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Anti-nutter on board

So, with my flight looming [10 days], I've started to put a lot of thought into travelling. What should I ship home? How am I going to keep my suitcases under 50 pounds? How am I going to get my two suitcases from the house to the closest Piccadilly tube station? It's a seven hour flight that cuts across two meal times. What am I going to eat? 

That's right, I even have to consider what I'm going to eat. Because I have the dreaded nut allergy. 

And yes, this is a rant. 

Eating when you can't prepare the meal yourself is always a bit like taking your life into your hands. Yes, there are lots of nut free products out there, but for some reason they never make their way to restaurants, or airports, or train stations, or bus stations, movie theatres, university campuses... I could go on forever. For someone, like me, with a severe anaphylactic allergy [it takes less than a minute from the time a walnut touches my tongue, to the time my tongue starts to swell and my throat starts to close] planning your next meal is just one more travel hassle, and it's a big one. 

I can't just go to my university's library for the day. I have to plan a meal, or I have to eat chips, or leave campus and walk to the nearest Subway. Or, as I frequently do, eat something and hope I don't die. When eating out, I am the person who has the potential to ruin the entire social experience of eating together [and don't kid yourself, eating together is a very important social experience]. Why? Because maybe the restaurant will just say, "Oh, everything may contain nuts. We can't guarantee." Then you have to  delay everyone else's meal to haggle with them. "Well, can you please just ask the kitchen staff to be careful?" Sometimes restaurant staff claim something doesn't have nuts, then when you return and get a staff member who actually brings you their Big Book of Allergies, you feel ill and itchy as you realize you could have died last time you ate there because, yes, that meal does potentially contain nuts. You can't eat dessert, or if it's a sit down, three course meal, your dessert is a lazy fruit plate and everyone else looks at you with pity while eating whatever chocolate-y goodness the chefs cooked up.

I'm not a perfect nut-allergy martyr. My allergy turned anaphylactic in my late teens, so I remember clearly being able to just eat. And I still sometimes just eat. Tim Horton's, or ice cream cake, or something that only might contain almonds because hey, that's one I barely reacted to on the test! It's really stupid because obviously that muffin isn't going to worth it when I'm dead. And it's selfish, because if I die, everyone around me has to watch that happen. It's pretty traumatizing to watch someone suffocate to death. 

But even I don't risk it if I'm in the air [because the Atlantic Ocean doesn't have an emergency touch down hospital and an Epi-Pen lasts between 10 and 20 minutes], on a boat, or in a foreign country. So, naturally, I've collected a lot of stories about all the weird crap I've had to eat when there was nothing else available. 

In the airport in Budapest, the only thing I could find that was tree nut free was a mixed pack of  mini chocolate bars, and even that wouldn't have been suitable for a peanut allergy sufferer because one of the types was Snickers. Oh, and one of the types had coconut. So, I pretty much bought the mixed pack so I could remove the Mars Bars and eat them. 

On my way to Austria, there wasn't a single thing I could eat in the Heathrow Airport that wasn't junk food. So, I bought a 'may contain nuts' chicken wrap, ate it well before boarding, and hoped I didn't end up missing my flight for a hospital trip. 

In a Brussels train station, even the Mars Bars had, 'may contain almonds and hazelnuts,' on the packaging. My dinner consisted of a pre-packaged Belgian waffle, and hours later my hostel roommate gave me an orange because all food related places were closed by the time I made it back to Paris. 

My breakfast when travelling on the Eurostar between Paris and London consisted of Milk Buttons [a Cadbury chocolate product] that I picked up on my way to the tube station in London because it was one of those, "I NEED TO EAT OR I'M GOING TO PASS OUT," situations.

I stupidly held off eating so I could easily clear security at JFK in New York, thinking there would be more restaurants after security, and not wanting to end up hauled aside for additional screening because, gasp, food! Well, it turned out there was one convenient store type thing, an expensive steak restaurant, and McDonalds. This is by far the weirdest of my stories because first, McDonalds refused to sell me a cheeseburger because, apparently, in New York you can't just buy a cheeseburger meal. You can buy a two cheeseburger, two fries double meal, or a kids' pack. I ended up buying a kids' pack and getting weird looks from my fellow passengers. You know the kind. The judgmental, "Who does she think she's kidding, fatty," look. As if I would choose McDonalds if I had the option to eat something else, and you know what, even if it was my choice, it's not your business. Don't judge me, bitches. And besides, it's your country's fault for being so weird. I can get a cheeseburger meal in every other country, America. Then, looking around the convenient store, my options ended up being the grossest cheese crackers in existence, and plain M&Ms. In North America, plain M&Ms only may contain peanuts. It's the peanut M&Ms that will kill you, as their warning includes almonds.  

...But back to those crackers. 

These weren't goldfish cheese crackers. They were like the fast food of cheese crackers. Greasy, disgusting, and with a weird aftertaste. I hated them, but was at the same time so grateful for them when Icelandair informed me that they didn't know if their food was nut free or not. I hated them again when I got to the airport in Iceland at 6 in the morning and realized none of the shops were open. With a 5 hour flight to Heathrow to go, and only gross cheese crackers and M&Ms to eat... Yeah, I was mad. At least security let me take the food through though, gross food is better than no food.

So, there's my selection of eating while travelling stories. What brought this rant on, you may be asking. Well, recently, someone quite close to me launched into a rant about how annoying people who bring McDonalds onto a plane are. With their gross food, stinking up the plane. Why can't they eat a sandwich? 

Well, you know what, sometimes a sandwich isn't feasible. As you can see, if airplanes required you to travel with healthy food I pretty much wouldn't be able to travel. You try lasting a long flight on an apple. 

You don't know why these people eat McDonalds on planes. You really don't. Don't be mad at them. Be mad at the food companies that slap a caution label on every, single one of their products because they don't want to be sued [and who can blame them?], and it's easier and cheaper to alienate their allergy suffering customers than it is to create a nut free factory, or to even bother to research what sort of allergens are in their products. 

I totally wasn't kidding about Tescos.
It is on, literally, everything that belongs
to the Tesco brand.

Blame airline companies, like Air Canada, who have several different meals to choose from, including an Asian vegetable dish, a fruit platter, a low sodium meal, and even gluten-free or a low cholesterol meal, but not one option mentions nuts. Not one. They might be all nut free, they might all possibly contain nuts. But I don't know because they don't see fit to mention this information when you book with them. I'm not taking a 7 hour flight and not eating that entire time. So, yes, in 10 days I will be the person you hate eating the McDonalds. 

My life long difficulty finding food while travelling is much more uncomfortable than you having to smell McDonalds for an hour or two. 

Deal with it. 

<3 Jade

Homecoming

So, I'm sorry. I haven't been keeping up with the blog, which isn't fair because I know that people other than Kaeli [Hi Kaeli!] read this blog. Seriously. I speak to exactly one American regularly and unless she's on here refreshing for kicks, more of you read and I'm being super awful by not keeping you all entertained. 

Basically, I've got some pretty sad news and I've been putting it off because that's my style [and my computer is driving me INSANE]. I'm always a little worried about coming off flaky because I'm pretty much the biggest extrovert EVER when it comes to my thoughts. Every thought process has to be to be said out loud, so it seems like I'm almost always changing my mind, which is true, but doubly so because I won't stop talking about it. It's not just big things, it's everything. I like to bounce ideas off other people, and things feel better when they're not all jumbled up in my head.

In one week I went from, "Yeah, I can totally live here until July! This is great!" to, "I really can't do this. There's no shifts at my job and no one else will hire me because it's the post Christmas slump!" I even sent out my monthly e-mail to the fabulous people at my old job all, "It's so much fun here! See you in July!" Obviously I expanded more, but you get the picture. 

The truth is, living here hasn't been exactly what I expected, which isn't surprising because I am the queen of Beatricing things. I love it, I do. I've made some fabulous friends, and I've had some great experiences, and being so close to continental Europe is great. I collect places like people collect Pokemon. I've already been to all the provinces except for Newfoundland, I've got some US states under my belt, and now I want to collect all the European countries! It kills me that I won't get to stay long enough to experience all of them, but obviously I can come back. And besides, it's a much better use of my money to visit a few places now and then go home and work, than it is to sit in London and work minimal hours at a terrible job and not be able to do anything on my time off but try to avoid interacting with my terrible roommate.

You see Bulbasaur, I see Scotland and I WANT IT!

So, on March 10th, six months after I left Canada, I'm going back. The job prospects are already looking way better. Those amazing people at my old job? Might have hours for me, and they pay more than minimum wage! I just didn't have the networking here that I have at home. It took me months here to get a job, and it was basically waitressing, at a company where employees are treated terribly, and you get minimum wage. I sent out one e-mail to my old boss and got a positive response within two days. That only strengthens my resolve. I'm clearly making the right decision. 

