Overdue and OVER IT.

Well like almost every other person that's had a baby I too have gone over my due date!  I was prepared for this and I'm really not surprised but what I am surprised by is how impatient I've become.  I really thought I would be just mentally prepared for going about a week to 10 days over before going into labour.  Turns out I'm just not quite that easy going.   After 40 weeks of this I just don't have a lot more to give.  I know the baby is fully formed and only getting fatter by the day so at this point it just seems like a cruel joke for it to hang out in there much longer. PLUS I want to find out what it is!  I'm dying to know the sex and just to lay my eyes on it for the first time.

It's crazy at this point how things change day to day.  I guess it could be because my skin is literally splitting at the seams and my body is at it's personal breaking point.  I know I'm not THAT large but I think for me this is the biggest I can go.  Rolling over has become a chore and getting anymore that 1 consecutive hour of sleep hasn't happened for me in awhile.  Which I guess it just my body training for the massive lack of sleep that is my future.  I am really looking very forward to not getting up 5+ times a night to go pee.  Oh well it's not like I have to get up for work in the morning (which is SO awesome)!

I was reading on another blog recently about what it feels like to be overdue and what she was saying made perfect sense to me.  She said it's like your due date is Christmas but then on the morning of your told Christmas has been postponed indefinitely.  Not only are you not getting Christmas that day but you have NO clue when Christmas will actually arrive over the next 2 weeks.  So you wake up every morning thinking maybe TODAY is Christmas... but then it's not.  Everyone is also asking you WHEN Christmas will be like you're Santa or something.  That is really what it feels like and prepared or not it is not fun.

On the plus side I know within one week I will be holding my baby and this will all be worth it.  I've had it pretty good over the past 10 months and I really shouldn't be whining.  Well I think I will go re-clean my already spotless house and hope that today is the day... or tomorrow would be good too.  I hope you all are enjoying your mobility and restful nights of sleep! 

STILL gaining weight for a good cause..

Wow I can't believe it's been 2 months since I last posted anything.  You would think with all this spare sober time I would have be posting every second day!  Things are going really good with me, getting larger by the day it seems.  Only 7 weeks to go until my due date, thank the sweet lord.  I'm not one to whine and complain about all the horrors of pregnancy because overall it's really not that bad.  I will say that once you hit the 30 week point everything gets just a little less great.  If you think about it that's only 1/4 of the pregnancy that's not so fun.. well and the first 10 weeks too but who's counting?!

Kristy and I have been really busy with our little cake business this summer.  We're fully booked until the end of August which is great because it's really making time fly by.   Here's the link to our facebook page, feel free to 'like' us and drool over all of our desserts - https://www.facebook.com/candyapplebakeshop

I honestly don't know what to rant about.. this is so strange....and boring.  I can say that I only have 5 weeks of work left and THAT is exciting.  As if I have a year of leisure ahead of me, it's going to be grand.  That's obviously that reason I have nothing to complain about right now. Plus the weather has been glorious and even though I'm sweating my ass off with these extra 20 lbs I'm hauling around it's totally worth it.  How is it that the sun just puts EVERYONE is such a good mood?!  Well I better put these last 5 weeks at work to use.  Next post I'll be sure to have some thing interesting to say.. or better yet a GORY birth story!  Something that will haunt your dreams and even make the youtube birth videos seem like a joke... because if it's not that bad I'll just lie to you anyways.  Enjoy the sun and that fact that your not as big as me!

Gaining weight for a good cause..

Finally a post that isn't about our glorious Euro-Trip so you can stop being jealous. I guess some updates are in order because lots has been going on for Carey and I.  We're having a baby!  I'm due Sept 2, so currently I'm 6 months pregnant.   After Europe we had nothing to look forward to so it seemed like the right time, lol.  Anyways we are really excited and I can't WAIT to meet the little one.  It's going by strangely fast now, but then I think about this child being in my belly for another 4 months and I get a little worried.  I just hope it keeps flying by like it has so far.

