Mario is a little confused about where he is and all he wants to do is go home.
Everything is made by hand then edited in After Effects for a project at Vancouver Film School (VFS)

Make sure to comment! Especially if you have questions!

ENJOY!

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So that’s awesome news, in strange news, The Teen from College Freshman meme (See Sample meme ,via Quickmeme) has appeared in the paper, but this time, as a senior.

Once the picture (Left) hit Reddit, almost immediately after, a new meme had started. (Bottom,via Quickmeme) This all happened 5 hours ago…

My Art & Creativity term 3 final, first I should explain the assignment, which is best done on the schools student resource website, so, quote it is:

“The work must creatively interpret and articulate defining characteristics from
one of the following areas of study this term in both FORM & CONTENT:
Futurism, Constructivism, Dada, Surrealism, Pop Art, Conceptual Art and Post-Modern Art.”

So for my project I decided to go after the movements I really thought we’re interesting and yet also ridiculous. This train of thought lead me to Dada and Pop Art, I chose Dada because I was interested by the artists idea of challenging; what art is, what people accept as art, who makes the rules and where we draw the line.  I chose Pop Art because I love the idea of using ready-made objects, disposable objects and iconic imagery that everyone can connect with.That’s when I realised that the assignment was to accurately display knowledge of a single movement, through process and content, so through the combination of the two movements my piece became post-modern. To the right is an example of a famous Dada work, click it for more information. [image via Artlex]

On to my first attempt, I really wanted to take something in my life that was a huge ionic image that everyone knows and push it in everyone faces! I wanted to have something small and seemingly insignificant and make it a size that more represents its social and economical presence. I found myself drawn to the idea of a brand like Pepsi, something that is worldwide and everyone knows about it. My first thought was to actually take the Pepsi cans and recreate a company logo with them, possibly; Costco or Safeway.

This picture [Weburbanist] shows the first idea I was considering pursuing, though in this example they didn’t use the cans themselves but the containers holding the cans to create their image.

After some deliberation I realised the scope of that project was unattainable given my other projects on the go as well as my current time restraints. So I moved on but not completely, I took the idea of the Pepsi can and logo, and simply focused it. I wanted to create one singular giant Pepsi can.

“WHAT A GREAT IDEA”, I thought to myself. Ugh, ideas are awesome, but building that idea is what really counts. So here are some pictures of this attempt before I completely gave up on the giant Pepsi can.

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Finally I thought, there has to be a better way! It was then I walked away from the project, sat at my computer and began to ‘Think’, it’s usually a process of taking my mind off of the project, because it always seems that when to try to not think about a project that’s when you come up with the best ideas for it.

I realized my solution, my goal was suddenly in my grasp, I knew what I had to do. I took the idea of global brands that we all know and love, and showed them for what they really are. I wanted to create a metonymic example of two major brands and their rivalries, along with a bit of a comment on modern-day racism and overall violent crime. This idea lead me straight back to my first thoughts involving; the everyday, assemblage and Pepsi, but this time Coca-Cola was invited.

Here are the final results of this project.

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Now for those of you that haven’t seen Workaholics, you really should watch the show. (Then you can be cool and know why this video is funny/awesome)

[via Facebook]

Also a classmate posted a link to this remix, I’ve got to say, it’s been on repeat for me ever since.

[Link]

Anyway here are a couple things I’ve done for school in the past little while;

My latest motion assignment,

[Link]

A cool x-ray effect done in class,

[Link]

A new motion assignment,

[Link]

My Final version of an old motion assignment.

[Link]

…then again maybe I should just be shut-up and ride the damn train!

A starving college student in modern-day Vancouver, deals with a strange man who continually appears to him. Unable to sleep or pay his bills he struggles to keep from being kicked out of his school or worse, his apartment

A college pool party hosted by a freshmen as an attempt to become popular is interrupted when realize they are being watched by something. The group attempts to find out what it is and most importantly stay alive.

As teenager deals with the death of his father, he starts to dig into his fathers past. When he realizes that his father may not be the man he always seemed to be, his whole life starts to turn upside down.

I made Ironman a bit bigger this time, seemed to fit the frame a bit better.

But I always try to find time to work on a few side projects, though I have some school projects that definitely have their own merit and I will be posting them.

As well I’m planning on updating the pictures to have all of my school projects, and a few of my own.

The Kanye West & Jay Z video will probably take back burner for now, I have downloaded a bunch of other people’s footage from YouTube from the same songs on the same day in Vancouver, so it will work well with my footage.

I really want the video to have a crowd feel, like all the footage is connected to each person that was there and all the footage shows a different persons story from the concert.