Anyway, this brings up another reason for this post. I've been busy. Crazy busy! I'm taking that rent money and trying to shove as much in my last month as possible. I've done so many museums, I went to Stonehenge yesterday, Dover tomorrow, Margate, France and Belgium next week, and Amsterdam, and Oxford. CRAZY BUSY! 

I'll keep updating this thing, definitely catch you up on the stories I'm sure to collect over the next couple of weeks! I'm going back to school in September, so, that's something to write about. >.>

Thanks for sticking with it! Since I started posting in July I've had over 700 page views. So, that's 100 page views a month, since I'm not going to include February yet. That's AMAZING. I guess someone out there likes me, haha.

<3 Jade

Royal Fail: The Conclusion!

I am so, so, sorry this has taken forever to write. Life kind of exploded all over the place in the last couple of weeks with my trip, an accidental allergic reaction, an accidental illness, some socializing, my computer being a douchebag, etc. I actually started this post once and then my computer shut down on me because it's a jerk and for some reason Blogger didn't save the majority of the post, so I logged out in annoyance and then got busy.

But, here it is, just in time for February, the conclusion on how Royal Mail tried to ruin my Christmas!

Okay, so, like I mentioned in the last Royal Fail post, ParcelForce had been completely useless in their e-mails. Right before Christmas I sent them another e-mail telling them [because I suspected that they didn't know, didn't care, are stupid] that my parcel has been located, but it's taking forever to get to Canada, and since, you know, that three day delivery thing didn't happen, can I get a portion of the delivery fees back? 

I wasn't expecting an immediate answer with it being super close to Christmas and all. I was kind of surprised that I got a reply as early as December 29th. At the time I was in Edinburgh, and unable [okay, unwilling, since I only had my phone] to respond immediately. 

At the time, I wasn't upset about the e-mail, but when I got home from Edinburgh and actually read the e-mail, I became pretty infuriated. They completely ignored my query regarding reimbursement, and instead had sent me a stock reply that said, in part: 

"Before Christmas additional resource was working within all depots to help deliver the outstanding parcels that were held due to the continuous adverse weather conditions. The majority of parcels were delivered and we hope that yours was one of them."

And that, folks, is when my well of patience ran dry. Completely over dealing with the morons at ParcelForce and Royal Fail, I threw a customer bitchfit. Or rather, my version of one, I guess. They told me I could reply to the e-mail if I had any further questions, so I did. I absolutely lost it, and sent a very strongly worded e-mail while still managing to remain polite. I called them out for not even addressing my concerns, I reminded them I had paid a great deal of money to send this parcel in plenty of time for Christmas, I mentioned again the three day delivery they promised me, and I pretty much demanded that they answer my questions IMMEDIATELY RAWRRRRRRRRRRRR! Also, I may have accused them of not even reading my previous e-mail. Yeeep.

"How did a bear get a computer and learn to type?"
the idiots at ParcelForce asked each other upon
 receiving my e-mail.

It worked. ParcelForce sent out a reply the next day, where they pretty much proved my point about their reading comprehension skills. I stated several times in the e-mail that I had sent the parcel. In their reply they were all, "You need to contact the sender of the parcel and have that person fill out claims form." I AM THE PERSON WHO SENT THE PARCEL, FOOLS! I can't handle idiots, I really can't. This while situation with ParcelForce has been an exercise, or a lesson, or I don't even know what, in just the extreme malaise that apparently exists in the postal service in this country and I was so over it by January 4th that even walking past the post office on my street made me want to kick something. 

Anyway, ParcelForce was adamant that they couldn't deal with my enquiry until I requested a search sent out on the parcel. Something they did not inform me of in one of the many, earlier e-mails I sent. Well, that's fine, except my parcel arrived on January 4th. My mom picked it up from the post office in Canada and had opened the gifts by the time ParcelForce had e-mailed me back. Which is great, it;'s better to arrive one month from posting it than not at all.

I didn't bother to follow up after that, because of the whole parcel arriving thing, which I suspect was ParcelForce and Royal Mail's intentions all along. "Maybe if we act stupid and annoying enough, no one will ever submit a claim!" Which is fine, whatever. I just won't send any more packages. Not a great loss for them in the long run, but the story's out there, and I certainly don't have good things to say about Royal Mail if people ask me.

Honestly, the most frustrating part of this whole saga is how being nice got me nowhere. I sent out e-mail after e-mail, politely worded and completely understanding, and got nothing in return. I never would have known that I couldn't submit a valid claim until a search was sent out on the parcel unless I had lost my temper with them. So, now, when dealing with Royal Mail in the future [please, no], I'm not going to want to waste my time being nice for weeks and weeks, I'm going to get angry first so I can get faster and better results and customer service.

That's not how it should be. Seriously, Royal Mail, what is wrong with you?

Oh, and my family totally loved their gifts. (:

<3 Jade

Vodafone

Okay, so I lied about the Royal Mail update because I've decided that I would much rather complain about my cell phone provider. Vodafone. Don't ask about the spelling, I don't even know. According to Wikipedia the name comes from: "voice data fone", which would be fine if that's how you spell phone, but it's not. Vodafone: Can't spell, terrible customer service, and all around crappy phone company. Woo! 

Their mascots are bees. This alone should have convinced me to find another provider, but they offered the best deals on international calling, so I signed up for a pay as you situation when I got to this glorious, but frustrating country. 

Well, we all know how the first phone ended up. Like I think I wrote earlier [if I didn't, I meant to], the Samsung Monte was absolute crap. It was extra frustrating because every time I posted to the website forum for help, no one knew what they were doing. It was all, "We don't have that phone on hand, so let me tell you a way to fix it that might work on a Samsung phone but definitely does not work on this Samsung phone." Also, they were kind of patronizing. 

Before I left Canada, I had a Blackberry. Now, I don't want to say that Canada makes the best phones in the world, but I will say that my Blackberry was at least eight hundred times better than my Samsung Monte. Easily. Bell Aliant may be a terrible phone company, even worse than Vodafone, but my Blackberry was awesome. If an e-mail went to my Blackberry, I could delete it from the phone, go home, and it would still be on the server. If an e-mail went to my Monte's ActiveSync, and I deleted it, it completely disappeared. And that, folks, is how I lost my online bank information [the first time]. Who wants their bank information on their phone? Definitely not me. So, when it showed up there, I deleted it. I went home and it was totally gone from my e-mail account. It wasn't even in the trash. 

Yeeep, that was definitely a fun call to Barclays.

TANGENT: Let's be honest, keeping your banking information in your e-mail account is also preeeetty ridiculous, but it would have been nice for that information to stay in existence on the server until I could get home and write it down somewhere not on the Internet.

So, I took to the Vodafone message boards, and asked if it was possible to delete an e-mail from my phone but keep it on the e-mail server. Because this country has no imagination, my only response was some random who was all, "Why would you want to do that?" Oh, I don't know, because carrying around my online bank information on a cell phone seems really freaking dumb. 

I let it go, but the phone was still pretty terrible. It was touch screen, and I missed so many calls because sometimes it would just decide that the touch part of touch screen is optional. And good luck trying to phone anywhere that requires pressing numbers for options [including Vodafone] because months into owning the phone I still don't know how to do it. I'm like a pigeon doing a superstitious routine for food, I button mashed the thing until, magically, the dial pad appeared. 

What I'm saying is that phone dying was the best
thing to ever happen to my blood pressure.

I replaced the dead Monte with a Samsung Galaxy because I am both a sucker for punishment and it was the cheapest phone with 3G. It's been pretty fabulous though. Setting up my e-mail took seconds instead of days, the touch screen part works all the time! I guess I just got a lemon with my first Samsung phone. 

Unfortunately, Vodafone still sucks. The store closest to me is sort of useless. Example, before I left for Edinburgh the ActiveSync on my phone decided it wasn't going to work anymore. I took the phone to the shop and they did a hard reset. It didn't work, obviously, it didn't work when I did it, so why would it work for them? The guy shrugged and went, "You could come back when the pay as you go guy is here, but I think it's a problem with Google's servers." Yep, the reason my phone stopped receiving e-mails for about two weeks was because of Google and their broken servers. This clearly makes so much more sense than the problem being Vodafone. 

Now, my SIM card has been messing up, as you do when you're an electronic and go swimming. But I waited until I got back to London to replace it. Of course, the Vodafone shop near me waited until I got back to London to randomly and without warning close. I don't know if they're renovating or shutting down entirely, but there's never anyone in there, no notes on the door, and no information on the website. Er, okay, then... 

The other Vodafones are a tube ride away. I wouldn't bother at this point, but I'm going away again on Friday and I need credit in the form of Freedom Packs, which for some reason you can't buy online. So, the website store locater tells me there's a Vodafone on Holloway Road. 

The store locater is a liar. 

I walked up and down that stupid street for ages. I finally used the store locater function on my phone, and it said there was one on Clerkenwell Road, which is not on any maps by Holloway Road. 

Great, thanks Vodafone! I really wanted to waste the money on the tube ride, and then have to waste more money trying to get to Oxford Street because I know there's a Vodafone there because I've seen it with my own eyes. 

I eventually get what I need, then go back home to add my vouchers to my lovely, working phone with it's new, working SIM card. Preferably today so I can phone my credit card company and inform them that I'm going to countries not on my list so they shouldn't shut down my card if they see 'strange purchases'. 

Yeah, right, Vodafone doesn't approve. I tried to activate my vouchers by telephone. Nope. I tried to activate my vouchers online. Nope. 

So, instead of getting trip stuff done, I wrote this rant. 

Thanks Vodafone!

Hogmanay: Part 4!

Woo, last one! 

The last two days in Scotland weren't all that special. Mostly because of the whole out all night thing, and the hang over thing... Yeeep. I mean, there are a couple of good stories, or I would have ended this series with the last post. Like, for example how Mr. Crazy had some sort of minor psychotic break! 

Oh yes. He totally did. 

After the two girls left for a nicer hostel with heat and the sort of amenities you just sort of expect from a hostel in a developed country, they were replaced by two guys. Two guys who snored. Honestly, snoring is not a big deal for me for one night. My brother's snoring used to be so loud that I could hear him even though our bedrooms were located on different levels and on opposite sides of the house. It was like extreme snoring. Don't worry, he had surgery and got it fixed. 

This snoring wasn't that bad, but then again, my perspective is off. When I finally crawled into bed after 5 am I had a sort of moment of, "Seriously? Seriously? This hostel is the worst!" but what are you going to do? People snore. If you don't want to listen to it, put out the money for a hotel. Apparently, Mr. Crazy and I were not on the same wavelength on this subject. As I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, all of a sudden there was this loud clapping sound. 

CLAP!

I jolted awake and looked over to see Mr. Crazy laying there with his hands together, clapping, trying to wake up the other people so they would stop snoring [I'm assuming, anyway]. Really? Just, really? It happened at regular intervals during the five hours I slept in that room that night. I could sleep through the snoring fine, but every time Mr. Crazy started clapping like a madman he woke me up. HE was disturbing my sleep. But did he care? Of course not, he's the crazy guy who jumps out of top bunks and has psychotic breaks and who responds to everything with, "Oh, bless!"

Theeeen it got worse.

He jolted awake at some point and started cursing and generally acting like the little girl from The Exorcist. He shook his bunk bed, then reached out and started to shake the one I was on. Yeah, the rooms were that small. I pretended to be asleep because I didn't want to deal with it. The snoring stopped, so I assumed his fit woke up the snorers. He eventually got up and left the room, I got up to charge my electronics a little while later.

Of course, by the time my electronics were done charging, my key card no longer worked. But good luck trying to get them to reset it. The other guy who worked and slept at the hostel was all, "No, I can't do it, I need to go back to bed." Uhm, okay, well how am I supposed to get into my room again? "Oh, I'll let you back in if you ask me." Yeah, except you're going to bed. Not acceptable. There were three of us sitting in the lobby, discussing Mr. Crazy and his antics, trying to convince the other employee to reset our access cards. It was just ridiculous. Eventually he got Mr. Crazy to do it, and while he was setting up our cards he managed to sink to new depths of delusion.

The snorers went to check out, and Mr. Crazy acted like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The conversation was peppered with, "Oh bless, oh bless!" Then he actually had the nerve to ask them to go and get their dirty bed linens, to save him some time later. I am not even kidding. It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this when I say that the snorers scoffed at the very idea. Went back into the room, and presumably stood there for a couple seconds because they definitely didn't gather up their bedding, and then left the hostel for good.

The rest of the day was spent trying to get to Loony Dook, which is what Scottish people call their Polar Bear Dip. Everyone kept telling us that it was only a few minutes away, that it wasn't starting until 3. Yeah, no. We ended up getting a £30 cab ride to Queensferry. Everyone had already dipped and left, but one straggler had lost a bet so went into the water while we were there. It was a pretty little area, so we walked around and took lots of pictures. Unfortunately, it appeared a little less pretty when we ended up waiting one and a half hours for a bus that was supposed to arrive every 40 minutes. Yeeeep. I froze, towards the end I honestly didn't think I'd ever be warm again. It was awful.

On the second I gleefully checked out of the horrible hostel. Taking my luggage with me even though it meant carrying it around for five hours until my train departed. L asked me if I was going to leave my luggage at the hostel when she came down to get me, but because I'm twelve I just loudly went, "No, this hostel is shit, I don't trust them at all," and then let the door slam shut, with me, happily, on the outside. It sucked a bit, dragged a suitcase around, then having to check it at the Art Gallery when I decided to go look at the Monet paintings, but seriously, worth it in the end to not have to go back to the hostel ever again.

Annnnd, that was my super fabulous Edinburgh trip. I've now been to every country on this island, so it's time to explore other islands and the mainland! First up: A whirlwind tour of Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary this weekend! Woo! Don't worry, I probably won't write about that trip in such detail. Uhm, especially considering my page views went down, so I'm assuming no one's interested. Oh well! A Royal Mail update will be the next post.

Hogmanay: Part 3!

Look, I've been totally honest with this blog thing. I'm crazy homesick, and sometimes [a lot of time] it makes me sort of awful. You've read it, the bitching and whining and everything else that makes this thing a lot less funny than I'd like it to be. Christmas sucked, it really did. I have been looking forward to Hogmanay for months now. It's been like this lighthouse, and I'm the icebreaker getting steadily closer and it's getting brighter and I know that everything's going to be okay if I can just make it to Hogmanay. It's an awful lot of pressure to put on a trip, it really is. I don't know what would have happened had it not lived up to the hype. Would I have packed it in to go home? Probably not. But I would have been even more miserable than I was before I left, which was pretty miserable. Anyway, enough about that. Here's day 3.

DECEMBER 31

And here it is, the day and night I've been waiting for. I awakened to the dulcet tones of birds singing and woodland creatures making me breakfast... Wait, slipped into a Snow White fantasy there. I actually woke up to the sounds of the crazy old man in my room JUMPING OUT OF THE TOP BUNK. Why? I do not know because I am neither a mind reader nor a crazy. I got up because I needed to finish charging my phone and camera, anyway. Luckily, the people with the cocaine were gone, sleeping, whatever.

The poor girl under me had sounded seriously ill all night. I don't know, if you've had significant lung infection experience you just know it in other people. She coughed all night, and she couldn't stop herself once she started. She must have rolled over onto her back at some point because she started the death rattle breathing that is usually the point I need to go to the hospital and get some antibiotics and a nebulizer treatment. 

Clearly this child's parents
didn't put Babar on for him.

She was a trooper though. When I came back from charging up my electronics both girls were up and furious. Apparently Mr. Crazy had been equally loud getting into bed last night [though they hadn't heard me at all, so point for the ungraceful elephant that is me!], and they couldn't understand why he jumped out of bed this morning. Once again the room was freezing, and they couldn't imagine staying another night, especially with the one girl and her dying lungs. I was extremely sad to lose them as roommates because they seemed so nice. They even offered to take me with them! But, it was the 31st and I had an Australian new year to get to! Plus, they wouldn't refund my money and I couldn't justify paying double for accommodations.

My second shower was better, someone was nice enough to explain the showers to me. The first one was cold, the second one was dirty, the third and fourth showers had ledges and hot water. So, there was a line up. Then I had to wait for them to re-program my card, which ended up not happening because they hadn't turned on the machine [seriously, so frustrating. If you know you'll have to re-program the cards every day at 10 HAVE THE MACHINES TURNED ON BY 10].