Who would have thought I would have ever been off the sauce this long?! What I would do for an ice cold beer... Many people told me in the past that not drinking while your pregnant is no big deal and that you don't even want a drink.  Those people lied.  Obviously it's not THAT hard because nothing is worth damaging my unborn baby but by no means is it easy.  We're just hitting the peak drinking season, summer.  On on hand I'm thinking that's good news because summer always flies by.  On the other hand I'm thinking that it usually flies by because I'm drunk all the time.   I guess I'll soon find out.

We are also attempting to sell our house.  Not really because we need a bigger place for the baby more so because that was just our game plan all along.  We don't want to move while I'm a whale (even though that's pretty much already happened) so we're hoping it sells before July.  If not we'll just take it off the market and live there for another year.  Now that everything is done on our house is seems like a waste to just leave.  I can't decide what I even want to happen, I guess we'll just wait and see.

I've just recently started buying baby stuff.  Everyone says having a baby is expensive but I really think it is what you make it. There is literally everything you could need on craigslist.  I just got a crib with mattress and sheets (from some clean looking people) for $125.  I had NO idea there were people out there spending $500+ on a crib.  Maybe this makes me a selfish Mom but there is NO way this baby is getting anything worth that much.  Me giving it nourishment and room to grow in my womb should be more than enough.  Pretty much my new past time is bargain hunting for baby items.  It's a great way to pass long days at work.

There's a few things about being pregnant that are worth a minute of ranting. Well there's many things I can rant about but we'll start with the strange fascination with pregnant woman.  We are a guilty of it.  Finding out someone is knocked up and making a religious point of checking their facebook for updates or better yet, pictures.  Random strangers in the street with give you a smile and nod of approval like you alone are re-populating earth.  Sometimes they don't stop with the smile and nod they actually ask details about the pregnancy.  The most over used questions is whether or not we're finding out the gender.  It's hilarious because when I say that we're not finding out people usually respond with a pat on the back like I'm doing humanity this huge favour.  I accept the pat on the back of course but what difference does it make to them?

I obviously have to dedicate at least one paragraph to the fact that I'm in the middle of gaining between 25-35 lbs.  Grab a couple dumbbells and see what that feels like.  It's a lot. The worst part is I'm terrified of gaining more.  After I got back from Europe I would say I was about 10 lbs from my optimal weight, then soon after I blew out my knee in soccer which put me out of sports and the gym for about 10 weeks.  So needless to say when I got pregnant I was NOT at my ideal weight.  I've been hitting the gym twice a week ever since I found out I was prego just to avoid an 80 lbs weight gain, but it has not been easy.  I need knee surgery to repair my meniscus which I can't have until after the baby is born so with the extra poundage, bum knee and large belly getting in the way it hasn't been a cake walk.  I'm going to continue going as long as I physically can because I hate being fat more than anything.  One thing I just cant get used to is hoping on the scale and just watching the numbers so up.  Baby or not it just feel wrong!

Well lets just hope this baby is worth it. If it comes out looking anything like baby Carey I think it will be!

Euro Trip - Oktoberfest

I started this post well over a month ago and just never finished it.. I'm sick of talking about Europe so this one will be short and sweet and I'll post something more exciting ASAP!

This will be my last post about our glorious trip to Europe.  I just wanted to get it all on here so I could look back and remember it all.  Seriously though, we've been back for 6 months and I think it's time to move on lol. I figure I'll leave out the last week that Carey and I spent in Spain because lounging the sun by the pool while reading the Hunger Games Trilogy because that doesn't make for the best story.  Also sad to say I won't go into detail about our time in Northern Germany and Amsterdam but I will say it was just as grand as everything was before and I won't forget it.  What I will tell you about was our two days in Munich at Okoberfest..

We got to our campsite just outside of Munich at about 4pm. We had a few plans for the evening.  Firstly to get into the downtown area so we could get the lay of the land.  Also we had decided it was completely necessary to track down lederhosen and dirndl so we would fit in with all the real Germans (sorry Carey, you hardly qualify).  We set up camp.. by that I mean we parked our rig, and headed out to grab the bus.  The bus took us to the train and from there we just followed the crowd.  We arrived by the time it was just getting dark.  We cruised around and took in the sights and a couple brats (obviously!).  We ended up getting seats in an outdoor beer garden which worked out just wonderfully for us.  Drank enough glasses (litres) of beer to be feeling pretty great and enjoyed some salty pretzels.  We still made it back to our campsite in one piece at a fairly reasonable hour, we had a big day ahead of us.

