Cape St Mary's

  Somewhere along the beginning of September 2015, I went to Cape St. Mary's with this "choir" group. A few of my friends whom I known outside of choir went too, primarily Senhora Sorridente and Kung Fu Gal. 

Figure 2.1: It's a pretty long journey to get there.

  

The whole point of going to this rural area was because we were going to perform in the Cape St Mary's Performance Series. We first checked into our motel rooms, then proceeded to go look for the host of the show. We were greeted by him at his door, "SHEEP SHIT. SHEEP SHIT" as he stopped us from entering his house. His house was surrounded by sheep,  and naturally there were many sheep bombs everywhere. 

  After the visit of the host's home, we then decided to have a tour around the Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve. It's selling point is that there is a rock, filled with birds. Seagulls. (Well, gannets to be exact, but they're both equally noisy and white, so we'll call them seagulls.) The place isn't fence, as to preserve it's ecological natural-ness or something like that. 

Figure 2.2: The titular Bird Rock.

 

 We took a few photos, talked to choir members and what not, when suddenly our choir head had this brilliant idea where pay an homage to the beauty of the place: by mimicking the noise of the gannets. We laughed at the idea at first, but then this choir isn't comprised of people with shame, so we did a test run on the spot, trying to mimic the sound of the gannets. Many of the tourist who came to watch the performance was there, watching us making bird noises. 

Figure 2.3: Falling not recommended.

 

 As the sun began to set, we went back to the host's home, as he made all the performers dinner. It was a huge pot of spaghetti. Its decent spaghetti, and it's free, so I'm not going to complain. We ate our spaghetti while chatting up with the other performers. The other talents were a string quartet and a local folk singer. Yes, there were only 3 performers. The place was 2 and a half hours away from the city, and the last 40 minutes are filled with potholes and the apparent lack of street lamps, its not exactly the kind of place people would go.

  So we did our performance, we watched the rest of show, ate some cake, and went back to the motel. My choir mates decided to congratulate themselves by having a drinking party in one of the rooms. I must say, watching these people drink, makes me realize that these people still have some youth in them, despite being 40 and above.

Figure 2.4: "Is it my imagination? Or have I finally found something worth living for?"

  

I had a few drinks, we then went out and look at the stars. The nice thing about being in a place without street lamps is that stars are extremely visible. We all pretended to be an astronomer for awhile, talking shit about the stars and alignments. We then all head back to our rooms to get some shut eye, and prepare for our departure back to the city.

  The next morning, we all went back to the host's house for breakfast. It was bagels with cheese, ham, tomatoes, strawberries, hard boiled eggs, olives and plums. I believe I ate more servings of breakfast than spaghetti from the night before. My God, was it delicious. We all said our goodbyes, while I went and bought myself a postcard as souvenir (which I ended up sending it to someone, such is the purpose of postcards), my choir mates were picking up sheep shit. They were really happy that they don't have to splurge to get some high quality, premium fertilizers. They have to pick up the sheep shit themselves though, so I guess that's the drawback.

Figure 2.5: Breakfast.

  

We then got into our own respective rides and drove back to the city. Overall, a pretty enjoyable journey, with some pretty nice mates to share it with. Also: there was no cell reception and wi-fi the entire time, so social interaction was required to stay sane. 

  Here are some bonus pics just for the hell of it.

Figure 2.6: Our place of residence for the night.

Figure 2.7: Sunset.

  

Figure 2.8: Thanks for the shit, sheep.

The Russian Sailor

  As my travel plans for the new years was cancelled, I decided to just enjoy my time in St. John's. I said yes to almost every invitation I received (which isn't plenty, considering most of the people I know were travelling). This was when I started hanging out with La Dame. 

  I first met La Dame's at Senhora Sorridente's farewell party. Senhora was an exchange student, just like most of the friends I made during my studies at St. John's, but I digress. La Dame invited me to celebrate Christmas with her, her church buddies, and some other international students. We'll keep that story for some other time.

  The Christmas party was pretty cool, I met lots of people whom I now regularly stay in contact with. 

Figure 1.1: Frohe Weihnachten!

  A few days have passed and its New Years Eve. Considering that I was suppose to travel during the break, I was sulking alone in my home, but then La Dame invited me, along with the rest of the students (now friends) who went to the Christmas party, to celebrate the new years with her. Instead of sulking in my home, I accepted her offer and almost got lost walking to her home.

