But first a little background for those not down with the lingo these days. If the title of the blog made absolutely no sense to you, not to worry, fellow wolfpack artist DJ Wristband ( aka Ritza ) has a very nice account of what PLL, PGF, and PWS mean, and why you should care over here.
Now that you've realized it's Percentage of Loving Life, it's time to get to the goods, namely the love of life! A very common question I get from a lot of my friends ( and yes, even some randoms ), is "How the f$%@ ! are you still alive Andrei??" Before I start posting about my current adventures, I invite you to take a look back at my sometimes scary, sometimes insane, sometimes stupid, but always thrilling top 10 experiences that beg this question. You only live once right??
#10 Swimming with a Grey whale in Kitsilano
Imagine, to my surprise, as I was doing laps at the Kits outdoor pool last summer, that a large 15+ meter Grey Whale was swimming just off beach. There were many people watching this spectacle of nature, but no one was swimming! I for one wanted to get closer to the action. So I said F it and swam towards it. Once I got about 15 meters from it it dove underneath the surface, I couldn't see where it went. It surfaced very close to me, at which point I decided that it wasn't worth being crushed by 10 tons or so of whale the next time it surfaced and swam back to shore.
#9 Getting lost in Halong Bay, Vietnam
Halong Bay is a beautiful archipelago of over a thousand limestone peaks and islands jutting into the sea in Vietnam. It's no wonder it's listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Thanks to Vietnam still being communist, all the tourist boats you go on look EXACTLY the same. My first day on the boat we dropped anchor in an area full of these replica boats. We were told we could kayak to a nice island on the other side, but to make sure we made it back before dark. I went over to the island with an American girl , but on the way back we hit a storm, and it started getting dark very fast. And in addition, we were horribly, terribly lost. All my belongings, including my wallet and passport were on one of 20 boats that all looked the same, and they would all sail off in different directions the next morning. As the sun set we decided we had to board the closest boat before we were stuck at sea in the dark, so we did. By a miracle of God it was our boat, phew, drizaster averted!
#8 Renting a scooter on Full Moon Party night in Ko Phangan
As those of you who have been to SE Asia know, scooter rentals come very cheap ( 5 dollars a day, how can you afford not to? ) in this part of the world. Ko Phangan is a tropical island off the pacific coast of Thailand where every full moon herds of backpackers descend to the white sandy beach for a rowdy, DJ Drizzle approved night of Raging and even Rampaging ( the next step, naturally ). The night before the full moon party I decided to visit my exchange friends Mishki and Ali who were staying on Haad Rin beach.
The road to the beach is very hilly, and even in the daytime it's not the safest. This was my first time riding a scooter to that part of the island, and there was a nice downhill coming followed by a flat part then an uphill. I gave it max gas on the downhill, reached about 90k/h, and to my horrific surprise as I got near the bottom of the hill, the WHOLE left section of the road on the flat part was gone, in a kind of gigantic sinkhole. I managed to swirve around it by moving into the oncoming traffic lane, it was not a fun experience, if I wasn't paying attention I shudder to think what would have happened. You would think I learned my lesson about riding a scooter to Baad Rin, but the next day, the night of the full moon party, I had my mind set on riding over to the beach, thankfully my friends put some last minute sense into me and I joined them in a taxi.
#7 Perth Sting Ray minefield
Perth has been my home for the past few months and it's a beautiful spot by the turquoise Indian Ocean. The Swan river ( which has black swans on its banks ) runs through the middle of town, and it's home to an abundance of wildlife as I found out one day. My flatmate Marty and myself were cliff diving and exploring the banks of the river one day when we happened upon a massive sand spit leading to a small island in the middle of the river. Curiosity took over and we were off, wading through ankle to hip high water to get there. After chilling out for a bit, we made our way back, but at this time the tide was coming in and it was hip high water overtop the sandbank. At one point I saw the sharp barb of what could only be a stingray jutting out of the sand, with the rest of the body hiding under the sand. I stopped Marty and told him to be careful not to step on it. This is when we started looking around more carefully, and to our horrific surprise we saw these stingrays EVERYWHERE around us. we could not take a step in any direction, not even backwards.
We had inadvertently walked into a breeding ground of 4 foot stingrays and were now surrounded. My strategy was to wait until the tide came fully in and swim away and over the stingers, but the sun was going down and it was getting cold, not very realistic. Marty had a phone in his hand, overtop the water, so this was not realistic for him either. Somehow we managed to step through the minefield, but it was hella sketch, with the rays brushing up against your ankles at some point, and with one wrong step you'd have a 3 inch barb sticking out of your leg or worse. PGF, was undoubtedly, high throughout the ordeal but we got out alive!