Our big day at Oktoberfest started pretty early.   We were up and ready by around 9am. We were dressed to impress and looking forward to a glorious day.  On top of it all it was Brett's birthday so we had plans to make this one count.  Today we all blended in pretty well in our new outfits, except people were not impressed by our footwear.  Apparently regardless of the heat your supposed to wear big ass boots and wool socks with your lederhosen.  I don't think we had any regrets with our sandals once we got into the hot and sweaty tents.

We looked around until we found a tent that had tables.  Well they all had available tables at that point, it was 10am.  Most of them are reserved at 3pm and you get the boot when the reservations (which are sold out months in advance) show up. We ended up in the Ochsenbraterei Tent which turned out to be a great choice.  We were allowed to stay as long as we pleased, so we sat down knowing this would be our spot for the day.  We knew we had a looong day of drinking ahead of us so we did the logical thing and ordered some breaky with our first steins of beer.  I knew the food would be good but it was actually better than I imagined.  You know when you eat something SO delish that you actually want to puke after just so you could potentially eat it all over again? That's how we felt all day long.

As the day carried on things just kept getting better and better.  Our beer maid was around enough to keep our beers filled, the only issue is drinking them fast enough so they don't get warm.  We were fighting the heat in there and those beers take awhile to consume.  We made some German friends and did about 1000 prosts.  A little later after several litres Carey went a little hard on his glass hitting and smashed his stein.  Honestly I have no idea how because those things are like an inch thick.

Carey's uncle (well sort of, more of a great cousin lol) Hans joined us for a few hours of drinking. I don't know if it's a German thing of if it's just Carey's distant relatives but everyone we met up with over there was SO nice.  Hans bought us a round of beer and some more food for our bellies.  He we probably just concerned about how drunk we already were by 2pm, but it's the thought that counts.  Hans left before we really started getting embarrassing, from what I recall at least?

Like any normal North Americans we made the drinking portion into a bit of a competition and kept track of how many litres we were putting back.  Which is not easy when you've been drinking litres of beer all day long but the final tally was 8 litres for Brett and Carey and 6 litres for Kristy and I.  That's about 3 beer cans per litre, you do the math.  This was accompanied by many trips to the washroom and at least 1 litre of water from what I remember.  The water was actually just as much money as the beer so it hardly seemed worth it.

Around 7pm people start getting pretty rowdy, for obvious reasons.  Everyone stood up on the benches and the music got a little louder.  This is what I imagined for Okoberfest!  Of course we've been drinking since well before noon while sitting on our asses.  Getting up and standing for long periods of time made us realize we had in fact drank close to 20 beer each. By about 9pm Kristy and I were starting to fade.  Well I don't know is fade is the right word or not, we could barely stand or keep our eyes open.  We staggered out for some energy, a couple foot long hot dogs and potato pancakes.  Here's Kristy in fine form enjoy her dog:

& here's a group shot of the dream team early in the day:

Kristy and I made a few wrong turns on the way back, the train system wasn't as easy as it was on day one.  We made it back without any real problems though.  Carey and Brett weren't quite as lucky.  They were only about an hour behind us (but probably didn't think to have some brain food before heading to the train... foot long dog always makes the difference).  From what we've heard Carey was sitting on the train barking orders at Brett to get them home, I can't remember why but for some reason this was solely Brett's job.  Brett of course can't see a THING because he's blind as a bat and has downed a flat of beer to himself.  Carey refuses to help him read the train schedule which is on the train ceiling above the door.  At some point Brett decides he should jump off at the next stop and get a quick look at the bigger map outside the train.  Carey continues to sit there and yell at Brett.  Brett is not as fast and limber as he thought and he doesn't get back on the train in time.  Now he is stuck in the middle of nowhere (they were going the wrong way already) alone and blind.  Carey finally gets up and looks at the map notices he is going the wrong way, gets off the train and hops on the next one back.  He make it back to the campsite without issue.  Brett on the other hand ends up at a stop that isn't very popular and has to wait 30 mins for the next train.  I honestly don't think we'll ever know what happens after that.  We always put one of the campsite cards in Brett's wallet for times likes these and after a few hours he also made it back.  At that point we were all fast asleep caring very little about his well being.