  The dinner was fine, and the table decided to head to Quidi Vidi Lake to watch the fireworks at around 11:30pm. We finished dinner around 9:00pm so there was plenty of time to kill. We then relocated ourselves to the living room and share each of our individual stories. This blog post is reserved for La Dame's story.

I/\__/**\__/\I

L'histoire de la Dame

  It was the early 90's, she was a missionary for a local church here. One of her biggest dream was to visit the Russian Federation. Her church was attempting to undergo a missionary mission at that time, unfortunately the church was unable to collect enough funds to send the missionaries there. "God knows I always wanted to go to Russia, that's why Russia came to me," she said every time she begins telling this story. 

  

  Just to remind you, during the early 90's, Russia was in a state of turmoil as the Soviet Union was just very recently dissolved. There were lots of Russian sailors coming into St. John's, to refuel or something, I'm not really sure. One of the sailor fell really really ill and requires immediately attention. The local doctors were going to send him back to Russia to receive such medical treatment, however the sailor insists that Russia will not have the treatment he needed. La Dame caught wind of this and decided to help this Russian sailor. Unfortunately, La Dame speaks absolutely 0 Russian, but she does have a Russian speaking friend. What she did was she wrote down everything the sailor said, syllable by syllable, until she got it right. Then, she called up her Russian speaking friend, and ask her friend to translate what she said through the phone. After collecting enough information,  La Dame then argued with the doctors and finally convinced them to allow the sailor to stay. 

  Many months have passed since the incident, and not a word from the sailor. One fine day, a Russian man approached to her church and demanded to see La Dame. La Dame reluctantly went to meet with this man, and he introduced himself as a good friend of the Russian sailor she saved. The Russian man then invited her to tour their ship, as per request of the Russian sailor she saved. 

  Upon reaching the ship, the Russian sailor came out and thanked her with such gratitude. He then proceed to give La Dame a tour around and inside the ship. When she was in the ship, La Dame explained that she was feeling extremely afraid, as many shirtless Russian men, whom have not seen a female for the past few weeks or months, slowly surrounds her. The Russian sailor then shouted at his fellow sailor, she couldn't understand what he was saying but she understood "missionary". The rest immediately backed off her as soon as the Russian sailor finished. 

  The sailor then brought her into a small room, where there sat a Japanese man. The Japanese man speaks fluent English, and he explains that he is the ship's inspector. She then told us that the Japanese man said some pretty obscene things, she didn't really explain what he said, so it's up to our imagination, but the Japanese man did not do anything to her. The Japanese man then offered her some tea and some fresh sashimi. 

  As she was leaving the ship, the Russian sailor gave her an extremely huge halibut, as a farewell gift, and of gratitude, and she went on her way. 

  She told the story to her family, and her sister wants to visit the ship. So, La Dame arranged another tour in the ship. Her mother then sent her and her sister to the ship. They tried to convince their mother to join her but she doesn't want to go into a closed area where it's all men and stayed in the car for the rest of the tour. The funny thing was, when the Russian sailor was giving La Dame and her sister a tour around the ship, most of the sailor came out and surround her mother's car, trying to convince her to join her daughters. 

  As the sisters returned from the tour, she explained that her mom was terrified, and told her not to hang out with other "strange men" again.

I/\__/**\__/\I

  Ever since I started hanging out with La Dame, I've been more accepting of things.This story of hers inspired me to start taking leap of faiths. I now use my curiosity to drive me forward, instead of fearing of the unknown. I don't want to regret not doing certain things anymore just because I was afraid, or not willing to leave my comfort zone. 

Figure 1.2: Vielen Dank, und glückliches neues Jahr!

Foreword

Figure 0.1: Willkommen!

  I'm taking 2 mathematics courses, 1 statistic course and 1 German course. The only English I am using right now are those that I use in everyday conversation (e.g.: Good morning; cool beans; thank you) and mathematics jargon (e.g.: Vector spaces; axioms; commutative law; exempli gratia). 

I decide to write a blog due to several reasons, but mostly just this 2:

1. To work on my English skills.
2. I want to, just for fun.

  Sometimes, I will be writing anecdotes à la diary, sometimes I will just write whatever I want to, fictional or not.

  Enjoy your stay.