"I like stories."

This was some week, I gotta say. Camping and drinkin and clubbin, oh my! Camping wasn't so much of a big deal except for the 2nd day, which was the biggest 'adventure' of all. Here are all of my escapades day by day:

Wed
Left at 11 am, or that was when I was told. We didn't leave the friggin neighbourhood til about 12 cuz we had to load the car with all our shit and it was no easy task makin it all fit. 4 girls tryin to 'rough' it still means all the sleepin bags, chairs, food, a big cooler, equipment, clothes, vanity stuff, etc. We spilled the cooler tryin to cram it in the trunk and the lid popped and ice scattered all over the floor of the trunk. We had to chuck out all these pieces of ice onto the grass that if the neighbours saw their front yard, they'd be like wtf? It hailed on one side of the lawn, haha.

We're really slow in leavin. We get lunch at Pizza Pizza and Vick is REALLY hyped about gettin meat products at M&M's for some reason :P So she gets ribs and kabobs and whatnot for the trip. And a butane lighter from the dollar store. This is just one of the things we eneded up forgettin. Like I said.

Drove for an hr and a half. We really were in the middle of nowhere...farmland and open space. We got into the Park and it was pretty busy. So we apparently paid for 'premium hydro' which means we get electricity and semi-privacy and shade. Our lot was a bit bigger than the regular ones but I dunno about this semi-privacy thing cuz we were all crammed together anyway. We had neighbours facin each way and whatever you did outside of your own tent, anybody could see.

Anyway, we set up our tent and chairs and inflated the air mattress with the power compressor that Vick bought and will promptly return, haha. I don't really remember what we did all day...I think pretty much gettin settled and loungin around. G got somethin out of her bag and she's like, oh no somethin spilled, my stuff's wet. We couldn't figure out what it was. It smelled like gas at first. Then I'm like, it kinda smells like...deer :P Like musky. Then we found out it was the bug spray she bought. But it wasn't punctured so we concluded somethin was pressin against the spray button and got it all over. Half the can was gone. And it's some strong shit cuz it took off the graphics on the frisbee! G was cleanin it off and it wiped off with the tissue. And when I sprayed it on the top of my feet that night, it ate away the nail polish on my toes :P

The hydro source was like a pole that we shared with the site behind us so it was pretty far from where we pitched our tent. Our stereo didn't reach anywhere near that far and we didn't think to bring an extension cord. Forgotten item #2. We had to move the picnic table closer to the pole thingy so we could cook. Then we went to the park store to buy firewood, an extension cord, and milk cuz Vick just had to have it to make instant mashed potatoes. We didn't wanna spend too much on a 20 metre cord so we got the 4.5 m one. Yeah, that wasn't 4 and a half metres! That barely got the stereo to reach...the car! It wasn't much closer than it was before but at least we could hear it slightly better and we could put in on the roof of the car :P

We made dinner with Vick's grill and amazing lil portable stove-top which cooks with 'canned heat' and a flame. Had burgers and ribs and that's right, mashed potatoes in the great outdoors.

L was amped on startin the fire even tho it was still light out. This later meant buyin more firewood cuz we used it all up. Vick taught us how to play poker which I actually paid attention to this time so I finally learned. But I'm sure she didn't teach us all the rules so, I know the basics. I dunno why it takes me so long to learn new card games, it just takes my brain a while but we had a lot of time on our hands so there we have it.

The fire took a while cuz we obviously didn't know what we were doin. We got very jealous of everyone else's roaring bonfires, haha. But we knew enough about havin kindling and the lil newspaper the park office gave us wrote about puttin the wood in a teepee fashion and balling up pieces of paper to burn underneath. We eventually got it goin after many tries of burning virutally anythin that was flammable and lightin the wood all over with the butane lighter and pokin at it with straightened wire hangers that the ppl before left behind.

Cuz of the whole bear and scavenger animal thing, you have to keep your food/cookin equipment/coolers 3 feet above ground or in your car and leave no trash around or else you'd get fined so we had to dump our garbage bag at the disposal site. It was drivin distance so Vick and L went. Apparently it was really scary at night, haha. I'm tellin you, this is the worst crew to bring camping cuz they're neurotic and paranoid about bears even tho we didn't hear or see any indication of one at ALL.