But as I said that’s a back burner project for now.

A school project I’m working on now is a basic animation in after effects, which for my experience level with after effects is a joke. So I decided to challenge myself a bit and really try to make it something I will be proud of. So far I have a picture I took off my balcony (animated so the clouds move) then I drew Ironman, scanned it, live traced it, colored it. Then I decided it would be more realistic of he had some smoke coming from him, so I took a cloud image and altered it into a smoke trail. The last thing I have done to it so far is; I added some words for him to crash though, they are meant to be as if Ironman is the one saying them.

Soooo when that’s done I’ll post it!

More than likely it’s a combination of all of these things that make the experience, or maybe it’s simply the people you came with. It seems, what ever the reason, Jay-Z and Kanye West created an unforgettable experience that would be hard for any performer to follow.

And guess what? Alyssa & Myself took some video, so naturally I’m going to edit it into a spectacular display. BUTTT it is Christmas, so I might be lazy. You’ll see it soon.

Once my music was paused it was clear to me what it was, a man, singing. Now,  I thought ok no problem just a crazy guy singing his heart out, so I turned my music back on… Then he started to walk from person to person in our near empty train car, which reminded me of an unpleasant experience on a German train. (A drunk couple of guys were harassing myself, Alyssa and a local high school trip with a couple of teachers) So I decided to pause my music again to really get a taste of the action! He was attempting to get each person in the train car to give him either a fist bump, or a strange handshake, most likely one of his own invention.

The crackhead reminded me of this guy.

Once he finished with that, he sat down next to the a girl in front of me and proceeded to ask her “Hey, are you black? are you?” She, looking less than amused by him and his antics replied with a simple “ya”. He then went on to ask her, with an increasing giddiness in his voice, “Well do you smoke crack then?” You can only imagine the look on her face when she looked over and told him no. He didn’t understand why she wouldn’t “Well why not? I smoke crack everyday! Well and I fight everyday” He opened his mouth to show her his broken teeth from fighting, “Check it out some guy the other day smashed my face up, but don’t worry, I broke his kneecap.” So at this point I was mildly, lets say shaken, by this strange man.

She stood up and walked over to the door, he followed, and told her to say hello to her ‘Old man’. Once she walked off he continued to yell after her, saying “I’ll kill em all, for you baby. If that’s what you want” The door shut and we kept going, he continued to mummer “kill ‘em all” then he started to practice his ‘Karate’ punching the air vigorously, and yelling “WAAAAAHHH” “CHEEEAAAHH”

A few stops later, we had some fresh meat on the train to keep him occupied, trying to get more handshakes and fist bumps, then he finally realized that he had a giant trail of snot running from his nose to about his waist. So he grabbed some newspaper off the ground, set it in his lap and blew he nose as hard as he could. Snot was everywhere….

Finally after harassing a few more people, and after being told to sit down, he told everyone “Don’t worry I am getting off here anyway, I need more room to stretch out, I’m going to go believe what I believe, I am going to create, my beliefs are what I believe, you know.” And with that truly confusing sentence complete, he was gone.

After he left I felt like I needed to congratulate everyone on the train car for making it through.

Oh, p.s. tomorrow is the end of my second term, YEAH!!!

Where are you going to be for Christmas?

Well after, frankly little to no deliberation, I decided the best course of action was to upload it to the Facebook page.

So if you have liked the page already you should already know about the first video, but if you haven’t already liked the page, you should head on over to Facebook and like our page!

And remember to keep watching, you never know when something might turn up…

Facebook Link Here & at the top of the page.

At first you think “oh, ok there’s homeless people everywhere” You keep walking, looking straight forward the entire time. Then after enough time you start to get curious, you glance over here and there, checking out what they are up to. You start to read the signs they put up, overhear brief parts of the stories they tell to strangers. But you never get too close because after all, they are still desperate people who need to do what they have to, to survive.

Now the worst thing you can do is assume the crazy people are the same as the homeless people, while most times it seems like there is a direct correlation between crazy and homeless, but the city is a strange place. In the city it seems like if you interact with a stranger more than likely they will be slightly to moderately insane.

Lastly I would like to say, if you claim you enjoy riding a metro or some kind of transit every day, then you are a liar and you really need to stop lying to yourself. Because really at its best moment its bearable, and those are the rare times when; it pulls up right when you get there, it’s empty, you have something to distract you from the journey, it isn’t noisy, it doesn’t smell and your seat is comfortable. Ok really what I am trying to say is it sucks, always, because all those things will never happen, especially all at the same time. At the same time…. traffic sucks, so maybe its worth riding all the way to school, everyday, pushed up against a stranger….. maybe.

