Monday, November 06, 2006

The Two Jumps

Hello! Hehe, I know I haven't updated anything in such a long time. Sorry!

Well, a lot has happened since err ... when was it? October 7th, 2006 was my last post. But I have lots of pictures and stories to share now!

On the 14th of October 2006, a group of chemical engineering students from the U of A boarded the plane to Montreal for the 56th Annual Chemical Engineering Conference. Our flight to Montreal was at 6.30 a.m.. We had to stop by at Winnipegg for half an hour, and then continued on to Montreal. The plane rides were alright but I think it was the bus rides that were long and tiring. Sherbrooke was two hours away from Montreal city. We arrived at the hotel at 6.30 p.m.. On that same night, we had a social event at a french club. No one speaks a word of English there. It was difficult communicating with the locals - the cab driver, the cashier at McDonalds and Tim Hortons ...

I think his name was Gabriel. Cool guy ;)

Okay, just a bunch of legs around the dancefloor

We attended the conference the next morning listening to some talks and stuff. We did not stay long as some of us wanted to visit the city and look for a mall to buy some formal attire. Some people got so excited when they saw Dunkin Doughnuts (not me, I dislike doughnuts) ...

I think we enjoyed the social events the best. Clubbing in a French city is pretty cool. At least, it's better than Edmonton night clubs. On the second night, we went to some French club again (I can't remember their names, booo). This one was fun, and we took lots of crazy pictures as usual. Too bad we didn't get to take a picture of Anchal waving her $100 bill when buying tequilla shots for the group...

Don't know who this guy is ...

Me, Anchal, Alison, and Natasha

The cool shades! Natasha and William

... or a picture of me falling to the ground at the dancefloor ... Natasha thought I passed out or had alcohol poisoning. Hey, it was Anchal's fault. I didn't want to dance as I was too tired. I already dozed off on the couch when she pulled me back to the dancefloor ... lost my balance, and then fell. It's a shame though because no one else helped me except Anchal and Natasha. Cis ... maybe I'm not hot or sexy enough for the guys. Tsk tsk tsk ... such a sad case.

Anyway, did I mention about our beautiful hotel?

No balcony, jump to your death!

This hotel Le Presidante looked decent on the outside from afar. We went into the lobby ... nice and cosy. They had a swimming pool too. Everything was okay until we took the elevator up to the second floor. What was the first thing we saw? Torn walls, buckets of paint or rubbish everywhere, carpets were dirty and ... uh, it was just horrible. Not a pleasing sight when you are so tired from the journey and you just want to rest in a comfortable hotel. Apparently, the hotel was under renovation and they had to stop work because a whole bunch of university studends had to stay there for the conference.

The horror doesn't end there. I remember Anchal complaining about the smell of the bed, or the pillow. Across from the hall, Nyssa mentioned that they had a balcony. We got excited and wanted to check out our balcony as well but ... we didn't see one. Instead, we saw the cars at the parking lot below us! Really ... it was quite frustrating at first but in the end we didn't care much since we didn't have to pay for accomodation and travel.

Back in Edmonton ... all looking tired (18th October 2006, 12.25 a.m.)

Just last week, we decided to carve some pumpkins in conjunction with Halloween. This was my first time carving a pumpking and it was really fun! We also planned an operation to scare Anchal with pumpkins. Haha, that was funny. We left the lit pumpkins outside her door and hid at the side of the house. Jackie phoned her and told her that someone's outside her door. It was interesting to see the look on her face when we jumped out from the side and scared her.