We busted out the Smores and the liquor around the fire. Good times. Altho campfire smoke smells the worst and it just will not leave you.

We also had showers but it's just not the same as showerin at home. They're lil rooms next to the washroom and it's just weird comin outta there and everyone can basically see you. Esp when you're holdin all your personal things and we had to take a short walk down the gravel 'street' past other campsites to get there. And it's not too comfortable brushin your teeth and flossin and whatever girl business you gotta do in front of the mirror where a bunch of other ppl are goin to the toilet.

The air mattress would only fit 3 of us max, so since G likes the floor anyway she got the front of the tent with multiple layers under her. We tried sleepin across it horizontally cuz it looked like a tight fit with the 3 of us together the other way so our ankles were hangin over the edge of the mattress. That wasn't a very good sleep but I wasn't one to complain cuz I'm sure it could've been much worse. But it was SO COLD later in the night.

Thurs
Then there were the 50 different species of birds that woke us up ass early in the morning with their chirping. You could hear ALL of them cuz the nylon of the tent wasn't exactly muffling the noise. And it was like 5-6 am when they did this, then they stopped when it came around to normal morning hrs. Then it gets really sunny in the late morning and it gets hot and stuffy in the tent, after freezin at night. We took showers when we got up and it felt so good. But I didn't wash my hair the whole time I was there cuz it's just disastrous without a dryer and flatiron, and it'd just get stank up with smoke again so I just went about with smokey smellin hair til Fri.

We had hotdogs and soup for lunch but of course G forgot the ketchup and it's just not right eatin plain ones. L had brought pasta and sauce but we figured the portable stove wasn't gonna be powerful enough to boil pasta so we opened up the big can of tomato sauce to pour on our hotdogs, haha. "Pass the can, please." At least I remembered to bring a can opener cuz before we left I asked G what they were gonna open the soup with and she's like, oh yeaaaaah :P

We went to go find the beach and chilled for a bit. Me and G were gonna go swimming but didn't end up goin, and Vick and L were entertainin their monthly guest. It was a bit to sunny for me since I was/am still recovering from my last burn so we headed back to camp. They sat out to tan, we jammed some music, played poker (I cleaned out everybody :D).

I got really tired cuz I didn't get a lot of sleep so I napped in the tent for about 3 hrs, haha. Had dinner - best one yet - kabobs, chicken, red pepper, and Uncle Ben's 10 Min Chinese Fried Rice which took about an hr to make, haha.

Headed to the beach again before it got dark. We waded in the water and played frisbee. Yes, me and G were in the water while doin this and Vick and L were on the beach, haha. That frisbee would've been lost out in the lake if one of us threw badly cuz the furthest we could go was up to our knees without gettin wet :P Vick had a trademark throw of flingin it wayward to the left, it hittin the sand before it got to me, then rollin out to the water down the beach, hahaha.

We got back before it got pitch black cuz again, they were scared we were gonna get attacked by somethin or someone. They got more firewood but they got it from the pile outside the park office this time so it was kinda damp and it was a bitch to get the fire started this time. Nothing was workin and we were this close to askin the neighbours for firestarter or even a lighter cuz the dollar store butane one broke. The Canadian flag lighter I've had for about 3 yrs finally died and we had to go buy a new Bic. The wood wasn't catchin so Vick poured the melted wax from the Off cintronella candle in a bucket on it and it did make it flame-y. Tho it was makin a whoooooosh-y sound instead of normal fire crackling and the fire was blue, haha. Finally all the firewood caught and we had a decent fire. The Smores were interesting. Someone had left the bag of marshmallows in the car so they melted into one big sticky fluff and we had to pull bits off with our fingers. So messy. G dropped bits of chocolate in the fire too. I got marshmallow and chocolate on the front of my shirt and my pants. We went to the washroom to clean up and my hands were so sticky that I picked up my empty vodka bottle and it stuck to my fingers in mid-air without me holdin it, haha.

We sat around the fire, chillin. I lit up my j, we were sure it wasn't gonna be a problem cuz we smelled it comin from somewhere else the other night and it was dark and everybody was sleepin at that point. I had just finished and 2 mins later, a park ranger guy comes up to us. For a second we thought someone had reported us or somethin for blazin. We're like, ah fuck. He's like, excuse me ladies, it's 11:30 and we've got families and stuff so everybody's sleepin so if you could keep the noise down...esp the laughin. Well FINE. Geez, 11:30...maybe if they didn't wake us up with their babies cryin and screamin toddlers and makin all their ruckus at 7 am. Who takes their baby when they go camping anyway?? Whatever, we got scolded but at least he didn't come a few minutes earlier cuz I'm sure he would've like that even less!

