Meeting the Naked Calendar Lady & Other Cool Things I Do With All This Time On My Hands

Without a cafe job I have been able to study French, do yoga, and a whole bunch of other things I like to do like: read, draw, and receive kindness from strangers.

I've chosen not to stress about this whole losing my job fiasco. It was just a cafe, do I really need to mourn the loss of pouring coffee?

No? Good.

So since my last post the cool things that have happened have been:

1) Halloween.

The coolest part of this night is I got to spend it with someone from France and someone from Switzerland who have never experienced Halloween before. It was a fantastic night, and I am so glad that they will remember that as their first Halloween.

2) French school.

Twenty hours per week is a lot of hours but I quite enjoy learning the language. My teacher is Santa Clause, so that's nice. He doesn't give us anything though; except education that we can use for the rest of our lives. Oh and he hates children.

But he's Santa Clause because of his white beard, round spectacles, and jolly demeanour.

Fact: The French word for Santa Clause is “le Pére Noel.” So if I ever refer to my French teacher I think that is the name I will use for him, delightful man.

This is also where I was on the receiving end of Human kindness. A woman came into the class offering help for anyone needing financial assistance. That was me! I went into her office with nothing but my story and left with a food bank and an application for financial aid. Turns out she's a single mother who just wants to help people, like how she was helped in the first years of her child's life. Beautiful woman. Truly an unsung hero.

3) Friends

Lately my close group of friends at the hostel consists of two British Columbians, a Swiss, and a Haitian. They are a hilarious bunch.

The friends I meet here are often temporary. We meet. We fall in love. They leave. We never make promises that we will see each other again, but relish the fact that the world is small, and that there are still many more adventures to be had, and maybe in one of those adventures we will see each other again. I have quite a few friends like this now. One on every inhabited continent, and for that I feel very very lucky indeed.

That being said, I've now been invited to two actual apartments for beers and for Thanksgiving! I have a friend who comes over and watches Doctor Who every week. This morning my boss hugged me and told me not to call him “boss” anymore, because we have reached the point in our friendship that it was weird now. I am so happy I could die... but I won't.

4) I Met the Naked Lady

Have you ever seen somebody naked before you meet them?

It certainly doesn't happen to me often.

It was about a month ago, my beloved French friend Cycy and I had to clean the messaline aka The Mezz. Quite the job. We had to scrub mystery sludge, and sort through the old luggage, then recycle or dispose of anything that had been on the shelf for over a year.

Two large black suitcases were six months over due; we dubbed them abandoned then opened them to sort through what we could give to the poor, and what we could recycle. Inside I remember a few of the things that we found including: lingerie, green tea bags, a map with something circled on it, and multiple copies of a nude calendar featuring the same model.

You learn a lot about a person; going through their suitcase. Cycy and I exchanged different theories on who this woman could be, and why she never came back for her things. 

So then it was shift change for the receptionist; he came into the Mezz and saw the calendar. His jaw dropped and he said, “Oh my god. I know her!”

Apparently she is a regular at the hostel; has been for years.

The receptionist left promptly and red-in-the-cheeks to send a sincere apology email but not before telling us that we needed to put everything back because she would most certainly return this year.

And she did.

I'll admit, I didn't recognize her with her clothes on.

Be smart; hug all your friends; support local artists and buy a wall calendar.

Thanks for reading!