Theeeeeen I got lost looking for the pub with the cheap drinks for anyone on Haggis Adventures, and anyone pretending to be on Haggis Adventures. We had taken a roundabout route to get there the night before. Since asking a random on the street had worked so well before when that random was A, we asked another random for directions and found the only socialist/Marxist/whatever in Edinburgh, pretty sure. He kept going on and on about how if the Queen died and the monarchy with her he'd do a jig [I kind of think happily wishing death on people that aren't Hitler or otherwise terrible human beings that terrorize people on a regular basis is kind of... awful. She has a family that loves her!], then he kept talking about all his socialist ideals and explaining the Scottish socialist party to us. He was nice enough to take us where we needed to go, even if it was a crazy route, but I definitely could have done without learning how he thought the government should give everyone a house. He held us up by this puppy statue for so long L pretended to get a phone call so we could leave. She was very convincing! I was sure she had actually received the call, haha. Okay, yeah, the point. I got lost on the way home, too, so needless to say I had no idea how to find the pub and got lost, and there you go.

Long story short, I missed Australian new year. I did get a lovely lunch though. And a nap while we waited for Hogmanay to start. Unfortunately it wasn't a nice nap because the two guys that replaced the girls moved in right in the middle of it, and Mr. Crazy came in at some point to act a bit creepy and loud.

I think if you've been to a street party, you've been to Hogmanay. Except Hogmanay was probably way larger, and definitely had a much more international feel. There were people from everywhere. It was really neat. Basically, we walked around as a group, drinking our copious amounts of alcohol out of our plastic bottles, chatting to people, going on the carnival rides. We did spend an awful lot of time split up because the bathroom lines were horrendous, but luckily we were all together for the count down and Auld Lang Syne.

Things got briefly annoying when I really had to pee and one of the girls, who was seriously making out with a different person every time I looked at her [which is not something I have a problem with, so trust that comment was made out of jealousy], just would not stop sucking face long enough for us to migrate to a bathroom. I ended up going alone, where I may or may not have drunkenly called at a door, "IT'S JUST PEEING, DO IT FASTER!" But seriously, in 10 minutes, TWO people went in and out. TWO. That's just unhealthy. It took so long for me to get a bathroom that everyone started worrying because a couple others had been in gone in the time it took me to get a stall. Ugh.

Then things got scary when we went to find a club and got held up by a street fight. Two girls were fighting for some reason, one started to hit cars with her boots and then all of a sudden the guys that owned the cars were out and stomping on the boyfriend's head. It was awful and unlike anything I've seen before. Ever. For me, head stomping is something that happens in American movies I don't watch because HEAD STOMPING IS AWFUL. One especially evil individual walked over, pretended he was going to help, stomped on the guys head, walked around around the car, and STOMPED ON HIS HEAD AGAIN! ON WHAT PLANET IS THAT EVEN AN ACCEPTABLE REACTION TO *ANYTHING*? The cops showed up, no ambulance. In Canada if the police show up, so do the fire department and emergency health services. That's just how it goes. Not in the UK, apparently. We walked off to look for the girl on a mission to make out with every boy in Scotland, and when we came back [because it all happened on the street the club was on], he was lying on the side of the road, with the cops, still no ambulance, and they weren't interested in a statement at all. Ridiculous. So, uhm, if you call 999 or whatever in the UK, don't expect someone to come and assess your brain damage quickly or anything. Terrifying. 

The night didn't end there, I stayed out to celebrate Canada's new year. I tried to wait until 4 but I got crazy impatient and celebrated Newfoundland's at 3:30. (: I stumbled home by 5, with plans to go to Loony Dook [Scotland's version of the Polar Bear Dip] the next day. 

Anddd that was my new year. It was fun for the most part, a little scary, but that's how it goes I guess...


<3 Jade

Hogmanay: Part 2

December 30

I should have had a good seven hours of sleep that night, but the hostel was insanely noisy outside! Actually, it sounded a lot like how terrible neighbourhoods sound in American movies. It made me really glad that L was in the same building. At least we'd both have someone to walk home with. Not that anything awful happened  on the street while I was there, but the area sounded like something could... The bar's garbage bins were located outside the window, so all night we heard the sound of clanking glass whenever they would cart out the beer bottles and chuck them in. When the bar closed, some guys got into some sort of "fight". I put that in quotation marks because it was actually this one guy screaming over, and over, and over again, "What the fuck, mate?!" for what seemed like hours! Then a car alarm went off, the guy took off and his screaming was replaced by a car alarm going for what seemed like more hours. Then the old guy woke up and was super noisy... Yeah, I was insanely cranky. 

I got up and went to shower, which was another disaster and only fuelled my terrible mood. The only free one was the first  and worst shower, though I didn't know this at the time. I had to put my clothes on the floor, on a bed of pyjamas. I got in and turned the shower on and it refused to get hot. I stubbornly waited, deciding that I deserved a hot shower after the previous night's sleep. The hostel apparently didn't agree because my shower stopped draining. I stared in horror as the water continued to rise, looking back and forth movie style to my clothes, on the floor, and the water, still rising. It became a race against time! I needed to shower before my clothes got wet. Steeling myself, I took an extremely fast shower that was cold enough to be considered torture. 

Still pretty cranky at this point. It was made even worse by the fact that the employees didn't know the extension cord's location, so I couldn't dry my hair before going out. Then, while I was waiting for L... Remember how they didn't lock the doors so they could sleep at night without having to let people in? Yeah. Two extremely drunk, extremely Irish blokes wandered in all, "Is this a pub?" Really? If it was it would be the seediest pub in the world. An employee came around and kicked them out, locking the door behind them. The one on crutches came back and tried to ask me about pubs again. Er, at least I think he was. He was the one that was harder to understand, which is an achievement because I was sure both of them were actually speaking Gaelic or something half the time. Oh, and while this was happening I had to get my key card re-programmed. That took forever, because in spite of knowing people would need their key cards redone, they didn't have the system up and running. Ugh. It made me late, and of course I couldn't tell L I was late because my phone had gone swimming. 

I did [finally] manage to meet up with L so we could head to St. Christopher's to meet up with A and pretend to be staying there to get some free breakfast. We wandered across the wrong bridge, then got distracted by the Irish guys returning. They recognized me from the hostel and tried to strike up a conversation, but neither or us could really understand what they were saying. Eventually they wandered off to an open pub [at 9 in the morning! They said they had been drinking all night!] and we figured out our location and made it to St. Christopher's, only slightly late. Feeling guilty, we did buy breakfast instead of scamming a free one. 

Anyway, after breakfast we went to Edinburgh Castle, which is absolutely gorgeous! The crankiness just melted away. It was pretty neat because a lot of the crests and other iconography were brought over to Nova Scotia by those first settlers deciding to [or, being forced to depending on which side you listen to] live in Pictou. My only complaint is that a lot of it was Scotland's war history. Which makes sense, definitely, because Edinburgh used to be contained in the Royal Mile, with huge walls surrounding it to keep out the English. So, of course they would want to document that. I guess I was hoping for a little more on how the people lived and used the castle over the centuries. Though, I suppose that might be a bit stupid because obviously they used it to stay alive and keep the English out...  Yeah, I'm having trouble expressing myself so I'm just going to leave it. The views were fantastic, and the war history itself was very, very interesting. 

Looking down at the city from Edinburgh Castle

After the castle we said goodbye to A, and wandered around the city a bit aimlessly for a while. We looked at tourist shops, I bought some postcards and a kilt, and just tried to get a feel of the city. Of course, we had to stop in at my friend Vodafone so I could replace my phone. I just want to note now that L and I had terrible luck with our stuff on the trip. I broke my suitcase, killed my phone, L broke her purse, lost her scarf, almost lost her hat. Yeah, we had some terrible luck. Anyway, at Vodafone I proved that I can be absolutely insane by acting like some sort of deranged idiot.

My old phone was awful. The touch screen was terrible. Sometimes it wouldn't let me answer calls, the active sync stopped working randomly. It pretty much sucked. It dying was a blessing in disguise I guess, mostly because I couldn't justify getting a new one while the old one still worked. Seriously, Samsung Montes? Terrible. I replaced it with... something. I don't really know what it is, but it's a million times easier to work. I was lucky enough that the SIM card sort of still works, so I can keep my old number until I stop being lazy and get one of those SIM cards that let you keep your number from my Vodafone in London. Anyway, I was so grateful. It's really embarrassing having to tell people that you dropped your phone in a toilet... While sober. But there you go. I proclaimed the employee to be my hero for fixing me up with a deal, a phone, and for getting my SIM card to work. Apparently that's a bit too much appreciation... So, sorry for being creepy, Vodafone Guy! 

After the little side trip to the phone shop, we went on a tour of the Underground City! There are loads of different tour groups, but we happened on Auld Reekie first. They weren't too bad, but apparently there's two underground cities... There's the old vaults where the homeless people and prostitutes lived after the merchants stopped storing their goods there, then there's Mary King's Close. I didn't even see the second option anywhere, but it was the one I googled and the one I was expecting. Instead we got some ghost stories, and learned a bit of history. The tour guide kept talking about people getting kicked and scratched and stuff, but nothing happened to anyone on our tour, sadly. It was fun and spooky, but if I go back I'll definitely look harder for Mary King's Close! 

