Category: Trips

The rest of the trip in BC is currently a blur as I had not written down anything about it.  In fact, I can’t even remember what we did on the Wednesday!  On Thursday, we took a trip out to Jordan River which was…lacking.  There was nothing there!  I think the point of it was to hopefully see some surfing going on.

We did end up at the Castle for the last few days.  The Castle was a nice old pub built 100 years ago and Uncle Brent knew the owner Kenny very well.  The most exciting part about this place was the price of beer…a round of four drinks came out to around $11.  We were all impressed with the price and the beer (Labatt Winchester which we had never heard of.)

Here’s another beer related story…out here in Sooke (if not all of BC), you pay more for your beer in the store if it’s cold!  I thought it was odd when the woman at the register asked me if my beer was cold or warm.

On the last night, Uncle Brent, Troy and I ended up at the Castle in the early afternoon and after a few pints, Dad came in with us as well and before you knew it, we were playing darts and asked the women to join us for some Chinese food.  We were all having a grand time and even Nanny got up to try her hand at darts.  I was not used to Troy’s camera so the pictures of the event are a little blurry.  The Chinese food was excellent as well.  We headed home where we gave a concert for all and Dad outfitted us with some chef’s hats that they got from their cruise.

Uncle Brent and Aunt Ree showed us some great hospitality while we were there and I had a grand old time hanging out with the family.  It’s not often that we get together but when we do, it’s smiles all around.  I really enjoyed going to Vancouver Island for the week and can see myself returning but I think I would like to check out some camping sites along the way as I don’t know if running over to Chemainus would be exciting again.  I would definitely like to return to Victoria and spend a few days there as there was a lot more to do there.

I don’t know if it’s the fresh air or the time change but it caught up to me by this point.  I think I’ve already needed to have a nap in the afternoon each day and when we woke up around 6:30 to head through Vancouver Island, I was dead tired and slept most of the way.

We headed up North into Duncan where we stopped at a farm that the Mustard Seed Food Bank had purchased.  It is used for multiple reasons; to store all food being shipped for use in Vancouver Island, to grow food on the farm, and to be a form of rehabilitation center where patrons stay a minimum of a year in a house on the property and work on the farm while receiving the aid they need.  I was very impressed with the operation.  They don’t have a large operation as of yet but it will turn into something that is self-sustaining which I personally feel is amazing.

We then headed up further North to Chemainus which is a small town which have painted murals all over the place to attract tourists.  It was neat to walk through the town but that’s that.  Nothing mindblowingly exciting about the place to report on.

He headed back into Duncan where we stopped into a Chiwakan Native area where they had a bunch of totem poles.  We started off in the area going to watch a film but something went wrong with the projector so a man came in and said he would give us a tour around the area until it was fixed.  This was excellent as there usually aren’t guided tours.  He was very insightful and gaves us good stories about the history of the Chiwakan Natives and the stories their totem poles represented.  My favourite story (which has inspired a song) is of an old woman who would hunt down children who were out after dark and then would either eat them or burn them.  Then in a Hansel and Gretel inspired turn of events, the children manage to burn her.  I thought it was an interesting story from their culture.

We got back home and it was a relaxed affair with us munching on some shrimp and hot peperoni, swapping stories and watching Honey Wrestling and the Real Catfight with Troy and Dad.  I also chatted with Troy for quite a few hours into the night along with a nice bottle of Crown Royal that Dad had picked up for us while on his Alaskan cruise.

When I woke up, I had some cereal and decided to hit the trail with the bike for a long bike ride.  It has been a few years since I’ve had a great bike ride and was excited at the prospect.  I ended up riding for 12 kms and it was slightly tough going out on it but then I realized I had been biking on an incline the entire 6 kms and so when I came back down it took me less time.

After the bike ride, I settled in with the guitar and created a new chord progression in the key of C that I worked on a bit with Troy.  We had these grand aspirations to write music while we were there.  It worked out decent for us over the week as we developed a little musical number based on a riff that Troy developed.  I think it has potential.

Today was the day we headed into downtown Victoria to see the sights.  Aunt Ree took us around the area where we shopped a little and we ended up getting some Dim Sum for lunch.  Mom and Dad had never been to a Dim Sum restaurant before and while it was a enjoyable meal, I don’t think they will return in the future.  Dad didn’t care for the rubbery texture on some of the items.  They also didn’t appreciate that I ordered something that probably was a bull testicle.  It was quite disgusting and it left a (literal) bad taste in our mouth afterward.  YUCK!

After traipsing around Chinatown, I dropped by the Service Canada Center for Youth to see where I could find the main Service Canada Center to say hello to a colleague of mine.  After finding the center, I phoned Kathleen but she was out of the office.  Turns out she was out of town for the week which was unfortunate.

Random side story: I was passing this guy on the street and he had what looked like a red menu and he was standing outside a Chinese restaurant.  When he started speaking I just assumed he was an employee of the restaurant and I said “No thanks, I’m full.  I already ate today.” and he starts laughing and cries out “That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard!”.  Turns out that he was someone working for Amnesty International!  I did feel bad for brushing him off like that but we all had a good laugh.

