Falling in love with Kingston!

So I thought I would just do a post on how beautiful and fun Kingston and Queen's is. The houses here are so pretty! And they all have a porch, excellent for porch-drinking in the evening, as hordes of Queen's students do. As soon as I befriend someone with a share house, I am definitely doing it!

Also there are signs like this all over the place:

Today we went to an American football game. Even though I knew nothing about the rules, the energy was just amazing! There is so much going on, there's dance music and cheerleaders doing crazy flips and the students kitting out in crazy Queen's gear. Everyone wears the Queen's tricolor

Cheerleaders doing their thing

Also, ok, this is amazing - you know the empty bits in the middle of a donut? Tim Horton's (coffee chain) do a thing called TimBits which are the inside bits of donuts! They are $1.99 for 10 pieces - I am loving this place.

Aaand I had a 'poutine' today! I didn't even know what it was, except that it is Canadian. It's basically chips with cheese curds and gravy - and a lot of it. I ordered Delhi-licious which is poutine with chicken strips in butter chicken gravy. It's heart problem in a bowl - except it came in like a bucket, and I could only finish about 10% of it.

Alsooo just thought I'd post a pic of a Canadian Subway napkin, it's in French!:

More later, I'm about to drop dead on my feet now of exhaustion. Au revoir folks!

A very smelly update

So the airline I was flying with LOST MY LUGGAGE. It's hard to describe the feeling of complete hopelessness when you land in a foreign country by yourself, minus one vitally important part of your life back home. And, you know, minus your clothes. I have been living in two T shirts (alternating) and one pair of jeans for the last 3 days and ugh, it's gross.

Also, move-in day was today, but tomorrow is a bank holiday, which means none of the shops are open! I haven't had any time to buy anything today so I will be living in my stinky clothes for another whole day.

On a more positive note, I just checked my baggage status and it says "Forwarding to airport". I'm guessing this means they sent it onwards to a connecting flight. Can I just mention how f*cking incompetent Air Canada have been. When it was clear my suitcase was not going to appear on the carousel, I went to wait in a line with about 20 other people who had also had their luggage misplaced. After 45 minutes of waiting (they were seriously understaffed), I was told to fill a form. I asked if my suitcase had come off the airplane at all. The guy said, "Well, it would be nice if we could tell you that, but unfortunately we have no way of knowing." I said, well, what about when you scan the baggage code that they stick on the handles? Turns out, the airline doesn't really do that. Ummmmmm.

Anyway, baggage dramas aside, I'm finding it really nice here. We took a Coach Canada bus here and reached at about 6pm. I moved my meagre possessions into my residence room. The people in Res are really lovely and helpful. The shower situation (I haven't shared a bathroom before) isn't looking so daunting after all.

I have no bedding for now, but borrowed a duvet cover from the basement, which I am currently using as a bedspread! And my neck pillow as an actual pillow. It's quite bohemian. Also, quick note here. ALWAYS LET YOUR MOTHER PACK YOUR HAND LUGGAGE.
I was carrying my laptop and phone with me, but had put the chargers in the suitcase because they are heavy and cumbersome and the cords get everywhere. Thankfully, my mum packed chargers 'just in case' and also an extra pair of socks and toiletries. Bless.

The currency here is confusing me. There are just so many coins! And they are all tiny so you have to squint to read what value they are. And if something is $4.12 here, they actually give you change for the 12 cents instead of rounding it up like in Australia.

My 12-hour jetlag is not as bad as I feared it would be. Mostly because I've been so tired that I fall asleep pretty easily. The only sucky part is this weird hangover-y feeling I get whenever it's bedtime back home. But I've been really good with only sleeping at night so I'm hoping by the end of this week it will be all good. Speaking of which, bedtime for me now. Hopefully, by the next update, I will either have my luggage back, or have some new clothes! Adieu. 

When in doubt, always wash your hair

So I'm sitting at Sydney International airport and pretty much twiddling my thumbs for another 4 hours. I've killed 3.5 hours already and my brain is dying. I've found a cosy niche between two ATMs to plug in my phone charger. I'm reading Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them on my Kindle but keep looking at my watch, hoping I am closer to checking in than right now. Ugh. Worst.

