travels (day 5-8)

Day 5
1) mapquest and roundabouts
2) rain
3) lots of fog and the total lack of a view from the confederation bridge
4) red soil, for serious.
5) "big chief" van
6) Levi and Kate
"don't worry about paying, it's more important that you are comfortable"
Q: "ummmmm..." A: "I bought it at a garage sale"
"you can use the phone but we only have one line, so if you wouldn't mind answering the call waiting"
7) Deidre
8) The Anne Store
9) The store with the scarf
10) The lack of cuteness
11) The best "in a paper bag" fish and chips in PEI
12) The fact that you can get, what I can only describe as a giant bong/caraf of beer brought to your table
13) Ohmigd is that a PEI accent?
14) Only drinking a half pint of beer
15) If playing in a band makes a guy approx. 3x better looking than when he is not playing in a band, and you are watching a band play where no one is good looking, you know there is no chance for the guys to be good looking
16) The fact that everyone in the bar knew who everyone else was
17) KIWI!!

Day 6
1) more Deidre
2) Anne's House
3) The little path that went only to Lucy Maud Montgomery MacDonald's grave
4) Things being closed, and or ceasing to exist
5) Random craft shops
6) Napping in the car
7) Feeling like Sarah Stanley and Gus Pike as they go looking for captain crane's treasure
8) Seriously the most amazing red cliffs EVER!!
9) Lobster Supper!!
10) unlimited chowder!! (and muscles and desert and SIXTY FOOT salad bar)
11) Megan! (we love you)

Day 7
1) A big ferry
2) Being the LAST car off the big ferry
3) Lots of driving
4) OHMIGD I HAD NO IDEA THAT THE CABOT TRAIL WOULD BE SO AMAZING!
5) More Amazing
6) Cheticamp - the rug (not to be confused with latch) hooking capital of the world
7) More French Tim's
8) Lobster traps painted with the Acadian flag
9) "If we both didn't see it, then it wasn't there"
10) Jeff (number 2)
11) Pleasant Bay
12) buying gloves (finally)!
13) Making pasta and playing cards in the kitchen
14) going to bed early in the dogdy linen, but grateful for the heat
15) No keys for the hostel, front door or bedroom

Day 8
1) Snow on the Ground
2) Amazing
3) Crazy twisty downhill driving
4) Stopping randomly in an empty diner/convience store to use the restroom
5) Canada Post!!
6) Louisbourg!! with 4 out of 48 buildings open and an unfortunate lack of people in costume
7) car picnic
8) blustery blustery
9) Cape Breton University!
10) Dinner at the Swiss
11) laundry
12) "say NO to incineration"

And it would be wonderful if someone could please tell me what to do!

Travels: Day 1-4

I have been extremely distracted for the past few days, however, I really want to blog about my trip. So I will do my best to briefly shift my focus away from my problem. (yeah, I know. some problem).

Day 1
1) Quebec City, suprsingly unfar
2) Comedy of Errors
*lights going out, damn that coffee maker
*do you see the dial. look across the room. use that dial instead.
*ummmm.... isn't this key supposed to work?
3) metro! the ability to buy wine at the grocery store? how civillized.
4) writing on best western stationary

Day 2
1) Quebec City to Fredriction, surpringly far
2) "I think those are the falls"
3) Walmart
4) Rain
5) Freezing Rain
6) Snow
7) Rain
8) Rosemary Hall
9) SKETCHY!
10) Jeff
11) Hours of guitar playing across the hall
12) The Blue Door and Pad Thai
13) The NB Sports Hall of Fame

Day 3
1) Pewter
2) Green Tea and "do you know us. we sell stuff in Toronto"
3) Beaverbrook!!!
4) Dali
5) docent's choice
6) GAGETOWN! (round 1)
7) small little road - pretty little road
8) toll
9) UNB
10) A table full of Rugby guys
11) laundry
12) Seriously - how could I have known the road was ABOVE us!
13) Irving
14) GREY'S season finale
15) super super cute houses on super super confusing streets

Day 4
1) UNB Museum
2) Loyalist Day
"I don't understand, why is everyone in costume?"
"I wanted to see the permanant wave machine!"
"I think it's cubism"
3) Rain
4a) Full below ground parking (morning)
4b) Closed (?!) below ground parking (night)
5) Farmer's market
*ring
6) Beauty and the Beast (or something like that) with disapointingly poor food.
7) CABERET!! seriously, who knew?
8) MERIMAC!!
"here's a free shot with your cover"

Okay - that's all for now. More to follow.

7 provinces in one month (how cool is that?)

Part I: Books
I just finished a book called between the bridge in the river, written by craig ferguson of the late late show and drew carey fame. I can't decide if it was "good" or not, but it was really really enjoyable to read - and really, what more can you ask from a book.

Part II: Trip things
For anyone who doesn't know, this Tuesday I am leaving on a road trip with my friend Alex. This is the first real road trip I have ever been on. We are driving from Toronto to the Maritimes and back again in 19days. I am super excited, and a little freaked out. But mainly super excited. We will be staying in Quebec City, Fredricton, Saint John, Charlottetown, Cape Breton, Halifax, Moncton, Quebec City (again), Ottawa and then finally Toronto. We will be staying in a mix of hostels and hotels (neither of us knows things about camping) and having picnic lunches, seafood dinners and pints while listening to fiddling music :)

where to begin?

Since last time I have left B.C. and returned to Toronto by way of Alberta. So much stuff happened. So much. Too much. So below are random thoughts from the past 10 days.