We saw a guy called Plasterman who was one of those mimes that move around when you pay him.  He was pretty interesting to watch.  This was right in front of the harbour which is an amazing sight to see.  It was also right in front of the Empress which is supposedly a grand hotel to visit but they were going to charge us to walk through there and we said ‘Nay” to that prospect.  We ended up in Big Bad John’s pub where we could eat peanuts, throw the shells on the floor and look at the bras and underwear hanging from the walls and ceiling.

On Father’s Day, I started out taking a job on the Galloping Goose Trail which is a 50km trail starting from the city of Victoria and running across Vancouver Island.  It was quite inspiring to hit the trail in the nice cool forest as the trees sheltered the effects of the sun.  I passed by forest, trails and eventually ended up at a bridge overlooking a river below.  It was quite nice.  Dad and I headed back on the trail later on in the day with some bicycles (mine having some amazing streamers off the ends of the handlebars) and I enjoyed that time with Dad on the trail seeing that it was Father’s Day.  It was also inspiring to come back and work alongside Uncle Brent and Troy who were attempting to fix a clothesline.

I also gave Dad a copy of Drunken Covers Volume 1 which I envision to be a series of live albums whenever we actually hit record on the machine.  We are also trying to figure out an easy way to distribute this to anyone who wants it.  It’s a recording of Troy and I playing some covers last year in London.  We popped it in the car stereo when we headed to Victoria and I was proud when Mom thought it was the radio playing!

We headed into Victoria for some fish and chips which were amazing.  One thing that struck me about Victoria was that everywhere you went, the landscaping was amazing!  You could have a rundown apartment complex in the welfare area of the city but it had shrubs and flowers and nice lawns!  I found it quite intriguing.  Uncle Brent also took us up Bear Mountain which is this new housing development up on this mountain outside of Victoria.  It was quite amazing to be so high above the city.

At night, Troy, Uncle Brent and I played crokinole which I had never played before.  Clearly Uncle Brent had played before as he kicked our ass every time.

Troy and I then discovered that Uncle Brent had the Fight Network on his television and we decided to see what was on.  Hilariously enough, at 10PM, we stumbled upon a show which had Russian girls wrestling in honey.  Beautiful!  We had some good laughs at the show as the commentator was hilarious.  The girls had some great names like “Black Widow Spider” and “Angel Dust”.  So the commentator would say “Black Widow Spider is slowing down due to the viscosity of the honey.” or “Angel Dust needs to spend more time wrestling than adjusting her top.”

At 10:30PM, “The Real Catfight” started up and it was a bunch of Asian women wrestling each other.  Usually they were dressed up in some crazy outfits and it was a hit and miss show.  Sometimes they would not wrestle at all, sometimes they went all out and we cringed at their antics and sometimes it was a little crazy as you would have the girls getting bonus points for various acts.  Considering this is a family friendly zone, you can talk to me in person if you want to know what was going on in the show.  We found the shows highly entertaining and watched them every night and had a good laugh at it.  Dad even came down one night to see what the fuss was all about and he had a good time.

Awaking early at Aunt Dinah’s on Saturday morning, I grabbed a bowl of cereal and we hit the road around 5:15.  Connie dropped us off and we went through the motions of checking our luggage.  I inadvertently almost sent our luggage to Asia as there are two separate check-in counters…one for Asia and one for the rest of the world!

We had plenty of time left before the plane took off so we hit up Tim Horton’s and then headed for the plane.  They started boarding as soon as we arrived so that was good timing on our part.  We flew on a 767 and I must say that this is a high-tech plane.  They had these interesting pod like seats in first class.  Troy and I ended up in Row 21 and Nanny was a few rows back in Row 24.  All was good in the flight until Troy’s video screen wouldn’t load up any movies so we ended up splitting a set of headphones between the two of us and watched “Shine a Light” which is the new Rolling Stones documentary by Martin Scorsece.  It was pretty neat although it’s more of a concert than a documentary.

Let me not forget to mention how amazing it is to have your own video screen in front of you!  I have always been stuck looking at video screen across the hall and watching the one movie they have on board.  These personalized video screens allow choice to be at your finger tips!  I could listen to satellite radio or any new albums that were out, I could watch a ton of TV shows (we even watched a good episode of Ali G after the movie), I could watch the news, tons of movies…it was great!  I wanted to stay on the plane even longer!

After disembarking the plane we made a bee-line to the washroom.  This is when the hilarity of the trip would start for us.  Troy grabbed a urinal and I grabbed a urinal next to him.  I unzipped and then said “Ah, my little friend” referring to the urinal that I’ve been dying to use.  Troy gave me an incredulous look and then I realized that my comment could definitely be misconstrued and not be meaning the urinal!  With shock and laughter I said “No, no I was talking about the urinal!”  Meanwhile a gentleman who came into the washroom behind us scooted outside of the washroom after hearing my comment!  Ha ha…this started the trip off right and Nanny had a good laugh when we told her the story.