We go to sleep when the last log was done and the fire was almost out around 2:30. We slept vertically on the air mattress this time and it's better length-wise but we're sardine-close together. We're positioned so that Vick's in the middle and her head's at me and L's feet. But we're in sleepin bags so there's no smelly feet to deal with...Vick even tried kickin at our heads to see if she'd hit us but the sleepin bag was so tight around her, she could hardly move, haha. But if I rolled too far on my side, I'd for sure hit her in the face. And even tho I was wearin a long sleeve shirt and a Nike jacket, bundled next to Vick, it was still cold!

OK here's the big story of the whole trip...we're all either asleep or tryin to. It's 4 am. I'm not in a deep sleep but I'm not conscious like Vick or L. I wake up to some FREAKY ASS noise. It was some blood-curdling, scream/shriek that sounded like somethin was gonna kill or was bein killed. I heard 2 shrieks, one right after the other, and my eyes just flew open. I heard Vick and L say, WTF was that? and they sat up.

Now, I'm not scared of a lot of things. I'd like to think I'm rational when it comes to strange noises and ppl hidin in bushes and burglars in the house and stuff like that. I like horror movies, I kill the bugs that no one else wants to be near. But I will admit, this scared the shit out of me. It was all like a horror movie. We had no idea what would make that kind of noise, we've never heard anythin like it but it was definitely not human. We thought maybe it was just some idiots in the middle of the night at first but no way they could make that kind of sound and it was SO LOUD and it sounded like it came from the woods. And my god, it was 4 in the morning.

We were all awake at this point and freaked out. They weren't takin no chances and decided to dash out to the car. I didn't think they were serious til they started to leave. I had barely gotten my sleepin bag off me when Vick was first out the tent. Those bitches were just gonna book outta there without me. I had to crawl over all their shit and the air mattress which made it like I was in a Bouncy Castle, tried to find my flip flops which I had neatly piled near the door inside the tent but in the chaos, somebody had flung them somewhere. I was there holdin one of them tryin to find the other one in the dark. They're almost all in the car now and I'm on my knees goin, WHERE THE FUCK IS MY OTHER SHOE!!! Then I was like, eff it and ran to the car in my socks. We locked the doors and sat there while G hyperventilated and clung to my arm like a crazy person. I thought she might've had a heart attack and died, seriously, haha. It was so ridiculous. I don't know how to describe the situation. We were total girls and ran. And locked ourselves in the car. L's like, we're sleepin in the car tonight...we don't have blankets but at least we can drive away if we have to! I'm like, I don't even have shoes! Haha.

L's like, did you zip up the door? I'm like, NO I didn't zip up the door! Do you think I'm gonna take the time to close it cuz the bugs gettin in was on my mind??? So we all sat there watchin the tent and the campsite in case that somethin did decide to show up. See, we weren't rational at this point cuz we're in the middle of the lot so why would whatever it was, out of alllll the tents, come to ours? No answer for that one. All we had on our minds were visions of some creature clawing and slashin its way thru our rent and tryin to kill us :P Then we're like, that thing was fuckin loud, how come nobody else woke up? I figured they would've identified what that noise was cuz they've been camping before unlike us, plus they were sleepin since 11:00 so they were out cold. Or more simply, they're not pussies like us and stayed in their tents.

There's no room in the backseat cuz there's a lot of shit in the car plus the cooler so I'm sittin on the edge of the seat. We had to turn the cooler around so me and G would at least be able to sit properly if we were gonna spend the night in the car. We're like, how long til daylight? Haha. I guess it's a good thing that the sun came up at 5 so we spent less than an hr in the car. Then we had to make the decision to actually leave the car. G's like, I wanna get my backpack. Vick's like, I'll go zip up the door. I'm just like, holy fuck, bravestars...I wouldn't go out there by myself. Since G was goin to get her bag anyway, she ran out, got it, closed the tent, and dashed back to the car. I don't think we were ready yet :P We also saw a skunk prowling around near our picnic table in the dark so that didn't help either. We watched it and prayed it would leave and not spray our tent or somethin. Vick and L were freakin about "the grill we left out!" (we also forgot dishwashing detergent so I made a trip to the bathroom with a beer cup to fill up on hand soap..."that's right, I'm takin my drink with me to the shower" haha) or "the marshmallows we threw out in the bathroom!" :P