Overall this was the BEST trip of my life.  It still seems surreal that it's came and went.  I hope to get back to Europe at some point when I'm older and rich but unless those lotto numbers pull through it will be awhile.  To anyone that's thinking about doing a trip like this stop being a wussy and GO.  It's worth the thousands of dollars of debt... and I love money so take that seriously.  I'm lucky to have such a good posse to travel with.  Even though I know I've threatened each of their lives at some point along the way I wouldn't have done it with anyone else.

EURO TRIP - Switzerland & Germany

Switzerland is the land 'o plenty; Plenty of beauty, chocolate and money.  This place seriously makes you feel like you're in the sound of music.  It was very much a highlight on our trip.  However after enjoying Germany so cheaply it was truly shocking how much everything costs just a hours drive south.  We decided to go for it obviously, our visas will just have to be dealt with back in boring North America.  You really can't put a price of the Switzerland experience!

We stayed in a town called Interlaken.  Any idiots who (like myself) can sit through the Bachelor might recognize this lovely place. The drive in was seriously unbelievable.  It's hard to really believe something like that exists until you see it with you own eyes.  Poor Brett was sleeping off sassafras in the back and missed out on it.  Oh well, there's always next time lol.  We got to a nice campsite on the river that connected the two lakes.  Interlaken actually means "between two lakes".  The river was the brightest color, a mix of green and blue.  Actually it reminded me of blue koolaid (which reminds me I could use a glass of that in my near future).  The colors there are like nothing I've seen anywhere.  We walked around that afternoon exploring the town.  We ended up buying tickets for the tram up to one of the mountain towns for later that evening.

We left that night around 6 for Wegen which was about 4000 feet up.  The views from our tram were amazing and if you ever make it to Interlaken you must head up the mountain to one of the many towns.  It was about an hour trip up.  We walked around the town trying to find the most reasonably priced place for dinner.  Nothing was even close to reasonable so we settled on insanely expensive.  We had the most delicious dinner with a couple bottles of wine.  We learned that roquette is in fact a type of cheese, not a fondue.  Either way it was heavenly.  After eating ourselves sick we had about 30 minutes before the last tram down so we went for a cruise.  Lucky we had also had the smarts to bring a couple bottles of wine in our backpack as well.   We stumbled upon a group of 4 guys with Swiss horns.. of course we did, this place is just like in the movies.  They played them in the street while a group gathered around.  They weren't even busking for money, just playing for our entertainment.   Then again with the prices there what are they going to be able to buy with chump change anyway?

We would have loved to stay for a whole week but time was a ticking and there were still many places on the agenda.  After 2 days in lovely Switzerland we were heading back to Germany.  One the way out we decided to start fresh and have Brett empty the tank before we got back to the mother land.  This time was not as enjoyable as the first dump. This was probably for a mixture of two reasons.   The blue puck made it in this time making the smell much less violent and I think all the cheese we ingested over the past two days had most of us pretty backed up.  I still wouldn't say Brett got off lucky or anything, it was still insanely revolting.

We drove to the border and took a ferry across the lake back to Germany and landed in Meersberg for the afternoon.  It was a very German town that even had a medieval castle.   Of course Carey and Brett had us take the 3 hour tour which fell just short of exhilarating.  Our afternoon in Meersberg was quite nice regardless.  It looked just like I had always imaged Germany to look.  We continued on the coast of Lake Constance for awhile and got a good look at the Bavarian landscape. I think when people imagine Germany they are really just envisioning Bavaria.  I have to say it was my favorite German state. One minute it felt like we were on a wine tour in the interior of BC and shortly after we were in a lush green forest. Actually a lot of German country side reminded me of home.

We rolled into a nice campsite for the night near Fussen.  Even though the campsite was pretty full there was next to no one around.  I think people just lived in their trailers there? So pretty much we felt right at home.  We poured ourselves some bevs and relaxed for awhile.  It was cooler there than it had been for us so far so we took the opportunity to enjoy our motor coach.

We set off to find an authentic German restaurant.  This wasn't hard considering the town we were staying in only had about 300 residents, everything was pretty authentic.  Our waitress (dressed in dirndl) spoke about as much English as we did German.  We just went for the point and pick on the menu and managed to order a couple steins of beer.  When the food arrived (which we had initially agreed to share to be safe), Carey and Brett both ended up with legit meals while I got a plate of sliced head cheese and Kristy got an ice cold bowl of gelatin soup.  We embraced our decisions and ate what we could of our meals.  We tried to order more edible food but the waitress wasn't picking up what we were putting down so we called it a day.  The owner of the restaurant found out there were some Canadians dining upstairs and came up to greet us.  He reminded me of Santa, a jolly old guy with a big white beard who you just can't help but like (even if he's sweater profusely from his walk up the stairs).  Anyways he was outraged when he found out we could read the menu and he wasn't too pleased at our waitress and informed us it was her last night.  He said he was going to send us a special dessert.  A few minutes later a plate arrived with these donut looking things that were covered in cinnamon sugar and topped with a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream. We were all drooling.  Then 3 more plates show up.  Turns out in Germany you don't have to share your dessert.  I love Germany.

We waddled back to our motor home to play our next rounds of fortune and chance... I want this to end on a good note so lets pause there.  More soon!

EURO TRIP - Germany Part 1

We traveled north to Frankfurt where we met my sister Kristy and her new fiaaaaanceee Brett.  They just got engaged a few days before near Paris so some celebrating was in order.  We met up with them at the train station and hopped on another train which took us to our motorhome rental.  Once we got to the rental depot we were greeted by Klaus ( a condescending asshole) who told us we were required to watch a 30 minute video before we could take the motorhome.  This video left us with a few questions.. most importantly, HOW do you empty the shit tank?

Here in Canada we empty our shit tanks in the most human way possible.  This usually involves a hose and a lever so you're never having to see whats been building up in your tank over your lovely holiday.  Also they are quite large and can hold a substantial amount of human waste.   In most ways Europeans are a step ahead of us.  They don't have homeless people begging on every street corner, they're all bilingual, they have free university and they have the best public transit systems around.  So WHY are these clearly smarter, more educated people creating motorhomes with thimble sized shit tanks that have to be manually dumped!?

After a short argument with Klaus, that German prick, we hit the open road.  First things first, we knew we had to sort out some kind of schedule for who would be dumping that mini shit tank.  It was clear it was going have to be done several times over the next week.  There was no time for games of fortune and chance so to start it off we decided first one to use the bathroom had to empty it.  This was actually Kristy's idea and quite genius.  She informed me that Brett has a woman sized bladder and would most definitely crack first.  Just to be safe I cautiously sipped my Heineken until Brett like a 5 year old girl, just couldn't hold it any longer.  I guess the overall excitement had clouded Brett's judgement because Kristy and I can both drink a 6 pack of beer before going pee once.  Plus our competitive spirit probably would have had us puking up our pee before losing at a game like that.  Anyways, we'll revisit this topic later when Brett had to revisit our excrement somewhere between Stuttgart and Freiburg.

First stop, Stuttgart.  It was our first night in Germany and we wanted to land somewhere fun for the evening.  Of course the traffic through Frankfurt was bad and the drive to Stuttgart was longer than we had hoped.  Our GPS, Rosa, took us directly to the city center.  We learned a valuable lesson that night, you can take an eight foot high motor home just anywhere.  We planned to find a parking lot and then hit the town of course all the parking in the middle of a city is underground and there are height limits for that.  After a few arguments we found ourselves in the train station parking lot.  This was our first night of urban camping.  Before long we were enjoying some schnitzel and drinks.  On our way back we tried to find a liquor store or a bar which of course was impossible.  Luckily we had all hit the duty free pretty hard on our travels into Europe so the motor home was fully stocked.  After some night caps the lulling sound of the train station put us all to sleep.  It turned out the urban camping had it's bonuses, coffee and pastries just steps away inside the train station!  After a wholesome breakfast we were back on the road and this time we planned to make it to a real campsite.