Luckily, Uncle Richard’s estimation of when Mom and Dad would be getting of the cruise ship was wrong and we only had to wait 30 minutes for them to pick us up instead of the original timeline of 2 hours.  We piled our luggage into the car (we still had to throw a suitcase on top of both Troy and I) and we headed for the ferry to get across to Vancouver Island.  We were lucky and made it into the 11AM ferry with only a few cars to spare (otherwise we would have had to wait 2 hours and then spend another 1.5 on the ferry.)  We grabbed a bite to eat and then sat on the deck.  It is a great trip to Vancouver Island.  It is difficult to peg the scenery here…I feel that it offers the best of both the East Coast water views along with the Northern elements of Quebec/Ontario.  It is very beautiful.  Many pictures were taken along the way.

Once we arrived into Sydney we met up with Uncle Brent and Ree who showed us the way home.  Their house is in Sooke which is about 40 minutes outside of Victoria.  It is a small town and their place is very secluded which is very nice.  When I talk about it being secluded, I mean it in that you cannot see the neighbours and there is much forest around the property.  There are also many deer sightings during the day which is amazing.  I also love how their house is very cozy and I felt welcome there right away.

We met Ree’s daughter Jennifer who is a lovely woman training to be a hospice nurse and we also enjoyed a good meal of cabbage rolls.  Afterwards into the night we ended up having a few beers and closed out the night playing guitar for a few hours and starting out what is hoping to be a good week of guitar playing.

P1060038, originally uploaded by palm0014.

Friday night after work, Vero and I headed to Toronto for the weekend for a family get-together celebrating Aunt Lana, Uncle Brent and Nanny Sybil’s birthdays. It was quite the momentous occasion since it hit upon some milestone ages of 50, 60, and 85 (respectively).

We arrived later at night than usual as traffic was heavy on the way down and I introduced Vero to A&W down in Kingston. While I do enjoy Arby’s, I figured a little change is good. I must admit their teen burger was top notch and the onion rings weren’t too bad either.

We arrived, chatted with the family, had a few beer and headed to bed.

The next morning, we hung around the house waiting for Troy to show up. Turns out that he had quite the bender the night before and wasn’t feeling all too well. The easiest way to get rid of that feeling is to pick up a few more beer so we headed to the Beer Store as well as picked up some ribs and other assorted goodies to munch on in the day.

Troy was gracious enough to impart some culinary knowledge to me and I learned how to marinate ribs (writing this out here for historical purposes so I can remember the next time); slicing the ribs in a diamond shape, putting six honey brown beer into the pan, cutting up orange wedges, let it sit.

Then we went ahead and made our own BBQ sauce. This consisted of dicing some onions (where I learned a neat trick of slicing the onion right up to it’s core and then cross-cutting them), adding some maple syrup, ketchup, mustard and…I’m at a loss. I can’t remember what else we put into it. We did two separate sauces; one mild, one spicy. Unfortunately for us, the sauce did not hold it’s spice and believe me, we put enough in. Perhaps we should wait until right before we apply it to the ribs so it keeps the spiciness. Once you get the onions to brown, you add some beer, crank it to a boil and all is good in the world.

After that was done, the main event happened. Seeing that it was everyone’s birthday, we concocted an idea to take a few pictures of ourselves, frame them and give them out as gifts. Vero, Troy and I slipped out of the house and headed to the nearest playground, put on our suits and Vero set us up on our very own photo shoot! I swear I now know how it feels to shoot a picture for an album cover! We had some great laughs as we posed around trees, swing sets, park benches, the whole nine yards. You can take a look at the photos by clicking on the photo above which brings you to the Flickr website. Take note that you can go through the entire album by either looking at the previous or next picture in the album! We couldn’t stop laughing during the process and we thought that everyone around the neighbourhood would think we are loony. We then headed to the Superstore to print them out and get some frames. Everything went off without a hitch as we snuck into the basement at Aunt Dinah’s and wrapped them up. None was the wiser.

Everyone started showing up at that point…Aunt Lana, Uncle Tony, Rocky and Jason, Uncle Billy, Aunt Val, Paige and Aidan, Sully, Dwayne and Wendy, Rick and Tracy showed up around supper time, it was a good count of people who showed up. We sat in the sun, had some beer, had an amazing feast of food, had some birthday cake, passed out the photos of ourselves which got some great reactions from people…it was a great evening.

One of the better moments for myself was when I finally suggested to Aunt Lana that I go out and pick up those comic books out of the trunk of her car. I had been holding back for the entire day as I didn’t want to seem TOO eager to dig into them. When I found a quiet moment, Vero and I hauled out three huge boxes from her trunk and brought them into the basement. Rick, Tracy, Paige and Aidan were there playing around and they were curious as to what I was bringing down the stairs. Rick and I then perused the boxes and marveled at the finds inside. It was quite overwhelming actually. I will talk about it more in a separate post as my feelings are too grand to reduce into a single paragraph.

A funny moment occurred when Aidan (age 4) saw the comics and wanted to look at them. Warning bells went off in my head and I figured it definitely wouldn’t hurt to give him a comic I didn’t really care about…so I went through the box and passed him a Green Arrow comic book wondering if he would be amazed at the artwork and the feel of the book in his hands…I was wondering if I was opening up a world of wonder to this child and consequently having his parents loathe me because they would have to spend thousands of dollars on comic books for him.

