Hello fellow blog readers. I have decided to take time off my not so busy schedule to sit and inform of you of my current whereabouts and little trips I have been taking outside my life. So all of you curious people have been wondering what I’ve been up to lately since I haven’t been in the country. I got some pretty interesting emails from some people who obviously didn’t know I had left, and it was incredibly amusing to read some of the stories they had made up for what they thought had happened to me. Stories you can lose yourself into and easily manipulated by one’s mind if one had to escape in a world outside his own. You can take one of those and just be crazy and live it. Ok, you lost me, I know. I know what I’m talking about though so that’s all that matters, because this blog is a conversation with myself. I am crazy, I know. But only I can say that. I un-officially graduated from the National Sport School, and the reason I say un-official is because I am returning for one more semester to finish up courses before I head off to do my Art degree at the Alberta College of Art and Design. I will be taking the 2nd semester off for travel, and am looking into London England, and all over that place. That’s one place I haven’t been to and have to see, since it is on my bucket-list. Africa and my other trips are a bit further on in my planning so I won’t bring them up just yet. Anyways to continue about my trip. I just have to run down and get my journal, because I have been writing by hand every where i went since it’s one of my main reasons for this trip.

• visit my dad in Romania because my grandma died
• spend time with my great grandmother
• train with different countries

• write
• have independent Alex time
• think about the future
• visit Museums

Ok most of those have happened but I am not entirely satisfied just yet. It is the 18th of July right now and by the time I will be done writing this blog electronically, it will be the 12th of August when I return to the land of speed skaters. How I so look forward to that day. I will start writing about what has happened so far on my adventure. I won’t write my day to day agenda, but instead will write what thoughts I had and what was going through my mind at the same time. Yes you can have a peak inside my mind since I will open it up just this once. — It was 1 am on July 1st and after a few hours of looking for my passport, I had realized I lost it in Banff the day before. I fly in 12 hours. I decided that I will sleep a bit because I knew Marc was getting up to leave to the airport at 5am. I get up at 8am and decide to go to TD Canada Trust to get a new Debit card because I will need something else aside from my other form of payment in Europe. Lovely, it’s Canada Day…TD is closed. This is just the beginning, so I thought. And ok don’t expect me to say ” but it was just the beginning”, it was actually the end of all bad things that would happen until July 18th…NOT that something will happen tomorrow, cross my fingers. As I was sitting in the YYC Airport I was just realizing a lot of things, and taking them in one by one. You so know how someone is French just by the way they dress! It’s brilliant, I mean come on, isn’t it true that they’re the only nation that can wear pink Lacoste sweaters, Khakis and old school Lacoste bags and totally pull it off? Yeah that’s what I thought. Throw that on a Canadian and they’re automatically thought of as a weirdo, and I mean that in no offensive way. But seriously, Canadians have no sense of fashion; they dress for comfort. Please God help them! I get to Paris. Day 2 of 12. What better way to explore the city than by running/jogging? I signed up at a gym nearby. I didn’t know it was a private gym hence my sister’s godmother paying 140 Euros for 10 seances. Expensive huh? I did go into the weight room absolutely every single day because I knew what was coming up in Amsterdam and that I would have no access to a weight room there. There were a lot of things to see in Paris, go figure. I had the best tour guide. Name: Mimi Last Name: Private. No, not Mimi Private…I just won’t put it up. She’s my sister’s godmother and has lived dans Paris pour 31 ans.Et oui mon francais has improved of course! The plane ride to Paris was great too because it was a great warm up for the furutre city that I will live in, eventually. I sat next to an older couple who spoke no word of English, or any other languages that young Alex spoketh at this age. So I spoke French, and we got along quite well. Here’s une photo to show you all:in Paris I saw everything from the Eiffel Tower the Grand Colbert, the opera, Notre Dame, Pere lachaise, to le Pantheon, la Sorbonne, Starbucks, St Sulpice, Des moyenages thermes. SO much I had