We drove to Freisburg on day two but not before Brett became better acquainted with the dumping of the shit tank.  I've actually attached a few pictures so you can get a real idea of the kind of joy we felt watching Brett dump out our shit while blowing chunks.  This was also when we realized we forgot to put the little blue puck the kills the smell in the tank before hand... oops!

Great times... Once Brett recovered made the short drive into Freiburg.  This was such a cool town and Rosa led us to a great campsite.  We settled in to our campsite and started to enjoy some beverages.  This is when the first game of fortune and chance took place.  Loser dumps the next full tank.  Brett of course thought he was exempt from even playing but after a quick vote it was decided he was fully eligible.  You can probably guess what happened next.. Brett's demise. When you go into a game with that much fear you don't stand a chance.  The rest of us were on top of the world after our win and took celebratory dumps in the bathroom while Brett cried outside. Kidding, sort of.

We went out that night for some drinks and long story short the loss got the best of old Brett.  I wont go into details but he was a complete moron that night.  I'm still surprised we made it out of that town with Brett at all.  It seems like he has some kind of homing device.  Somehow he always made it back to the motor home, no matter how hard we try to lose him.  After a morning of shame and sassafras (Brett's bitchy alter ego) we were on our way to another extremely cheap and delicious bakery for snacks then back on the road.   Next stop was Interlaken, Switzerland...

EURO TRIP - France & Austria

After a week in Italy Carey and I were heading to the South of France. The drive alone made the 4 hour detour worth it.  No wonder there's a toll every hour, how else are they ever going to pay for the 10,000 tunnels that make up the hwy from Italy to France?  Of course when we first started going through the tunnels I did what any mature adult would do, hold my breath.  Carey got a kick out of this because some of the tunnels ended up being ridiculously long and watching me starve for oxygen really seemed to make his day.  After about 40 minutes of huge tunnels with very small gaps in between and no end in sight I started to feel pretty light headed and had to call it a day on the breath holding.  I've got to hold on to the precious brain cells I've got left.

When I was imagining the South of France I had pictured us lounging on the beach, working on our tans with a bunch of topless ladies with hairy pits.  Surprisingly enough that's not at all how our 3 days there went.  We were staying in a small town just outside of Cannes called La Napoule and a seriously awesome hotel called Corniche d'Or for about 50 euro a night.  This got us a room with a balcony (about 3' by 6') which had a view of the town courtyard just a few steps away from the most amazing grocery store and bakery known to man.  We did spend one day at the beach, which was absolutely beautiful.  The bulk of our time was spent people watching from the balcony and of course me kicking Carey's ass at every dice/card game possible while eating countless baguettes. 

One day after stocking up at the market across the street with a few liters of wine (which is very cheap but substantially less drinkable than cheap Italian wine) a problem arose.  Long story short I had somehow dropped both of our pens down into the much larger unused patio below. I was feeling pretty good at this point, a little tipsy and still kicking ASS at dice.  I had to get those pens back asap.  We had noticed earlier that other guests from the hotel hung up their room keys as they left on a hook at the front.  Being suspicious distrusting Canadians we never did this.  How perfect for this situation though! I would just cruise down and grab the room key for the room below us.

 When I got to the lobby area there was only one man there t checking out the brochures, so I felt pretty safe snatching the key and running back up the stairs.  Thinking back this probably looked extremely conspicuous.  I climbed three flights of stairs to the door of room 7 and knocked on it a few times waiting about 2 seconds before letting myself in calling out "house keeeeepinnnggg" just to be safe lol.  Once I was in I saw that someone was in fact staying in the room but luckily was not home.  I then clued into the fact that I was really breaking into some guys room and started to PANIC.  What if he caught me in here? What would I say? I don't even speak french.  Great now I'm going to be raped, beat up and thrown in jail all over a couple fricken pens. I ran over to the patio doors, yes there are 2 fully separate locked french doors between me and the patio.  There's no real way of getting through them fast or quietly because they are both probably 50 years old.  When I finally got onto the patio I grabbed the pens and looked up only to see Carey pointing at me and laughing like a hyena.  Maybe next to him I could be inconspicuous? In this moment next to him I look like a god damn ninja.