Lo and behold, this was not the case. He proceeded to flip the pages like a ragdoll, crumple, tear a page a little and Vero even said he sneezed into the book! I had a good laugh at this as the experiment was an utter failure but I also learned that I should hide the rest of the comic books for the rest of the night! I learned an important lesson that you should never be upset at a child and I wasn’t. Although Vero had a good maniacal laugh later on that night when she imagined some kids going through my entire collection of comics like they were construction paper and it as Arts and Crafts hour. I was not impressed with this vision and have vowed to put my comics at my parents house in the future. 😉

After perusing my wares, Troy came down and said the masses were requesting a little music upstairs. We hauled out the geetars, hammered out a cover tune or two, then switched gears and played a few originals (So It Goes, 705) which turned out surprisingly well for the first time playing it together. We had only heard the songs over the Internet before and it was pretty cool to have it happen in the moment. The rest of the night descended into a sing-a-long fueled by some rye. Rick grabbed us a drink of rye at one point and it wasn’t the strongest so he brought his ‘A-Game’ and topped them up to the point where my facial expressions would have made for good portraits. Vero handled the jambe drum and had Paige and Aidan dancing around. I must admit that the entire event was a little hazy in my memory at this point in the time as we just pushed out tune after tune. Hopefully we sounded alright to the crowd.

We ended the night with a nice bowl of Uncle Richards’s chili and Sully and Dwayne came back from another party and wanted to hear us play some more music. We played a few more tunes but Aunt Dinah finally had to pull the plug on us as people were already gone to bed and wanting to sleep. All in all, a grand night once again in Toronto. It didn’t end for me as I finally had a quiet moment with my comics I stayed for another hour or two going through each comic in the box. It was a great moment.

In the morning, I awoke to some breakfast and we cleaned up a little. We also played through a few tunes to get the hang of them as we are hoping to record in June when I visit London. Vero and I also got to see the photos from Uncle Richard and Aunt Dinah’s trip to Hawaii. They were fabulous photos and Hawaii looks to be quite the spot to travel to! They had a great time along with friends and I hope they keep traveling to tropical locales in the future!

Thanks to all who made us feel welcome during the weekend! We’ll see most of the relatives in about three weeks time when I head to Toronto and then fly out to British Columbia for a week!

***update*** I totally forgot to mention that my Dad’s uncle Gary (Nanny’s brother-in-law) won 3.5 million bucks last week. That was the big talk at the party this past weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever met him, but congrats anyhow!

 

What may very well become a bi-annual trip, we headed down to the States to take advantage of the good exchange rate, but more importantly, the great outlet mall down there.

Let’s get things straight – Canada has come a long way in making prices equal. In fact, there were many instances where I knew I would get the same item for the same price in Canada.

But the outlet store is a different beast altogether.

Vero, Mike, Trish and I packed into Mike’s truck to head towards Syracuse. We took his truck considering both my car and Trish’s car need brakes and we figured the less long haul trips we take the vehicles on, the better. I threw a couple of pillows in the back seat as I knew there was some cramped space and I didn’t want some protruding objects digging into my sides.

By 7AM, we were on the road to the States. No worries at the Border (although he was a very direct border guard) and I snoozed most of the way there and read the latest issue of Guitar World. Trish brought some…interesting mixes this time around although I don’t think it can beat her previous mix CD.

We arrived at the outlet mall and were surprised to see that the parking lot was half empty. This definitely wasn’t the outlet mall we were used to! Clearly, the Christmas rush helped bring customers out last Fall.

We grabbed a bite to eat and headed to the stores. In the end, The Gap and Banana Republic were the big winners of our cash. This was also the case with the last trip so I can tell if we head back to this outlet mall, these two stores should be the first stores we hit. You can’t go wrong with a pair of pants that costs $13 (which Mike picked up). This was Vero’s first trip and she said she wasn’t too impressed until she found this one store called Rue21 that she spent the afternoon in. I’m glad she found something she liked!

We spent a good six hours out there. We were definitely getting a little tired of walking around near the end and we decided to head back into Syracuse to get a bite to eat. We couldn’t get into the restaurant right away so we made reservations for 8:30 and headed into the mall. I found a couple of CDs that I couldn’t find back home…one being the Roxette greatest hits album which we bought for Trish’s birthday. I also found the Flight of The Conchords album which is chock full of hilarity with such hits as Business Time, Bowie and my personal fave; The Most Beautiful Girl (in the Room).

We went to eat at Ruby Tuesdays which was pretty amazing. Mike and I took a seat at the bar while we waited for the ladies to show up. We managed to score an excellent Sam Adams Seasonal beer and I must say that beer is very cheap down there. We got two beer for $8 and they were schooners of beer! We were most impressed. We were also impressed by the price of food there…we had a steak dinner which ranged in price from $10-$14. You can’t go wrong. I think Vero’s quiche came out to $8 in the end of it all. Gas and food seems to be the easy hit in terms of saving money over in the States!

