Lithuania and Ukraine were both part of the Soviet Union before it broke up. I was born in Ukraine in 1991, after it was back to being an independent country. My friend was born one year earlier, a month after Lithuania declared its independence. We come from the same roots, and although we may not understand our shared history, we feel it in our bones. She probably understands me better than anyone I've ever met. She gets my crazy, because she's crazy too. The kind of crazy that believes some forces are beyond our control. That can't help but listen when the universe is sending a message. The kind of crazy that takes chances and sometimes gets the message wrong. The kind of crazy that looks past logic and rationality just because of a feeling. Few people understand or appreciate that kind of crazy. Few people appreciate passion, it scares them. So I've learned to tone it down, most of the time. But I don't have to with her, I can be all the crazy I want.
She breathes crazy, and she's one of the most passionate people I've ever met. I feel that she is my sister, so I feel obligated to preserve that while she figures things out. Life hasn't thrown her easy cards lately, and when you feel everything intensely it's harder to deal with a bad hand. I worry that she's not going to get as much out of life as she deserves. Right now what she deserves is for someone to take care of her, to listen to her, and I can do that. I want to do that. Isn't that what were all here for? To take care of each other? It's not a stupid idea. People need to appreciate other people more, myself included.
That was a little heavier than I had planned but my point is that I have found a sister in an unexpected place, and that sometimes you need to leave your comfort zone to find what you're looking for.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Third wheel in a Swedish-Dutch love affair
Everyone hates being third wheel, right? Wrong. Honestly, I love being the third wheel with a cool couple. I'm so good at it, it might just be my calling in life.
Here are a few tips to being the best third wheel ever, based on situations I found myself in. Apparently I'm into lists now.
1) Stayed over at my friend's house one night. The next night I woke up and found her and her boytoy in bed begging for pancakes because her room mate (who was still sleeping) stupidly promised them pancakes in the morning. I hop into the shower and when I get out, their door is closed and the music is on loud. Good cover up...I decide to make them breakfast. By the time I find all of the ingredients and a good recipe they should be done. I mean, they started "listening to music" while I was in the shower. An hour later, pancake batter is made, kitchen and living room are cleaned, music is still blaring loudly. I have an interview in an hour so I have to leave, but not before leaving a note that went something like this: Here is the pancake batter I made, unfortunately I had to leave. Hope you enjoy it after your sex session :)
Lesson: When the couple you're third-wheeling is getting busy, make them some food for after they're done. They're going to need the calories. Also, leave a witty note that they will both enjoy and then put it on the fridge. True story.
P.S. Props for the long session, they legit deserved pancakes.
2) When the couple is being too cutesy, don't get bitter. There's nothing worse than a bitter third wheel, you will get fired ASAP. Instead, channel their cuteness and make a cutesy playlist for them. Cause we've all been at that stage and there's nothing better than listening to songs like She's Got You High by Mumm-ra to compliment what you're feeling. Furthermore, you've just made an awesome playlist that you can also enjoy. It's win/win.
Lesson: Use their romance to your creative advantage. Because lets face it, going from guy to guy due to the fact that you live all the way across the ocean (and you know that falling in love in Europe would be just plain stupid) isn't that inspiring. It's fun, but Justin Timberlake's Rock Your Body, while sexy, isn't exactly a piece of art.
3) I'm going to put the lesson first this time. Clear and simple: Share.
Now I know what you're thinking, not in THAT way, although my Swedish friend did jokingly suggest it (she has less of a filter than I do). What I mean is that you shouldn't pretend that you don't know every funny, silly, embarrassing detail about the couple. Talk about it, all the time, to everyone. Maybe not everyone, but anyone who will appreciate it. This was actually started by the Dutch half of the couple. The first time I met him we were talking about Rotterdam (a city in Holland, for all you non-Dutch people. Yes, there are cities in Holland other than Amsterdam), and how he had showed my Swedish friend around the city. We got to the part when they were "sitting on a park bench and talking", and I pretended that's the story that I was told, but he laughed and said "yeah, just sitting on a park bench" sarcastically. Park bench is now added to my list, although they got interrupted by a screaming woman in the forest, so I'll tread with caution. Dutch people are direct, and I love it. After that I felt free to discuss their private life all the time, a favorite hobby of mine.
Best news is that I'm going to be the ultimate third-wheel when we move to Denmark, because the Canadian and the Swede are moving in together! Next project: DJ one of their hook-ups. (100% stolen from Going the Distance)
Here are a few tips to being the best third wheel ever, based on situations I found myself in. Apparently I'm into lists now.