Ps. Two big things; battlefield 3 is out and amazing, and I am now in my second term at VFS!

   The unedited interview

 for the autobiography of Felix Ungar

By

Thomas Emann FD51

Hello, yes, ok I’m here. I’m still not very sure about why I’m here, but I am.

So what do you want me to do? Just talk about my life… ok well, first of all I have no idea why on earth you want to hear about my life, I mean I write for living and not anything fancy either. I write the news for television, you know the stuff that people watch when their bored. My life…. Of all people, you must be reaching for a something to write about. *Cough* You will have to excuse me, I think I must be coming down with something. I have had this strange tickling in the back of my throat, and a pain in my jaw, just started the other day… I told my wife, I said I’m coming down with something! I told her that just this morning, she told me it was nothing, but I’m not so sure.

Where to start… I mean I have a hundred or more stories I could tell you, but I’m not sure which one will bore you the least. Well, I could tell you about my family? Yes, my family, well they are just amazing. Two kids, ahh they are just the light of my life and my wife, Frances, she is just amazing. The apartment we have together! Ah, it’s a thing of beauty, it’s really something to see. Well maybe not, I think the floors might be a bit dirty.. Did I remember to clean the windows this morning.. I’ll have to do that when I get home, well but then I wont have time to make dinner. Well, it might be something to see after I give it a scrubbing! On second thought it might not be anything special, I mean I would love it if it was… but it really isn’t. See and here I go boring you half to death!

*Cough* There it is again! Its getting worse too, I think on the way home I’ll stop at the pharmacy. Phil works there, he always knows what I need to set myself right. Maybe I should phone ahead… Sorry, what did you want me to talk about? My work, ok, well like I said I write for the news. I just get the details and put them on paper, that easy! I’m sure someone better will come along someday… But until then I keep my job!

Oh, that’s it for today.. Ok well I’ll see you.

(Two Weeks Later)

*Door Slams*

Well, how did it come to this? How did it get this way? Hmm I just don’t know anymore. She’s gone, she’s gone and she’s not coming back… My wife, my apartment and my kids, gone just like that. Once I had everything, now, now I’ve got nothing. Why? Why… I don’t know, maybe I didn’t keep the apartment clean enough? I tried… I could have tried harder! I know I could have. Maybe it was the cooking? She liked my cooking! That’s it! that’s.. it… I cooked better than her, she hated that fact it was better… What’s left for me now? Hmm, I guess, kill myself? Isn’t that the thing to do? Well what does it matter, she’s gone, I might as well go too.

At VFS I have handed in assignments like my; color wheel, Alphabet pictures (See Below) and Performed my memorized mini monologue. I Have also been assigned new things like; a 2 point 1 point drawing (Below), more painted color scales (Below), a squares assignment, and much more. I will try to keep up with taking pictures of the things I am working on, and just blogging in general, but we will see….

Here are my pictures for my ABC’s assignment, pretty self explanatory. Let me know what your favorites are, you know providing you like any.

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Here is my 1pt. & 2pt. drawing.

& my painted color scales

Oh and this is another color theory project!

First I am going to tell you about Thursday, we had life drawing in the morning. What happened there is, I was partnered with Davis together we drew a half drawing then swapped them to each other. Which one do you think is better/Funnier?

Once we finished with that, we moved on to drawing each other without looking at the paper, and drawing each other with looking at the paper. Both of these drawings were interesting, Davis & Myself both looked like scribbles with double sets of eyes and arms in the first drawing. The second one I ended up looked like I was from planet of the apes, and he looked like an old man.

In the afternoon we moved on to Acting, it was an hour of yoga, then we played some fun improvisation games. The improv is where I really had a chance to shine, with that done we were assigned our homework, to memorize a monologue to perform for next weeks class! I am definitely nervous for that.

Then on friday….. I woke up… sick, rode the skytrain… sick and half slept my way through Art & Creativity, which sucks because we were assigned a group project that I’m not really sure what to do on…. So the first class was a wash, but at least the project isn’t due any time soon, so that’s good.

The next class, after a painful lunch where I attempted to drink some five alive (OUCH), was called Len-Based Media. That is exactly what it sounds like, CAMERAS, we played with them, and learn about their functions. Then we were assigned our project of taking pictures of things that look like letters, due for next week.

After school I crawled onto the skytrain, and once home slumped myself into bed…

After the long weekend of resting, vitamins and medicine, I feel a little better! Oh and I managed to take most, if not all of my letter pictures! I’ll post it when it’s done!

