Marco had been warning me since the potluck that he was sick... and woke up with that lovely feeling my throat the next day.
Not Again! So Soon!
I admit, I thought that traveling around would encourage me towards better health, but it seems to be doing the opposite.
I was kind of sad, and I had noticed some cool shops on St. Denis while walking around with Stacey... so I went shopping for a little while! I only bought a couple things... a hair clip thing, a replacement earring for the broken one I had been walking around wearing, and some lemon and ginger for concocting a brew to kick the stupid sickness before it started.
I came back and started making ginger tea stuff. I was getting hungry, so when Marco got back we ordered Indian food for pick up! I let the ginger stuff steep while we went out to pick up the food - which I had ordered extra spicy to try and burn out the sickness.
I was trying to be on top of things! We watched Taxi - a funny french movie - while I forced myself to eat very spicy Indian food and very spicy tea.
Unfortunately this spice attack didn't work. I woke up sick.
I also woke up earlier than normal, because I had to go for an interview for a research study. I got to McGill at 10 am, but after an hour of trying they were not able to find a spot for me to come in to get scanned. The PET machines were all booked up! So no 150 dollars for me :(
Back at the house, I proceeded to lay down on the couch wallowing in my viral state. I was supposed to go to a music lesson at 3:45, and I was having a hard time imagining getting up. It was quite an effort, but I managed to arrive on time! I am so glad I did!
I learned a bunch of stuff on the piano. Rob was letting me choose what songs I wanted to learn... so I picked "Splish Splash I Was Taking a Bath"!! With the remaining ten minutes I learned the chorus to Micheal Jackson's "Thriller". Oh yes. That's right. He was amused; I was happy!
On the way back I wanted to buy another weekly bus/metro pass, but I had no cash. I went into some store to get $20 cash back, buying the almighty NyQuil to get said cash.
I took the Metro back to the house... and proceeded to make two chocolate chip banana bread loaves! Don't worry, I was very sanitary! It was my first time making banana bread, so I was very happy when I saw they were rising properly in the oven :) They turned out good!
I still felt tired and run down from the stupid virus though, so other than watching transporter this was all I really did for the evening. I took NyQuil and knocked myself out hardcore fairly early to try and get a ridiculous amount of sleep. It worked.
I slept for 12+ hours that night. I had more energy than the day before, but there was still some congestion in my nose and lungs. Ugh. It was raining again, but I wanted to go somewhere since I was feeling up for it!
I had received an email recommending a few cool tea houses in Montreal, and this seemed like an ideal thing to do. One was in Old Montreal, so I went there to check it out... It was fabulous - they had this whole process where they bring all these little clay cups and pots on a tray with slats in it, and pour water on everything to warm up the clay pots. they show you how long to steep it, and which cup to pour into first (they had a smelling cup and a tasting cup) and how to switch to the other cup... it was nifty.
I sat in the tea place, played with my teacups and things, read my book for a couple hours or something.. and came back feeling good mentally. So at least half my body was doing well...
I had also bought a patch from a tourist store for my backpack, so I felt productive as well. I got home and met another couchsurfer! Her name was Ladonna, she was from D.C. Ladonnna, Marco and I ended up eating something and watching Taxi 2 then Robot Chicken that evening, until mine ended with me getting all messed up from NyQuil again. I take the recommended dose but wow that stuff makes me talk like I'm high on painkillers or something.
Hoorah for Nyquil!
Thursday I woke up with a mission: get to a doctor that accepted BC Medicare cards.
Marco had told me I could use a bike to get around the night before (this was around when Ladonna had asked about renting bikes and such) and he even pushed the seat down so I could touch the ground. It was still a stretch (my tiptoe could reach when slightly tilted) because Marco is so tall (I am guessing 6'4?) but it worked!
Alex woke me up that morning wanting to see if we could buy a veggie pizza with a credit card. We failed, but bought the pizza anyways. Ah well.We came back and the bike that I was supposed to use was gone!
