The new blog

You may have noticed that the title of this blog is still "Adventures in Toronto" and yet I've moved clear across the continent and obviously am not having very many adventures in Toronto these days. So I've created a new blog. You can find it at:

www.TheZsaZsaZsu.com

The new feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ZsaZsaZsu

So update your bookmarks and RSS readers, I promise I'll start blogging more.

I live nowhere

A really weird thing happens when I travel across the border these days. No country wants to claim me as their own. When I fill out customs forms for the US, I'm not technically a "resident" because my TN visa classifies me as a visitor, so they want to see my permanent address as being in Canada.

When I fill out Canadian customs forms, they want to see my address on the card as being in the United States because I'm not technically a resident of Canada anymore either.

Hmmmph. The great part is that I'm not subject to any limits on the amount of alcohol and tobacco I bring across the border because both countries assume that I'm going to be bringing it back to my "home". This could get interesting...

It works both ways

So the US isn't the only one guilty of narrow-mindedness. I'm in a Starbucks in Vancouver and to pay for wireless I'm forced to give them my cell number and select my carrier from a dropdown menu. The choices: Bell, Rogers, Fido, Telus.

Grrrrr....

My love of airports

Flew into Vancouver this morning for New Music West and checked my newsreader to find a very appropriate post by Rick and shortly after, the follow-up by Rachel. The amount of travelling I've been doing has recently gone up a fair bit and I've learned that nothing irritates me more than taking my shoes off at the security check. Taking the laptop out, alright fine. Removing jackets and sweaters, if I must. Emptying out pockets, done and done. But it never fails, something inside me just gets supremely offended and irritated at the shoe removal part. It's just disgusting. Ugh.

Rachel had a much worse time than I did going through security this morning. She managed to incite a pat-down that usually requires someone buying dinner first. At one point I thought the security guard was checking to make sure that she hadn't swallowed 18 balloons of cocaine, because I'm not sure what else she could have been looking for by rubbing her stomach so thoroughly. I have to thank Rachel though, because it served as a great distraction while all of my liquid and gel toiletries made it through in my carry-on baggage in non-regulation sized bottles, jammed in various places in my suitcase. How's that for security?

Coachella

First of all, it was hot. Damn hot. 103 degrees hot (that's about 39 celsuis for the Canadian readers out there). So, naturally there were a lot of scantily clad people...like this guy:



Despite the heat, I had an awesome time. We started off by catching a bit of the Fratellis, then I went off to see Regina Spektor on the main stage, who was so awesome. She carried the whole show just with her voice and a piano.

After that, I went back to meet with the rest of the guys to see Peter, Bjorn & John and managed to see the last few songs of Hot Chip, who are one of my new favourites. By the time Peter, Bjorn and John came on, I was ready to pass out. They were performing in a tent, which you would think would be a bit cooler because it was out of the sun, but it was the exact opposite. There were about a million people jammed into this tent and not a breeze at all. Coupled with the fact that I was approximately at armpit level of everyone, made it a not-so-pleasant experience. After the first song I had to go outside where I sat on the grass, and smeared mustard all over my face while attempting to eat a soft pretzel. NO ONE whistled to Young Folks! What's up with that?


Next was Arcade Fire, who rocked the house with the best performance of the whole day.


When Arcade Fire was finished performing I was lucky enough to escape with my life because that's when the Chili Peppers fans started moshing their way up to the stage, despite the fact that people who were there watching Arcade Fire hadn't left yet. I love nearly dying.

A few of us split off to go see LCD Soundsystem and laugh at the kids doing lots of drugs and deciding that the middle of the crowd dancing to massive techno beats was clearly the appropriate place to lie down. We took some not-so-sneaky pictures of them.


The last show we caught was The Good, The Bad and the Queen. By that point I was pretty tired, the air was cooling off to the point where it was getting a little chilly and everyone was coming down with sinus and lung conditions from all the dust we'd been inhaling from frolicking in the desert all day. I finally managed to get ahold of the guys I'd come with and we started back on the 3 1/2 hour drive back to LA. What a great day!

Hey America...meet Canada!

America is vaguely aware of the vast land mass directly to the north of the good old US of A. They know that the good hockey players come from there and Canadians use the word "aboot". The country as a whole, however, is unaware that Canadians build up credit the exact same way that Americans do and that it's even the same company that keeps track of your credit score. Somehow this information has yet to cross the border. Also, it seems that there's a rumour going around the States that our drivers licences are not a valid form of ID. The fact that America is misinformed about how business is done north of the border is giving me a bit of a headache.

Banking in general down here has turned out to be a royal pain in the ass. On top of the fact that I have no credit history in the US (which makes it virtually impossible to get a credit card and a monthly cell phone package) Wells Fargo decided that it would be really funny if they picked a random Friday to automatically close my accounts. So much fun! Turns out that the banker that entered my SSN into the system entered it in the wrong spot and overwrote my passport info. This left me with only one form of valid ID attached to my account and according to the US patriot act, that makes me a terrorist trying to launder money, so my accounts were closed. No warning phone call or email, just a polite message at the ATM saying that my accounts could not be accessed and could I please call this number. Bastards.

I managed to get everything sorted out and open a new account and while waiting for my cheque card to arrive in the mail I actually walked into the bank in person to withdraw money. Believe it or not, growing up in the era of the ATM, I don't think I've ever done this before in my life. I handed her my Ontario drivers licence and after looking at it for a while, she asks what state is is.

"Uh, that'd be Canada, also known as the 51st state."

"Hahahahahaha. We can't actually accept this as a valid form of ID."

So basically they can take my money, but won't give it back to me. Peachy. Turns out the second banker didn't even order the cheque card. I'm going to have to learn to stop distracting them with the witty banter.

Oh and one last thing. You have to take a driving test to swap your Ontario drivers licence for a California one. It's probably because we drive on the other side of the road in Canada. Just like England.

Guess who's going to Coachella!

Give up? Ok, it's me!!! Randomness has taken ahold of my life and refuses to let go. Last weekend I went out on Santa Monica with some friends and met some more new friends, who happened to have a friend with a Coachella ticket she couldn't use... Ahhhhhh, I love that every day seems to be some new adventure.

Update

I've been getting some flack about not posting in a while, so here goes...

I love California. Basically, I've been having so much fun that it's hard to find one thing that I want to write about. I went out with a bunch of friends in Santa Monica last night and had the greatest time. It's funny how people just seem to come together out here. There was a pretty large group of people that I went out with, maybe around 15 in total and most of them are from anywhere but the Los Angeles area. Which is great for making jokes about the stereotypes of different places, the Canadian jabs are a little too easy, because everyone seems to have a blast dishing those out.

I took the metro and the bus from Pasadena to Santa Monica last night, which seems so simple and not very long when they serve up the route to you on the internet, but after spending an OVER AN HOUR on the bus from union station to Santa Monica I was swearing up and down that I am going to buy a car, like, yesterday. I promise, I'll never do it again.