ANYWAY, This is day three of VFS, I got my very first assignment and boy is it ever a goooood one. First though we went to a lecture on copyrights, good stuff to know, but not for three hours and not at nine in the morning. So that took place at a different campus so after it was over myself, Davis and Alex went for lunch and walked back. We managed to find a place that sells two pizza slices and a pop for three fifty!! So that was a sweet student price, that we definitely took advantage of.

After lunch we had Color Theory, which was interesting, a bit of review from high school art, but it was the first day and it is an intro course. It was about things like; Warm and cool colors, complementary colors, primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, etc. Then we went on to paint swatches of colors that make up a color wheel using water based primary colors. Then once they dried, class was over so I took them home to assemble my color wheel, check it out! (Pictures Below)

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Now I grabbed a paper this morning and I had just finished reading about the finial decision to axe the hst (YAYAYAY), it was at that point I started to realize that the liquid seemed to be slowly making its way towards me. I was NOT pleased with the idea of this foreign liquid getting all over me so, I put my paper on it to soak it up. “ah” I thought “That’s all taken care of” the great thing about that was watching people go to sit, and then realize it was wet and walk away. Then one woman looked at it, moved the paper slightly, and sat RIGHT IN IT! Now your thinking why didn’t I say something, I went to, and she just sat right in the random wetness completely knowingly. And NO she didn’t look like a crazy homeless person, she was in dress clothes….. Weird, I mean they are probably dry clean only, so why, why would she do this… I guess I will never know.

Oh, and I had day two at VFS and it was all about team building. Now I thought that would mean trust falls and other random nonsense, but it really meant six hours of talking about teams, conflict, being positive, working hard, and being nice…. Seriously, no joke. But in reality it was actually really good, and helpful. It definitely helped to put a positive spin on all the things I am not looking forward to at VFS.

While everyone started to come in and find their names, people around each table started to chat, I was sitting next to a fellow named Alex. We introduced ourselves and talked about general things. Then our program manager talked about what to expect and gave us our backpacks, with all our supplies. After we made sure we had all the supplies (Sketchbook, drawing pad, animation paper, pencils, erasers, paint brush, palette, usb stick, water bottle and an umbrella) we then walked through a tour of our campus.

Then we had a two-hour lunch, which is not usual but we finished early. After lunch we had a tech orientation, then our Digital Essentials class. That was…… dull… we went through alot of the tech stuff AGAIN but in slower and greater detail, then we talked about the course outline. The course seems to consist of file and data management, which if you know me, you know I am very organized on my computer and server so for the most part this course will be redundant. But it seems like, to the end of Digital Essentials there should be some learning with a few of the Adobe suite programs.

Then when class was out I invited Alex to come check out my place, since I had already seen his, and Alyssa was at home. The funny thing was that of all days, today the skytrain had some issues, meaning? We had to walk to a different train, ride it to a different place, walk some more, grab a bus, then ride the skytrain again to my place. All in all it took 2 hours instead of the usual forty minute skytrain ride. But we made it, and apparently his ride home was much quicker.

In our month of being here in Van we have done lots of cool things but by far one of the coolest was, watching Daniel Tosh of Tosh.0 do stand up. This was made even better by the fact that we had second row seats and he brought his dogs out on stage!!

Also I went to my first Vancouver Film School (VFS) interaction, Basically I went to orientation, which was; Student loan paperwork, new student packages, and some presentations about what to expect from the year. The student loan stuff was easy: sign here, here and here. Next was the new student packages, included was student handbook, and some papers to fill out. The papers were just basic contact information, allergies, etc. pretty basic stuff so far. Then they had us all go into the theater as the orientation was at Scotiatheater, once inside they wowed us with videos about the crazy intensity of our year, and the amazing results of the people though the school. They also touched on a few of the key concepts of the school, like the idea that we will all learn to master our crafts and we will learn to market as well as brand ourselves. It sometimes felt like they were still trying to sell the school to people but I think that was also because some people had brought their parents, and tons of people have come from all across the globe, with high expectations.

Then we filed out to meet in groups for our different programs, mine is Foundation Visual Art & Design (Class FD51). Once in the group we talked about what to expect on our first day and introduced ourselves, that done we again filed upstairs to take pictures for our student ID’s. Afterward there was a vendor fair for people that needed; housing, internet, vehicles, etc.

Then I took the skytrain home, and waited for the first day!

1. Our beds.

This one is definitely up there for me, but I know it was the number one thing Alyssa missed. I know it was number one because I’m fairly certain it was mentioned to me at very least once a day! Firstly we missed our bed very basically because it was comfortable, in Europe some of the beds were quite like army cots. I think every time we even thought about climbing into the beds we both groaned a bit, just because we knew it was going to be; uncomfortable, hot, and some times a bit itchy. We also knew we were going to wake up with the sorest backs and necks we have ever had. But going past the obvious uncomfortable issues with the beds, it was also a fact that the beds reminded us we weren’t any were near home, they were a symbol of the foreign nature of our trip.