I closed and locked the 2 french doors and front and lightning speed desperate to get out of this situation unscathed.  I felt instant relief once I was back out into the hallway.  Now all I had to do was return the key to the hook.  I ran down the two flights of stairs into the lobby to see the man who was looking at brochures earlier sitting behind the desk on the computer.  Turns out he was the owner, great.  As I was making my way to the key hooks when I noticed a man coming in the front door.  This distracted the owner at the just right time and I replaced the key to the room 7 hook, turned and ran up the first flight of stairs.  I couldn't help myself and I turned back from the top of the first flight to see which key the man was going for.   Of course he's reaching for the only key that's swinging back and forth, room 7.  He turned and looked at me while trying to process the situation.  I did what anyone would have done, sprint back into my room, shut the door and double locked it.

When I got back onto the patio I started to tell Carey the turn of events which almost lead to my capture.  Had I been 30 seconds later I would have been caught red handed with a key that was not mine or worse, in his room! It's then that I hear the patio doors below us open.  The man comes out onto the patio and looks directly up at us.  I smile and wave, giving my most Canadian "Bonjour!"  I was obviously shitting my pants on the inside.  He had clearly realized I broke into his room but could see that nothing was missing so didn't have grounds to say anything about it. Yep, I totally got away with it.  

We celebrated that evening by heading out to an Irish bar.  Quite random but I guess you can find an Irish bar pretty much anywhere.  Met a strange dutch man and proceeded to booze heavily with him for the rest of the evening.  Overall it's a bit blurry but I do remember one shot he bought for us which changed my world, tequila, sambuca and espresso.   Seriously the most revolting thing to hit my lips since the raw hamburger I accidentally ordered the night before.  

Waking up the next morning it was all I could think about.  Why is it that when your extremely hung-over your mind keeps taking you to the WORST drink you had of the whole night before?  It's like having a bad song stuck in your head, but much worse.  I don't usually suffer from hangovers that aren't cured by a double cheeseburger, this morning was an exception.  Of course this is the day we have to make the 4 hour trip back to Italy and drop our rental car off in Milan.  Actually I think the only time I get THIS hangover is when I have some impossibly long painful thing I must do the next day.  Carey of course was totally fine and not feeling nearly as sorry for me as I am feeling for myself.  After a couple pukes which resembled slug slime and black liquorice we were ready to go.  I forced down a croissant and settled in for ride.  It was sad to leave France.  I was leading the winner’s board by a cool 10 games. Who knows if I'll ever find another place where I'm actually luckier than Carey? Goodbye France.

We had booked a hotel in Milan for 1 night and were heading out on a 6am train to Innsbruck, Austria. We made it to drop off our car with literally 3 minutes to spare before they closed.  Somehow close calls seemed to be a reoccurring theme on this trip of leisure.  Anyways, Milan was sort of like an Italian Vancouver but less beautiful.  Seriously, it’s not that special and hardly worth staying in for more than a few hours.  Our hotel was extra ghetto but at least it was walking distance to the train station out of there.  

In the morning we hopped on the train, my first ever train ride actually.  Europeans got this right; trains are the way to travel.  After a scenic trip 6 hour ride we had arrived in Innsbruck.  This place is a MUST SEE.  The buildings are all pastel colors that reminded me of easter eggs.  The town is in a valley between a few massive snowy mountains.  Sadly we only had 1 day there.  We made the best of it and cruised around town for the afternoon and ending up in some sort of farmers market for a few steins of beer.  One of the BEST things about Europe as a whole is that you can get a beer ANYWHERE you want.  No one is judging you for cracking a beer at any point of the day.  As we sat in this market and got a little drunk I remember thinking, does life get ANY better than this?!   Well, turns out it does. We picked up our motor home rental the next day......