March 20, 2013

• Report # 983

  Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all been having an awesome week. I woke up this morning at 10:00 am and I was going to run to Tim Hortons, but it was pouring rain so I just had a shower and decided to walk over there. By the time I got outside it was not raining, but after walking for over 10 minutes it kind of started raining hard for a few minutes. Luckily it didn’t last too long so I didn’t get soaked. By the time I arrived to the Tim Hortons and got my order and headed out, it was sunny. Now it’s like 12 C (53 F) and super sunny, so it will be a great day to head outside this afternoon.

  Yesterday I walked to my grandmother’s house with a Tupperware full of washers as she needed a couple to fix her closet door. She asked me if we had any here, and if I knew what a washer was…. I said something to wash clothes, but I knew what they were, so I just checked the garage and found some. I don’t think any of the ones there will fit, so she might have to buy some anyways. My grandmother and I walked up to Tim Hortons and we had something to eat. I was able to see how hard it was to open up the “roll-up the rim” thing on the Tim Hortons coffee cups.

  Basically it’s a contest and if the person peels the top of the lid off underneath they will see if they won a prize. My grandmother got please try again, but I’ve seen people win donuts or coffee before…… nothing more than that. Though supposedly there are $ 100 gift certificates to be won and even bigger prizes such as barbeques and cars. I can imagine there are very, very, very few of those given away though.

  I read online that one man got a cup of coffee for his girlfriend and he had a message underneath saying “Will you marry me ?” He must have phoned Tim Hortons and got them to agree to do a special one for him. Of course they agreed though as it was great publicity for the company. After having lunch my grandmother and I stopped at the grocery store and I helped her carry some bags up to her apartment. I helped her with a few things in her place and then looked at all this old money that she had. She had tons of super old coins and many bills from around the world as well.

  My grandmother didn’t even know where she got the majority of the bills that she had. She had been in Europe a number of times, so it wasn’t surprising to see she had bills from Romania, Yugoslavia and Germany, but I have no idea how on earth she got money from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, China, Sierra Leone or Brazil. I don’t think any of it would be worth anything… well except face value, but she has a few old coins from the early 1900′s and even late 1800′s, so she should definitely check with someone.

  And seeing as countries like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia don’t even exist anymore, it’s cool that she has some bills from there. I got a Mexican bill for $ 50,000 pesos, but seeing as the currency there was devalued like almost 20 years ago, I highly doubt it could even be exchange for any currency today. And it wouldn’t even be worth it anyways as my friend told me it would only be the equivalent of 50 pesos today (like 4 dollars) So I might as well just keep the bill and not do anything with it !

  I walked home around 2:30 pm and after cleaning up the house for a bit my brother drove me to the Central City mall. I met a friend from Cuba there and we were going to go to Tim Hortons, but the line-up was sooooo long we just decided to leave the mall and walk to another Tim Hortons. On the way there we were passing the Knight and Day restaurant and I was telling her it was a very good place, so we ended up going there. I thought they were going to tear that place down, but they never did so I think the restaurant is there to stay.

  It’s been there since before I’ve been born, and I have eaten there many times over the years, though this was probably my first trip there in about a year and a half. I just had a cheese burger and some fries with tons of pepsi and then a chocolate coffee ice cream cake. It was pouring after dinner but luckily my friend had an umbrella. It’s pretty bad that I’ve lived here my whole life practically and I’m still not prepared for the pouring rain.

  So it was great to meet my Cuban friend and hear her interesting story. She was working at a resort in Cuba and she met a retired Canadian couple and they offered to bring her to Canada, and after months of all the paperwork she was able to come and has now been here for almost two years. She told me she should be able to get residency before the end of this year and that will allow her to go back to Cuba to visit her family.

  I never thought I’d meet a Cuban person here, so it was good opportunity for me, and we basically spoke in Spanish the whole time so that was good as well. I said good-bye to my friend at around 7:00 pm and then I took the bus back home. The bus fare has been raised since I left as before it was $ 2.50 for a ticket, now its $2.75…. I can’t imagine how much more they can keep going up. It will get to the point where it’s hardly any cheaper for people to use public transit than it is to drive !

  I got home around 7:30 pm and I watched an episode of Cachito de Cielo and then just relaxed for the rest of the day. On Monday my brother drove me to Willowbrook mall and I went to the Fido store to see about my options for getting a new cell phone number. I had a phone that I bought from Fido almost two years ago, but I hadn’t been using it for the last seven months as I was in Mexico and I never really tried too hard to see if I could unlock it to use it there after some guy in Michoacán told me he couldn’t do it.

  Unfortunately the cell phone companies here don’t seem to have a simple way of paying $ 10 dollars like I was doing in Mexico and then having enough credit on my phone to last me for a month. And I was told that going month to month would be a cheaper option than prepaid, so I just went with that. Basically I will have to pay $ 40 a month, though I’ll get unlimited text messages to anywhere in the world, unlimited calling on weekends, and weekdays after 6:00 pm. And also I have data on the phone so I would be able to browse internet, though I can’t imagine myself doing that too often.

  So while it’s not super cheap this whole plan, it’s not a contract and I can cancel at anytime seeing as I already had my own phone, and it’s certainly cheaper than what I was paying in the past. I paid $ 56 a month before and I had a much worse plan, and when I had a Blackberry, I was paying like $ 90 a month. I wanted to get a number while I am here as I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, and I will be applying for jobs and I would prefer to have a cell phone for that instead of people just calling the house phone.

  After spending over half an hour in the store I walked home and that was my exercise for the day. Tomorrow will be exactly one month until the Vancouver Sun Run, so starting tomorrow I will be starting to run a much longer distance to prepare myself. I haven’t even signed up yet, so I should definitely do that soon as there is a limit of 50,000 people and if they reach that number and I’m not signed up, I’ll be out of luck. I applied for five jobs on Monday, and that was my first day of applying for jobs.