2. The food.

I’m not sure how many times we ate bread and butter, in Poland. I started to become accustom to the feeling of constant hunger, just because I couldn’t eat bread every day for every meal, I just couldn’t.
Once outside of Poland it was a bit better, I mean we were in europe! So many places famous for their food! but when you’re a traveler on a budget… You end up not exactly eating the fine dining of Europe.

3. The language.

This one has a tendency of walking hand in hand with number two: the food, what I mean is when you want to order some food in a language you don’t understand, things get complicated. Some times we had to resort to pointing at random things on the menu, or playing a round of charades.

The language also made other tasks difficult such as; buying groceries, asking for directions, riding trains, etc. It doesn’t sound like much, but this was us: lost with no food and no one can help us.
Suddenly that sounds a lot worse.

4. The people.

Knowing in that in Canada we have people who care about us, want to help us, and want to be around us is a good thing. But in Europe we sometimes had the feeling that it was us together against everyone else, it was the feeling that there was someone trying to con you or rob you or some times just wanted nothing to do with you.

5. A home.

Lastly we missed just having a place to call home, we were constantly living out of a bag. Hoping that the next place will have a place to wash our clothes, and that we will have the time and money to wash them. We found ourselves floating from place to place, forgetting the days and where we were yesterday. The stresses of lugging our luggage along to places that we didn’t have the slightest idea of where they were, could be intense some times.

With the trip complete and us back in Canada with all the things we missed, I can tell you that even though some things are rough in Europe for us English-speaking Canadians, the things we saw and experienced in Europe made the entire trip very much worth it.

We have officially made it back to Poland safe and sound. This last week we had an amazing time in Paris and Berlin, although we did not have enough time in Berlin . . again, the entire trip was amazing and the experience of a life time. We saw and experienced things we never thought we would, but you will hear more about that when we get home
Even though we enjoyed travelling and just floating around for a while, it is nice to be back to a place to call ” home “. We are very thankful to be done with trains for a while, done while lugging around luggage and most of all, to have CLEAN CLOTHES!! WOOHOO!! Anyways, time to get some food in our bellys.

This was our last day in Amsterdam, we were very much enjoying our selves for the entirety of the stay. The last day was no exception, until about midnight… It was at that point, while I was preparing the laptop to watch one of our tv shows, I realized something. We still hadn’t booked our next hostel, which men’t we didn’t know where we were sleeping, or even where we were going.

At that point I looked at Alyssa and said, “We haven’t booked our next hostel have we?” she looked at me and replied. “… no I guess not” at this point, I started to go into panic mode. I  once again looked at her, but with more panic in my voice I asked, “So what are we doing tomorrow?” She, starting to enter her own state of shock, answered with an air of strained confidence, “We will get up, have breakfast, and get on a train.” “A train to where?” I questioned. “Paris” She replied frankly.

We continued to have our own versions of mini panic attacks until, we decided on a hostel, and booked it.

Day Two – May 26/11

We awoke early to eat our breakfast, pack, and shower. The first two went off without a hitch, then the water stopped working. So showerless, we continued to figure out our train and hostel arrangements. Once that was completed, with the water slightly running again, but not enough to shower, Alyssa helped me wash my hair in the sink of the bathroom. This was just enough to make me feel not completely fifthly. With that out of the way we piled into the shuttle from our hostel, now usually it takes a very straight forward ride that takes about 10-15 minutes to the train. This ride however was a little less straight forward, with a 10 minute detour, that no one was told about. It was apparently to drop off some friend of the driver, normally we wouldn’t mind, but the trains aren’t on our schedule.

Still we arrived with enough time to make it to our train, got aboard with minimal hassle. (Unlike our train to Amsterdam where we had to sit on the floor, crammed in the bike storage for a decent portion of the trip.) The train was a nice smooth ride, until Rotterdam. Which is where we made our switch, to head to Paris. Once we arrived in Rotterdam we quickly found our train, once we did I waited with the luggage, (After hauling it up and down huge flights of stairs.) While Alyssa got us some food to eat! Unfortunately whilst I waited, I noticed a board that told me, our train had mandatory reservations. This mean’t you need to book your seat ahead of time, which was not what we were use to, as we had Europasses. Once Alyssa was back with the food, I explained what I had found.

