Qui audet adipiscitur (She who dares, wins): Every day should be like this day

Saturday June 19th, 2010

You know when you have a perfect day. Well it isn't really a "perfect" day but you let things slide, you relax and let things happen and then it ends up wonderfully. How come that can't happen all the time? The answer is likely because these days seem to happens on weekends when you get to leisurely do what you want to do and not during the week when there are schedules and deadlines.

This morning started bright and shiny. I had set my alarm for 7:30am (which is 1hr later than I usually get up in the morning). Sadly my internal clock decided to alarm at 6:30, 6:35, 6:45... you get the point. My room was awfully bright when I woke up. I ended actually getting up around 7:30 and heading out with a wonderful little lady around 9am to go to the Moncton Farmer's Market. It was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining, and it was plenty warm by that time in the morning. The market was awesome. There was lots to see and take in. Especially the food!

The caf food has been on a steady decline and may have crashed and burned. I think they've stopped trying to make food and are just serving things that don't require preparation. Awful. This morning for breakfast I had a crape made before my eyes with nutella inside. It was then covered in a wide variety of fruits and berries and almond slices. It was so very very delicious! We browsed the vendors and even made a few purchases.

By 11 o'clock we had to head back to campus. Both of us had signed up for the earlier activity. We had been given two options, a bus leaving at 12:00 or 2:00. We went to Shediac, a local town on the coast to go on a lobster boat tour.

The bus ride was rather short - only about 20 minutes. Upon arriving we walked along the short port and looked at the few stores and restaurants open. We boarded our bus shortly after and headed out to sea. We didn't leave the inlet but we were got to pull in a lobster trap with three lobsters inside. The captain then demonstrated how you tell a girl from a boy, and showed us how to crack a lobster, where to eat, and what the best meat is. It was very instructional and he did a good job of mixing English into his French so it made perfect sense.

Shortly after his instructions each table of six people were given two lobsters to disassemble and eat. His explanation did help but I found that if I looked at the carnage while eating it put me off my appetite. I was lucky to have people at my table who were fully excited to break, tear, and dig for all available meat. I didn't try the liver because I figured I was doing pretty good eating the meat and enjoying it. I wish I had paid better attention because there was certain meat I liked a great deal more than other meat. Either way it was a good experience.

After we ate we were allowed to go to the upper deck of the boat. It was an absolutely beautiful day - just gorgeous. I think it sat around 30ish at this point and there were no clouds. It was a wonderful party. The monitors had been nice enough to keep their space so that we didn't really have to worry about getting caught talking in English.

We toured around until 3pm before we docked the boat and browsed a little longer while waiting for the bus. I got an ice cream cone and I think I've discovered that I don't like ice cream as much as I had thought I had. Either way it was ok but my cone broke and I got ice cream in my hair - go figure.

When the bus arrived with the second group we boarded for the ride home. It was a short jont and I spent some time with my itunes. I am glad I have my old ipod with more music on it. It has an amazing variety. We got back to the school around 4pm.

At this point I came back to my room after saying goodbye to some girls who were going to Halifax - a trip I was supposed to take but things got confusing about the car and I have a test on Monday so I bailed. Shortly after (around 4:30) I headed to the mall. Although my back was not feeling the walk (about 20-30mins) I wanted to go and I didn't want to figure out the buses. It was still wonderfully hot out so the walk was rather lovely. By the time I got to the mall I thought that my back was going to die. This didn't last long when I got shopping and an orange julius in my hand.

I didn't buy too much but it was nice to be doing something normal all by myself. Except for the outrageous sales tax I almost forgot where I was. I had a great time by myself not in my room. It is nice to have your own space but sometimes it becomes a weird place of isolation.

I knew I was going to miss dinner (which was actually a blessing) so I sat down for Subway. It was likely the best dinner I have had all week. Afterwards I considered calling a cab but decided to start the walk and see how I felt. I'm sure that the Advil helped because I thought I wouldn't make it.

On my way I checked my lotto ticket - I won nothing, again.

I made it home, visited with a few of the girls in the common room downstairs before coming up to have a visit with my next door neighbour and former roommate (different girl from last night). We had a great chat. It was nice to have time to talk to someone so like minded. We decided that we wanted to do something that did not involve the awful dance club here in Moncton. We decided that we would go to The Pump House - the pub connected to the brewery we visited earlier. They have all their beers on tap (naturally) and we were good for some appetizers.

Word spread and our group of two expanded to six, on the walk we ran into a few guys from our program that joined us. It was a really great atmosphere with great food and even better beer. We were there for quite a while when a few more people from the program showed up. It was exactly the kind of night I was looking for! I love pub nights where you can actually talk to the people at your table, drink some beers, and wear normal non-club clothes. I love it.

It was a great night. At 12:30 a few of us decided it was time to go home. We I could have stayed at the bar longer but most people were going to the very not-exciting dance club down the street. I also wanted to get some rest so I can study in the morning.

All in all I had a great day with many great people. Why can't it always be like this... oh yeah, we aren't given any free time normally.

*Today when we were pulling the lobsters traps out of the water the vegetarians and vegans on the boat seemed a little more than unimpressed. The vegan even cried. I had not expected that, but I suppose when you are that passionate about something it can be hard to watch.

Today I learned: