Last night (Sunday August 21st), I
watched the Rio 2016 Closing Ceremony on TV and thought it was lovely. The Games have been exciting to watch and our
Canadian athletes, plus some other special outstanding ones, were well worth
cheering for. All I know is – I love the
Olympic Games! The next Olympic Games
will be in February 2018 and they will be Winter Olympics this time – I just
don’t know where they’ll be or I’ve forgotten.
The next Summer Olympic Games will be in Tokyo, Japan in 2020 and I plan
to be watching them too.
Today (Monday), I paid my MBNA MasterCard (again) to
bring it up to date so that nothing is owing.
I phoned Johnson Unifund to cancel my home insurance policy because I
don’t own my house anymore, and I changed my address with Johnson as well so
that they can mail me the changes. I
then thought that I should call RBC Insurance to get them to try and find my
life insurance policy number and change my address on that policy to the new
temporary one I’m using now, and I was successful. They were able to change my address. It’s a good thing too – I don’t know my
policy number with RBC Insurance. I
think that’s everyone for now, but if there’s anyone else that has to know my
new mailing address and I’ve forgotten, at least I have changed my address at
the post office and will not lose their mail as a result.
I signed onto my blog: http://annie-myshortstories5a.blogspot.com
and updated the most recent changes on my blog pages regarding the Rio 2016
Olympic Games. However, I’ll have other
changes I’ll want to make later on.
I now have time to watch my “Suits” DVDs, at least
Season One. Since I wanted to watch
Seasons Two and Three as well, I looked for them on Netflix because I couldn’t
get those seasons yet from HMV last week as DVDs, but they weren’t available
anymore for streaming on Netflix.
However, I’ll keep trying to buy the DVDs – I want the whole collection
of that series. It’s absolutely awesome!
Today (Tuesday), I found out that some stranger
somewhere has been accessing my MBNA MasterCard and charging things to it that
I don’t know anything about. How did I
find out? MBNA called me and asked me
about some of the charges that they thought were bogus and fraudulent. There were a few and so MBNA froze my current
MasterCard number and offered to either mail me a new card or send one by
courier. Since I’m living at Homewood
Suites and am going to need it for my hotel bill and for booking my future trip
to Europe, I asked them to courier it to me.
They agreed and said it would take three to ten days.
I had a rough night sleeping on Tuesday night
because my neck was really bothering me despite the fact that I put an ice pack
on it and then put some Likota-brand hot rub on it after that. I also took two Tylenol # 3s and I still had
a sleepless night. When I did finally
fall asleep at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, I kind of slept in and almost
missed breakfast. So, I got dressed in a
hurry and went down to the front desk in the hopes of giving them my new MasterCard
number and, since there were still guests in the dining room, I was able to get
some sweet buns and a cup of coffee and took them back up to my room.
Later on in the afternoon, I went to the TD Bank and
saw an investment consultant there in order to make some long term investment
plans with some of the money I got from the sale of my house. So, my investment plans are now finalized for
now, but I still change them if I get some extra money in the future to invest
or if I need extra money for something I want.
Today (Wednesday), I decided to do a load of laundry
as long as I felt okay, which I did. So,
now I have clean clothes for the next week.
I’m still waiting for Dave to call me back. I think he went up north for the week to
Maryanne’s cottage. Son of a gun –
doesn’t that guy know how important my trip to Europe is to me?
I talked to the new guy, Geoffrey Gilliver, at
Investors Group (IG) who took over Andrew Maio’s accounts, of which I am one,
and we firmed up a meeting time to discuss my future plans for investing during
my retirement. I have now been retired a
little over a year, but have not made any contributions to IG since the fall of
2015 – I was too broke to continue – but, my plans to contribute to James’ RESP
for the next few years are still valid and I will continue with that again as
soon as possible. All I know is – I do
not want to make any lump sum contributions to Investors Group anymore since
I’ve already done so at the TD Bank.
I think it took five days to get my new MasterCard
from MBNA. I activated the new card and
could then give the new information to the front desk at my hotel. Now, I am waiting impatiently for Dave
(Burton) to please call me back so that he can take me over to Carole Paradis’
travel agent. Dave tells me that Carole,
who is a good friend of us both, likes this travel agent a lot. However, I think he’s away for the week, so
I’ll probably talk to him next Monday.
You know, I have finally realized why I like living
at Homewood Suites so much. It isn’t
like any other hotel I’ve stayed at in the past. The hotel personnel really look after their
guests. The maids clean the rooms on a
regular basis: they sweep the floor,
vacuum the carpet, change the bedding every few days, put the dirty dishes in
the dish washer (yes, there is a dish washer!), clean the bathroom, and do the
things you’d normally expect, like take out the garbage and exchange dirty
towels for clean ones, as well. They are
committed to making their guests feel at home and I really do feel at home here. The terrific thing about it is that, not only
is there breakfast every day, but there is also a light dinner four times a
week, Monday to Thursday. That makes it
a lot easier for someone like me who doesn’t have a vehicle to come and go as I
please. I don’t have to go out for all
my meals and that is a bonus as far as I am concerned!
Not only that, the rooms (suites) are relatively big! I have what I would call a small bachelor
suite to myself. Compared to my house,
you could fit my old bedroom, which was very small and my bathroom, which was
also very small, at least twice in this bachelor suite. The bathroom in my suite is huge; and the
bedroom portion is also huge, although it’s not really a “bedroom” per se. There is also a small living room and a small
kitchen. I really don’t know what else I
would need in order to survive. So, I
can actually go out and buy some groceries and feed myself lunch and snacks
whenever I need them. That means all my
meals are taken care of. I am pretty
happy here and could actually see myself living here full-time for a while – at
least until I’ve booked my trip and know when I’m leaving Toronto.