I tried to be the voice of reason but it was lost on this crowd. Still, I don't blame them cuz that noise was so scary. NOT COOL! We're like, where the hell's the park ranger now?? Then Vick had to go to the bathroom and walked down that path alone like a soldier. Esp since the bathrooms are in the direction of the woods.

I figured the noise from some kind of bird, maybe some racoon...but do they even make noise? But really, if you heard it, you'd understand. It was not friendly or tame at all, it sounded like murder. So the sun was about to start comin up and we figured if we heard all those friggin birds chirpin that it was safe cuz if danger was around they'd be flyin away. We went back to the tent and hoped that nobody saw this whole episode. If you were someone in the other tents, you'd hear panicking and rustling, runnin footsteps, and 4 car doors slammin at 4 am, haha.

Fri
As you can imagine, this hurt the idea of goin camping ever again, haha. At least bring boys next time. And of course we didn't get much sleep. We got up later in the morning, packed it up and signed out so we could go home, shower, and sleep in a real bed. We hit Coffee Time cuz we realized we didn't really have anythin breakfast-like to eat and drove home. Of course that's when a group of cute guys came in, when I looked my worst. *thumbs up*

I unpacked all my stuff (which reeked of smoke) and ate somethin. I wasn't tired but then I got sleepy later and for some reason, I lay on my sleepin bag on the floor and just rested my eyes. I had ended up lyin on my stomach, face to the side, arms up where my head was. I woke up and my arms and legs hurt so bad! It felt like they were broken cuz I couldn't move them. Bad circulation and position of the bones I guess. I had to try to roll over oh so slowly and lift one leg with the other cuz it just was not liftin itself, haha.

So the deal that night was, Kim and her 'guy friend' Dave from the South who she met on her trip to Greece were shacked up in a hotel downtown for the week. She wanted to show him a good time so we were all supposed to hit the clubs. I got up, showered, and got ready. The initial plan was to hit Guvernment. Sheena's bday was supposed to be for Sat but she realized she had a wedding to go to at 8 the next morning so she changed it to Fri. Kim's all, well I made plans for Fri cuz you said it was gonna be on Sat. But it was also her bday so what can you do. Sheena and Audrey didn't wanna go to Guv so they still had no idea where we were gonna go. The plan was now to pre-drink at their hotel room and we'd walk around the club district to see what's good.

Al picked me and Fish up and we headed to the hotel. Delta Chelsea is a very nice place. The pub downstairs was jumpin so Al's like, that place looks pretty happenin, we should go there, haha. Their room was connected to another by a small hall space (which I guess is for 2 parties to rent so they'd be together but still have separate rooms) so there was 2 doors to get thru. They had doorbells outside! Fish rings the bell and yells, housekeeping!! just as Dave who she's never met opens the door. They both scared eachother, haha.

We were the first ones there so Cat and Jason and Sheena and Audrey came later. It was jokes. The drunken yelling, laughter, and picture-taking, the strap on Sheena's top which she bought an hr ago broke, the sweet balcony, "Yeah you can leave your stuff here...but that means you get your shit and get the FUCK out!" *knowing look* Hahaha.

Then we all had to re-park our cars. Al had gotten free street parkin but we weren't comin back til late so we had to do paid parkin under the hotel. I left my purse in the room cuz somebody said I should. Since everyone was drinkin, we had to cab it to the club district. Me, Al, and Fish went downstairs to flag down 3 taxis. We could've sworn everybody was right behind us but I dunno what they were doin. We waited for them and the one cab we got was idling. Fish called them and they're like, we're in the front. She's like, no you're not, we are. Turns out they were at the 'other' front and the other group of them were already in a cab and on their way. Fools! Out comes Kim, Dave, and Audrey with their drink cups gettin in the cab, haha.