1) Stayed over at my friend's house one night. The next night I woke up and found her and her boytoy in bed begging for pancakes because her room mate (who was still sleeping) stupidly promised them pancakes in the morning. I hop into the shower and when I get out, their door is closed and the music is on loud. Good cover up...I decide to make them breakfast. By the time I find all of the ingredients and a good recipe they should be done. I mean, they started "listening to music" while I was in the shower. An hour later, pancake batter is made, kitchen and living room are cleaned, music is still blaring loudly. I have an interview in an hour so I have to leave, but not before leaving a note that went something like this: Here is the pancake batter I made, unfortunately I had to leave. Hope you enjoy it after your sex session :)
Lesson: When the couple you're third-wheeling is getting busy, make them some food for after they're done. They're going to need the calories. Also, leave a witty note that they will both enjoy and then put it on the fridge. True story.
P.S. Props for the long session, they legit deserved pancakes.
2) When the couple is being too cutesy, don't get bitter. There's nothing worse than a bitter third wheel, you will get fired ASAP. Instead, channel their cuteness and make a cutesy playlist for them. Cause we've all been at that stage and there's nothing better than listening to songs like She's Got You High by Mumm-ra to compliment what you're feeling. Furthermore, you've just made an awesome playlist that you can also enjoy. It's win/win.
Lesson: Use their romance to your creative advantage. Because lets face it, going from guy to guy due to the fact that you live all the way across the ocean (and you know that falling in love in Europe would be just plain stupid) isn't that inspiring. It's fun, but Justin Timberlake's Rock Your Body, while sexy, isn't exactly a piece of art.
3) I'm going to put the lesson first this time. Clear and simple: Share.
Now I know what you're thinking, not in THAT way, although my Swedish friend did jokingly suggest it (she has less of a filter than I do). What I mean is that you shouldn't pretend that you don't know every funny, silly, embarrassing detail about the couple. Talk about it, all the time, to everyone. Maybe not everyone, but anyone who will appreciate it. This was actually started by the Dutch half of the couple. The first time I met him we were talking about Rotterdam (a city in Holland, for all you non-Dutch people. Yes, there are cities in Holland other than Amsterdam), and how he had showed my Swedish friend around the city. We got to the part when they were "sitting on a park bench and talking", and I pretended that's the story that I was told, but he laughed and said "yeah, just sitting on a park bench" sarcastically. Park bench is now added to my list, although they got interrupted by a screaming woman in the forest, so I'll tread with caution. Dutch people are direct, and I love it. After that I felt free to discuss their private life all the time, a favorite hobby of mine.
Best news is that I'm going to be the ultimate third-wheel when we move to Denmark, because the Canadian and the Swede are moving in together! Next project: DJ one of their hook-ups. (100% stolen from Going the Distance)
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Life Lessons From the American (No this isn't USA bashing)
I acknowledge that I am an awfully bad blogger. I'm just going to lie to myself and say the stuff I do blog is extra good/relevant/interesting to make up for the weeks/months of inaction.
The following are a few lessons my American friend taught/reiterated to me last night.
1. Canadians listen up. We like to think that we're better than Americans. We're nicer, we're smarter, we're more accepting, the list goes on and on. We need to get off our high horse because this makes us both arrogant and blind. Yes some Americans (especially in the south) are incredibly racist and ignorant, but so are some Canadians. Proof? When I was raising money for Somalia this summer in Ottawa, one man told me he didn't want to donate because "They're all pirates". This was not an isolated incident. Just because some Americans are racist doesn't mean all of them are, and it is not a defining feature of the country. To be fair there are some things that happen in America that would not in Canada (trying to pass a law that would define a fertilized embryo a person, just as one example), but our culture/history is very similar.
2. The fact that we have more social welfare in Canada than America doesn't make us better than them, it makes our programs better than theirs. This is a HUGE difference that many people don't understand. My American friend has health insurance for the first time in his life because the Netherlands requires you to get health insurance if you're studying here. His dad was an architect and mom was an artist so their jobs did not provide them with a health insurance plan and they couldn't really afford to pay for private health insurance on their own. A couple years ago his sister had to get her kidney removed, because of the medical bills their family went bankrupt and lost their house. Their family is separated now. I did not ask why, but going through that might have had something to do with it. Regardless, this is an incredibly sad and common story in America, people there go through things like this all the time. Yes, things like this happen in Canada as well but they're not as common. For this, we should respect Americans and the things that they have to go through because of a bad system, not feel better than them.
3. My American friend works 12 hours a day most days and still goes to school back in California. It took him three years to save up money so he could come to Europe. I have never worked that hard in my life. I work a fair amount, but my parents help me a lot. He reminds me of one of my best friends back in Ottawa. She mostly provides for herself to go to school, with the help of the government etc. I admire her a lot, she deserves everything that she wants from the world and rarely ever gets it. My American friend works harder than she does. What does this say? One, as people we are very similar and there are incredibly hard working and amazing people everywhere. Two, we need to stop giving Americans crap for being Americans, they go through enough crap already.
