May 2012

So, it would seem that when I don’t have a 2 hour train ride every day it takes me a lot longer to sit down and write these stories. So here it goes, may would have to be considered one of the most ridiculous months of my life. Not my recent life, my life.  From April 27^th to June 5^th, the longest I was in one country was 4 days, which oddly enough was actually in the Vancouver and I was in 8 different locations.  Now, because, until the end of August (since the end of Feb), Rebecca is in Paris and I’m in Stowmarket, I always knew that there was going to be a lot of travel.  I’m also not complaining about it. It was some of the most fun I’ve had. It was simply a bit nutty. So, I’ll run down the list:

April 27^th – May 1^st  –      Anniversary trip with Rebecca to the Loire Valley, visiting Chateau’s and tasting wine. Really, it was the good life.

May 2^nd – 4^th -                    Company trip to Sweden.  If I told you any more I would have to kill you. Okay that’s a lie, it was just a lot of going all around Sweden for meetings. Not exciting. 

Wandering around Stockholm

May 5^nd – 7^h -                     In Paris with Carla. Musee D’Orsay. Look at me, all classy and the such.

May 8^th – 11^th -                  At home in Stowmarket.  Ahh, downtime.

May 11^th – 13^th -                Euro Disney with Rebecca, Sarah and Garret. 

May 14^th – 15^th -                Back at home.  Hmm, looking at this doesn’t make seem too bad.

May 16^th – 20^th -                Vancouver, seeing family and attending a beautiful wedding.

May 20^th – 21^th -                To Iowa, so that I can visit one of the Climax plants. My boss, figured that Iowa was on the way back to England from Canada. I could just pop by…

May 22^th -                            Stuck in St. Louis for a day. Well, it wasn’t a bad place to see. Good BBQ and I didn’t know that you could actually go up the arch. You need to be under 5 feet to do it comfortably but you can do it.

May 23^rd – 26^th -                Fuck it, if I’m going to be on the east coast (yes, Iowa is the east coast. I’m from BC, east coast is everything east of the Rockies. If your water goes to the Atlantic, east coast!) I’ll go visit North Carolina and see Lance!

May 27^th – 28^th -                I’m back in Paris. I think Hannah and Luke are here. I could be imagining things thought.

May 29^th – 31^st -                At home in Stowmarket.  Ahh, downtime.

June 1^st – 4^th -                    Paris one last time. This time, both because of Rebecca, I end up seeing a bunch of boobs and then going to a French Police station. Get your head out of the gutter. We went to see a show at the Moulin Rouge and then she had to get a criminal record check.

So, that was my month. Like I said, a bunch of places were seen and enjoyed. But since there are a lot of things that happened I’m just going to recount my favorite stories for the month, which no offence to the wonderful wedding (and a very loud and enjoyable rendition of “Red Solo Cup”, Euro Disney or the National Monument, was  my last night in Raleigh.

Although it was relatively quiet, looking back it was still a good story. The night starts with the local delicacy of Chicken n Waffles. Which as odd as it sounds, and to be honest it sounds less odd then it looks when delivered in front of you, it was quite delicious.

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Then goes from bar to bar to bar, where we drink knockouts, a great tasting drink that was apparently extremely alcoholic, get hit on by ugly, nasty things, danced up on one of Lance’s friends husband and then finally meet up with Ashley who proceeds to ask what was up the last night we saw her. Apparently because Lance of out of control loud… Wait what? Lance wasn’t loud; I actually thought he was pretty normal.  Oh well. The night continues on as any normal night would and as ends up at some quality food establishment. I think it will always confound me to the ability of Lance to be such a foodie during the day and then to see his standards drop to astonishing levels while drinking. (yes, I’m looking at 50 chicken nuggets). Back to the story, ah yes late night food. Every town has something that you eat late at night you shouldn’t. Vancouver for me was always pizza by the slice, Phoenix was the mystery burrito, London it’s kebabs, and in Raleigh, it’s the Gypsy Diner.

So we go to the Gypsy Diner for food.  Now in the diner, it’s still relatively early so it’s decently quiet. Me and lance take a seat and drunk dial Peaches. As one does. Meanwhile, a couple site in the booth beside us and are obviously trashed.  Now, before I go any further, there is something that you need to know about Lance. Almost as if it’s divine intervention, Lance always ends up meeting and befriending all the friendly crazies in the world.  So, I think Lance and Peaches are on the phone at this point, I’m pretty sure they are talking about how the Mayan calendar ending and the Rachel (Peaches’ wife) getting pregnant can’t be a coincidence, when the lady beside us starts talking to us about PHD chemistry.  Apparently, the woman’s husband is some sort of big shot in the chemistry world. So, with Lance doing his PHD in chemistry we began conversing. She tells us that they had just come from the secret underground bar.  The foundation as we knew it since we had been there earlier in the week. So we continue chatting. Realizing more and more that, A they were plastered, and B that there was all kinds of chemistry bonding going on. (Oh victory, science pun!) , the discussion started to get more and more … exuberant.  Out of nowhere, we get shouted at to be quiet, people are trying to eat. No, if that came from an elderly person, a family or something of that sort you kind of expect it and yeah you quiet down. Was that who called us out? No, it’s a 20 something white guy in a wife beater, sweatpants, and a sideways baseball cap. Needless to say, not quite what was expected and considering that the manager of the diner was sitting beside us and seemed to be enjoying the Lance and drunken lady show, I was less then worried when the lady beside us started talking louder and told them to shove it. All in all, it was a good night and as always amazing to see Lance again. But as with all last night’s somewhere,  made me hope that my adventure brings me together with the people who make each adventure epic again soon.