Reasons I will miss Hamilton

Lets face it, Hamilton is no London. When I moved there I had an initial reaction of dislike for the city because of the pockets that are run-down with people who appear unsafe. However, as time passed, I began to like the city more and more until I decided that I really liked Hamilton after all. I guess its kind of an acquired taste. I'm very happy to be back in London but I'm going to miss a lot of things about Hamilton.

I'm absolutely going to miss...

Hess Village

There is no place like this what-so-ever in London. A line of pubs to sit outside and have a drink in the summer!!! Amazing!! Definitely going to miss good ol' Hess.

The Stairs Up the Mountain!! I loved these stairs for an excellent work out. 500 stairs up the escarpment definitely left a burn in my legs and gave me a good workout. I wish we had stairs like this in London!!

Old beautiful houses and buildings - so the picture may not do justice for the actual houses, but the bottom of the mountain is where most of the big beautiful old houses are in addition to old schools and buildings. It really is an amazing city with so much character and potential!

The proximity of Hamilton to Toronto & GTA

And while in Hamilton, you are SO close to everything cool! Concerts, Canada's Wonderland, shopping, and any city in the GTA for work would be convenient to Hamilton. London is pretty much the middle of no where! A long drive to anywhere from London...

Most of all, i'm going to miss my Social Work ladies!! no more school means a lot less face time! I haven't even seen anyone (except Nikki my Australia buddy!) since class time :(

And there are many restaurants that we discovered in our Hamilton days that were fantastic - a delic (and inexpensive!) thai place (on Cannon), Mexican place (on John), Indian place (on Main st. by McMaster) and a sushi platter for only $20!! Such good restaurants that I wish I could pick up and move with me!

But all in all, I'm pretty darn happy to be home and close to my family (and nieces and nephew!!) and friends. Plus, the living situation with the friends has been going good!! Even our animals get along!!

Kate and Piper - BFFs

Next picture, they'll be sleeping ON each other - just watch!!!

I just Resigned from My Hamilton Job!

This is my final cut-off from my connection to Hamilton. I just sent my letter to my supervisor indicating that my last shift will be April 26th. Change is scary, the fact that I quit a job that pays money is scary, but I know that full-time career opportunities are very close in my horizons.

I have sent several applications out for social work jobs today, so I am hoping to receive call-backs for at least one and start a real full-time career once I get back from Australia!

My 25th Birthday

It was a surprise... one that I guessed before we left! Aleksy took me to Niagara on the lake for my Happy Birthday! We started with trying to take a wine tour on the Friday evening but we arrived a bit too late for the tours. So we purchased a couple bottles of wine from the Hillebrand/Trius vineyard, bought some cheeses to go with the wine, checked into our hotel, then had some supper in the historical part of the town.

We stayed at the Angel Inn, which we later found out is a historical haunted hotel! It was absolutely awesome because there is a pub on the lower level with live music and then there are about 5 or 6 rooms on the top floor. So convenient, we didn't even have to drive back to our hotel from our nightly entertainment! Our room is right above the entrance..you can see me in the window!

On our way back to the hotel after eating some supper, we were approached by some ghoulish people walking down the street who suggested we take a ghost walk to learn the haunted history of the town, or take a look through their museum. We decided on the ghost walk and I'm really glad that we did because it was really interesting hearing about the towns history and the supposed hauntings in the buildings (well, I always think its untrue until it gets dark... and I'm alone...).

On the ghost walk, the tour stopped in front of our hotel and we were informed that it was the captain who was murdered in the hotel during the war of 1812. Good thing we stayed in the captains room! We were informed that the ghost had been seen in the mirrors of some of the rooms above the pub, but we didn't see anything (however, we did have a couple drinks that could have skewed our judgement).

The next day, we went through some shops in the historical part of town, bought some chocolate and pastries and opted out of  the wine tour because we had quite enough the night before at the pub and in our room!!! We have already been to the Jackson Triggs and Pellar Estates winery tours so it wasn't so bad that we missed out. I hope to do another wine tour this summer!

March events and Birthdays

My beautiful Rachel turned 3 in March! She's getting so big! Here's both my beautiful nieces, Rachel & Emma celebrating at my Mom's.

And my little tiny brother is 15!! Wow!!

This picture is also worth a post! My Aleksy with Emma. Love it!










We also celebrated St.Patty's day at Nikki and Jon's on March 19th. I was really sick the day before and still wasn't feeling so hot that night, but it was still fun. Catch Phrase may be the best game EVER (including the version of it that I have... You Dont Say). We played that and a game of Kings. Still worth taking the day off work!

I didn't take many pictures, but this is one that I got of me, Tabi (Nikki's friend), Nikki's Mom and Nikki... may not be the best of us, but it's the only one I have :)

Schools Out FOREVER!!!

ALL DONE!! Submitted all my assignments last week, had my field placement supervision yesterday, now just a few more placement days then BSW here I come!!! What a great feeling to be able to have time and moving forward to a CAREER!

I have a few more weeks of placement and trying to pick up as many shifts as I can to save for Australia then on May 3rd flying out!!!

Other new things in the past month: my beautiful niece Rachel's 3rd birthday celebrated in conjunction with my brothers 15th AND my big ol' 25th! Aleksy took me to Niagara on the lake... I haven't uploaded pictures from birthdays yet, but once I do I will post about birthdays. Niagara on the lake was amazing!

Just so excited to be done! Almost time for a big girl job. I'm really looking forward to the luxury of a monday-friday job. Hope it isn't too long of a process until im employed!