#6 Cheering for the opposing soccer team in Glasgow
I ended up in bonnie old Edinburgh, Scotland for the second half of 2009, and with full time work being the norm only the weekends were left for fun. I'm a big supporter of Romanian soccer, and luckly for me the defending UEFA league champions, Glasgow Rangers FC, were hosting lowly Romanian side Unirea Urzicenii in a Champions League group encounter on Sunday. Unirea were a side that 3 years before were in the 3rd league of Romanian football, but through amazing coaching by Chelsea's former dman Dan Petrescu, they won the first division in their first year so here they were in their inagrual Champions League season. Odds were 1 in 5 that they would beat Glasgow at home in Ibrox Stadium, so I put down 20 quid just for fun and left the comforts of posh Edinburgh for the rough streets of Glasgow, only 50 minutes away by train. Glasgow has a reputation of being grimy, and in recent years it's been named the murder capital of Europe. I remember at one point seeing on TV gangs of little 12 year old kids running around with knives. If that doesn't scare you, it also has the lowest life expectancy of any European city for men - only 57 years!!
It's with this image of Glasgow that I came to Ibrox Stadium to support my Unirea team. Needless to say, EVERYONE was supporting Glasgow and the vast majority of people were young men, drinking openly on the streets, thousands of them hanging around the stadium before kickoff ("NEDs" as my Scottish friends would call them ). I decided to join them for some pregame sips. They asked me where I was from and who I supported, and ofcourse I lied and said Glasgow ( I didn't want to get stabbed!! ) We got along well, they taught me the songs and chants, offered me some of their beers, and one guy even gave me his Rangers tuque to wear at the game. I gladly put it on, then I asked them to take a photo of me and the stadium. As they did, I wiped out my Unirea Scarf and proudly held it up yelling Go Unirea!. They were very confused, and in the midst of this confusion I grabbed my camera and ran for dear life. Unirea ended up wining it 4-1 and I won myself a cool 100 and met the team afterwards, too easy! The tuque has been passed on to a real Rangers fan, Ian Lowrie, who I'm sure will take good care of it!
#5 Surfing after a massive Cyclone in Noosa, Australia
While on exchange in Brisbane in 2009, I picked up a slick 6'3 beauty for all my surfing needs. Brissy is on the east coast and during the begging of the year it gets battered by the odd Cyclone here and there. A Cyclone rolled through in May and it was the largest to hit the are in years... wind gusts of up to 300km/h were enough to sink an oil tanker off the coast, and a man sitting in his beachside office was killed when the waves crashed through. While shortboards are best for Gold Coast breaks, which are 1h south of Brisbane, the rail link got flooded and the only choice were the more "mellow" breaks of Noosa on the sunshine coast, 1 hour north. I had ridden Noosa before, it is a longboarders paradise, long, slow, right handers over 5 point breaks with Koala filled rainforests in the background, a nice relaxing break some might say.
I got there and struggled to take it all in, instead of oldtimers on longboards surfing 3 foot waves there were shortboarders everywhere, and even the pointbreaks were having trouble holding on to the insanely huge 12+ foot swell. I personally don't think anyone who can't paddle through the waves is ready to surf them, but luckily for me you could walk off the point right into the break thus bypassing this safety rule. This ended up being my downfall. I thought I was an alright surfer, but I got BATTERED by these waves, they were way too large for me. I ended up getting beach dumped, imagine being tossed from the top of a 12 foot wave into shallow water then being pinned to the sand underneath all its force. POD, Percentage of Drowing, was at an all time high, but luckly I made it to shore. I went home a man defeated by the ocean, but at least I was alive.
Here's a link to a video to get an idea of the size of these babies.
#4 Wakeboarding the bullshark infected Brisbane River.
I had never wakeboarded before Danji Boyd volunteered to give me my first lesson on the Brisbane River, in, you guessed it, Brisbane, whilst on exchange. The night before I was destroying the dancefloor with the aforementioned Danji, Squid Nash, and Chrissy at the GPO downtown. I felt something stuck on my shoe so I went to brush it off, this was a bad idea as that something was a shard of glass that was now stuck deeply in my middle finger. After getting it out it bled profusely, I asked the bouncer for a bandaid but all he gave me was TP to cover it up.
The next morning was our first wake sesh and I had a bandaid covering it, but as you know there's alot of force on the leash, and the first time the boat took off it ripped open my cut and I of course faceplanted and didn't make it on my feet. So here I was, stuck in the middle of the river waiting for the boat to come around as I was bleeding into the water. Did I mention that this river is infested with Bullsharks as well, the second deadliest and aggressive sharks after Great Whites? My marine biology teacher later told me it was a breeding ground for them, and there are thousands around in the water. I got out alive after another 20 minutes of faceplanting, waiting for the boat to come, and counting my blessings that the sharks didnt come first.