In the evening we met up with some of L's friends, who were in the city on a Haggis Adventures tour. We pretended to be on the tour, too, mostly so we could get into their exclusive party to meet up with L's friends. Also, so we could have half price drinks all weekend. They were all really, really nice! I also met a couple from Montreal. We chatted about homesickness and they told me about a Canadian pub in Covent Gardens! Guess who's going there soon? Meeeee! 

I was pretty exhausted, so I went home early with some of the other girls. We got pretty lost, but it was worth it because I came across The Elephant House, where JKR wrote Harry Potter! Yeah, I'm a nerd. Anyway, I eventually made it back to the hostel, where I discovered the couple had checked out in disgust and were replaced by two girls! 

I had to charge my phone and my camera, since both of them had died while out. They didn't fully charge though, because there were a bunch of people in the kitchen doing lines of cocaine. They weren't mean or anything, they were just annoying, even to extremely drunk me. They had clearly been doing lines all night, and were so paranoid they went from hilarious to annoying. They kept worrying that the employee was going to come in and see them. Well, idiots, if you're that worried don't spend twenty minutes loudly grinding the powder into... powder. Or you could snort it faster? I don't know, I try not to stick stuff up my nose so I have no idea.

Soooo, that's my second day in Edinburgh in excruciating detail! I know you probably don't want to read it all, and that's fine. It's for me, too. This thing is sort of like my journal, and I just want to document everything so I don't forget! There will be two more days of this, then some more Royal Fail, probably! (:

Hogmanay: Part 1!

Okay, first off I had a brilliant time at Hogmanay! It was absolutely fabulous. I'm definitely going to tell you all about it in excruciating detail, so I apologize in advance to those of you who want a Royal Fail update [there really isn't one, package still in transit]. Of course, it wasn't all good, and obviously I'm going to tell you those bits, too!

The Arrival

The train ride up was gorgeous and lots of fun. I arrived in Edinburgh in the early evening starving and ready for a fabulous weekend! The first thing you need to know about Edinburgh is there are stairs, everywhere. I had to take the Princes Street exit at Waverley Station and there are so, so many stairs for a weary traveller to drag her suitcase up. Luckily, my hostel was only a three minute walk from the station. It was called City Centre Hostel, and seriously if you can avoid it DO NOT stay there for reasons I will expand upon as I tell you about my trip. It's up about a million stairs. There's two hostels in the building, my friend L stayed in the other one. This other hostel painted the walls with some pretty awful art that helpfully told you how many stairs to go. It sort of smelled, and there were people hanging around outside because it was next to a pub. Basically, if I was a homeless person I'd probably sleep in this stairwell.

I got this off Google, but it actually sort
of looks like the street City Centre is on...

Anyway, I make it into the hostel and had a conversation with a couple of guys as the employee checked me in. The guys seemed to love the hostel, said it was awesome. Of course, as I found out later they thought it was awesome because they could do lines of cocaine in the kitchen [I wish I was joking]. The employee was actually pretty cute and really nice, so of course he would be the employee I got to interact with the least. Wouldn't want the guests to get too comfortable or anything, they might think they deserve something like heat or plugs in their rooms. I am informed that I have to re-program my key card every day before 10, which didn't seem unreasonable at the time but it quickly became more annoying as I slowly became more sleep deprived over the weekend.

The bed was pretty dirty, the room was small and absolutely freezing. I thought the window was open, but when I went to check it a little while later it was shut tight. Turned out the heat was just off for some bizarre reason. I made the bed and quickly discovered that 1. there were no plugs, and 2. the guy had given me three sheets instead of one. Awesome! I stuffed one in the extremely flat pillow, and put the other one down as an extra layer of protection between me and the filthy bed. At this point I should probably mention that they had already debited my credit card the full amount and informed me that I wouldn't be able to get a refund unless I asked for one two weeks before I arrived. So, yeah. It's almost like they know they're awful [/sarcasm].

I explored the small and filthy bathroom, and the shower area, and asked the guy where the plugs were located. Just in the hallways and in the kitchens. Why? Because they wanted to discourage people from leaving their cell phones in their rooms charging. Lies. The whole thing was set up to maximize their profits with as little output as possible. There were no plugs in the room for the same reason the heat was on a timer, and for the same reason they refused refunds even though 75% of the people who booked more than one night only stayed for one, if that. It was a scam, basically.

L's bus was running late, so I tried to nap a bit since I hadn't been sleeping well leading up to the trip. I chatted for a minute with the Australian couple I would be sharing the room with, and with this annoying old guy who worked at the hostel. I thought he was homeless at first, actually he still might be honestly. He read in the room the whole time I was trying to nap and he was so gross and loud. He kept shaking the bed, which I assumed was because the bunk beds were scary and old, but no one else was as loud as him. He ate crisps loudly and obnoxiously and generally made it so I couldn't really nap. Another annoyance was a different employee [the third so far] who kept coming into the room and asking us if we had extra sheets since he was missing one. As we all know, I totally had the extra sheets... But I wasn't about to give them up. Thankfully, L soon arrived and got settled in so we could leave for dinner!

Of course, we sort of immediately got lost... Er, it was a theme over the week because I tended to talk to her ear off while walking randomly and she thought I was leading... Luckily she's a very good sport! Anyway, we were staying just off Princes Street, but most of the pubs, restaurants and tourist stuff were on the other side of the bridges, near the castle. The Royal Mile was located there, and Georges Street and Cowgate and stuff. It was almost nine by this point, and a lot of the first restaurants we spotted were closed [this is a theme in the UK, nothing stays open all that late for some reason. I'm never complaining about NS and its malls that close at 9 again]. Desperate for food, I stopped a random in the street all, "Hey, we're hungry, can you recommend a place to eat?" The guy turned out to be a lovely kid from Brazil! It was fabulous! He was in Edinburgh for a few days, going home the next afternoon to spend New Year in Glasgow. He took us to his hostel, St. Christopher's where we ate the best nachos ever [they may not have been, I was just seriously starving].

Okay, so, I've never heard of St. Christopher's, but it's apparently this Australian chain of hostels that are brilliant. From what I saw over the weekend the one in Edinburgh seemed absolutely amazing. I'm going to start looking for them when I travel, definitely.

But, back to the story. L and I were both crazy exhausted, so we had dinner, had a drink, chatted with A and decided to meet the next morning to visit Edinburgh Castle before A headed to Glasgow. I took his number [this is important] and we headed back to our gross hostel... Where I immediately made friends by turning on the light in my room to three sleeping people. It was only eleven! In Edinburgh! How were they already sleeping? I felt awful, turned the light off, grabbed my bed stuff [including my phone so I could have light when I got back to the room], and went to the gross, tiny bathroom to change in my pyjamas.

It was a disaster. I put everything on the back of the toilet, then watched in horror as everything slid off the back of the toilet. Frantically I grabbed my pyjamas, grabbed the key to the room... and didn't grab my phone. My phone FELL INTO THE TOILET OF THE GROSS HOSTEL. I was mortified, and stood there staring at it for a good ten seconds before I cleared my mind, took a deep breath and hauled it out. I quickly changed and then made my way to the lobby where another girl and I tried to dry it. I managed to call L for 10 seconds to tell her what happened before it died completely. Dejected, I went to bed with the pieces out and drying. I set my ipod alarm and hoped for the best, since the thing never works properly...

And, okay. This is getting insanely long so I'm going to cut off here and start a new post! (: Okay, so maybe I'm milking this for a couple of posts... Can you blame me? I haven't had a whole lot to talk about except Royal Fail and how homesick I am... I feel like we both can appreciate how awesome it is to not write/read about that for a couple of days!

<3 Jade

Get ready, Scotland!

In twenty-four hours I will be sitting comfortably on a train to Edinburgh for Hogmanay! I'm pretty excited, though also crazy nervous. I've never stayed in a hostel before, and I don't really know what to expect. The place I booked didn't really have any negative reviews before I booked it, but now they've got all these really negative reviews. People talking about rooms that don't lock, no plugs in the rooms [how am I going to charge my camera?!], really filthy accommodations. One person wrote about homeless people, another wrote about not having any water during their entire stay and not even getting a bit of money back for that... I'm pretty freaked out, and terrified that this place is going to be absolutely disgusting and awful and I won't be able to find another place to stay because Hogmanay is kind of a big deal. 

