Russianified

I'm back in Toronto! By some miracle, I managed to catch all my flights and even my baggage made it with me! I can't say the same for my family, who is still stuck in Munich. Still not sure what went wrong or who to blame, but we can be sure it was the Germans...

The trip was very tiring, but I saw a lot and I learnt a lot.

My abstinence from my addictions didn't last long. My plane landed at 3pm and I was back in my apartment and online at 4:30 and on the volleyball court by 6 :)

--Винсент (Vincent in Russian)

Offline until the end of the month

I'm taking off in a few hours for my trip and will be offline until the end of the month. I'm not bringing my laptop and hope to not touch the Internet. It's gonna be great :). It's also going to be the longest that I haven't played volleyball since probably 2 years ago. It might be good though. It'll give me time to refocus, re-energize, and spark that craving for volleyball again :)

In the meantime, expect this space to be stagnant for the next 3 weeks and entertain yourselves.

I'm ready to invade Russia

I just got my passport back from the Belarus Consulate and now with my Russian and Belarusian visas, I can go on my trip and come back with one of those Russian brides :p. I'm also mentally prepared for my trip after playing at Antibes yesterday when the gym we had booked was cancelled without our knowledge. It's garbage ball at Antibes, but the low net and the Russians make things interesting. I felt right at home with the Russians, as I recognized most of the people there and they remembered me :).

My Northern Europe and Russia trip is a bus tour with my family and we're going May 11th - 29th. Here's the itinerary:

1. Denmark


2. Sweden


3. Finland


4. Russia


5. Belarus


6. Poland


7. Germany

We're doing Northern and Eastern Europe this time after doing England, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Spain back in 2003:

The guy on the right was not part of our bus tour.
He was trying to sell us souvenirs :p

I had planned on being in Toronto this summer instead of doing an internship, but I'm still going to be out of town quite a bit. Here are my summer travel plans:
Toronto -> Europe -> Toronto -> Minneapolis -> Toronto -> Winnipeg -> Toronto -> San Francisco -> Toronto

I'm the 'V' in OVR!

OVR: Oliver, Vince, and Reggie. The birthday boys!!!

Me with my "Out of Towners": Chris, Vince, Jon, and Jill

Me and the Ladies!
I'm always on the left b/c I can only take good self-photos right handed :p

Me and the Boys (I was being omnisexual)

More pictures

If you had told me back in high school that Jill and Chris would fly to Toronto for my birthday and that I was having my birthday bash at a club, I would've told you to stop taking drugs. For those of you who didn't go to high school with us, I wasn't friends with Jill and Chris back then (they weren't cool enough for me ;)). We were ok with each other, but we didn't talk or hang out b/c we just had different social circles. It wasn't until after when I was in undergrad with Chris and Rob did I become friends with them and then by association, Jill and others. Weird how things turned out the way they did, but I'm glad that we all had a second chance with each other. I'm still amazed that they both just came on a whim (they made independent decisions to come) and it was awesome having them here to celebrate with me!

Anyways, Saturday was the big party! It was a club night hosted by my racist volleyball team and a joint fundraiser for the volleyball club and a birthday bash. We had it in a private lounge and we filled it pretty good. Thanks to everyone that came out for my birthday and to support my club!

I had an amazing time! It helped that between the friends that I brought, the people on my team, and friends I knew but came with people on my team, I knew like 40-50 people there! Plus, I could basically get my way into any group as I would know the person that brought them to the club and then I could use my "I'm the 'V' in OVR" line :)

I was a bit concerned going in as I had probably a dozen people tell me that they were gonna get me hammered and wanted to see me puke. People seem to want to see me wasted. This is a trend that has gone on for a while. Probably b/c I usually come across as quiet, shy, and controlled to those I don't really know. It reminds me of the "Just shy, not anti-social (you can talk to me!)" t-shirt from xkcd.

Knowing that my alcohol tolerance is low and wanting to last longer than Vic and Nelson at their birthday party, I started avoiding people that were trying to buy me drinks around drink #9 and also passing drinks along to Chris and others :)

I had reached a sufficient amount of alcohol quite early in the night as you can see from the progression of the redness of my face in the photos. In my defense, it was really hot in there, so that didn't help my redness. I then proceeded to float around to say "hi" to people that I knew and to take a photo with them. My way of saying "hi" when drunk is to grind up against the person from behind and wait for them to turn around :). Girl, guy, I didn't discriminate! I was being omnisexual (reference to a tv show that I'll be blogging about soon). The jury's still out as to whether I grinded with more girls or guys :p. Oh, and I managed to cause one fight to break out :p

Can't wait for the next clubbing night!

Birthday / Weekend / Winnipeggers' Visit / GReunion 3.1 Recap

Just wanted to recap the past few days.

Thursday

• "Bong'ed" it up for "DV"
  


• Jill flew into Toronto from Winnipeg

Friday

• Lunch at Korean town with Jill. Mmmmm... red bean walnut cakes and red bean shaved ice!
  
  


• All-you-can-eat sushi with CCF'ers. The waiters were amused by the loud Happy Birthday singing. I got the full 26+ birthday beats outside.
  


• Phantom of the Opera movie at Innis where we had to change rooms half-way in after getting kicked out of the TV room

Saturday

• 4 hours of pick-up volleyball with my racist volleyball club


• Chris flew into Toronto from Winnipeg


• Cake! (it couldn't handle the necessary # of candles)
  


• GReunion 3.1: Jonny joins the Winnipeggers for dinner at Marche (aka Richtree Market)
  


• OVR Pass. The reason Jill and Chris were in Toronto and it needed its own post ;)
  


• Grub at Gold Stone at 3am
  


• Chris and Jill slept together... ok, well, they shared my futon :p

Sunday

• Stumbled out of bed around 11 and was not in a great condition after 4 hours of volleyball and 4 hours of clubbing the day before


• Brunch at Over Easy with the 'Peggers


• Wild goose chase for a bike store and a windbreaker for Dayna


• Centre Island
  • Not much open, but the view was nice and it was a nice escape from the city
  
  
  • It's a bit ironic being there with the Winnipeggers. People in Toronto view Centre Island as a bit of a getaway and a taste of rustic/country/small town living. But from a Winnipegger's view, it's just a fake version of cottage country around Winnipeg :p
  
  


• Finally sat together in the subway
  


• Cinn-a-ma-bun


• Drinks and food on the patio of Jack Astor


• Chris left for the airport and apparently didn't have a good trip back (see Chris's comment)

Monday

• The Hour
  • Jill got us (free) tickets to go watch The Hour, well, actually to go watch the host, George Stroumboulopoulos (of Much Music fame)
  
  
  • Took me 10 min. to blade down there from my apartment
  
  
  • I had never seen the show before, but figured it'd be interesting and I'd keep her company. It's a news/interview show.
  
  
  • Guests were Ishmael Beah (pre-taped) and Peter Krause (live). We also got to see the interview with Ian McEwan, which will be aired sometime in the future.
  
  
  • I was surprised that George took the time to talk to the audience during commercial breaks and after the show. He stayed for at least an hour afterwards to talk to us and to get photos with people. I chatted with him for bit and he's a pretty cool guy. Really down to Earth. Apparently, any time he mentions Wikipedia from now on, he'll think about me :)
  
  
  • There were a good half dozen or so Winnipeggers in the audience
  
  
  • I saw someone else with my ipod sock camera case!
  
  

  Me and George

Jill's covered this story as well

My pictures
Jill's pictures