These aren't brilliant epiphanies, they're just a few things I learned last night once a party died down and there were three people left in the room.
Stay tuned from lessons I learned and am still learning from my Lithuanian friend.
The following are a few lessons my American friend taught/reiterated to me last night.
1. Canadians listen up. We like to think that we're better than Americans. We're nicer, we're smarter, we're more accepting, the list goes on and on. We need to get off our high horse because this makes us both arrogant and blind. Yes some Americans (especially in the south) are incredibly racist and ignorant, but so are some Canadians. Proof? When I was raising money for Somalia this summer in Ottawa, one man told me he didn't want to donate because "They're all pirates". This was not an isolated incident. Just because some Americans are racist doesn't mean all of them are, and it is not a defining feature of the country. To be fair there are some things that happen in America that would not in Canada (trying to pass a law that would define a fertilized embryo a person, just as one example), but our culture/history is very similar.
2. The fact that we have more social welfare in Canada than America doesn't make us better than them, it makes our programs better than theirs. This is a HUGE difference that many people don't understand. My American friend has health insurance for the first time in his life because the Netherlands requires you to get health insurance if you're studying here. His dad was an architect and mom was an artist so their jobs did not provide them with a health insurance plan and they couldn't really afford to pay for private health insurance on their own. A couple years ago his sister had to get her kidney removed, because of the medical bills their family went bankrupt and lost their house. Their family is separated now. I did not ask why, but going through that might have had something to do with it. Regardless, this is an incredibly sad and common story in America, people there go through things like this all the time. Yes, things like this happen in Canada as well but they're not as common. For this, we should respect Americans and the things that they have to go through because of a bad system, not feel better than them.
3. My American friend works 12 hours a day most days and still goes to school back in California. It took him three years to save up money so he could come to Europe. I have never worked that hard in my life. I work a fair amount, but my parents help me a lot. He reminds me of one of my best friends back in Ottawa. She mostly provides for herself to go to school, with the help of the government etc. I admire her a lot, she deserves everything that she wants from the world and rarely ever gets it. My American friend works harder than she does. What does this say? One, as people we are very similar and there are incredibly hard working and amazing people everywhere. Two, we need to stop giving Americans crap for being Americans, they go through enough crap already.
These aren't brilliant epiphanies, they're just a few things I learned last night once a party died down and there were three people left in the room.
Stay tuned from lessons I learned and am still learning from my Lithuanian friend.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
We are not alone
The first thing that europe taught me, and keeps teaching me, (other than the fact that mostly everyone in the Netherlands would be qualified as a hipster back in Canada) is that you are never alone.
On the train from Amsterdam to Utrecht I was standing near the doors, trying to balance all of my bags, and ended up striking a conversation with a guy sitting on the stairs. Not only did it turn out that he was on the same plane as me, but he grew up right outside of the town that I went to high school in. In fact, he lived on the same road as one of my high school best friends. It's quite possible that I passed by his house many times and never even knew it.
At first we bonded about our devastation upon Jack Layton's death, which coincided with our departure from Canada. It was a comfort to be able to talk to somebody about the man who both figuratively and literaly moved so many Canadians. Not many people outside of Canada had heard of him, but he will never be forgotten within the country. The conversation went on from there, about school, work, ambitions etc.
We were both getting off at Utrecht, but I was staying there, and he was transfering trains to go to Cologne, Germany for an internship. Yet in our half-hour conversation we formed a friendship. If either one of us is ever visiting each other's cities, we have a place to crash. Free accomodation has got to be the best form of friendship.
This wasn't just an isolated incident.
On our first introduction day at the university, I met a guy who goes to my home university back in Ottawa. I had never seen him before, but in a school of about 25,000 students it's hard to get to know everyone. Still, it seems strange that even though we go to the same school our first meeting was half-way across the world.
I ended up riding side saddle on the back of my bike, while he biked back into city centre. We tried the other way around but my biking skills are not that great. This is probably cooler than any bonding moment we could have ever shared in Ottawa.
People told me I was brave going to a different continent by myself for an entire year. But I stopped being alone as soon as I got on that train. This is the type of experience that makes you realise that you can plan a trip to Barcelona with someone you've only known for two weeks and be ecstatic about it.
I've been here almost a month and I probably have a place to stay in ten different countries, if ever I decided to go. Being alone is starting to become a very foreign concept.
