Let's Pretend We're in Hawaii

It's warm and sunny and tropical and lovely in Hawaii. It's also still Thursday there (I really need to work on my time management :P). I've seen so many pictures, watched so many films/shows/etc set there, and heard so much about it, Hawaii is a place I'd love to go to sometime.

There are a lot of places I'd love to go to, a lot of things I'd love to do. As a child I spent so much time reading books about fantastical places and watched movies set in magical worlds. I couldn't get enough of it. As I grew up came reality, and the realisation that so many of those places don't actually exist. The places of my fairytales were replaced with an education of the world and the even greater realisation that while fairylands don't exist the real world can be just as magical and wondrous.

There are so many places to see and things to do. I want to spend my life traveling the world and trying to see as much of it as I can in the little time I have on Earth. Even if I live to 100 I cannot possibly see everything. But I'll do my best, and I've had a good start. Even just this month I've done more and seen more than I usually do in a year, and for that I'm grateful.

So here's an update on what's been going on this crazy month, apart from being sick, and working and looking into scholarships and student loans and all those things associated with money that you unfortunately need to be able to travel *sigh*.

First off I spent a week in London with my parents! I love London, so much. It's an amazing city, one I'd always wanted to see. I had the chance to spend all of two days there in 2010 and ever since then I've been trying to get back.

We tried to do a lot of the touristy things: a city bus tour, the London Eye, seeing Trafalgar Square, and Parliament, and Westminster Abbey, etc. I dragged my parents through art galleries like Tate Modern and the National Gallery. And we saw shows! Phantom, Les Mis, and Billy Elliot. The weather wasn't too great but I still loved being there.

For many reasons, along with London having amazing theatre and just being an amazing city in general, I applied to a school there for a Theatre Design program. While my parents and I were in London I had an interview at the school. I spent there day there, getting a tour of the facilities, seeing one of the school's productions, meeting staff and students, along with the actual interview and portfolio review. It was a really fun day and I found I was really happy with the school I'd chosen to apply to. Which is good because shortly after coming home the school contacted me and offered me a place in the program! So I'm really excited to say that, providing I'm approved for a student visa, I'll be moving to London for school in September!!! =D Haha, I'm kind of really excited!

Could my month have gotten any better?! Well no, but I did go to Vegas, which was, well, I went to Vegas. Here's my thing with Vegas, it didn't live up to expectations. It has this reputation as this glitzy, fabulous, party city, and I think when you first get there it is pretty cool, but after a while the charm definitely wears off. We had gone for a whole week, which was waaaayyyy too long to be in that city. My parents, as well as my sister were there and we all ended up agreeing that it was too long of a trip and we were getting bored. There is a fair bit to do, but not quite enough to fill a whole week. And the party atmosphere definitely gets old. Seeing people walking down the street drunk at all hours of the day is not very impressive, the casinos are smoking and loud and crowded and gaudy. It got to a point where as soon as I stepped into one I had a headache, and it's hard to avoid them, there are everywhere and in the middle of everything.

We also had the misfortune of not being able to do a lot of the things we wanted to do. We heard there was a Guggenheim art gallery, after looking all afternoon we found out it closed about a year ago. We wanted to see the Lion Habitat at MGM Grand, it closed two weeks before. We wanted to go swimming and the pool at our hotel was closed for maintenance. We heard there was really good deals on shopping, which there was, but when the sale price is still out of range for you...for example I saw a really nice pair of Stella McCartney snow pants in an Adidas outlet, normally $350, on sale for $90. That's insane! Yes, that's like $260 off, but there is still no way I'm paying $90 for a pair of snow pants! The most disappointing though was the Celine Dion concert. She was the main reason we wanted to go to Vegas, it's supposedly an AMAZING concert and we were so excited for it. Unfortunately, when we got to the theatre we found out she has some sort of virus that's affecting her vocal chords and can't sing. Her shows have been cancelled for 6-8 weeks. There were so many people crying outside the theatre.

So yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of Vegas and if I ever go back it would be for no more than a weekend with friends. However, it wasn't all bad. The Secret Gardens at the Mirage was fun, and it had BABY DOLPHINS! Some of the architecture of the hotels is really neat. And it was good to get away from the snow for a while. The best thing to come of Vegas though was Cirque du Soleil.

Of course I knew about Cirque du Soleil, and it was something that had kind of interested me, but I'd never actually seen one of the shows before. There's 7 Cirque shows in Vegas and we went to 2 of them. The first one was "Love" which I enjoyed, it was really cool to see and the music of course was great, being all Beatle's music. I was fairly tired though so I wasn't as into it as I normally would have been, I also spent a lot of the time thinking "Oh my god, please don't die! Are you okay? Where is your saftey harness? How is no one getting injured?!" The second show I saw was "O" and I did a lot better during that one. Much more well rested, and more accustomed to the terrifying stunts, I was able to really get into it and enjoy it. And I kind of fell in love. If you ever have the chance to go see a Cirque show do it! It's amazing and incredible and I don't even know what adjectives to use! Cirque du Soleil has definitely gone on my list of dream jobs. And the international headquarters for the company are in Montreal, which my mom would much prefer, rather than me working across the world from her I'd only be across the country.

Oh wow I've written a lot. If you're still reading I hope I've been interesting and not just rambling, it's hard to keep track of my rambling at 2:30am :P I should probably go to bed....

DFTBA,

-Kim