I'm trying really hard not to freak out, while at the same time preparing for the worst. I've got a suitcase lock, and one of those things that you can use to tie suitcases down. I fully intend to chain the thing to a bunk bed if there's no lockers, and I'm pretty sure there aren't any lockers. I think I'll ask my friend in another hostel to charge my camera battery if it becomes necessary, but I'm hoping it won't. 

I'm hoping the negative reviews are exaggerations because I've been seriously ripped off in the New Year's department. Try snow storms every year, and then the one year I give up and don't even try to get out of Small Town, Nova Scotia it was perfectly clear and didn't storm at all. I've racked up some serious bad karma I guess. I'm especially hoping for a good time because Christmas was sort of awful. I had to socialize with my roommate, NZ, and he's always just so much fun [/sarcasm]. 

Obviously I'll write up a full review upon my return in the new year! I'm sure you'll all be over the hangovers and perfectly capable of reading it then. (:

***

In Royal Fail news, the parcel still hasn't arrived. It's still en route to Canada, so that's lovely. I popped down to the post office to send off a card to the other side of London, and while I was there I thought I'd ask for a ParcelForce claims form. The employee was hilariously condescending and ridiculous, par the course I guess. 

Me: Can I have a claims form for ParcelForce? That parcel I sent out on December 6th still hasn't arrived. 

Employee: How do you know it hasn't arrived? Did you check the tracker?

Me: .... [Thinking, "She can't be serious, how else would I know that it hasn't arrived?"]

Employee: Well, did you?

Me: Of course I checked the tracker! That's how I know it's still en route!

Then the employee asked questions, like did I pay to have it sent quickly, and all this other stuff. that made it clear she wasn't even listening to my responses at all. She asked me three times when I sent it, where I sent it, and then asked again if I sent it before the bad weather hit. I should have just gone in  with, 'December 6th, it was supposed to arrive in Canada within three days,' tattooed to my forehead or something. I, of course, answered while becoming really annoyed though I managed to be polite. I'm sure I had major bitchface going on though. At the end of the increasingly frustrating conversation she announces that they're out of forms and will be until the new year. Nice. ParcelForce still hasn't replied to my e-mail, but I did send it right before Christmas so I'm assuming that's the delay. 

Ugh, crazy frustrating. Just get the package there, Royal Fail! I'm not in the mood for this. 

Here's hoping it arrives by the time I get back from Scotland! I'm pretty sick of dealing with it, honestly. 

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone! 

<3 Jade

Royal Fail: Snow!

Haha, so, writing this post means that "rants" will be the most used label for my blog. [EDIT: Ha, not any more! Had the brilliant idea of giving all the Royal Mail stuff its own tag so the people here just for that can easily find the posts.] I only created the tag last week! I guess I do rant an awful lot, but I hope it's funny ranting and not annoying ranting, or worse Mel Gibson ranting. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's not that last one because I have so far managed to go twenty-three years without calling someone an oven dodger [Really, really awful, I mean really. Do you even have a conscious, Mel? Jesus would not approve.], but I'm not so sure it's not the second one.

Anyway, in a bit of fail I didn't finish the claims process with ParcelForce. I know, I know, but there are reasons. First, thanks to their timely [sarcasm] responses to my enquiries, there really was no way to get the claim in on time anyway. You know, the whole not accepting claims over e-mail thing and how they have to receive the claim within two weeks for Global Express options. And, secondly, this is really a Royal Mail problem, honestly. I discovered that one of the other packages mailed that day also hasn't arrived yet, and, well, ParcelForce actually hasn't received anything. So, really, shouldn't Royal Mail pay for this mix up? Yes, but they won't, as I will explain in a second. 

The final nail in the coffin was when I looked at the claims form and I realized that I, stupidly, had screwed myself by not keeping all the receipts. I know, I know, you should always keep receipts, but some of the items were, like, grocery store chocolate and stuff. I do have the receipts for some of the stuff, and I debated just sending in what I had. Especially because Royal Mail won't even look at my claim, or even let me submit one. I filled in their little form on their customer service page, and even though it was supposed to get there in three days [and didn't... I so feel like a broken record here. THREE DAYS, THREE DAYS, THREE DAYS. I don't even like the number 3], they were all, "Yeah, no, you can't submit a claim until it's been missing for at least fifteen working days, keep checking your mail." Uhm, great. Except there was a delay, do I get compensation for that? Yeah, Royal Mail does not care. I tried to go back and redo it [Yes, I was the child who used to do those choose your adventure books backwards so I could get the best outcome], but, hilariously, they have some sort of remembrance thing on it. I kept getting a message at the top of the page all, "We're sorry your package hasn't arrived, check back when it's been fifteen days. In the meantime, keep checking your mail." Great, thanks Royal Mail.

Anyway, it all doesn't matter because...

They found the package!

I've still been checking the tracker religiously, you know, just in case. Today instead of the dreaded, "Advised," the tracking information says, "In transit." That's all it said on Royal Mail's website. Clearly an institution of very little words, so I checked in with ParcelForce, who elaborated a bit and claimed that the parcel is an international hub somewhere. Uhm, okay. Canada, what do you have say on the matter? Yeah, Canada Post says that the international hub is located in the country of origin, or, England. Okay, this is okay. It's moved, it has a location. 

EXCEPT HAVE YOU PEOPLE BEEN WATCHING THE NEWS? 

IT'S LIKE SNOWPOCALYPSE HERE:

Yeeeeep, this is the amount of snow that totally shut down London.
I can hear you laughing, Canada... Northern USA!
Stop it! It's not nice.

Look, it might not look like a lot but London is not used to anything beyond  particularly heavy flurries. Sometimes the tubes shut down because of *leaves* on the tracks. This is not a city that has the infrastructure to deal with an amount of snow that most of North America would consider a mild inconvenience. Yesterday I ventured out for food and, three days after the snowfall, they still hadn't cleared or salted the sidewalks. They have no idea what they're doing, and if they do, well, they don't have the equipment to do it, sadly.

Flights have been cancelled all over the place, people are sleeping in airports, I know several people who haven't made it home for Christmas and at this point it looks unlikely that they will. It's really terrible. And if England, and the rest of Europe that got hit with snow much heavier than normal for their climate, can't move people, odds are they aren't going to be moving parcels. 

So, anyway, eventually the parcel will make it to Canada, but the story isn't done yet! Royal Mail is avoiding my calls like they're scared I'm going to ask for a paternity test, and I still want some money back from the amount I paid to send the parcel... So... ParcelForce is clearly being set up to take the fall for this one. I e-mailed them, again, and asked if I could claim for part of the shipping fees, and if this required submitting receipts.

Here's hoping this thrilling [haha] saga can be concluded with a Part 4!

<3 Jade

Royal Fail: Part II [and other things]

In a bit of good news, I finally got out of the infinite loop that was Royal Mail's customer service contact page and got some information! Unfortunately, it didn't really help as Royal Mail keeps insisting that my parcel might not be lost. You can't register a complaint until it's gone missing for 15 working days, so I have to tell my parents to keep checking their mail. Le sigh. 

ParcelForce responded to my second, slightly strongly worded e-mail last night. They apologized again, which made me feel guilty. I'm torn, honestly. I'm usually so good with service people. I've worked retail, I know how tough it is to deal with people all the time, especially when those people ask you to do things you can not do. But at the same time, they were carefully chosen gifts that I paid to have delivered in three days! I'm just so frustrated. My mom has told me over and over again not to worry, it's not like they're upset. But I'm upset, which I recognize is due to several factors. I'm homesick, I'm actual sick, and so many other things and this Royal Mail thing is what I've chosen to focus my frustration and annoyance on. "I'm not going to get to be there for Christmas, but there's no excuse for my parcel to not be there," I think angrily every time I go to try to sort this out. 

ParcelForce was nice enough to send me a link to their complaints form. Unfortunately, you can't e-mail it to them. You have to print it off and mail it. So frustrating. I'm so upset with everything mail related that I haven't even gotten my Christmas cards sent off. They're sitting on my dresser, half done. I'll probably just send them after Christmas now. Anyway, I don't even have a printer, but the roommate that does have one is always nice enough to let me use his. If I'm going to file a complaint [and I do want my money back] I have to send it off on Monday. Why? Because they don't accept complaints or give compensation for the way I sent the parcel after two weeks. It's two weeks on Monday. 

Sigh. 

***

In other, miscellaneous news, my Christmas and birthday gifts from home have arrived! I thought they would make me feel better but they've only made me a million times more homesick. I put them on my window ledge. I'm going to Skype with my family on Christmas Day and open the gifts with them. My mom packed some Christmas DVDs, hoping they'd put me in a Christmas mood, but I'm honestly not feeling them. 

