Summer 2010 Events

I am so sad to say that summer is coming to an end... what a summer this has been! It has been, probably, the most eventful one in a while! It feels like just yesterday that I was finishing up my last project and handing in my Sound II portfolio! I had started taking better care of my health and body by going to the gym with my best friend, then work started up and I had a blast taking care of kids and helping them discover their creativity and talents that they knew not of. It was hard saying goodbye to them all last Friday, and much harder to part ways from the staff that I had grown so close to throughout this summer! But who's to say that I'll never see these amazing individuals again. I wish them all the best with their endeavours and challenges to come (hopefully with less challenges).


Besides the casual get togethers with some pals throughout the summer, my main excitement were the following;


1. Trying out Montreal's very own Candi Bar
2. Going on a fantastic cruise with my family
3. Heading up to St. Sauveur with some of the gals
4. Seeing the Backstreet Boys with Shawn Desman and Dan Talevski
5. Having a hell of a time with another close friend of mine seeing Green Day and A.F.I.


Montreal's Candi Bar

Need I say more? These were the kinds of drinks that they served. Although I'll admit that they were quite pricy... they were definitely worth it. For 11$ you get 2oz of what ever alcohol comes in the drink, the rest is just slush and a tiny treat. Sufficient to say that it satisfied my ring pop craving. With only two drinks that night, I can honestly say that one was enough. I could barely get through the second one. It was just way too sweet. So if you have a huge sweet tooth, this is definitely the place to check out (unless you're diabetic then I highly recommend you don't come here at all).


A great evening of fun with two of my best girlfriends! They are like my adoptive family. Not even adopted. I consider them sisters to me :) Great fun, great music too! We were rather excited (pre-drinks) when they started playing the Presets' "Girl and the Sea"... fun playlist and cute venue.

Carnival Miracle cruise with the family 2010

What fun this family vacation has been! We've never been on a cruise before, so this was extremely exciting for all of us! This photo that you see was taken at Grand Turk (Caicos and Turks). The cruise went along the Eastern Caribbean and what a sight it was. I have never seen water so blue. It has definitely changed how I look at water here back at home... even though some of our lakes can be rather clean (more up north) it's just not the same. But pretty salty. Very salty.

So this is the boat we boarded on... absolutely beautiful with so many different activities to do each day and night! There were two elegant nights where we had to dress more formal, shows in a nice theatre called the "Phantom" every night with excellent performers! I do hope that I can join them one day. Preferably as part of the stage dancers, but sound tech doesn't sound too bad either. Besides the point. The view on the ship was beautiful when it came to sunsets... I could only imagine how beautiful it was for the sunrises. Although I added a bit of photoshop to this one to give it a bigger contrast, here's a photo from one of the sunsets I took to give you an idea.

Alright, having some technical difficulty with the text and this image right now... but isn't that something? I don't know where we've been the past few years and how we could skip out on something like this. But if there's anything that I've learnt while being on this trip, besides being eternally grateful for being able to experience something like this with my family, is that everyone should have this experience (whether with family or friends) at least once. It's one that you'll never regret! Unless you have a phobia of water and being at sea... then maybe not. We had spent four days at sea and three days exploring Grand Turk (Caicos and Turks), Half Moon Cay and Nassau (Bahamas). All islands that everyone should see and visit. Well, for Half Moon Cay you'd have to take a Carnival cruise line since it's owned by the line itself. But an experience worth trying! Saw a few couples taking their honeymoon on this cruise too (they were actually married the day we all boarded)!

St. Sauveur with three of my chicas

Can't say that this trip on it's own was boring at all! What great times we had!! We started our morning off with a dip in the wave pool, daaaamn it was cold :S but that certainly got the blood pumping to keep us warm as we explored the entire water park! I've never used this much sun screen though, we even polished off one of the bottles :S and yet we still burned.

The rides were just different adventures on their own! Ironically, on our first ride, Cassy was worried about being left behind with Tara. So Cat and I had told the two to go on first and have us following them just in case we did lose one of them. Here's where the irony kicks in... Cassy ended up getting to the bottom first and Cat ended up getting lost behind. Gave us a good giggle while walking to our next ride; the Colorado. It's literally two people on a raft going down man-made rapids. Tara and I had so much fun despite the water feeling like it was way below zero! Then at one point, our laughter both ended at the same time because we both ended up getting a huge mouthful of water. We honestly panicked a little because we were trying to breath... but seeing as more water kept coming in, and the water being cold so it tightened the lungs... let's just say we're glad to have been able to catch some clean fresh air.

Backstreet Boys ft. Shawn Desman and Dan Talevski

For some reason, I can't get this text to go along the sides of these photos anymore... it's really starting to bug me right now. Anyways, this was a much more pleasant concert than I had anticipated! Not only did my sister enjoy the show (it was her first real concert), but it had brought back memories for me that I had so long forgotten.

The boys had played more of their older tunes rather than their latest ones, which had the entire full stadium fall in love with them all over again. More mature than they were ten years ago, my love for the BSB has definitely rekindled. They had played "the One" off their Millenium album, which in my opinion was one of my favourite songs and should have been on their Greatest Hits album. Definitely a concert that I will remember for a while! They even had Shawn Desman open up for them and he had also played a lot of familiar tunes that we all had loved as kids. I'll admit that I didn't know about Dan Talevski (and still don't) except for the fact that Howie D. manages him. He seemed okay... not exactly the same genre that I know and love, but he has potential.

And last, but not the least...

Green Day ft. A.F.I.

Nothing can describe the pure happiness I was feeling that evening... that was, until I realized how close I'd be standing near the band as they sang out my favourite songs from every single album they've released! That's right. There's no zoom on this photo! I was two people away from Billie Joe Armstrong that night! I can't even begin to express what kind of concert it was that night! You really had to be there to believe it!

Many people didn't agree with the 21st Century Breakdown album, and I'll admit that in the beginning, I was not completely happy with it either. Some of their songs had riffs and chords from tunes in American Idiot and their last song "See the Light" sounds like a song from the 80s! But over time, I grew to like then love this album as much as I loved any other of their works. Obviously it's not the same as Dookie, Insomnia, or Nimrod... but at the same time, they were able to create an entire album as a soundtrack to fit the lifestyles of two characters. No one but these three geniuses can pull that off.

So for me, this was definitely the concert of the century :) and I cannot WAIT to see them again!

Cheers,

C.