We headed home and I snuggled into the backseat again and drifted off to sleep while listening to some Roxette. I was awoken near the border where Mike asked if I could eat the mini-burgers we bought from Ruby Tuesdays. Clearly, he remembers the story of how my bologna was confiscated at the border so we needed to scarf down these burgers. These mini-burgers were amazing! They were so small, they could fit in my hand! I loved the concept…I preferred them to the double handed burger we usually eat the restaurant.

When we got to the border crossing and were inside paying our taxes, the alarm went off and five officers ran out of the building. Turns out that someone was driving straight on through instead of parking at the building like she was asked to do. Mike overheard them saying that if she got to a certain point past the office they would have called the cops and she would have been charged!

I hopped into the driver’s seat for the rest of the trip and we listened to the Flight of The Conchords album, had some great laughs, and rolled into town around 2AM.

All in all, it was another great trip and as Mike pointed out, he and I definitely don’t mind buying our clothes twice a year and not having to worry about it any longer.

On Saturday morning I awoke early to pick up a package at the post office. Actually, I woke up even earlier due to Mike’s alarm clock going off around 5AM and he wasn’t at home and had not shut it off beforehand. Unfortunately for me, it was one of those alarm clocks which get progressively louder!

I headed to the post office but had not realized that I was reading the wrong ‘Hours of Operation’ and ended up there an hour early. Considering Eric and Annie’s place was just around the corner, I figured they would be up on this fine Saturday morning and so I headed over there and grabbed a bowl of cereal. We also had a quick game of Settlers of Catan which Eric won. Hey Eric, don’t forget to update the Catan spreadsheet.

After picking up my package I got ready to pick up Vero at the mall and then we headed out to Alfred. You see, we were off to Montreal for the night! It was Marie-Claude’s birthday last Wednesday and we were going to surprise her by all going down to Montreal. She was quite surprised when she arrived in Alfred to see all of us there and we piled into a couple of cars and headed towards the big city.

We arrived into Laval around 3PM and booked into our rooms as the Radisson. They had these really neat beds which could adjust whether your wanted your bed to be soft or hard. I thought that was pretty cool.

After searching for a corkscrew, a bunch of people took off to get some alcohol across the street at the mall and unfortunately they didn’t realize I was going to follow them a few minutes afterwards! I could not see anyone so I headed over to the mall in search of the SAQ for some evening drinks.

After hitting up the SAQ I ran through the mall looking for some place that would sell me some juice and water. Unfortunately, this shopping mall had nothing so I toured the neighbourhood in search for a corner store. I ended up back at the hotel and asking the receptionist where I could drive to and there was a corner store across the highway. I hopped in my car, picked up the necessary beverages and headed back to the hotel. Everyone felt bad that they didn’t know I was coming along but there was no real harm done! We cracked a few drinks, called a few people up to let them know what plans were and just reveled in life.

Unfortunately the restaurant they wanted to go to was booked so we ended up at an Italian place down the street. I have no idea what came over me (perhaps a few drinks?) but upon one smell of my pasta dish I really lost my appetite and I couldn’t eat most of it. Very strange. The restaurant was nice though and we had some good laughs.

After dinner, half of us piled into a car and the other half piled into a taxi to head downtown. Unfortunately, Laval is a little off the map from downtown so the taxi cost quite a bit to get there. We ended up in a night club called La Rouge and it was pretty dead in there (but it was still pretty early) so we managed to get a table to sit at for awhile, but they let us know that when the patrons who reserved it showed up, we would have to move. Turns out that in order to reserve a booth on the sidelines at this club, you had to order some $100 bottle of wine (no Maren, I didn’t get to see the name of the bottle!). I thought that it was a little overkill to have to pay $100 to reserve a booth.

We ended up dancing to some amazingly good tunes but then some people wished to leave and it timed well with meeting up with Philipp who was waiting outside. The club was packed to the gills at this point in the night and it literally took me fifteen minutes just to get my coat from the coat check and make my way outside.

Outside, it was pouring rain which wasn’t too good for Philipp, Jean and Catherine (Katherine? Katharine? Whatever way you want to spell it…) but they were troopers and I was happy to see them. We then waited for everyone else to exit the building and once they were out, we decided on the next bar to hit up.

At one point Philipp was way ahead of all of us and then we lost track of him! I think he was anxious to get out of the rain and get inside! I had to call him and we found him again…he had entered a bar all of a sudden and we didn’t notice. I knew I was going to enjoy this bar as we went upstairs and we were the odd men out as I was not wearing leather, my hair was not long enough to touch my ass and I don’t think they served anything but beer in this place. Did I also mention that there was some great heavy metal playing in this place? Awesome. Vero’s friends didn’t really care to stay so they left to head back to the hotel for the night and Vero and I stayed to dance the night away to excellent tunes of White Zombie, AC/DC and a special request for Vero ~ Crazy Nights by KISS.