I'm spending Christmas alone. My friends have all gone home to their families. My cousin was willing to spend Christmas with me, but I didn't want him to miss out on his yearly tradition of visiting friends up north so I told him I had plans. My grandfather is here, of course, but he's decided that he doesn't want to spend Christmas with me. Which is fine, that's his prerogative. I shouldn't take it personally because he's just like that, but it still stings a bit. Obviously. 

I think I'll make apple pie and just eat the whole thing. There won't be anyone to make me share it! (: 

***

I feel like I probably would be able to pull myself out of this infinitely cranky mood, but I've caught a cold. I just finished a course of antibiotics for an UTI, so I'm really not looking forward to having to get antibiotics for the lung infection I usually get immediately after a cold. I've already calculated it, and if I go no later than next Tuesday for my week's worth of Avelox, it won't interfere with Hogmanay. Four days is usually long enough for the death rattle of bacteria to rear its head, if it does rear its head. It's just super frustrating in the meantime because I've got to overdose on my rescue and regular inhalers. 

I get sick every year around Christmas. Usually a cold, though last year it was a random throat infection that actually migrated into my mouth and made my back gums swell. Just my immune system keeping it fresh, I guess. Everyone used to say it's because I've finished exams and you usually get sick after a stressful time. Well, this year I'm not in university and I still got sick. I think we can all agree now that my yearly December illness is because my body hates me. This year it's decided to double hate me with two illnesses for the price of one. Thanks, immune system!

I read somewhere once that elderly people don't tend to get colds and flues because they gain immunity to tons of different strains over their life time. I really hope this is true. I can't even explain how miserable it is to have asthma and a rhinovirus trash your lungs during Birthday Season. If they were tenants, [I would be rich] they would so lose their damage deposit.

<3 Jade

Happy Birthday!

Okay, so, that rant about Royal Mail was very therapeutic. I feel calm and relaxed enough to write a birthday post and post date it because I have this thing about posting twice in one day.

So, birthdays. I was born on December 13th, 23 years ago. I have a thing about even numbers, and since both my birth day and year are odd, I can't say that I've ever really liked my birthday.Though I am strangely attached to it, so it's not like I would ever seriously consider changing it [not that you can]. Thirteen has always brought me good luck. While the rest of the world cringes during Friday the 13th, I always have a really fabulous day. I know 7 is supposed to be this magical number, but I honestly would have preferred an 88 birth year. Eight is one of my favourite numbers, along with 2, 4, 16, 32, I think you can see the pattern. Twelve is my absolute favourite number, I don't know why, I just like it. So, the only 'good' thing about my birthday is that December is the 12th month.

I had some fabulous birthdays as a kid. My parents were great. I never felt like I was competing [and losing] with Christmas. Not one Christmas-slash-birthday present for me! Look, I don't make a huge fuss or anything because it's rude and there's something to be said about never making someone uncomfortable when they're legitimately trying to do a nice thing for you, but I have three birthday rules that I feel are just basic, polite ways to handle December birthdays. It all boils down to the basic principle of: I don't make your July birthday about Canada Day, or your April/March birthday about Easter, etc., so why would you make my December birthday about Christmas? Here are the rules:

1. If is at all possible, don't give me one present for my birthday and Christmas. I don't do it to you, so don't do it to me. I get it, money is tight around Christmas, but seriously, it sucks. No other occasions get combined as often as Christmas and a December birthday. It's like they're pie and ice cream.

Honestly though, this rule is so flexible. Don't read this and think, "Oh no, I've done this! I'm TERRIBLE!" You're not. At all. Obviously if it's perfect and expensive go for it, give one gift. If not, you could always take your budget, half it, and buy two gifts with the two halves. No one's going to notice, trust me. And if they do they'll either be touched that you tried hard to separate the occasions, or they'll be jerks about it and you just dodged a bullet. Actually, in all seriousness, if your December friend is awful enough to comment if you do, for whatever reason [even if that reason is laziness], give him or her one gift you should probably cut them. In an ideal world I wouldn't have to fight for the limelight with baby Jesus, but it's not an ideal world, the economy sucks, university students are poor, shopping time is tight, December is really freaking busy... I could go on and on, but there are a million reasons why someone might buy a December baby a combined gift. Don't be rude, smile and be grateful you got anything and, if you must, complain about it later to other December folks.

2. Don't give me a Christmas card and add 'Happy Birthday' to the message. This bugs me even more than a single present for two events. I can forgive one present because, like I said, money is tight at Christmas. But I can't forgive one card. Even a folded piece of looseleaf with 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY' scrawled on it in barely legible hand writing goes over a million times better than a Happy Birthday/Merry Christmas card.

3. Don't wrap my presents in Christmas wrapping paper.

My parents, family, and most of my friends strictly adhere to these rules, which I am extremely grateful for. Even if it was wrapped in tissue paper instead of real wrapping paper, I knew my birthday present from my parents wouldn't have 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' all over it. I know that my birthday is not too close to Christmas, so I don't have it as bad as anyone born in the second half of December, but, like all December babies, as I got older, my birthday would play second fiddle to everything else going on in December. Christmas, vacations, the many tests and projects that teachers loved to assign for that last week of classes... And, when I got to university, fall term exams.

I remember mentioning university exams a bit dejectedly to my best friend during my last year of high school, and this smug, annoying girl with a late January birthday butted in with, "Well how do you think I feel, I've always had exams on my birthday!" Which, not true, unless she was taking shoe tying exams in kindergarten, or studying at a tenth grade level in grade seven, but whatever. I strained my eyes attempting not to roll them, and I bit my tongue in an effort to not quip back, "Yeah, well, try always competing with Jesus and it's not even his real birthday!" No seriously. All you spring babies should be getting screwed. You can thank the pagans for that, anyone born in March/April. But, I successfully managed to not say a word. It seriously wasn't worth it. This girl used to cry at the drop of a hat. No, really. Sometimes the only thing that would set her off was it was a Tuesday and particularly windy.

Anyway, back to the story. I became particularly neurotic about my birthday when I turned eighteen. I'm not really sure why. I think it was a fear of getting older thing, or maybe it was that adulthood was/is so abstract to me I couldn't, and still can't, believe that legally I'm considered one. I don't know. I do know that my two best friends planned a surprise party for my eighteenth birthday. No small feat considering all the work we had due that week. At least, I'm assuming we had work due that week, I don't really know which is odd because it's the sort of detail I would totally remember.

Right, story.

I actually went to bed. It was some ridiculously early time, like 6 pm, but I had decided that I didn't want it to be December 13th anymore so I was going to sleep until it was December 14th. My mother, panicked, tried to force me to stay up later, but I went to bed anyway, probably after spewing something dramatic and teenager-y. In the end my eighteenth birthday party began with my friends bursting into my room and waking me up.

It's been sort of like that off and on since. I had an exam the day after my 19th birthday, so I spent it studying. I was sick for my 20th birthday, but I also spent it studying. For my 21st birthday I had finished exams crazy early, so I was at home for my birthday. I had a nice family thing. For my 22nd birthday, I celebrated with my two best friends who also have exam/Christmas birthdays. That one was actually really fabulous, with the exception of me bursting into tears over being 22 [and then, hilariously, sobbing harder after one person was all, "but now you're my age!"], but I quickly calmed down [drank some alcohol...] and spent the rest of the evening announcing to anyone who would listen that it was, "MY BIRTHDAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY!"

I didn't really expect much for my 23rd birthday, mostly because I just started working and have a social group of exactly two other people in London. But they were really great. Welshie invited me out for drinks, and I asked my new Aussie friend to come along. I wore a new dress I bought on sale, in the petite section so it was actually the proper length on me! Clearly all signs were pointing to a wonderful night out, and I was definitely not disappointed.

It was a lot of fun. Welshie got me a 2011 day planner, which means a lot because I would lost without one, but also because she's currently unemployed. I wasn't expecting anything but some company, honestly, so I'm really grateful. We ate some chili fries [I pretended it was a poutine], drank some alcohol, and then started to dance. Welshie got the DJ to wish me a very happy birthday, we took some funny photos, Aussie almost got knocked down by this guy dancing crazily around us, at us, to us, whatever. It was a laugh. Then the bouncer tried to get us to check our bags and coats, so we left. I have a thing about checking my bag. I need it to stay on my person in case I spontaneously start to die and need my Epi-pen.

We wandered around Leicester Square for a bit, which is always hilarious. People, usually men, stand outside their clubs and bars and basically heckle women in an attempt to get them to go to their club or bar, which they hope will attract men. They're really persistent, and really creepy. Sometimes they follow you around the square, even after you've made it clear that you're not interested. They shout things at you like, "What do you have to lose, c'mon!" and can actually get a little abusive sometimes. Once we were out of the first bar and in the square we were surrounded by these jerks.