to write it all down cause I couldn’t take it all in. I got the hang of the Parisian travel by metro. Every time I’d run out of tickets I would jump over the bar cause they never checked haha. I am a terrible child, so I’ve heard. It was a great adventure. I’d go for a run in the morning, then hit the weight room, and later find myself having an espresso and une petite pain au chocolat on the Champs Elysees which I will call the Champs in this blog because I feel French. Thankyouverymuch. Do you see Torontonians wear I {heart} TO shirts? Exactly my point! The worst thing about being a tourist is having another tourist recognize you as one! I thought it was really funny to see people wear I {hear} Paris shirts in Paris. Sorry but if you’re one of those people, please be advised that you’re also one of those people I laugh at inside my mind, and shake my head in disgust. Not kidding. But I am writing this with a smile on so come on cut me some slack. I was also quite excited the first time I pulled a Marilyn Monroe wearing a dress and walking over Subway thingies and then my skirt flies up because the metro passes by. Oh man it was embarrassing. Won’t go there. So much to write about! Met amazing people in paris. One couple from Australia and I talked bikes with Arthur, and at the end we exchanged email addresses. I felt so embarrassed because when his wide Suzan told me his name, I understood Agatha and I was like wow that’s a pretty cool name for a guy and I was telling her how unique it was and so on. She probably was looking at me like what land do you come from lady!? Then I figured it was Arthur and I told her. One other thing I would like to comment on is how much I hate smokers. Now more than ever!! If you smoke please please PLEASE don’t do it in front of me. I have a new name for the City of Lights. It’s the city where I lost a week of life. because I will officially die sooner now due to all that second hand smoke. Honestly. Shall I comment on Dali? My trip was mainly religious- no I didn’t pray in any Churches. Salvador Dali, I like to say is my religion because of how much I admire him. So he was  everywhere. I got to Brugge, Belgium…another religious visit! Dali Expo! Anyhow, the Dali exhibition in Montmartre was most fulfilling of all fulfillment of my heart’s desire. Later after getting my portrait done, I was called over to the side by this French man, famous he be in the land of the French. Goes by Michou. Yes, he is VERY famous. He loved my hair style at the time and called me over to take pictures with him and after gave me an autograph.Paris was a blast. Made new friends, saw business men with lollipops, had my spiked hair touched by a LOT of people randomly in the subway, at the gym and on the street, and last but not least I am now ready to give someone a tour of Paris. I left Paris 12 days after I had arrived and went to see Wim De Deyne in belgium. Made a stop in Brugge where he was and he was nice enough to take me in and even make me a coffee one morning because he lost a bet we had made in the restaurant the night before. We went to a few cities and explored on bicycles and I left 3 nights later and went to Amsterdam.I realized one thing on this trip, and it was more than realizing that I need to eat a pain au chocolate a day to lose weight. Thanks Joe Dassin. I realized that the only way to stay sane on long trips, is to exercise. Without training I would go crazy. I tested myself and last only a week with doing nothing. I very much dislike being normal if I can put it in those words. Anyways, 2 hours later in an Amsterdam home, Alex needs to go to sleep. Will write more another day. Love, Me. —- Today an interesting thing happened at night. I decided to eat in and bought myself what I thought were plain croissants, and some salami, and milk….and some pate. Right, now I open to jug of milk to drink while I walk on to my hostel and it was SO sour….then I found out it wasn’t real milk. It was Karne Melk. Argh! I drank it anyways cause I was thirsty. Then I got to my bed and I open the croissants and the salami but it turned out to be raw bacon……mmmm my favourite not. Actually. And the croissants had cheese and bacon already there. I felt like such a fool. Just imagine me there with food falling out of my mouth and having this disgusted look on my face while reading the contents of that sour milk. Haha It looked something like this:I spent my last few days with some great and special friends I met at the Olympics. One of them is a band player in the Kleintje Pils and they have been playing at the Olympics for the past 20 years; how amazing. I was fortunate enough to be able to meet with one of them and see Holland by car also. He was super nice to do all of that for me. We