I'm back from the dead!

Okay, maybe not the dead. But from tiring 7 day a week working and vacations, to name a few. I left on vacation on May 8th, 2007 and just got back on the 24th. I quit my other job before I left and now am only working 5 days a week. I'm glad I left when I did because I couldn't keep up that pace. For those of you who do it, I applaude you, because I sure can't keep it up.

Vacation was fun. For those who didn't know I went on vacation, thanks for the comments (3 Things about Money- Greatly Appreciated!) - it's nice to know someone reads all my ramblings. I went to Paris for the first week with my sister and then spent a week in London with my mom and my grandmother. It was a lot of fun, and I had a blast, despite some minor setbacks. First of all, Air Canada, being the lovely organisation that they are, lost my luggage.

We had a layover in Toronto (Flew Calgary to Toronto, Toronto to London, Eurostar from London to Paris all in 2 days) and apparently Toronto is horrible for getting luggage from point A to point B. Of course, I knew none of this and so had a 1.5 hour layover in Toronto. My sister's luggage arrived just fine from Toronto however, mine was not to be seen. The guy I dealt with was awesome, however. He appologized and was very helpful. He gave me free toiletries (I'm such a nerd for travel-sized toiletries and enjoyed my little bag of freebies) and told me that my luggage would most likely arrive on the next plane from Toronto. It was now about 7:30 in the morning and he said the next plane arrived at around 8:30 and asked if I wanted to stay around and wait. I said sure (hoping that it would arrive) and waited. Problem was, we had Eurostar tickets departing from Waterloo International Station at 10:10 and we were currently at Heathrow. To make a long story short, luggage didn't arrive on the next flight, we had to leave, tube line from Heathrow Airport to Waterloo Station was suffering from "severe delays" and we arrived at the Eurostar terminal 15 minutes before our train was due to depart. We got threw security, booked it to the train, got on and 3 minutes later, train departed. Holy-close-cutting Batman! Needless to say we were a little stressed. Just a little. Yep. Fortunatly they found my luggage and shipped it to my little apartment in Paris. It arrived two days later on the friday. That was really the only major stressful part of the trip.

During my vacation I spent about as much as I had planned to. The plane tickets cost me about $800, the Eurostar tickets about $150. The apartment in Paris cost us each about $228 for the week and my mom paid for the apartment in London (saving us each about $400 for the week). We brought with us about 600 Euros and 350 Pounds for the trip. I brought back 260 Euros having not really bought anything in Paris besides the odd knick-knack. I spent a lot more in London. I bought an umbrella from the original umbrella-maker-people (James Foster & Sons I think it was) which ran me 49.50 pounds (roughly 120 bucks). It's a gorgeous umbrella, i'm actually hoping for the rain now. I'm planning to make it last me the rest of my life, as long as I take good cair of it.

I also bought a Mason Pearson Hairbrush which was also 49.50 pounds. For those of you who have seen The Devil Wears Prada, these hairbrushes are mentionned rather briefly at one point. Man, am I ever so glad that I bought this hairbrush. I have reasonably long hair and it's been lovely. I bought the 'normal' hair one which is made with Boar Bristle and it feels so good on my head. I'm one of those people who usually has to shower everymorning otherwise my hair can get greasy and not look so good and since i've been using this hairbrush, i've only had to wash my hair once every 3 days or so. I don't know how it works, something about exfoliating the scalp and moving oils around or something. But man, it works. I also suffer from dandruff (which was known to get pretty bad if I wore my hair down) and I've notived a significant drop in flakes, too. I'm loving it!

My last, and most luxurious purchase was a pair of Chanel Sunglasses, running me about $400. I got the forms for the VAT refund (if you're ever in London, I would encourage you to do this, since the VAT tax is 17.5% of your purchase and you are entitled to get most (if not all) of it back since you're not a resident of the UK) and have about $50 heading back my way in a coupld of weeks. This was a purchase that I had set the money aside for, and I am very pleased with them. They aren't the huge, bug-eyed ones that seem to be popular right now (I don't enjoy looking like a bug) but more streamlined, less over-the-top ones. THey are green and brown (colors I wear very frequently) and look pretty good, I think. I am enjoying them, although my money-savvy friends are still shocked that I bought them. I am too, a little bit, but i'm also hoping to make these babies last. There ain't no way i'm doing this every year.

Other minor things I bought were scarves at Portobello Road Market (i'm a huge scarf wearer and they are dirt cheap there), pasta at Disneyland (Mickey Mouse Pasta and Disney Princess Pasta - cheapest gifts! 2.90 Euro for the big bags and 1.90 Euro for the small, and everyone loves 'em!), little Eiffel Tower keychains from the Street vendors in Paris, random knick-knacks at the science museum in London (coolest gift shop ever) and a crap-load of chocolate (gonna last me the year and i'm not even kidding!).

All in all I spend about $2500 on this trip, which ain't too bad considering I spent about $5,000 on the last trip. However, I am still sour about the exchange rates in the UK and Europe, so i'm thinking next vacation will have to be somewhere with a favorable exchange rate. I'm thinking Thailand? I've always wanted to go there, but i'm not sure if i'm willing to take the leap out of my creature comforts. I might have to just head to the United States with my saved American Cash - the exchange rate for the States is almost at 1:1 so I can't complain. I remember when the Canadian dollar was at .60 to the American, so we've come a long way.

I'm anxious to get back to work and start earning some money again. I have my last paycheque from Subway in my wallet, waiting to get deposited and the other paycheque from this job should be going through in the next couple of days. I'll feel much better when I have a positive balance again. Right now my credit card has my Chanel Sunglasses and Tower of London admission sitting on it and my chequing account is sitting at $21 dollars. Once I get those two paycheques I can balance everything out and start putting that money away. Gotta get to my $20,000 grand goal for savings.

I have a dilemna, too. You know how I applied for that line of credit to use while I was on vacation? Well, ING Direct called me and needed copies of my last 3 years worth of Tax Return statements. Okay sure, no biggie. But I couldn't find 2004 and forgot to send them in before I left. Now that i'm back, I don't really need the line of credit anymore, and it's not like they have been harassing me to get the forms in. I'm tempted to just not send the stuff in and leave it at that, but I hate leaving stuff like that half-finished. I don't know how much trouble i'd have to go through to call them and tell them that I don't need it anymore. Oh well. I think i'll wait to see if they contact me looking for the forms or not. Either that or i'll just go ahead and get it anyways, you never know, I may need it in the future. Hmmmm.

Anyways, looking forward to catching up on the past month of all your blogs, hope you are all doing well!

The Justice Student