One club offered to let us in for free, but when we went up to the door the door person said we had to pay five pounds. We didn't want to pay to go in, so we turned around and left. At that point the owner marches up all, "These are pretty ladies! You let them in for FREE. Check their bags." I like compliments, so I was a little warmer about the place and didn't even mind the bouncer digging around my purse. We went in, but it was dead. There were maybe five people sitting around, so we immediately turned around and left.

The club across the street offered to let us in and give us a free shot each, so we tried that. The shot was absolutely disgusting. It was vodka, triple sec, and lemonade. But hey, alcohol! It was still dead, but honestly, on a Monday with the football game over, we weren't going to find a not-dead place. So, we sat around and took more pictures and people watched.

The night might seem pretty boring, especially since we left early enough that we could get home using the tubes, but I had a really great time. So, I guess, I have to admit that celebrating my birthday in London really wasn't that bad.

<3 Jade

Royal Fail

So, I was going to write about my birthday, but nothing really happened and I'm pretty much rage blinded by the institution that is the Royal Mail system that I would much, much rather complain about that instead.

Okay, call me crazy, but I like to send post cards and little souvenirs to people. Of course, since I didn't have a job until last month, I haven't exactly had the funds to send anything. I sent out a round of postcards because they're super cheap, but other than that the souvenirs I've been collecting have been taking up space in my room. Since it's now the Christmas season, and I have a job, I finally decided to wrap up all these gifts and send them along to my family.

We draw names in my family, and this year I got my youngest brother, CD. I did a lot of online shopping for him, so for the most part his presents have already arrived. But, I wanted to send him some chocolate and candy from London, stuff he could eat since he recently got braces, and I found this hilarious book at Windsor Castle about proper gentlemen hygiene and fashion that I figured he would also find hilarious. You know, little stuff, a key chain since he just recently passed his road test, little stuff like that.  Since I'm in another country I decided the 'only buy stuff for your person' rule no longer applied to me, and I also got gifts for the rest of my family. My other brother, T, lives in Alberta so I sent his stuff separately, but in the parcel with CD's stuff I also included some presents for my parents and grandmother. A picture of a lighthouse for my dad, a scarf with my mom's family tartan that I found in Wales. Chocolate for both of them. A cat calender for my grandmother who's obsessed with cats. A London hat for my father. Things I thought they might enjoy, things I had chosen carefully with the expectation that one day they would  actually get to see them.

The parcel in question. I like to think its size means
that it takes a special kind of idiot to lose it...

Unfortunately, as of right now, it looks like my family may never see their Christmas gifts. Thanks to the Royal Mail and its special brand of stupidity.

My saga starts on December 6th, when I finally finished wrapping all the gifts, taped up the parcel, and hauled it, my brother T's gifts, and a friend's birthday gift down to the local post office. I seriously don't understand the employees at this post office. I had been there about two weeks earlier sending off another birthday present, so I knew the [annoying] routine. Before they take my money and the parcel they always say, "It's going to be a lot of money." Like, I appreciate the warning, but what do they want me to do at that point? Turn around and walk out all, "Oh, okay, guess I'll teleport it there instead." How else is it going to get there? By the way, it only cost 25 pounds to send A's gift to Canada. I don't really consider that expensive considering I paid for air mail and it got there in a week.

Now, I'm sure you're all wondering how much that big box cost to send. It only weighed 4.5 kg, and it cost 73 pounds to send it using the express option [insurance, 3 day delivery, but if it had arrived in 3 days you wouldn't be reading this rant, and the ability to track it]. You're probably gasping and in the throes of a heart attack at the price, but I really don't think it was that bad. There was, admittedly, a lot of stuff. AND, it cost 25 pounds each to send the other three parcels [T's Christmas gifts and the birthday presents for my birthday twins]. These gifts each weighed 1/9th the amount of the big parcel, they didn't have a tracking option, and they were going to take a week to get to Canada. Sooo, the big parcel was actually cheaper when you factor in insurance, weight, travel time, and the tracking bit.

Would I do it again? Probably not, even before Royal Mail lost the parcel. But it was Christmas, so I'm not going to complain [about that, anyway]. 

Since the parcel left on Monday, I figured it would probably arrive on Friday. Yeah, I was being generous and giving them four days. I started to track the parcel on Wednesday because I'm paranoid and I was worried the parcel would get stuck in customs.

On Wednesday, and on Thursday, the tracking information did not change. It has said, and still says at the time of writing, that the package is 'advised'. What, exactly, does that mean? Unsure, I took to Google, where everyone had a different theory. It could mean that it's stuck in customs, maybe that customs is going to charge my family to have the parcel released. Which is a separate rant, why would you make my family pay for gifts I sent them? It clearly says GIFTS on the custom's declaration. You don't make people pay for gifts. Unless you're customs, I guess. Other people thought it meant that parcel was in a cargo hold somewhere over the ocean, which, it better not be. I seriously worry if the people flying the planes are taking a week to cross the ocean. That takes a serious commitment to being lost. Sure, it could be in a ship somewhere in the Atlantic, but again, it better not be. I paid for air mail!

Deciding that the only way to know for sure would be to go directly to the source, I e-mailed ParcelForce. You can seriously only contact them through e-mail, otherwise I totally would have called since it's way harder to ignore persistent ringing than it is an e-mail. Anyway, they sent back a stock e-mail claiming they'd reply to me within two business days. This was on Thursday.

On Friday, I admit, I got a little impatient. I sent another e-mail where I asked after the parcel's location, and questioned why the tracking information hadn't been updated, and why it was taking longer than three business days for my parcel to get to Canada.

I felt a little bad afterwards because it was a very clipped message and, not rude, but I made it clear that I was annoyed. Then my mother told me that on her end, Canada Post had informed her that parcels are taking longer to get in and out of Canada thanks to some sort of mail bomb or whatever threat. So, then I felt worse because maybe it wasn't Royal Mail's fault!

Annnndddd then ParcelForce responded to my enquiries on Monday [my birthday!]. I won't post the entire e-mail here because it was ridiculously long and I can sum it up in about four lines, max. Basically, they're incredibly sorry that my parcel didn't make it in the promised three days, they understand how annoyed and frustrated I am that it hasn't arrived, but Royal Mail hasn't actually given them my parcel for delivery yet, so they don't know where it is and therefore can't update the tracking information or tell me when it will get to Canada

...

Wait, what?

They don't know where it is.

Honestly, my brain about exploded at that point. HOW DO YOU LOSE A PARCEL THAT BIG? IT IS THE SIZE OF MY TORSO. It's not like it's a postcard and can get slipped in with someone else's mail, or fall out of the bag unnoticed. It's 4.5 kg!

I sent ParcelForce a reply, and I pride myself on being polite. A new maturity that comes with being 23 I guess. I basically asked for clarification on the not knowing where the parcel is bit, and asked for the contact information of someone who can find the thing. So, Royal Mail's contact information, in other words .Because the tracking device on their site takes you back to ParcelForce. Yesterday, I found the Royal Mail tracking information by accident and promptly bookmarked it because I wasn't sure if I could find it again.

Not that it's useful, since it says the same thing as ParcelForce. Advised. Canada Post claims it was mailed in the country of origin, so at least I know it's not still at the post office being used as a foot rest. That's something, I guess.

ParcelForce sent back another stock e-mail, promising to get to my reply within two business days, so I went back to Royal Mail's website and started to look harder for their contact information. However, they've totally taken website design tips from the government because it is impossible to navigate. Eventually, thanks to my amazing ability to navigate stupid, and the sort of blind determination that comes with being angry, I found their customer service page.

And that, my friends and readers, is where my story ends. But why does it end on a cliffhanger, Jade? You might be asking. Because, my friends and readers, every, single time I click their 'Contact Us' link I get the following:

Why yes, it does make me irrationally angry. Thanks for asking.

At the moment I'm stuck in an endless loop, and have been since yesterday. They link me back to customer services, I click the contact us link, and then that stupid little message with its sarcastic "Sorry..." [I've looked at it for so long it's taken on a tone, HELP ME!] mocks me and sends me back to the customer service page.

And there you go. The story up until now of Jade verses Royal Mail. Obviously I'll let you know the conclusion.

I should note at this point that the other two times I used Royal Mail they came through for me. Not one of the six post cards I sent got lost. Even though the first birthday gift was supposed to get there in 5 days, it arrived after 7, which I consider reasonable. I'll let you all know about T's Christmas gift and the other birthday gift...

<3 Jade