had a great lunch on the beach and an awesome 2 hour drive to see one of the medal wranglers from the Olympics, Aukje, who I ended up staying at for my last 2 nights in Holland. It was probably the best part of my trip, aside from meeting with Mme Dennis in Amsterdam on my first day there. We went on a Quad the first night, with Aukje’s brother Balling, and just ah so much happened that was so beautiful and nice and home-like, that I can’t even write about it. Aukje is officially the first person that has the same glasses as me. I know some people didn’t dare buy Green Oakley M-Frames because they thought they’d be copying, but I bought her a pair because we’re like sisters from other countries and she has permission to wear the green monsters as I call them. I am very thankful to have such friends and to be able to stay over at their house with such short notice, just like dad’s friend, Calin whom I stayed at my whole time in Amsterdam. Super nice of him also and I learned a TON since he’s an artist and we had some interesting discussions and I saw things a different way. I am now currently sitting in a friend’s apartment. Am sleeping here with my sister, Caroll in Sibiu. Yes we have family here of course but I need to get away for some writing and painting time, and Caroll is just trailing behind so I can show her around and introduce the future Miss Ianculescu to the people she will need to know. Phil Collins is on right now, good mood to write in. No not Genesis. I got here 3 sleeps ago. Had 15 people at the small airport waiting for me. I have so many stories already but as you know me I will only stick to one in particular- Bucharest taxi Drivers- are now my personal drivers every time I get back! For 40 Euros I can get a 3h personal shopping tour, and a tour of my lovely Ikea kitchens and my lunch and internet cafe paid for… you’re probably thing, “Wait, what? A 3h taxi ride costs over 100 Euros…..and they never pay your lunch!”…right? WELL, here’s how it goes. I befriended my taxi driver; I didn’t want to wait 4h in the airport for my flight so I wanted to go downtown. In the middle of he car ride i realize how much money I will have to pay so, me the lady in heels, tells the driver to maybe just drop me off at the closest McD. Anyways long story short…he said to pay him 20 Euros one way and 20 Euros the other way and he won’t charge me taxi fees. He spoke English, held my heavy purse and even paid for my lunch and my internet cafe in those 3hours I was looking around the city that half my friends live in. I didn’t call any of them because my blackberry broke so I had no access to any numbers. Duhh. Ok so a few days later I am in the present. Caroll got out of the shower, I am stuffed with crepes and in the end a very happy person because I have been getting my hourly runs in the rain done, daily. I am not following a particular training program since I don’t have access to certain training facilities or a bike for example. So I just run every day for a ridiculous amount of time and then I do a core program, skating imitations and maximum power jumps instead of weights. I took a week and a bit off because in Holland there was nowhere to train so now I am charging at it fully. I better get all this excess weight off my legs before I hit the ice in 17 days. I’ll just force myself to lose weight in a good way, because I need my muscle to come out! Ah! Ok, logging off. More to write later.  –Big A. —- I trained at 7 am today, July 29th. I know I am complaining but oh my god the day has never seemed longer. Thank god for afternoon naps. Now I am writing again on August 4th. It’s been officially almost a few full days of getting the gym into my training cycle. There’s a close-by gym inside a hotel and my sister and I managed to make a membership for 2 weeks. Everything here is so cheap if you convert CDN dollars into RON lei. (Currency). One dollar is 3.4 lei. A 2l mineral waterbottle is 2.40lei. How cheap. And to get a manicure, it’s 15 lei. Do the math- 5 bucks? My sister got one. But anyways, I feel great again that I can train every day, and have the right space and mind set to do it in. Unlike today when I walked in the gym and Marvin Gaye was playing. The day I forget my iPod at home….Let’s get it on.— It’s the 7th of August and I am very sore. I am making note of this as I have origianlly thought I worked every muscles in my body and that I would NOT be sore. But I was wrong. So now I have trouble getting outta bed, which is good since it’s like 50degrees Celcius ANYWAYS and people don’t wanna do things. SO to conclude my blog I will show you more pictures, but will not include the ones of my pushing the car through the flood under a bridge today. Happy photo watching lovers, -AI- —