  Unfortunately they were all posted almost a week ago, so I think I missed the boat on those opportunities, but starting today I will be checking every single day and applying for whatever job I think is worth applying for. I will look for temporary, part-time, and even just normal jobs. I figure that I don’t have to say that I might be leaving soon anyways as most of the jobs wouldn’t hire me anyways if they knew that, so if I can’t find a temporary or part-time job, then I will just go with something regular.

  I actually would have been interested in any of the five jobs I applied for on Monday, as they were all simple office jobs and now I have a year and a half experience in doing that, so something like that would be perfect for me. So even though I applied too late for those ones, it showed me there are going to be some options, and if I’m applying for something everyday I will have  a greater chance of hearing from someone. Ok so seeing as Sunday was St. Patrick’s Day and I said absolutely nothing about it, I have decided to do something for today.

  However instead of focusing on St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve decided to focus on Ireland. I have to admit I don’t know too much about Ireland aside from the fact that it’s a European country close to the United Kingdom and they’ve had a very tough time during the economic recession over the past few years. From what I know though the people are incredibly friendly and it’s a country full of history and tradition and of course beautiful countryside and coast line, so obviously I would love to go there one day.

  

  (Irish Flag, sources: wikimedia.org)

  

  (Map of Ireland, sources: lonelyplanet.com)

  In terms of population Ireland is the 121st largest country in the world with just under 4,600,000 people and the 120 largest country in the world in terms of size, 70,273 kilometers square. The country had a female president (Mary McAleese) for 14 years from 1997-2011, and for those people who didn’t actually know, Irish is actually an official language in Ireland, though English is the main spoken language.

  (sources: Wikipedia: Republic of Ireland)

  And I can imagine a lot of people in Ireland were watching the election of the new pope as the majority of the people living in the country are Catholic. Dublin is by far the largest city with over 1 million people, and while I highly doubt that anyone would find leprechauns or pots of gold, they would be able to enjoy many historical buildings and points of interest and many traditional places to go shopping.

  (sources: Wikipedia: Republic of Ireland, Dublin)

  By typing in attractions in Ireland on Google, some of the places that popped up were Blarney Stone, National University of Ireland, The O2, Dublin Castle, Bunratty Castle, Guinness Storehouse, Kilmainham Gaol, Blarney Castle and the Burren among with many parks and other amazing places to visit. I can imagine if I ever get the opportunity to make it to Ireland I’d be taking thousands of pictures. And Ireland is not a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, so I wouldn’t have to be drowning in all of that monarchy garbage !

  (sources Google search: attractions in Ireland)

  And without all of the violent problems facing Northern Ireland, Ireland seems like a safer place to visit, though as I’ve learned with Mexico, a person can’t just turn on the TV and read the paper and truly assume things about a country until they’ve been there for themselves. So I can definitely say that Ireland would be near the top of any list of places I’d love to travel to, though clearly it won’t be for a while as I haven’t worked in seven months and I’m still waiting to see what will happen with my life, so no vacations for me for a very long time.

  And seeing as Sunday was St. Patrick’s Day, I will write a little something about it, and for I’m sure many stupid people here in North America who think it’s just a day to wear green, drink beer and get wasted, the day has much more meaning for at least some people. Here is a lit of four goals the Irish government came up with for St. Patrick’s Day to promote Irish culture and Ireland itself:

  1. To offer a national festival that ranks amongst all of the greatest celebration in the world
  2. To create energy and excitement throughout Ireland via innovation, creativity, grassroots involvement, and marketing activity.
  3. To provide the opportunity and motivation for people of Irish descent (and those who sometimes wish they were Irish) to attend and join in the imaginative and expressive celebrations.
  4. To project, internationally, an accurate image of Ireland as a creative, professional and sophisticated country with wide appeal.
  
  (sources wikipeida: St. Patricks Day, celebrations by region: Ireland)

  And as wikipedia states, here is what St. Patrick’s Day is truly about:

  “St. Patrick’s Day is a cultural and religious holiday celebrated on 17 March. It is named after Saint Patrick (pictured below) (c. AD 385-461), the most commonly recognized of the patron saints of Ireland. Thed ay commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, as well as celebrates the heritage and culture of the Irish in general. Celebrations generally involve parades and festivals, céilithe, and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks.“

  

  (sources: Wikipedia, St. Patrick’s Day)

  Now I could go into Leprechauns and Pot of Gold and all of that, but this was supposed to be a serious entry about Ireland, so today is not the time for silly country stereotypes. I would like to profile more countries in the future and even actually give interviews to people from those places, so I will see if I have some friends online who will help me with that. Seeing as I don’t really know anyone from Ireland I just kind of winged it !

  So bottom line, St. Patrick’s Day is a day of great importance and anyone who just uses it as a day to go out and get drunk is a clueless loser who is lacking cultural knowledge ! And Ireland is an exceptional country and anyone who has the chance should visit is ASAP. Anyways, for the next question:

  Do you ever do anything for St. Patrick’s Day ? Is Ireland a country that you would love to visit, why or why not ?

  There I’ve finished this super long entry and now I don’t feel so guilty about saying absolutely nothing on St. Patrick’s Day. If this blog, typed up by someone who has never been to Ireland in his life encourages at least one person who reads it to go there, the Irish tourist department should thank me ! And I will do my best to get to Ireland myself one day ! Now I’m off to comment everyone and then I’ll be applying for jobs. I wish everyone all of the best with everything. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Saturday, bye for now.

  • 4:16 pm
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