Anyway, yesterday was officially Packing Day, and even though I really couldn't put it off any longer, I didn't start packing until well into the morning. Of course, because I left it so late, there were about a million small things I had to keep track of, and last minute errands that were left literally to the very last minute. And then, you know the feeling when you have such a monumental amount of important shit to do, that you ignore all of it, and become fixated on this small meaningless and inconsequential thing instead? No? Is it just me?

For me, yesterday, it was the all-consuming question of 'should I wash my hair today, or leave it till I land at my final destination?'. So instead of planning my luggage and itinerary, I spent my time fretting about the freshness of my hair pre or post-departure. And that is when my sister imparted me these words of wisdom - 'When in doubt, always wash your hair'.

What a fantastic life philosophy to live by! Not only because it is always better to have freshly washed, Herbal Essences-smelling hair, but because most of my thinking time is done in the shower. And what do you know, I thought of a whole bunch of vital packing items, which I would now be missing if I hadn't washed my hair. Moral of the story: I am really really bored at the airport and I apologize for this random an irrelevant post. 

Creeping closer

It's almost time to start packing! 


Except I don't know what to pack, or where to put it. Numerous friends and family have offered varied, inconsistent and sometimes not-very-sensible suggestions as to luggage requirements.

My aim is not to have quite as many pieces of luggage as this person.

But I am not infamous for procrastination for nothing. Truth is, I'm putting off doing any real packing because then I will have to start saying my goodbyes, and that is too sad to do just yet!

A few tips that do seem to come up often in the wealth of travel advice I have been given, and which I will try to follow:

1. Rolling seems to be the way to go. Rolling clothes that is, into compact, airless-as-possible bundles. I've tried it out and it does save more space, so this one's a winner.

A professional roller. Wish my jeans rolled as tightly as hers. 

2. Don't pack fancy shoes. Okay, I know that this is well-intentioned advice as heels are heavy and awkward to pack and take up valuable room. HOWEVER. I think I will be taking just one pair of just-in-case-I-go-out black heels because What If.

Definitely nothing as ridiculous as these babies. 

3. Don't pack fancy clothes. This is something I realise will save me a lot of grief later on, so I will try to minimise packing party dresses. I think I might just take one Litte Black Dress though (she says, optimistically).


4. Toiletries/cosmetics: don't try to take everything in your bathroom drawer. This has been an agonizing decision for me, but I have forbidden myself from taking anything I haven't used in the past month. Plus, if the stories are anything to go by, cosmetics in Canada and the U.S. are way, way cheaper than Australia, so I'll be better off going empty and stocking up.


5. Don't panic and start buying shit you don't need, because it probably won't be suitable for overseas. Again, this is something I've had to try very hard to stop myself doing. I've limited myself to one sensible and thick (I hope) everyday jacket.


This is just the basics, and a lot of it is aimed at reducing baggage. This is because I am a hoarder by nature, coupled with the fact that I can barely carry anything weightier than a handbag (which The Boy occasionally has to carry for me) (man, I'm going to miss having someone carry my shit around for me).

So this is where I'm at right now:

As you can see, I have dumped a pile of clothing and what-not into an old suitcase that was retrieved from the spidery arms of the garden shed. Fingers crossed I don't forget anything important once I actually am packed!

Hola!

Hola!

This is an exchange blog for family and friends. In a very short little while, I will be leaving to study/party in a little town called Kingston in Ontario, at Queen’s University (it’s all very  faux-royal and exciting). From past experience with blogs (i.e. the one I started when I was 14) this will probably degenerate into a Dear Diary of broody ramblings. But even so! I will persist! And hopefully document some of my experiences, Instagrammed for your viewing pleasure.

A word about the url – 500 Days of Deblina. My lovely friend Emily helped me set up this blog, and I didn’t anticipate having to think of a clever and witty and PERMANENT url on the spot. So I cast my eyes around her room, noticed the DVD 500 Days of Summer (which happens to be one of my favourites) and this was my thought process:

Ooh! Love that movie. I could use a title like that. How long am I going for? About 5 months. What’s 5 times 30? Probably around 500, right? Done!

Of course, I realised about 30 seconds later that 5 months definitely did not equal 500 days, but there you go. Now I’m stuck with this. Who knows, maybe I will end up blogging for 500 days. (Unlikely, as I figured out that’s like 2 years). (Wait, that’s not right, is it?).