We thought, “ok no problem lets go book seats” so back down the stairs and up the others, hauling the luggage with us. Now with the Europasses we aren’t suppose to pay for our tickets, but unless we wanted to wait all weekend in Rotterdam with out a place to stay, we had to pay. This was due to the fact that, unknown to us, all of the trains have a limited amount of Europass seating. Now about an hour and two hundred euros later, we walked out of the ticket purchasing area to catch the next train.

“Finally in Paris” I thought, “So close to a shower, and bed”  Wrong… Once off our train we head down to the metro. Two stops and a pound of sweat later, we walked into the sunlight, “YAY” Just the walking part left. We followed the directions, until we were very confused and lost. So we did what we always do in these situations, asked strangers. The first gave us a cold and quick “NO” probably thinking that we were trying to scam her for money. The next person Alyssa found, she was an older lady, sitting in the window and smiled as we walked up. So we pounced, because a friendly smile was the best we had seen in a while. The lady took our paper inside, then suddenly appeared at a side door, gesturing for us to come in. We came inside, and I stood smiling and nodding, whilst Alyssa, the lady and her husband all talked in French. Then Alyssa asked if they could possibly call us a cab, they rejected. But they offered an unexpected alternative, she said “*No, No I will drive you there*” So we got in, her as she called it “Old but does the job car” and drove.

Then before you know it we were taking a hot shower and climbing into bed…

Day Three – 27/11

We woke up, got ready and realized, yes we are in Paris, but what does one do exactly in Paris. So we used the famous Google machine, and found a few things. We ate at a cafe, then took a boat ride on The River Seine, that took us around the main buildings and attractions of Paris. With that done we walked to the Eiffel Tower, while walking to the tower we ran into a man that was selling souvenirs on the street. Alyssa wanted a tower but they were asking for 20 euro for the bigger one and we told them we only had 5. So he dropped one of the larger once down for us, and compared to the prices for the same thing in gift shops we have seen, it was a sweet deal. (Especially because Alyssa made him throw in 3 key chains too.)

A little closer to the tower, we witnessed a bunch of street peddlers, (like the one we bought our tower off of) be chased off by Police, it was definitely quite a sight. Then under the tower, a man came up to us and gave Alyssa a rose, she asked “How much?” as we are on a tight budget. The man didn’t say anything, and so we walked forward, he followed and came up to me and started asking for euros. Alyssa said to him “We don’t want it, if it costs” The man pushed her hand away and said “No, no you keep” and looked again at me and asked for euros. So after a bit of back and forth, Alyssa finally put the rose on the ground, and we walked away from him.

Now onto my favorite part!

On the other side of the tower there is a garden of sorts, so we decided to take a walk though it. Another man walked up to me, held out his fist for a “Fist Bump” and said “Peace and love” so wanting to a have peaceful walk, I gave him the bump. He then went to Alyssa, and took out some string and said, hold out your finger. Basically what happened next is salesmanship I have never seen before, the man and his friend made us bracelets on our hands, while talking to us, about “where we are from, what we are doing, and of course, peace and love.” Once done, we payed them the euros they scammed there way into, and walked to the metro. Of course before we got to the metro we managed to run into the rose man again, this time though once he realized who we were, he steered clear of us.

Just another quick post to let everyone know where we are!!
After exploring beautiful Prague for 5 days (Pretty much straight out of a fairytale), We spent 6 nights in Amstesrdam relaxing at our hostel by the lake. It was such a great week, we had lots of time to check out all the aspects of Amsterdam (Canal tours, Garden tours, bike rides etc.) but also catch up on some much needed RELAX TIME!!

We are heading to the train station in about 15 minutes to catch our next train to Paris!!! Paris so far, is a bit of a mess because we have a hostel booked for the first 2 nights and from there need to find a place to stay for the rest of our paris trip. We have some good tours set up and a museum pass that will hopefully get some good use. We are also planning on taking a day to visit DISNEY LAND!!!

After Paris we are thinking we will spend 1 or 2 more nights in Berlin, there are a couple of sights we did not have a chance to check out. And then after that, back to Poland until we are ready to come home to Canada!!
The internet in most hostel’s is not very reliable, so apologies for the lack of posts!!!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we have successfully arrived in Prague. We had a wonderful stay and visit in Holesov with my friend Eva, her family and friends. We will be in Prague for 4 nights, not entirely sure what we will do with all our time here but I am sure we will get it figured out. This afternoon after we got settled and got some food in our belly’s, we took a walk and explored a bit of the city square. While exploring, a theater called “black light theater” caught our eye so we decided to check it out. It was an awesome show with lots of lighting effects and a great story. If you have time you should check out the web site : Link

Also fun fact: Did you guys know that Czech Republic has their own currency?? We sure did not until we arrived!! It is great though, it works much more in our favour than the Euro!

