How Being Billingual Helped Me Pick a Friend Out of a Precarious Situation

Like Ariel the Little Mermaid all of us have dreams and fantasies about being part of another world. And thanks to working and study abroad opportunities many of us can turn those fantasies into realities. After seeing Europe and coming back to Argentina, a good friend of mine started to have flights of fancy about working abroad and getting out of the hellhole that Argentina was quickly turning into every minute that goes by. So she set up a profile on a website for Au Pairs where they can be matched up and interviewed by potential employers.

There is a saying that goes "if something is too good to be true, it probably is"  I am writing this post to demonstrate how important it is to have good knowledge of the laws as well as good foreign language skills if you intend to be anything more than a tourist passing through. Already in Argentina cab drivers and produce sellers and such have been known to try and take advantage of foreigners especially if it is obvious that they don't have a good grasp of the language.

6 mths after my friend put out her profile she got contacted by some people in Canada that needed a live in care-giver.  Also note that my friend speaks nearly zero english and has no experience with life outside of a latino world. Naturally she told me about the experience. I told her I would be there to help and translate as needed. Nothing about this situation raised red flags in me.....YET.

Chicken, Waffles and First Class Hospitality at Yolks Commissionary

My blogpost today is my way of saying a big THANKS to the amazing people at Yolks Commissionary. Because I was so blown away at the world class customer service, I decided to put a post immediately for today and bump whatever post I had planned for another day. There are two times my mouth can't shut, firstly when its full of good food and secondly when the service has been extraordinary. And at Yolks Commissionary at 1298 East Hastings, I ended up with both.

The day began like any other day, with me waking up early to explore some of Vancouver's hidden gems. Hole in the wall places with glorious food tucked far away from the touristy downtown core. For months and months I had been hearing about Yolks Commissionary out on east hastings. I had already tried some of their food from their food truck and was completely sold. Now it was time to visit the mothership.

On a Sunday morning the restaurant opens at 9am. I arrived around 8:55 and within 3 mins a good sized crowd had already built up. When the doors open the restaurant was flooded and at 9:15 a waiting line had formed of eager beavers who had arrived 2-3 mins later than the others. The scenery at East Hastings may not be as romantic as the touristy restaurants downtown but when you see lineups like this at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere you know that you're in the right place.

Becoming an Actor in Vancouver British Columbia

Unless one intends on becoming a nomad without a home wandering all over the earth, every traveller has his or her day when they know that it;s time to settle down and have roots and stability and have a sense of a routine. There is no shame or dishonor in doing that, it can actually be a beautiful thing that can produce tremendously good fruit in your own life as well as in the lives of others.

In Jan 2014,  I felt that the season living abroad was coming to an end and it was time to go back to Canada. I made a decision to try and put down roots in Vancouver Canada. From the moment I landed in Canada, it was as if the country rolled out the red carpet for me to come home. I landed in the evening but the very next day the weather was crystal clear.  All my friends in Canada that until the moment I came back there had been nothing but cloudy weather. It was as if the Canadian skies decided to burst open for me....

In addition to that, I managed to get an apt. Within a wk of my landing I had my name on a tenants lease. This may not sound all that exciting but there is a little fact you should know that makes this special: Vancouver has one of the lowest vacancy rates in all of canada.  Locals, foreigners, students alike coming to Vancouver have to fight to be able to rent a space. As I did my research I found out that the vacancy rate of the city is at about 1%. So for me to have an apt for a decent price in the heart of downtown is nothing short of divine intervention..



Things continued to get better here.  I found myself feasting on food trucks and gorging out on the street food scene that Vancouver is famous for.  Also from my travels I felt like I had so many stories within me to tell and I needed another medium from my blogsite as a way of telling them. Vancouver is a hotspot for film, theatre, and acting. So I decided to take advantage of all that this great city had to offer and take acting lessons.

My first day in the acting studio, one of those rare moments in life happen when you are struck with an epiphany about who you are and why you were put on this earth. And I realized that I was born to be an actor.  This is a huge revelation in my life and there is so much to tell. I promise I will take all of you with me on my adventures in Vancouver as they unfold.

But for now I decided to share a tremendous video of Sir Ian Mckellan.  A true actor is one that can take something menial and mundane and make a dramatic scene out of it. In this hilarious video, Ian Mckellan was asked my a late night talk show host to read a set of instructions on how to change a car tire in a Shakespearean voice. What follows is nothing short of side splitting funny and hard core evidence of his capacity as an actor.....

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Whisked Away to the World of Harry Potter in Warner Brothers Studio London

Long after the movies and books have been done and completed Harry Potter continues to mess with the minds of muggles all over the world at Warner Bros Studios in London.   Please not that you must absolutely book tickets beforehand for a time slot and arrive at the time slot. Tickets are not sold onsite and the studio turns busloads of tourists daily who thought they could just show up without a reservation. This is due to the fact that there is a limit to how many people can be in the studios at any one time. So booking ahead is absolutely VITAL

Once you have your ticket in hand you'll be able to take a sneak peek inside Dumbledore's office,  encounter a Horcrux, down a glass of butterbeer and have a face to face encounter with the goblet of fire.....