Wednesday, February 09, 2005
happy gnu ears
hey hey! happy lunar new years everybody. today my friend and i decided to hit le quartier chinois (chinatown) after school. we had dinner in this deja vu restaurant -- that is to say, i think i've been to that one before. it was good to have chinese food again. then after that we hit a bubble tea place. i got guava with mango bubbles that were shaped as a star. it was quite good. that place had a pretty good atmosphere. it could even make for a dance place on some weekends, but seeing that its packed with tables and chairs, i don't think they have place for a dance floor. my friend and i had lots of fun together talking about all sort of wierd things... from engineering to childhood toys. its good to hang out!!! then when we got back to the metro, they said the metro on my route was bust due to intervention by police. i was like, oh great!!! i thought i had to walk home, but before the metro arrived, it got restored. and good thing too, because it was kinda windy and chilly outside, and i forgot my hat!!!! now i'm back home... i'm hella full and i wanna go to sleep. too bad you can't sleep when you're full. ah new years!!!!
strange thing though. chinatown wasn't very crowded during the new years. we thought it would be packed, but i guess everyone is waiting til weekends to do something fancy. no fireworks, not hoards of people celebrating. it was kinda quiet. ah well. it was still fun. with the right company, its always fun.
strange thing though. chinatown wasn't very crowded during the new years. we thought it would be packed, but i guess everyone is waiting til weekends to do something fancy. no fireworks, not hoards of people celebrating. it was kinda quiet. ah well. it was still fun. with the right company, its always fun.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
joining the polar bear club
so last weekend, we went to saint sauveur, which is about 30 minutes drive, probably north of montreal. i dunno, i'm directionally challenged. we went cross-country skiing. it was my first time. i didn't know you were supposed to stay on the tracks. i thought it was only a beginner thing. anyway, most people were on the tracks, except those who had the skate skis. those looked fun. i didn't know how to move with my skis, so i used my poles. i was using the skis like a boat. you row with your oars. soon i found that if you lower your center of mass, you can go faster, and especially if you go downhill. i went quite fast for a beginner, until my arms started to get tired. then I thought, why not use my feet as well, so soon i knew how to move with my feet and arms at the same time. i had another friend with me who was also a beginner. i was waaaaay ahead of her. in fact the first thing i did when i got on the tracks was to crash into her. she made me go in front of her after that.
after skiing, we went to the polar bear club. this is where you go into a sauna (either dry or wet) and you get warmed up.... later you plunge yourself into freezing water in a river or something, where the water temperature was the temperature of the outside basically. for us, it was like 2 C or something. i think you were supposed to dip your body to a minimum of the neck, otherwise, stick your whole head in it too. Then what happens is that your whole body is numb to the cold outside. people were walking around in their swim suits in the -4C weather. lets just say before i got inside the polar bear club, we were decked out in winter coats, hats, mittens, and scarves. so we did that crazy thing and then found our way to a warm jacuzzi-like thing. man, i don't know the correct terms for these activities. anyway, its like a swimming pool that is heated with little jets of water here and there (good for massages). we stayed in there til our hands started to wrinkle. then we played in the snow (yes, in swim suits) and jumped back into the jacuzzi-like vessel. there were lots of people there. it was quite relaxing... and we were there for hours.
since i didn't know how to swim, my friend thought it would be fun to teach me to swim. lets just say i almost drown 3-4 times. i'm not taking lessons with her again!!! bleachy water. yuck! ewe i can still taste it in my mouth. blech! blech!
tomorrow is my friend's birthday. we're gonna go party. its also a party for Dani, since she has decided to go back to Germany. we will miss her. she brings so much energy to the lab. parting is so hard sometimes.
after skiing, we went to the polar bear club. this is where you go into a sauna (either dry or wet) and you get warmed up.... later you plunge yourself into freezing water in a river or something, where the water temperature was the temperature of the outside basically. for us, it was like 2 C or something. i think you were supposed to dip your body to a minimum of the neck, otherwise, stick your whole head in it too. Then what happens is that your whole body is numb to the cold outside. people were walking around in their swim suits in the -4C weather. lets just say before i got inside the polar bear club, we were decked out in winter coats, hats, mittens, and scarves. so we did that crazy thing and then found our way to a warm jacuzzi-like thing. man, i don't know the correct terms for these activities. anyway, its like a swimming pool that is heated with little jets of water here and there (good for massages). we stayed in there til our hands started to wrinkle. then we played in the snow (yes, in swim suits) and jumped back into the jacuzzi-like vessel. there were lots of people there. it was quite relaxing... and we were there for hours.
since i didn't know how to swim, my friend thought it would be fun to teach me to swim. lets just say i almost drown 3-4 times. i'm not taking lessons with her again!!! bleachy water. yuck! ewe i can still taste it in my mouth. blech! blech!
tomorrow is my friend's birthday. we're gonna go party. its also a party for Dani, since she has decided to go back to Germany. we will miss her. she brings so much energy to the lab. parting is so hard sometimes