I chatted with Jean for a bit about potential Nine Inch Nails touring plans to Montreal and whatever Trent was up to with his new releases (we both didn’t know that he would go ahead and release a full blown album within 24 hours of us speaking to each other) and I chatted it up with Catherine and Philipp. Turns out Philipp is going to see Iron Maiden this summer so I may join him for that (although I can’t say that I’ve listened to much Iron Maiden in my life, but I’m pretty sure this is the same tour that Type O Negative is on and I’m a big fan).

I was pretty hungry around 2AM so we left them all to head out to get a bite to eat. Montreal is notorious for its cheap eats in the form of 99 cent pizza. Is it the best pizza? No. Does it fill me up after a few beer? Yes, most definitely! It was nice seeing Philipp and company as I don’t know much longer he will be sticking around Canada. It all depends on how his research work comes along. He said he’s really leaning towards heading to Asia as his next destination and I recommended Singapore solely for my knowledge of a Canadian Dragon Boat Team that he could join over there. 😉

Having Vero and I try and navigate out of downtown Montreal was an adventure and we made a few wrong turns along the way but we finally made it back to Laval in one piece. We snuck into the room we were sharing with Jean-Francois and Marie-Claude but they had just gone to bed also so we weren’t waking them up from a deep slumber.

Combined with a lack of sleep and an empty stomach (and perhaps a beer or two), I wasn’t feeling too good the next morning when we headed out for breakfast. I managed to eat a few bites of my BLT sandwich, but it seems that I lost my appetite over the entire weekend. Ah well. I managed to get a nap in during the ride home. Thanks to Vero for manning the Mazda all weekend long!

In the end, there were a few hiccups along the weekend, but I personally had a great time and it was great to hang out with Vero’s friends in an extended setting. There is nothing like a road trip to get to know someone more personally.

Instead of sleeping in on Saturday morning, I hit the ground running. Awake at 7:30, I called up the crew and we got ready to hit up the Lansdowne Park garage sale!

After some logistics to work through, we ended up over at Rob and Janice’s place to pile into their van to head out to the garage sale. After a pickup of Vero and Carrie, as well as stop-offs at Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s, we finally ended up at the garage sale around 10AM which was about an hour later than expected. Trish had already been there scoping out the goods and found an ancient book which dealt with how to have fun times at parties. It looked quite interesting.

My main goal of the day was to scope out vinyl records. Literally five minutes into the sale, I noticed a guy paying for an LP. I veered into this booth and saw a box of vinyl records on the floor. The woman said she would make me a deal if I bought the entire box. I had literally just stumbled upon it and noticed an Alice Cooper and Chicago record amongst 30+ records and a slew of singles. I asked her how much and she started counting all the records in there. She said $18, I said $15 and I became an owner of 30+ records for $15. I hadn’t even properly looked at them until the following day. I got doubles of an Alice Cooper album, Chicago, The Guess Who, a Transformers record (what the heck?), ABBA, Bee Gees, Best of Cat Stevens, Best of Simon and Garfunkel and a whole bunch of others I can’t remember right now. I must admit I feel that I scored big with the deal.

With my box of vinyl in hand after five minutes into the sale, I walked up to another booth which was solely selling vinyl records and found Mike and Vero there. Mike had already found a bunch that he was going to buy at a buck a piece. I was in vinyl heaven. I put my box down and Frank The Record Man (the gentleman who owned the booth) asked if he could take a look through it. Not a problem! In the end, he actually pulled out a single by a band called Eric’s Trip and asked if I could make a deal and I really was in a rush so I said if I had time I would come back later. Being the avid collector I was tipped off that this may be some rare vinyl item and I should do some research on the Internet before selling it off. I didn’t bother buying any vinyl from this gentleman as I figured I should look at the entire garage sale before settling on some other items. I had already spent $20 (I found some CDs at another booth when I came in – Best of Elton John, Forrest Gump soundtrack and a Verve Pipe album) and there was plenty of territory to cover. Rob had already bought a toy chest for $10 and everyone was in good shopping spirits considering we had literally been in the place for ten minutes and it was paying off in spades.

I rounded the corner into another section and saw Mike who has a comic book subscription business that I subscribe to. I chatted with him for awhile and found out that to rent a booth for the weekend it costs $100 and he didn’t even know if he would make that back but was hopeful. He was there with a few comic books to sell as well as trying to get a few more subscribers to his subscription service. I had met Mike last year at a comic convention at Lansdowne Park and decided to sign up then. I figured I still had a lot of ground to cover so I said goodbye and headed on out. At this point I had lost track of everyone but found Carrie looking at a Hanson CD (which happened to reappear at every other booth in the place…clearly people can’t get rid of this album!) and then I stumbled upon the mother lode of booths. Here was a guy which a bunch of comic books for sale.

I noticed that he was selling them at a buck a piece and thought it wouldn’t hurt to peruse his wares. It paid off in spades, diamonds, clubs and the whole kit and caboodle! I found a bunch of Vertigo and Wildstorm comics in mint condition. I ended up picking up most of the Wildcats V3.0 series that I was missing from years ago. I was quite excited as I made my way through the boxes on the table as he had some fairly new stuff selling at a $1 a piece. I chatted with him for awhile and it turns out that he simply buys them and then buys the trade paperback and when he gets to have too many, he just sells them off. He also is a writer in here in Ottawa and spends most of his time either reading/reviewing books or writing. He also passed me a flyer for an upcoming book sale he has that he said was quite popular in the city and usually has a lineup of people in the morning.