I know that when I get back from Europe in two months’
time, I will have to find an apartment somewhere (in Ajax or downtown Toronto),
but there’s really no rush to do that, is there? So, I feel a lot more comfortable than I
might otherwise feel by living here at Homewood Suites for the time being.
Today (Thursday), I didn’t do much that was different
except watch a TV series on Netflix called “This is Life – with Lisa Ling”. It was a documentary series on different
issues in today’s society – the effects of drug addiction, LGBT sexual
orientation, and different religious sects, to name a few. While Lisa does not make explicit judgments
about the issues she is addressing, she is trying to open people’s eyes about
these issues by asking insightful questions of the participants and getting
truthful answers. Truth to tell, it is
both an eye-opener and a mind-opener. I
might have to watch the series again sometime because it was that good. The only other things I did were to update my
Rio 2016 web pages on my blog and to keep up with my writing. Some days there’s more to talk about than on
others.
Today (Friday), I decided that I had to try and book
my European trip by myself since it’s now late in the “season” (meaning that bookings may
be difficult or impossible to do).
Nevertheless, I had to try. So, I
went by GO bus over to the Scarborough Town Centre (STC) to Sears Travel and
talked to a travel agent, Linda. She
told me she needed to know which places I wanted to visit. I told her that I was interested in doing a
tour of Great Britain and a tour of continental Europe. After some discussion, she gave me some tour
books to look at and I went for lunch at the food court to look at these books.
And, that’s when I found out that touring
continental Europe at this time of year is still remotely possible, but that
only ONE of the tours I wanted could be done this year. Why? Because
the tour start dates, though beginning in early-to-mid September, could not be
already cancelled by the tour operator and could not overlap with any other
tour I wanted. I had to choose one of
the tours I wanted. So, I decided to do
the “Britain and Ireland in Depth” tour.
It lasts twenty-five days. The tour
covers the five countries of the British Isles:
England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Wales. Then, I’d spend the rest of my time after the
tour was over in London and Paris, splitting my time between the two
cities. Who knows? I may visit some other cities on my own time,
as well. Not only was booking the
tour difficult, booking a direct flight was also difficult. Through the Globus tour operator, I could either take West Jet Air which flew
from Toronto to Vancouver first and then on to London, or I could book
another airline outside of the tour to fly straight to London from Toronto. Flying to Vancouver (westbound) first just
didn’t make any sense to me, so I picked Air Canada instead and managed to get
myself booked on a direct flight to London from Toronto on Friday September 2,
2016 at 6:35 pm that would land in London at about 6:30 am the next
morning. I can handle that.
After my flight and tour were chosen and paid for at
Sears Travel – because I had to pay for them both by 4:00 pm today – I finally left
Sears and went home. On the way home, I
stopped for dinner at Applebee’s in Ajax because there is no dinner service on
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at my hotel.
And, I was finally able to relax thinking that one week from today, I’d
be on an Air Canada flight to London, England to do a trip that I’ve wanted to
do for a very long time. All I had left
to do today was to shorten my stay at my hotel by one day and cancel the
additional booking I’d done there so that there wouldn’t be any problems, so I
did that as soon as I got back. There
are still some other things I have to do this week, but I’ll be ready to go
next Friday afternoon or die trying!
Later this year (2016) or very early next year, I
will have to book another European tour – this time either to visit the Scandinavian
countries (four of them) and Russia, or the Eastern European countries (six of
them), or both, if I can afford to.
These tours have to be booked early if you want a particular tour, and then you have to pay for them when you book them to reserve your space, including your flight. The tours
basically all include the following:
hotels, most meals, visiting highlighted places, gratuities, and of
course, transportation usually by motor coach.
The only things you’d have to worry about are the excursions (if you
want to go on them) and souvenirs (if you want to buy some). I am planning on going on some of the
excursions and, as for souvenirs, I will buy some clothes for myself, and
postcards mostly. As for anything else
in the souvenir department, I don’t know yet – we’ll see.
Today (Saturday), Dave (Burton) picked me up at my
hotel and took me to Sentinel Storage so that I could store some dishes and
DVDs, etc. that I don’t need with me anymore.
I took my small suitcase with me filled with some stuff that I wanted to
store and, at my storage space, took out my large suitcase (the one I’m going
to take to Europe), removed some clothes from it, and put them into my small
suitcase for storage, as well. Why? Because the big suitcase has to contain
mostly summer clothes that I will be wearing and I had some more wintery stuff already
in it that I probably wouldn’t need in Europe.
After that, we went to the TD Bank and I got Dave
added onto my account so that it is now joint for the time that I am in
Europe. This way, he can pay my bills
out of my account (not his) using only his access card. Ingenious!
Anyway, it means that all he has to do is take any of my bills he gets
in the mail, which he will because his address is now my temporary mailing
address, bring it to a teller at any TD Bank branch, sign in with his own
access card, and pay my bill out of my account.
He just has to say which account he is paying from. He wouldn’t be able to do that unless it was
a joint account. Now, isn’t that as easy
as pie?! My bills are all going to be up
to date when I get back at end of October.
I watched a couple of TV show videos on Netflix
earlier this afternoon – “Escape from the Nazis” and “Wildest India”. Both were pretty good, but for totally
different reasons.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say for now. If I think of anything else, I’ll add it in.
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