17.75 CZK KC = $1 CAN
WOOHOOO!!!

Well Hello!!

….Link…. Greg & Tom

We have successfully arrived in Krakow, our first real European stop as tourists! The train ride here was a bit of a disaster though. Andrew was going to help us get our tickets and everything in order but instead he took a trip of his own to Poznan the day before our departure. We took him to the train station and he sort of helped us purchase our tickets and sort of showed us where to board our train.

He told us that there would be a bunch of stops on the way but that we were suppose to just stay on all the way until the end of the train ride and we would arrive in Krakow. Wellll he was very wrong. We stayed on the train until the conductor literally kicked us off. When we got off the train we were not in Krakow, but Warsaw. A city about 3 hours ( by train ) away form Krakow. Quite panicked, I tried asking the conductor if he knew what train we were suppose to be on to get to Krakow? He told me, in polish (OF COURSE!) “I don’t know, find an information booth” so that we did! We may have found one, I am still not entirely sure because they also did not speak a word of English and were not very helpful. We tried calling Andrew for some help and all he really had to say was find an information booth. Both of us frustrated and me almost in tears, we started asking random people if they spoken English. After about 5 negatives we came across a man who was able to help us out! He told us that the train he was boarding was going to be going through Krakow and was leaving the station in about half an hour. With not much of a choice we hopped on and bought a new ticket (about double the price as our original), went straight to the train cafe and hoped for  the best.
Not the best first train experience but we made it!!
We walked in circles for a little while trying to find our Hostel. Finally Thomas took charge, asked a tourist booth where our Hostel was and sure enough it was right next door.
Once we arrived to the hostel things went from terrible and hectic, to calm and AWESOME!!

After getting settled in and relaxed a bit we walked around the ginormous mall. Quickly decided that we will have to dedicate a day to shopping and then joined our hostel mates for a complimentary dinner. It was delicious and they even topped it off with a complimentary shot! yuum yuum! Lol We finished off the evening with a long walk through the “Old Krakow” and finally got the feeling that we are in Europe!! The sights of thousand year old castles and churches made us both soooo excited to start seeing what else Europe has to offer.

We are taking tours of Auschwitz and The Salt Mine tomorrow, the tours will keep us busy from about 8 am to 7 pm, with a couple small breaks in-between. It should be quite the day. We tried to book an extra day in the hostel because there is just soo much to do but, unfortunately they are full
We decided we will probably just spend the entire day here doing our last minute sight seeing and then hop on a over night train back to Nowy Tomysl.
Even after the horrid travel here, we are enjoying Krakow and being independent travelers
Anyways, we have a exhausting day behind us and another ahead of us so it is time for bed.
Goodnight!!

Things are going well, Thomas and I are going to spend a couple of nights in Krakow starting on Monday. It is a Polish City a little bigger than Calgary and is the city with the most to see in Poland. We are staying at this really cool Hostel and are going to take a tour of Auschwitz Concentration camp and of a famous Salt mine.

Should be pretty cool, we are pretty excited to start sight seeing and touring the Country. May 11th we are going to spend a couple of nights in Berlin, take a couple tours and will probably start our Travels of Europe from there. We are in the process of getting a EuroPass. The one we got basically gives us unlimited travel of 4 country’s of our choice within 2 months. We are thinking The Netherlands, Czech Republic ( I have a friend who spent 7 months in Grande Prairie last year who lives there) so we are going to stay with her for a couple days and then the 3 of us are going to spend a couple days in Prague. We are also thinking of checking out Switzerland because Thomas wants to get a Swiss watch, Paris and a couple other places!!

So we are pretty excited to get going and begin the true experience of Europe!! We haven’t really posted any pictures yet because where we have been so far hasn’t been anything amazing. Its been a good place to adjust and get used to the European culture but we have been told by many people that Poland is one of the country’s that has the least to see in Europe. Sort of like the Alberta of Canada! Haha.

Now the main reason I was needing a little more time to think was because of craft I was considering flying in. Now I’m sure if a person knows anything about an ultra-light, they would probably tell me that its perfectly safe and I have no reason to be afraid. But I can tell you as a person that has absolutely no experience with them, I was afraid.

Thankfully, even though I really didn’t want to at the time, I still forced myself to do it. Some of the reason for that may have been because Matt already did it before me, and there was no way he was showing me up. So I put on the coat, buckled up, and made my peace.

