Blame Canada

At first I was afraid, I was so worried
Hadn't done all of the readings, had no summaries
But then I spent so many nights
Studying reams and reams of law
And now my head's spinning so bad
And I'm not worried any more

I'm gonna clerk, gonna get a place
If not, I'll swallow 15 beers and get completely off my face
Weren't you the one who tried to crush me with your sighs
With your annoying 'does not compute'
Your vague answers, and your rolled eyes

But I don't care, I will survive
I'll pull consecutive all-nighters
And I will work up to the skies
Don't care what all these grants are for
Without them I'll still practice law
And I'll survive, I will survive, hey hey

It took all the strength I had not to fall apart
Kept thinking I would end up stacking shelves at Wal-Mart
And I spent hour after hour getting all the answers wrong
Then I grew strong
And I learned how to get along
And you see me, somebody who
When it comes to collateral warranties doesn't have a clue
Don't know which Charter test to pick
Can't get a handle on Ethics
But I'll just go to Molly Bloom's
And drink tequila till I'm sick

I will survive! We will survive!
Provided hangovers don't kill us I know we will stay alive
We've got all our lives to live
Expensive law advice to give
And we'll survive, we will survive, hey hey!

1. You stub your toe and yell 'Frack!'
2. You don't automatically think of coffee when someone mentions Starbucks.
3. You develop a crisp English accent a la Gaius Baltar (uh-oh...)
4. You cut the corners off all your stationery. And your books.
5. You see your friend's identical twin and suspect her of being a Cylon.
6. You hear voices in your head and think it's Number Six.
7. You start up a cult dedicated to the Lords of Kobol.
8. You yell "We're right here!" when the characters start talking about finding Earth.
9. You name your firstborn daughter Caprica. And your second Boomer.
10. You start wondering where Admiral Adama gets his endless supply of whisky.

Ah, nothing like a good holiday. Joe and I just came back from a few days in Lyon (he had a business meeting and we tagged a long weekend on to the end of it). We ate in a traditional 'bouchon' (where the silk factory workers used to eat - lots of good hearty food made from cheap bits of cow and pig, like the brains and the snout...surprisingly delicious), took leisurely walks through cobbled streets, saw lots of old cathedrals (like the one we climbed up to, right) and ate obscene amounts of cheese.

We decided to finish the holiday with a meal in an incredibly posh restaurant. At the beginning of our meal, cheers from the bar next door told us Sarkozy had been elected president. At the end of our meal, the whiff of tear-gas as we walked out onto the street told us some people didn't like the idea. We'd decided to cycle back to our hotel (Lyon has a fab system where you can pay a few euros to rent a bike, then put it back at one of the many points scattered around the city), and we'd just got our bikes when we saw a crowd of people running away from the nearby square.

We went to take a look - and were greeted by a row of riot police, clouds of tear-gas, brainless protestors throwing bins and restauranteurs desperately bringing in tables from their patios. It was easy to get close without being in any actual danger, so we just stared for a good ten minutes. Then a bottle smashed a few feet away from me and we decided to get out of there. I'm glad we had bikes!

Here are the best photos, from a blog called riotporn that's a testament to the utter stupidity of humanity. Heck, why take part in reasoned debate when you can just lob a bin through the window of the nearest McDonald's?



Riot police running past the tourist information office, where we'd asked for directions to our restaurant just a few hours before.







At first I thought this guy was shooting rubber bullets, but it's actually tear-gas. The capsules burst in the air like fireworks, then shower down clouds that smell like burning plastic and make your eyes and throat sting.



We came across a burned-out car a few minutes up the road from our hotel. I guess someone wanted to remember Paris '05.

Our house renovation is finally getting somewhere! Just a few weeks ago, Joe and I were eating dinner like this:




and now our kitchen is finished!!! Yaaaaay! Check it out:






















Take a look at our incredibly posh living room too!

One more angle, because it looks so good:










We've still got the basement, the garage and the garden left to do, but that's most of the inside work done. I'm looking forward to working without the smell of varnish and the sound of nail guns : )

We're a week into April and it's snowing outside. Yes, really! Global warming obviously hasn't reached Canada yet. So much for spring. (This pic is of our front garden this morning)

*Sigh* So we've been having the house & garden renovated for a year now, and I feel like it's finally time to vent. I came home from England at the beginning of February to find our kitchen missing. It still is. I've been living on cereal and restaurant food for the past 6 weeks. I'm not sure how many more bowls of muesli I can take!

But it's a great diet plan, especially when your fridge looks like this (for some reason, we had to have it panelled - don't ask me why):

I've also perfected the art of pushing past the dust covers that hang over the stairs. You have to be careful not to get any dust on you, while holding lots of things so you don't have to go back in 5 minutes for the rest of your stuff. You also have to be careful not to miss a step and brain yourself on the banisters (tricky when you're limping from an infected toe because you mashed it into your suitcase which you left lying around after coming back from England because you were too tired to unpack).

A few more weeks of this and I'll be qualified to join Cirque du Soleil.

So no kitchen, inconvenient stairs (which is a pain because there's dust covers for both sets of stairs, and they divide the two main parts of our house), and a guest room (right) that looks like Hezbollah's been at it with rocket launchers. Into this pristine scenario, Joe introduces the idea that we should have friends from England to stay for a week.

After I finished spitting fire, he told me I was inhospitable. So now we're not speaking.

On a positive note, our 3-year anniversary is coming up! We're planning to stay in and eat cereal.

By the way, thanks to all of you who posted condolences about my grandad - just to let you know I'm fine. The funeral was very sad (as funerals are) but it was great to be there with my family. I never hung out with my dad's side of the family very much when I was a kid, and I really feel like I'm making up for lost time. So there's good stuff too.


My grandad's flowers. He always called everyone 'buddy'. *Sigh*

I've been taking my skating to the next level lately and actually playing (very informal) matches with people who can actually play ice hockey. I went for the first time a few weeks back - it's taken a while to update you because my grandad died the next day, then I went back for the funeral, so everything's been thrown out of whack.

Anyway, I had the time of my life, and even though I skated about a tenth of the speed of everyone else, they were really nice and passed the puck to me and everything. That's what I like about Canada - even if you're not much good at something, people respect you just for giving it a shot. It helped that my English friend Nigel (an English person, living in Grimsby, who plays ice hockey - what are the chances?) kept yelling encouragements to me even though he was on the other team.

It was even worth the severe aches and pains I had to put up with for the following few days. I'm going next week, so I've got that to look forward to again. Got to cram in a few more matches before the season ends!

I was published in the Daily Mail travel section a few weeks back : ) For those of you who haven't seen it, it's online at: http://www.thisistravel.co.uk/travel/citybreaks/Five-unusual-romantic-breaks-article.html?in_article_id=47540