It was in the house though haha. While eating some pizza, another Couchsurfer arrived, this one from Germany. What was unusual was that French was her first language, not German. I learned something that day - there are French parts of Germany. Well, back to the Doctor adventure, I wrote down addresses and I took off on the hunt for free clinics. Yay Canada!
The first one was going to charge me, and have me bill BC later myself. Nah
The second one would take me, but I arrived at 3:30 and the walk in time ended at one. I was getting advice on when I should come in when I heard a student doctor say she didn't have any clients. The receptionist looked at me standing there, looked at her, and said I was available.
WHEN DOES THIS EVER HAPPEN?!?!?!
So I walked straight in essentionally. Waited 5 minutes for paperwork. WOW! I told her my ears were plugged, and I wanted to make sure I was all healthy beofre hopping over to Europe. She examined,and said my ears were so plugged she couldn't see my eardrums. She was going to make an appointment with me next week to get them washed out, with a doctor's approval.
The doctor came in to check my ears. His breath was terrible. He talked about my Hitchiker's Guide book. He decided to try and take a chunk of wax from my right ear with a poker looking thing.....pardon my french but HOLY SHIT GOD DAMN FUCK THAT HURT.
He didn't get the wax out, but he made my ear canal start bleeding, and I almost involunarily started crying. I never cry about stuff like that but it was all I could do to fight it back. OWOWOWOWOWOWOW don't ever let a doctor put a poker in your ear.
Funny thing was, when he was about to walk into the room again with the poker of pain, he even told the nice student doctor that "you have to be careful, the ear can be extremely painful!"
Well I can verify that now. It hurt for hours after.
To help calm me down, I went to the library. I read until I felt hungry. Biking up the hill hungry was good excercise! I came back to find the two couchsurfers sitting at home talking on the couch in the dark! Marco and alex had not shown them the living room light switch! It was hidden, by the way, so it was not obvious. I made some food while Tania (from Germany) mentioned wanting to check out this Tango night that was happening across the street. It sounded like it could be cool, so all three of us went. Ladonna and I planned to sit and watch, and watch we did.
For about two or three songs.
It was full of seniors dancing to ancient tango, and there was a creepy old guy with a gorgeous young pregnant wife from another country. It was making Ladonna and I feel a little grossed out watching them (we were hoping it was a reliative until we watched him introduce her to someone... ewwwww)
We got bored, bought beer from the grocery store, and left.
Back at the house, the neighbors were making tons of noise! We thought they were having a party or something... so we decided to go upstairs and check it out :)
Turns out, the noise was originally from a hockey game... and then there people playing music. There was a fair amount of people there, maybe nine or ten, but it was not a house party. They let us in anyways.
We had a few drinks, listened to the jam session (two guitars two drums plus singing), I tried to learn to juggle, and it turned into everyone deciding to go down to the bar together!
Here I did something foolish... I went to the bar without thinking about things I might need at the bar. Such as my wallet. I hadn't needed to bring these types of things upstairs.... just beer, keys, and phone.... so when I got there I was feeling pretty drunk and stupid.
Luckily I am female.
They let me in with no ID, and we all drank pitchers and nobody cared that I was not able to pitch in. I lost the other couchsurfers within five minutes though while using the washroom in the four story bar (with a massive patio to boot - actually the same one that Stacey and I had found coming in the back way). We all sat in the same place on the patio and never ended up seeing them. *shrug*
After the bar, some people were hungry. I was, but I was not about to buy food with no money too, and I was certainly not going to ask anyone for food after they had been so nice about the bar. I walked up the hill with them trying to get a hold of Marco (he was at a bar near where we were headed) to see if he wanted to get food near the house after I went back... he said he would meet me at the poutine place, so I ended up going to poutine with the neighbors. It was late, and Marco still hadn't shown up. Turns out he went to a different 24hr resaurant with the people HE was with!
The guys had already been intending to feed me with or without Marco, but I was kind of sad that they didn't get to all hang out together - they were neighbors after all.
Oh well. I had yummy drunk poutine and made new friends. The couchsurfers were all asleep when I got back, Productive night :)
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