’s no London. Which I love. Have I mentioned that?

I’ve been taking pictures the whole time we’ve been here (except for today, because I haven’t gone outside), but I don’t know where to put them. I didn’t renew my Pro Flickr account, and I don’t know where kids these days are putting their photos .. any ideas?

So, more coming later. Right now there is pizza to eat, and Canada to cheer on in the World Cup. GO SPORTS!

paris opéra

paris opéra

some sorta big tower dealie

some sorta big tower dealie

london built in brick, paris built in stone

london built in brick, paris built in stone

the angel of selfies

the angel of selfies

penis.

penis.

hello from paris

Posted in everyday kimli by

I fully intended on writing every day (or at least every other day) while on vacation, but then I kept having fun and was exhausted all the time and Heather and Renee were here and it was my birthday and .. well, I forgot. And was too tired. And now Ed and I are in Paris with spotty internet, so don’t hold your breath.

I do promise many pictures and stories soon, along with the dreaded cop-out “my vacation in numbers” post .. but that’ll have to wait: I am going to sleep and tomorrow I will explore Paris for more than the 8 hours H, R, and I had in 2011.

To make up for my absences, here are some things that are hilarious because I am 9 years old at heart:

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london: getting here

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Logistically, the flight was amazing. I never thought I’d be one of those people who opt to pay a little more for a decent flight (and I mean little – it worked out that the best possible times for our flights were also the cheapest), but after experiencing Discount London Airlines two years ago, I’ve gladly jumped at the chance to fork over more cash in exchange for budget luxury. We’ve flown to London twice now via Virgin Atlantic, and both times it was great with this trip in particular being extra great:

  • The flight was far from sold out, meaning we were able to snag an empty row of three seats of Ed to crash out on (take THAT, guy who tried to reserve an entire row for himself via throwing his iPad onto the seat only to have the sky waitress instead give the row to the 8.75 month pregnant lady two rows ahead of me)
  • USB PORTS IN THE SEAT BACK my phone was never less than 80% charged all flight and it was heavenly
  • Wifi was available, but for £14.99 ($28CDN) the Instagram pictures of my dinner could wait until we were on the ground
  • Speaking of dinner, it was quite good and served as soon as we were in the air, so no weird smells were being carted down the aisle while we were trying to get some sleep
  • Free entertainment on demand – tons of movies and TV shows, and a small selection of video games that were all free to view/play
  • Alcohol for some reason! Ed opted to try self-medicating with cognac and wine with dinner, and it was both complimentary AND complementary
  • Tons of leg room! Even with our extra bucks we still flew super cheapo economy style, but there was ample amounts of leg room for me to flail around in
  • No babies! While we were checking in, a family with three screaming children were in line next to us and brought on all the trepidation – boy was I relieved when I snuck a look at their boarding passes and realized they were flying to Germany
  • Free socks! You get a little care package on Virgin flights that contain a sleep mask, earplugs, a toothbrush and tiny toothpaste, a pen, and socks. These were very helpful, because I actually lost my socks on the flight (don’t ask) so I was able to put on fresh socks for the rest of the journey

There was very little turbulence on the flight, and we landed in London at 2:45pm local time. We were so early that we had to take the scenic route in:

my bridge is down there
the rolling fields of england!
curvy thames goodness
thanks for flyover of where we’re staying!

Unfortunately, even with all the extra space on our flight, I couldn’t sleep at all. I had just enough room to myself to be awkward – I couldn’t lay down without contorting my legs Cirque-style, and I flopped about restlessly when sitting upright. I was too hot, then too cold, and my underwear was giving me an atomic wedgie. Even after I threw decency and caution to the wind and allowed my nethers to be exposed to anyone who dared peer at them in the darkness, I couldn’t catch any sleep .. so by the time we landed, I was a loopy mess. Luckily, I had some backwards foresight* into the situation, and had opted to go Balls Out Fancy by booking a car service to deliver us unto our AirBnB, so after a brief waiting period (before which we figuratively waltzed through Customs and our bags were coming ’round the bend when we pulled up to the carousel) we were in a car to take us to where a bed was waiting.

.. eventually. See, this was my first time actually driving across London and not just for a short cab ride – we literally went from West London to East London, cutting directly across the city. It took almost 2 hours to arrive, because London traffic is somewhat of a nightmare (and terrifying holy crap) .. but once we got in, we were golden.

The AirBnB I booked is nice and functional, and situated at the base of a gondola for some reason. I rented the whole place (other people scare me), and later this week, Heather and Renee are flying in from Vancouver to join us for a week so the extra room made sense (and also Ed has to work a bit while we’re here, whereas I am a shiftless bum with no job hahHAEHhaehEHA). Today is our first fully conscious day in London, and we have a small but essential list of errands: get UK sim cards for our phones, explore the area, and officially start our London adventure.

EXCITED. If you want to follow along, I’m tagging all our photos and Tweets with #ekuk2!