We made it down to John and Richmond and it was already midnight. We're goin to Lot 332. I had never been but that's also cuz it's always packed and it's one of those 'see and be seen' joints that I'm not impressed with. The line was insane. Make that lines. They had like 3 goin next to eachother on one side and one more on the other. Dave and Kim are standin in the alleyway with their drinks. They had even taken them in line and the bouncer kicked them out cuz they (finger quotations and all) "could be construed as alcholic beverages", so Dave's like, well then let's just call it "soda", haha. We were bein called so they left the cups in the alley and Kim's like, that'll be some lucky homeless person who finds those, haha. Sheena's friend who we met up with got us in the guestlist line but it didn't even matter cuz it was not movin and it was total chaos and disorganization. It was retarded. We were all gettin pissy about waitin in line and goin nowhere and it was gettin late. Al was hungry cuz she didn't have dinner so she ran across the street for pizza. We were gettin to the head of the line so we were scared she wasn't gonna make it back and wouldn't hear her cell phone. Al comes back with like an entire pie and we see her standin on the edge of the sidewalk wolfin down a slice, haha. Ppl keep movin back and forth so we can't really see/hear her so we yelled, what're you doin? Come over here! She's like, the bouncer said I couldn't come in line with my food! So she's tryin to eat as fast as she can when Audrey spots the pizza. She's like, I want some! Come here! Al's like, I can't! You come HERE! And this goes on for a minute, haha. They come back in line and then we were told guestlist was over at 12 and we were better off goin somewhere else.

Nobody could settle on a place cuz they all had different preferences of music and atmosphere and the kind of crowd. I think Kim and Audrey were about to have a fight, haha. We finally decided on Lucid. They had a long line but it moved fast. Cover was $15 cuz we got in after 12. Mothereffer. I had forgottten it was a special event and DJ Jazzy Jeff was spinnin that night. So at least I got to see him and the cover made it kinda worth it. The music was sick.

Too bad we all got separated at some point during the night. It's a really big place with 4 floors so it's easy to lose ppl and lose ppl we did. If it wasn't half the group then it was one person. So we mostly spent the time waitin or lookin for ppl. It was crazy.

Then Al and Fish wanted to leave. Then I realized my stuff was in the hotel room and we still couldn't find Kim and Dave. My keys were in my purse and I couldn't call home cuz they were sleepin and I didn't know my sister's cell number by heart. So we went off lookin for Kim and Dave to get their room key. We finally spotted them a floor below us and ran down before they moved. They only had the one key on them so we'd just leave it at the front desk for them.

We cab it back to the hotel but the normal front desk was closed at that time but they had a currency exchange counter that was a mile long with one person workin behind it and a night security desk. The sign said to go to the other front desk when this one was closed. Not only did we hafta go lookin for wherever the other front desk was, the guy behind the security desk we asked for help was talkin to us like we were retarded but he honestly wasn't understandin what we were sayin back to him. So we did hafta go back to the lady behind the currency exchange counter. Apparently they can't take room keys left for ppl cuz it's a security thing somehow but the person who's room it's under can show ID and they'd make a new key for them cuz it's just a plastic swipe card. We're like, damn we just wanted to get somethin from their room and leave the key for them here so they can get in later! We gave her Kim's name and spelled her last name so we didn't look like we're con artists and tryin to do somethin to her room, kept the old key (but there's no charge for a new key), left Kim a voicemail, then another cancelling the first one, then headed home.

Sat
Me, G, and L went to Indian Motorcycle Lounge. I love the couches there, you can sit and chill and talk without yellin. Tho they have some mighty expensive drinks. I caught them up on what happened on Fri night, we went over how retarded we were on the last night camping, took pictures, danced a bit before we peaced out on the oldy crowd and went to Havana. No repeat of what happened last time but still fun. L wore a skirt and a slip underneath but it somehow came 'loose' or whatever and it started to slip...as in, far enough that it was goin down past her butt. She's like, OMG I need to take this off. So she slid her slip down her legs onto the floor, stepped out of it, and shoved it in her purse, hahaha. I'm not sure if anybody saw but they probably did. Meh. I didn't know we were gonna hit a club so I wasn't wearin the right top for it, my shirt made me so hot! I was also a Purse Chick that night but I knew better than to swing it around with me so I put it on the floor near my feet unlike that bitch who I wanted to slug so many times. But I wasn't nearly drunk enough to actually do it.

And that's about it. I think this post rivals the one about my grad weekend :P