I kept looking through the boxes as they weren’t in any particular order and I didn’t want to pass up anything good. I was definitely spending a lot of time there and people kept showing up and showing off the goods…Carrie found a Twister board game for a buck, Vero found a bunch of buttons that she’ll create something with, Rob found a bun warmer (!!!)…I must have been at this booth for a good hour. I would have to say the greatest find of the day was when I stumbled upon the box with pretty well the entire Fables series in it. I couldn’t believe it. It took me awhile to fish out all the issues I needed but it paid off well. I walked out of there with pretty well the entire series. I believe I may be missing about 14 issues now. I was very happy with my purchases at the garage sale. I didn’t even get to see the rest of the garage sale…I probably covered 1/4 of the area but I didn’t care. Everyone was ready to hit the road and I had spent enough money as it was.

We loaded up the van with all our purchases and hit the road to Bayshore to pick up Duncan and then we headed to Brockville for Joe and Danielle’s housewarming party. It was a beautiful hot day, the tunes were going strong (except for Carrie’s craptacular purchase of an old C+C Music Factory album) and we made it to Brockville in decent time. Sure, we were later arriving than we said but the garage sale was better than we had expected it to be.

We dropped into Wal-Mart to scope out potential house warming gifts and found a great bench for their backyard. Little assembly required…that’s always the key to a good gift! We then arrived at their house around 2PM while passing by some…interesting women sunbathing out in their front lawn. Someone thought one of them was pregnant while Rob thought they had just drank a few too many beer along their lifeline.

There were already a group of people at Joe’s pad and we a van load of friends arriving from Ottawa, the party went into high gear. They brought out some excellent grub and we had a few beer and enjoyed the sun. Duncan and I assembled the bench and tried it out and it didn’t fall apart. Clearly we did something right!

The afternoon waned away and it was so beautiful out that we had a hard time leaving. But alas, the time came that we needed to head back into town to see Vero’s final showing of Lavaléeville. I managed to snag an amazing bowl of chili before we left. I would have to say that Joe makes the best chili around. It has just the right amount of spice in it.

Thanks to Joe and Danielle for putting on a most amazing housewarming party. I’m sure they both had a great time as another batch of people showed up as soon as we were leaving. I’m hoping the party went to the wee hours of the night!

On our way back, a few of us played a hand of euchre in the van and hilarity ensued for the majority of the trip. However, we hit a snag when the van was having engine problems and it looked like it wasn’t shifting into a higher gear. Uh oh. I managed to get a hold of Trish to let her know that she should pick up her own tickets for the play (as we were originally going to pick them all up first and distribute them). We did manage to make it to the play in time but with only a few minutes to spare. I’m not sure what is wrong with the van and it didn’t fix itself after sitting in the parking lot for a few hours.

There were thirteen of us there to see the play and we all managed to find seats relatively close to one another. Phil had showed up with his father who was from Kapuskasing so we chatted a bit about that. I was right next to exit stage left but it was fine as it’s such a small production that they actually have the seats up on the stage so we were very close.

I was really worried about Vero and how she would do because she had fallen ill a few days before and she actually lost her voice Saturday morning! I felt awful about it and I didn’t really have any words of comfort to offer in this particular case. I can only imagine how one must feel when they lose their voice and they are in a play.

In the end, it turned out alright. When she spoke normally to us, it was a whisper, but when she was on stage, she managed to transcend the barrier and we could all hear her fine. She needed some backup help on the singing parts but so be it.

It was a great ending to three weeks of the play being in production. They play has been getting rave reviews and there are rumours that La Nouvelle Scene was thinking of having them come back sometime. I guess that is considered ‘a big deal’ when a theatre house wants the play to expand.

Considering the play was in French, I didn’t know if some guests would enjoy it but they said that even if they couldn’t understand it, the characters were very animated and it didn’t make for a boring play to watch (even though they couldn’t understand a word). This reminds me of any foreign language music. “I can’t understand a word, but it sure rocks!”

We congratulated Vero after the play, headed back home and grabbed the car to come back into town to go to the after-party. Mike, Duncan and I hit up the after-party which was a good time. They had a campfire in the backyard which was a welcome addition and the rest of the night widdled away until Vero, Vero and I headed home around 4AM.

Clearly, our Saturday was packed with activities to do but it was definitely worth it. On Sunday I awoke and puttered around a bit at Vero’s and when I went home I started washing the walls in part of the spring cleanup activity which will probably take me the next month to accomplish with another final exam coming up as well as a few other trips planned in the month of May. Question for all those who have spring cleaned in the past: I was trying to get out some scuff marks on the wall. The water and vinegar didn’t really work out. Mike then went to the store and they said Mr. Clean should be able to help and not take the paint off the wall. It didn’t really work out. Is my final resort to paint over the affected sections? If I paint over the section, will the newly painted area dry well and blend or will it look like a patch of new paint? Mike and I really don’t know so we’re hoping that it will simply blend in as long as we lightly roll it in and not lather a big glob over the scuff mark with a paint brush. Any advice at all would help!