On the train from Amsterdam to Utrecht I was standing near the doors, trying to balance all of my bags, and ended up striking a conversation with a guy sitting on the stairs. Not only did it turn out that he was on the same plane as me, but he grew up right outside of the town that I went to high school in. In fact, he lived on the same road as one of my high school best friends. It's quite possible that I passed by his house many times and never even knew it.
At first we bonded about our devastation upon Jack Layton's death, which coincided with our departure from Canada. It was a comfort to be able to talk to somebody about the man who both figuratively and literaly moved so many Canadians. Not many people outside of Canada had heard of him, but he will never be forgotten within the country. The conversation went on from there, about school, work, ambitions etc.
We were both getting off at Utrecht, but I was staying there, and he was transfering trains to go to Cologne, Germany for an internship. Yet in our half-hour conversation we formed a friendship. If either one of us is ever visiting each other's cities, we have a place to crash. Free accomodation has got to be the best form of friendship.
This wasn't just an isolated incident.
On our first introduction day at the university, I met a guy who goes to my home university back in Ottawa. I had never seen him before, but in a school of about 25,000 students it's hard to get to know everyone. Still, it seems strange that even though we go to the same school our first meeting was half-way across the world.
I ended up riding side saddle on the back of my bike, while he biked back into city centre. We tried the other way around but my biking skills are not that great. This is probably cooler than any bonding moment we could have ever shared in Ottawa.
People told me I was brave going to a different continent by myself for an entire year. But I stopped being alone as soon as I got on that train. This is the type of experience that makes you realise that you can plan a trip to Barcelona with someone you've only known for two weeks and be ecstatic about it.
I've been here almost a month and I probably have a place to stay in ten different countries, if ever I decided to go. Being alone is starting to become a very foreign concept.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Wanted: Hansome male, 20-25 years old, strong with a sense of humor (age can be negotiated up)
First thing I would like to address is the title of this blog.
Lets start with the first word. Why travelling? Well, as of Monday I'm off to Europe on an exchange program! First stop the Netherlands, where I will be surrounded by giants (The Dutch are the tallest people in the world and I am a mere 5'4, on a good day). I will also have to try Mary Jane's brownies, since they are the talk of Amsterdam.
Why Granny? Well, I've been told by mutltiple people that I dress like a 60-year-old. I take this as a compliment.Yes, I am obsessed with floral, lace and crochet but I'm not the only one. I also spent 100 dollars at Value Village after my 19th birthday, mostly on "ugly wool sweaters". This could also be called hipster, but I like granny better. Do I pull it off? Hell yes, I am one sexy grandmother ;)
I am currently attempting to pack my life into three bags (two checked and one carry-on), and unless I wanna pay a whopping $15 for every extra kg, they cannot exceed a total of 77lbs. For someone who takes triple the amount of clothes needed when going away for a weekend (I honestly just want options, what if I don't feel like wearing the outfit I picked out for that day?) you can imagine the horror of my current situation.
So, if I ever figure out how to do this, my next step will be figuring out how my tiny frame is going to transport all of it to my destination. Being a girl, I could easily convince a beautiful man to help me, yes man, not boy. I'm tired of boys. On the other hand, being the independent person that I am I want to prove that I can do this daunting task all by my lonesome. I am moving half-way across the world by myself, so this should be a piece of cake.
I'll let you know if the independent side of me caved to the damsel in distress, for now, back to packing
Lets start with the first word. Why travelling? Well, as of Monday I'm off to Europe on an exchange program! First stop the Netherlands, where I will be surrounded by giants (The Dutch are the tallest people in the world and I am a mere 5'4, on a good day). I will also have to try Mary Jane's brownies, since they are the talk of Amsterdam.
Why Granny? Well, I've been told by mutltiple people that I dress like a 60-year-old. I take this as a compliment.Yes, I am obsessed with floral, lace and crochet but I'm not the only one. I also spent 100 dollars at Value Village after my 19th birthday, mostly on "ugly wool sweaters". This could also be called hipster, but I like granny better. Do I pull it off? Hell yes, I am one sexy grandmother ;)
I am currently attempting to pack my life into three bags (two checked and one carry-on), and unless I wanna pay a whopping $15 for every extra kg, they cannot exceed a total of 77lbs. For someone who takes triple the amount of clothes needed when going away for a weekend (I honestly just want options, what if I don't feel like wearing the outfit I picked out for that day?) you can imagine the horror of my current situation.
So, if I ever figure out how to do this, my next step will be figuring out how my tiny frame is going to transport all of it to my destination. Being a girl, I could easily convince a beautiful man to help me, yes man, not boy. I'm tired of boys. On the other hand, being the independent person that I am I want to prove that I can do this daunting task all by my lonesome. I am moving half-way across the world by myself, so this should be a piece of cake.
I'll let you know if the independent side of me caved to the damsel in distress, for now, back to packing
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