1) it seems like WAY more than 10 days
2) ohmigd I want a dog!!
3) Things in a Box (x2)
4) I heart euchre. even if I don't know how to spell it. I am also amazing at it.
5) sangria (x2)
6) appies.
7) besties.
8) seeing Dylan
9) having my fondness for Moxie's seriously questioned.
10) two words: hot. springs.
11) m&m bark
12) my favourite ice cream shop
13) children are ridiculously cute. especially (but not limited to) blonde children and laughing children.
14) famillies are special things
15) colburn and lake ontario and ohmigd gorgeous.
16) moving (x2)
17) so that's who X is/what X looks like
18) 59 + 59! (and I'm feeling fine!)
19) James
20) LUPUS!!
21) trip planning
22) being really really really happy.

Today

Today my bank account grew by $150. This is because I returned a $80 pair of pants and a $70 shirt. I realize that I should probably try to focus on buying things I need and can afford. Oh well... no one is perfect.

Today I finally put all my art postcards from NY (and a few others) in my art postcard book. It's been a year and I finally got around to it. What I should have gotten around to today was furthering my packing (note the sound of me hyperventaliating).

Tonight I was reading "the things I know" blog (which is my favourite blog of those linked by members of Devin's family) and I realized that right now I suddenly don't feel compelled to know anything. I mean, I know the things I know, and there are lots of things I don't know. And for the last couple weeks, I haven't been that worried about the things I don't. It's a nice change.

Seattle

1) Starbucks (original, square glass box, seattle centre)
2) keyrings
3) spaceneedle
4) EMP & Frank Gehry
5) guitar modern art
6) butterflies
7) knowing more about sciene science than Devin
8) walking past the bus parking lot, under the highway
9) watching a woman getting arrested in the Jack in the Box parking lot
10) Salmon Fillet, Salmon Fillet!
11) super practical showerhead
12) yummy thai food (cozy)
13) lots of skytrain monorail
14) there's a Betsy Johnson store!
15) and Fossil sells clothes!
16) not drinking coffee
17) blustery winds
18) ginger candies
19) being happy

friday night lights

I had a fabulous weekend (well night) in Vancouver. Taking the bus and the ferry and the bus for many many hours was not fun - but the Flames game was actually super fun. I think I like hockey more when I can see the whole ice (versus on t.v. when you can only see the current play) and our seats were excellent - they were super high up - but you could see really well. The only downside was that when we first got to the game, a person dressed up in a giant canuck-orca suit punched me. He punched me!! I think it was the Flames shirt.

Other things: I got a free room upgrade! My first ameretto sour in forever. remeniscing about the bushes at the airport bus stop. cold crepes in a freezing cold restaurant. listening to my ipod while almost falling asleep on the bus. seeing whales from the ferry! smoked salmon on a bagel. pumpkin flavoured gelato. meeting D. aunt and uncle.

song of the day: what I'm trying to say. the stars

calgary-17+1

I have now officially visited my fifth Canadian province - Alberta! Land of Alberta beef, the Flames, that other team, Banff, the Badlands, and lots of other cool stuff.

1) mcnally's bookstore and amy's mom's books
2) learning the difference between "streets" and "avenues"
3) public transit aka the c-train
4) cherry pie, blueberry pie, and cheese curds
5) watching street legal and poker
6) stripey drumheller rocks
7) spinning rings which make me sad because they aren't really moving
8) small children everywhere
9) being super happily surprised by the zoo
10) amy amy amy
11) kensington
12) a surprise trip to crave
13) phantom, phantom, phantom
14) finding out kirsten's kids really are as cute as everyone thinks
15) dim sum
16) boston
17) food-poo shirt under black light
18) dmt (^3)

20 things from NYC 2006

1) 13 hours on a train
2) The subway
3) Degas
4) American Girl Store
5) A restaurant with a moat
6) Richard sharing his duck with Amanda
7) Rasberry Mojhitos (my spelling has failed me yet again)
8) Hopper
9) Mr. Frick
10) Alice in Wonderland statue with many small children
11) Mel
12) Bleeker Street
13) Brooklyn Bridge
14) Law & Order Court House
15) $5 pashmina and $3 t-shirt
16) cheesecake and pretzles
17) Chika
18) Puetrican Day Parade
19) New Pedagogy of Art
20) Scott from the Train

Monkeys and Mexico!

Okay.

so as some of you probably know I spent the week before last in the Mayan Riveria (Playa del Carmen) which is like 45minutes South of Cancun. It was gorgeous - and also quality family time (my sister wasn't so impressed as family time for us involves everyone else waking up at 8:00am and my mother trying to convince her to join the family - which apparently wasn't her idea of an ideal wake-up time for a relaxing beach vacation).

In any case - the hightlight of the trip was definetly the monkeys. We had close encounters of the monkey kind with both spider and howler monkeys. The former courtesy of two gentleman in the town who had two trained (?) spider monkeys and they sit on your shoulders/head/hand while you take pictures with them (for a small fee of course). This was super cool - even when the monkeys would get bored of being on your shoulder and try to climb onto your head - which can be a little bit disconcerting. Although it wasn't so bad - the couple who had their pictures taken with the monkeys after me and my sister experienced the extra fun of the one monkey taking off the guys glasses and with the coursosity of a small child seeing how far around he could twist the two sides away from each other.

The second type - the howler monkeys - lived in the resort (around the resort) and we got to see them in trees and on rooftops a couple times. There are signs everywhere saying "don't feed monkeys" but some people took the iniative to completely disregard the sign and throw the monkeys food (not good people... not good). Anyways - they were really cool - more so because they were wild - and they howled!!

So yes. That is my trip to Mexico in monkeys.