Punta Cana. Martine 336, originally uploaded by palm0014.

We had planned to go out in these great underwater sea-doos which looked like something out of a James Bond film but in the end we decided to head out to do some snorkeling. It was a good day for it…nice and sunny, no real bad hangovers from the wedding before…all was well in the world.

Gaetan, Vero and I headed out on a boat which brought us along the coastline to a spot with a bunch of coral so that we could snorkel. I must admit that when we first got the snorkel gear a bit of fear came over me as I found it hard to get used to breathing out of a tube and not through my nose. However, I realized that if I calmed my breathing (and fear!) down, there would be no problem.

Until we got to the spot. It is quite choppy once you get a little farther off the shore. I never realized how choppy the ocean can be out there! Armed with flippers and a mask, we all hopped in and went for the ride. The mask took a little getting used to….it wasn’t TOO bad to breathe out of it but if a wave came on top of you then you got a mouthful of saltwater…yuck!

At first I was swimming around some massive corral reefs in which they were very close to you…in fact the wave once smacked my knee into one (good thing it was just rock and not sharp corral!). After realizing that the waves would continue to smack me into these rocks, I decided to head to another area. I met Gaetan on the way who was having trouble with his mask. I think it kept fogging up and we figured it wasn’t tight enough.

Let me tell you, the ocean is quite the amazing sight once you lay your eyes to it through a scuba mask. It’s really something out of National Geographic. At one point I was literally swimming with hundreds of blue fish…the size of a perch. It was like I was a part of them. They weren’t scared of me at all. I was just one with them trying to swim along. That’s another point about the ocean…the fish don’t exactly swim…they just move with the ocean waves. It’s pointless to try too hard to move against the ocean…simply flow along. I still marvel at the fact that I was alongside hundreds of fish and they weren’t moving around quickly like you see minnows move around…it was just calm and they were along for the ride.

We stayed out there for a good 30 – 45 minutes but we had grown tired after all that time of sucking in some salt water and fighting against the waves. We headed back for the boat and Gaetan had mentioned that when he had removed his mouthpiece in the water one time, he had almost lost his teeth. I commented that it would have been funny as there would have been a fish with a great smile somewhere out in the ocean! We all had a good laugh.

I believe we paid around $30 for this excursion and it was well worth it. We had at least an hour on the boat (which is a great ride, although I was feeling kind of sick after swallowing some saltwater) and 45 minutes out snorkeling. Some people had gone on an all-day excursion which they said wasn’t too interesting as most of the time the boat just laid anchor somewhere and stayed there for an hour. I think they would have preferred this excursion more.

Have I already spoken about the excursions? While it cost a little extra money, I thoroughly took advantage of the location we were in and the opportunities they provided. I lucked out and had some great excursions. If I returned I don’t think I would try the snorkeling again but I would be up for a safari tour if it was a different area as well as the parasailing. The view was amazing from the parasail. Definitely worth the $200+ that we spent in total.

We returned to the beach and grabbed a bite to eat at the outdoor eating area.

At one point in the day, Vero and I headed down the beach to the merchants tents.  This was quite a long walk down the beach but it’s not like we had anything else to do!  When we got to the tents they sure knew how to wrangle us in with comments about how beautiful Vero is and how they have the best deals in the land.  After haggling (which I still have to learn the fine art of) Vero ended up with a ton of jewelery with larimar (the stone native to the Dominican Republic) and I had found this neat shaker percussion instrument and also a gift for my Dad.  Actually, as I write this a few months later, I realize that I have never sent my family their gifts from the Dominican Republic!  Woops!  I guess I’ll send them along with the next batch of Sopranos Dad!  I was also trying out some hats but never found one that I really liked (which is funny because two months later I found one I liked in Giant Tiger of all places).

That evening Vero, Andreane and I headed to the Italian restaurant for a late eat. I must say that it was quite horrible. The service was bad, I got the wrong order and after we got our food served they never returned once in the 30 minutes afterwards. At one point I got fed up and we decided to leave the place. Enough was enough, I wasn’t going to spend the last night sitting in a restaurant!

We ended up back in our hotel room and Vero and Andreane had some bad sunburns so they needed some Aloe Vero. I was doubly disappointed that night as we had left the housekeeper another $5 that morning and I came back to find that the beer hadn’t been restocked! What the heck? At various points while I was watching a movie and they were applying Aloe Vero to themselves I kept putting my cold beer on Vero. I was like the 7-Up Man!

But at one point, Andreane was lying on her back and I put the cold beer on her stomach but she freaked out and the can tipped over her and then beer went all over her! THEN she flips out even more, jumps up, the can goes flying onto the bed and chaos reigns. There’s Andreane and the bed soaked with beer. All you could hear are screams from all over. It was quite funny. We threw the comforter out in the porch and got Andreane some clothes to wear. Vero’s aunt had heard the screams so a bunch of them came over to hang out for the rest of the night.