Towards the end of October, things got busy. In the month of October, every weekend was filled with social events, and the days leading up to the departure date was packed as well. I was getting stressed out with packing and cleaning the entire home; paranoid that I was missing some important document or the currency exchange place didn’t have enough Australian dollars. I was getting tired and more nervous as I’m slowly packing my comfortable Canadian life away.

We had a going away party at The Pint, a local bar in Vancouver with a group of our closest friends. Prior to The Pint, we headed over to Metrotown for a League of Legends tournament… I kid you not.

But, it was a pretty neat experience to see a community of League players gather around and have some fun. It was also pretty nice to see how excited the guys were to participate in the tournament. I think they came in 3rd place…

Also, side note: I will forever hold it against the guys for inviting me to join their League team and then they all voted to withdraw their offer a few minutes later.

After the tournament, we all went out separate ways to get ready for the going away party.

As the night rolled on, it was such a nice heartwarming feeling to see the love and support surrounding us. It was a little bit of a shit feeling to see all of this and then reflect on some of my friends that weren’t supportive of my move overseas.

Like any other bar on the weekends, this place closes at 3am. We were at the back of the place and as the night progressed, we were being pushed closer and closer to the front of the bar until we realized they were closing for the night. All of us couldn’t believe where the time has gone – like, seriously?! It was already 3am?! It still felt like 11pm when we were all huddled outside trying to get cabs back home.

All in all, it was a fantastic going away party and at one point, I was sitting on the Skytrain and telling Dan, “I can’t believe we’re on our way to our going away party…”.

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Fast forward to Halloween weekend. Our friend, Tiffany, hosts the annual Halloween party. Since Dan and I were packing and cleaning out our house already, we downsized a lot and since we were moving, we were trying to save money so it wasn’t realistic for us to buy a Halloween costume. Luckily, Tiffany keeps all her Halloween costumes and lent us her couples costume of TJ and Spinelli from Recess.

Prior to the Halloween party, Dan and I were busy throughout the day packing, cleaning, and driving back and forth from my mom’s place to ours. My mom’s garage was housing all our furniture so we got lucky enough to not have to buy storage or sell off our goods.

It was such a bittersweet moment as we cleaned out the place. This was our first home together, and we lived in such a prime location. It was a bit more expensive now that I look back at it, and we blew a lot of our money because of the convenience of the location, so… I lowkey do look forward to moving out to a cheaper place when we return.

Dan and I wanted to relax a bit before the Halloween party so I think we called it around 4PM. We only had half the kitchen and bathroom left to clean the next day. Since we cleared out all our furniture, we crashed at our friend’s place until our departure day and they were amazing hosts to us.

The Nun is a beautiful and wonderful lady named Nicole. We first met back in our going away party so I was super excited to see her again because she’s just a gem! She’s honestly one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. And it’s such a shame that we met only when we were leaving!

I’m not a fan of Halloween but I agreed to the party as it’s one of the last social events for the group. Also, because I had to put zero effort into costumes, haha.

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To top off our social events and busy weekends, our friend, Carolyn, wanted to send us off with her famous hot pot dinner. I’m serious guys – you haven’t experienced hot pot until you had Carolyn’s.

It felt like the Thanksgiving dinner we never had this year as a group because all of those that mattered to us were in the room, sharing a very good dinner.

But, additional sidenote: THANKS TO WHOEVER WAS DIPPING THEIR CHOPSTICKS INTO THE POT AND SPREADING THE SICKNESS AROUND BECAUSE WE’RE ALL SICK FROM YOU!