*: Ed rarely sleeps on flights, and can be somewhat cranky and incoherent without sleep .. so instead of dragging him through London via public transit with all our bags, I ordered a car. This was somewhat flipped, because I was the one incapable of stringing a sentence together and really needed to not rely on my brain to get me all the way across London – but either way, it was a good decision and only slightly more than taking the Heathrow Express halfway to our destination and hoofing it with three transfers the rest of the way.

what is this "share" you speak of? i don't care if barry and josh are on here, get your own damn diet coke

what is this “share” you speak of? i don’t care if barry and josh are on here, get your own damn diet coke

all good things ..

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Yesterday marked the climax of an incredibly difficult two weeks: I quit my job. My last day will be on June 6th.

The decision to leave was a very long time in the making, because I truly loved my job. Unfortunately, a series of Unfortunate Circumstances made it impossible for me to keep calm-ish and carry on, as I’d been doing with marginal success since last July .. so I had to make the call. And it sucks.

For a very long time, I really loved my job. It was challenging and fun and I was learning more about mobile development than I ever thought possible. I found a talent for requirements that I didn’t know I had, and I was genuinely excited to ferret out all the tiny details that go into making something work. I loved my coworkers. I loved my projects. I didn’t love my desk, but even that source of daily annoyance was but a tiny fluffy cloud in the overall blue skies of my life.

After more than a year of giddiness about my job, things went south. I won’t go into detail here – you know where to find me if you want to hear the long, boring saga – but I kept thinking that maybe it would get better, and maybe things weren’t so bad, and maybe I really DID do terrible work and every other person I’ve worked with in my entire life was lying to me about my skills, and maybe no one else WOULD ever hire me, and maybe there ISN’T any value in my work, and maybe I was an awful person who deserved everything that happened, and blah blah blah Stockholm Syndrome.

Just when I learning to cope with the panic attacks, insomnia, and stress-related pointy zebra raves, the craziest thing happened: out of nowhere a massive straw fell from the sky and landed directly on a poor camel, snapping his spine into a zillion pieces! zomg!

The massive camel-seeking straw was the last of its kind, and on Friday I submitted my resignation.

I’m pretty torn up about it, because I still believe in the talents of my team and the work we were doing. I know they’ll soldier on just fine without me (hopefully not TOO fine), and my leaving isn’t that big a deal. Still, I felt so bad about abandoning them that I brought in Apology Cake as I broke the news .. I’m really going to miss them. I made a lot of friends at this job, some of whom are still there, and I’ll miss them terribly. For the longest time, I thought I could stick it out because I got to work with such awesome people, but in the end, it was a really big straw. And not a single person can blame me for doing what I have to do.

It’s not all bad, though: I start my new job on July 7th!

I have a crazy cool opportunity ahead of me, and I’m really excited about it. My confidence is a little shaky right now, but I know I can rock this shit like no other. Plus, I have three+ weeks in London between jobs which’ll go a long way in fixing my head space. Everything is coming up Milhouse – I’m looking forward to a new challenge (and also London because YAY LONDON!).

I’m sad right now, though. It’s hard not to remember how fucking amazing my job was, and think about all the cool people I’m leaving behind.

.. it was a really, really big straw.

delicious but sad

thrills! chills!

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Yesterday was both bouncy-squee-exciting, and curl-up-in-a-ball-because-I-think-I-may-be-dying painful.

First, the Thrills (not the purple soap gum): a few weeks ago, Ed and I came to a handshake agreement on three weeks in London this June. It was a fair compromise – I had wanted four weeks, but Ed wanted two – and we shook on it (after which I posted a Facebook update so it would be down in e-stone). Since the agreement (and spurred to action by an overlapping vacation request at work), I’ve been researching madly to find the best possible time/place/price .. and yesterday morning, I bought our plane tickets. We’re going to London in June for my birthday. Is it too early to start packing?

The Chills came in the afternoon at my appointment to have my hardware upgraded. I tried to prepare myself as best I could, but no one is ever really prepared to have a wheel jack crammed into your fun hole (twice, as the doctor had to go find a longer speculum to deal with my wandering cervix), cranked open, then a handful of lit fireworks shoved inside. The removal of the IUD 1.0 was unpleasant. The cleaning of my wonder box was very unpleasant. For some reason, a drying was needed: this was horribly unpleasant. Then came the applicator, which was terrible, and finally the main horrible terrible very bad no good hideously unpleasant main event, the IUD 2.0 itself. This time I knew well enough to NOT try and get up immediately after the construction crew left the site, but that didn’t stop my body from trying to reject everything ever and freaking the fuck out in pain and anger. There was much shaking, and my whole body broke out into an ocean of sweat – ever have your kneecaps start leaking? It’s weird. And damp. The doctor let me sit in a heap for a few minutes while the room spun around me, and I think I tweeted some inappropriate things before Find My Friends told me Ed was close enough for me to leave the doctor’s office. He took me home and took excellent care of me while I cursed everything around me, and the rest of the evening passed in a sticky, painful blur.

It’s all worth it, though. I’m now prepared to fight off the inevitable waves of sperm that come my way, and can resume living my secret life as a hentai revision of Elizabeth Báthory. Refreshing! 

(ewwwwwwwww I grossed myself out)