Before I knew it we were in the air floating up above the city, peering down at the busy people beneath us. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my own breath, and the slight rush of the wind around me. Paul turned, dived, and swooped his way down just above the heads of Matt, Alyssa, and Andrew. Then he managed to almost skim right over the lake. And just like that it was over, we touched down and rolled over to the others.

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For example; he enjoys driving his car through town, harmless sounding enough, right? Well here’s the catch, he likes to drive at 200km\h and higher. Now that’s starting to sound a little more dangerous, but he isn’t finished yet. While driving at these excessive speeds I should add that the roads he drives on can be any combination of; tiny (as in built for one car, while having two on it), slow areas (as in 40 zones), or blind corners. You add all those together at 250km/h and you have a thrill ride for sure, but how does he maintain speed? Well this is accomplished by passing cars at any time, yes even if there is a car in the lane coming towards you. There has only been a few times I have witnessed were even he thought there wasn’t enough room to pass, and in those instances he slams on the brakes and ducks in behind the car he is attempting to pass.

I am told that once he came to Canada and attempted to drive the European way. The problem is, what is customary for highway driving here, is tailgating people until they move out of your way. The main reason for that I’m told is because it is illegal to pass on the right hand side. Now after a day of driving in Canada he excitedly went to his brother, to tell him all about, all the friendly people waving at him on the highway. This was of course before he learned the meaning of the North American middle finger. Needless to say I think he is better off driving in Europe.

So I figured I would take some pictures of his toys.

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About the 3 rd day we were  here, word had already spread across the town of about 20,000 people that ” The Canadians are here ” .  It is crazy how many people will come up and talk to us just for the sake of being able to practice and/or improve their English!
The People we are staying with own a Ikea factory that we are able to work at whenever we please, the work is very simple as the machines do most of it. Another opportunity we will have is being able to teach English at a English camp. It starts in May and is as simple as conversing with people strictly in English to help them improve their English vocabulary.
Right now we are still concentrating on getting comfortable with the new cultures and the family we are staying with.

I have a friend from Czech Republic who has offered us to come and stay with her for a couple of weeks. She would like to show us Prague and a couple other cities near by. I met her a couple of summers ago when she was staying with my friend Kady’s family as sort of a foreign exchange sort of thing. She is very nice and speaks English almost perfectly now. We are pretty excited about that.
We tried to be independent today and ventured into town just the 3 of us. Most shops and restaurants that we are familiar with were closed as today is considered a holiday in Poland. Absolutely starving, we wandered into a ” cafe ” and quickly figured out they only sold coffee’s and desserts and that none of the staff spoke English. The cafe was very small and it literally took us 5 minutes to figure out how to get out of there!! There were only 2 other tables full in the cafe but I am sure they will forever think Canadians are retarded. haha. The second place we tried to grab a bite at, also did not speak English and only served beverages and ice cream!! . . A couple hours after beginning our search for FOOD we ended up finding a gas station and grabbed a couple hot dogs to tide us over until supper. Uhhgg, it was quite the adventure. Haha, oh well a couple hours later we enjoyed a home cooked polish stew. Delicious!!

Anyway’s I am off to get ready for bed as it is 10 pm here.

NIGHT!

We arrived to Nowy Tomysl, Poland (The town we are staying in) at about 1:00 am this morning (Wednesday, April 20th) and pretty much went straight to bed. With all the travel and time changes we had been awake a little over 48 hours, so it was definitely time to catch some zzzz’s. This morning we woke up refreshed, unpacked a little and then went to town to get a mini fridge to complete our mini kitchen!

We exchanged some money into polish Zolty and Euro. After, while Matt’s dad (Andrew) got a quick haircut, myself, Thomas and Matt went to a market to buy some grocery’s!! We bought; water, pepsi, fruit juice, iced tea, grapes, oranges, watermelon, 2 bags of cerial, milk, bread, cheese and some butcher’s meat all for a little under $20.00 Canadian, in Zolty (polish $$) it was $63.70.

This evening we went into town with one of Matt’s cousins ( who is a local here ) to eat. He took us to a very cool restaurant and ordered pizza for us. The pizza was delicious, very close to Canadian pizza but a little bit different in the sense that there is no pizza sauce on the pizza, you actually dip it into pizza sauce. After ordering our pizza we realized that ordering a pizza with ” Pepperoni ” on it in polish is actually a pizza with jalapeños on it!! oops!!!

Unfortunately as soon as we got out of Canada our Phones stopped working. Even in London we were unable to retrieve any service at all so we have the expert working on the issue. We are hopefully getting wireless internet set up tomorrow so we can post our first pictures and videos for you all to view. Right now it is 12: 45 am in Poland. I am off to bed!!!

Goodnight all!!