#3 Missing in Brazil
I had a cool Brazilian colleague, Daniel, at my first co-op work placement in 3rd year. He always told me about how great his country was... the beaches, the sun, the babes, and how insane Carnival was. Before he left we went to Shenanigans downtown, where I drunkenly decided I would use the money I saved up working to go to Carnival in Brazil in a few months time with him ( this is how most of my travel plans were made in the early days hahaha ). It just so happened that Carnival was at the same time Reading Break is on at UBC, which was just perfect. I left a few days early and skipped a midterm in the process too, but it was worth it. After an insane flight itenariry that went Van - Mexico City - Sao Paolo - Brasilia - Refice - Natal I finally got to sunny Natal, Brazil, about 24 hours after I left. It was 11pm and I just wanted to sleep, but I was greeted with a tallboy of beer by Daniel at the arrivals lounge.
He insisted we go out that night, as the next morning we'd be driving out inland to a city where the Carnival is held. I agreed, and as I had no time to call my rents to tell them I was ok I sent them both text messages. The night was great... we were definitely partying in a spot dominated by locals and with no tourists in sight, a huge circular outdoor club with live music, I remember stepping on a lot of girl's toes trying to learn how to dance to Forro, at one point the band invited me onstage ( "We hear there is a Canadian in the crowd, get up here!" ) to dance with the girls there but my PGF was waaaay too high and I couldn't do it. I don't remember much more of the night( 50 cent beers will do that ) but the next morning I woke up in a hammock, with Daniel yelling at me that we have to leave for the carnival. We drove off but I left my cellphone there by accident.
At the Carnival itself we had a good crew of Daniel's friends. We were at a huge predrink ( stadium full of thousands of people ), when I left them to go to the loo. When I came back they had all been arrested, with the cops claiming they had drugs on them ( def did not, they were looking for a bribe ). If I didn't go to the washroom I would have been in a Brazilian prison with them! Luckly one of Daniel's friend was a lawyer in training and he managed to get them all out, without having to put up with the ridiculous bribe demands of the cops.
After that it got even more intense, I somehow got separated from everyone in the Carnival proceedings ( huge flotillas of live bands playing, followed by thousands of people ). So here I was, cranked, no idea where anyone was, or how to get back to their place, with no one around speaking English or sober for that manner. After wondering around aimlessly for hours I stumbled into them thankfully!
After an insane 5 days of Carnival raging, we got back to Daniel's flat where I was greeted by a phone call from the police, asking if Andrei Horga was anywhere to be seen, as his parents had put him on the missing person's list. Those texts never got through, FML. After going to the police station and clearing myself off the missing persons list, I went on perhaps the craziest ride of my life. There are huge sand dunes in Natal and you can go on dune buggy tours of them. Before you get in, they ask you if its " Con Emocion" ( with emotion ) or not. Naturally, I selected con emocion! The dune buggy had no seat belts and we couldn't sit down in the seats ( our beer was there ) so we stood on top of the seats hanging on to the roll bar. At this point the driver went to the top of a massive hill, stopped the car ( only to clear the barbed wire fence saying something like "extreme danger do not proceed" ), then gunned it down the hill. Let's just say I'm glad I'm alive after that encounter!
#2 Rabid dogs in Bucharest
It's no secret I hate Romania's capital. The massive ugly communist architecture, the people trying to rip you off, and last but not least the estimated 500,000 stray dogs in the city, many with Rabies. So on Phil and I's last night there we were pretty happy to leave, we celebrated by going to a Hookah bar and enjoying the many different flavours of sheesha. A bit lightheaded, we thought it might be a good idea to walk back to my cousins place were we were staying, despite the packs and packs of stray dogs we saw everywhere in the daylight. As we were walking down the street a pack of about 5 rabid, foaming dogs came out of nowhere and started barking and lunging straight for us. Adrenaline kicked in and we hopped the nearest fence, which happened to be a church fence with sharp pointy ends at the top. I cut my hand pretty badly on the top, but that wasn't the worst part, the worst part was that I got strung up on the top of the fence by my shoestrings! Imagine poor drizzle upside down on one side of the fence, with rabid dogs on the other side trying to bite me. Phil came to my rescue, we found some 2x4s in the courtyard and walked home, both bleeding from the hands holding onto planks of wood ready for any more dogs that wanted some! We rock some nice matching scars on our palms now. On a matching note, if we ever wanted to leave my cousins appartment we had to call a taxi and make a mad 20 meter dash to the street into it as we avoided the local pack of dogs. F- Bucharest!
And finally we have perhaps the most stupid adventure to date, and not one to be repeated:
#1 Fraser Island Shark Sanctuary
