Champuru: August 2009

Go Canada!

It is great living where we live now, because it opens up a whole new area to explore. With Canada so close, we couldn’t wait for an opportunity to go up there and look at the Canadians.

We rolled into Montreal at about sunset. It’s such a beautiful city on the water. We took our bikes so we could ride them around the city. Here are a few of the sites that was saw:

Well, first things, first. A little picnic lunch in the park.

The first day we rode the Lachine Canal path.

Saw some crazy looking architecture

Rode across the bridge to the island

Biosphere

Olympic Park

The old city

Of course, we also had to stop and try the Poutine! (Oops, first I accidently spelled it Putin; as in Vladimir?) Yum! We were also really lucky to be able to catch up with our lovely friend, Shona, from our UK days.

Next we listened to a bunch of Canadian bands on our way to visit our good friends Frederic and Chizuko and their kids in Gatineau. It is so good to catch up with old friends! We were thoroughly embarrassed by our lack of Canadian knowledge, so Frederic taught us all about how Ottawa is the capital and what a Quebecois is, and how to order a Beaver Tail, and why ours didn’t come with fur, and the meaning of the phrase “Je me souviens” (on the Quebec license plate – it’s very deep. If you know him, please ask him about it sometime if you get a chance.) Actually, my ignorance about Canada is so bad that I spelled Ottawa wrong the entire way through this post and then didn’t believe the spell check when it corrected me, so I Googled it. Turns out it was right. Americans. Anyway, Frederic promised that if we came to Canada he would find us a Mountie to take a picture with, and so he did!

Frederic also took us to Ottawa so we could see that Canada is actually its own country. It was really impressive! We got to see the changing of the guard, which was much more impressive than anything we saw in London. We also got a tour of the Parliament building. There were lots of statues of owls inside because, did you know, that a group of owls is called a parliament? Those Canadians are really deep.

Here are a few pictures from the very beautiful and impressive parliament building:

The library

The place where they walk

The place where they talk about stuff

Oh, sorry. This isn’t the Parliament. This is Micah and I fooling around with the camera.

The US even let Ian back in without any problems, even though they know what he is like now, so hopefully, we’ll be back to Canada soon!

Next stop: Vermont

We had perfect weather in Maine, except for the waking up to a storm on the morning we were supposed to pack the tent up. The boys had fun trying to throw everything into the car in the rain, and of course it stopped raining as soon as they were finished.

On the way to Canada, we stopped in Waterbury, Vermont to see the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory. While we were waiting for our tour time to come up, we unpacked the entire car onto their lawn so we could air everything out. We had quite a group of spectators wondering what on earth we were doing. While I was throwing out some of our garbage, I heard a little girl ask her mom, “Mommy, are they camping here tonight?” On a side note, did you know that Ben and Jerry’s factory employees are allowed to take home three pints of free ice cream a night? That’s 15 pints a week! I guess it keeps them from eating on the job!

From the city to the coast

Now that we’re caught up, we can finally tell you a bit about our vacation! Micah flew in from Wisconsin to join us. The first night he was here, we went out in the city for some delicious Ethiopian food and thought about all of our friends who have ties there. We got a bit delayed in the subway coming home and encountered a very funny scenario involving subway employees, a leaky hose, and a bucket that we’ll have to tell you about sometime, but basically the delay turned into a very late night which turned into a very lazy morning, which meant that we started our vacation at the very slothful pace of hitting the road at about 1pm. I love vacation.

And so our road trip began. Sort of. We ended up sitting in traffic for a lot of the first part. We sat behind this van for about an hour in New Hampshire on our way to Maine. Interesting.

None of us had ever been to Maine, so we really wanted to see what it was like, but the maine (yuk yuk) reason why Maine made the vacation cut was to be honest, the food factor. I think I need to take a minute to explain about my New Years resolution. I don’t normally make a big deal about New Years resolutions, but this year I decided to make a few fun resolutions of things that I really wanted to do. I love to cook, and I’ve always felt that cooking a lobster is just something that I needed to try; a kind of rite of passage or something. So, I told Ian that in order to do this, I thought we had better go to Maine to eat some of their famous lobster so that I could really get a good feel of what it was supposed to taste like (wink wink). Here are a few pics of some of the delicious food we ate in Maine:

I started out with a lobster roll at a local cafe

Micah was excited about the shrimp

The award-winning lobster pie from the Maine Diner, which was featured on The Today Show. We had some fabulous seafood chowder to start and followed it down with some homemade blueberry pie ala mode! Hungry yet?

Chef Ian’s campfire steak and grilled veggies with fresh, pan-fried Haddock. Yum town.

We decided to take advantage of the outdoors and camp during our time in Maine, so we came well equipped with everything we needed to attempt the lobster-cooking. (By the way, thanks to everyone who lent us stuff! This lobster is dedicated to you!) It was quite an experience going to the fish shack to buy our guys, then trying not to bond too much with them while we prepared for their imminent death, then putting them in the pot and eating them. It was a bit sad, to be honest, but they were just so delicious.

The lobster figures out something’s up…

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We did it!

Can we eat yet?

Oh yeah, and of course, we also had s’mores

Here are some pretty shots of Maine, too: 006

Winter into Summer

Ha. So I realized that we haven’t really been great about posting for awhile, so I’ll put a few things to give you a little idea of we’ve been up to over the winter and into the summer.

Ian experienced his first Superbowl party

Went to an ice festival…brrr

Participated in a midnight count of the homeless for NYC

Expounded numerous theories about LOST

Went to a movie marathon where we watched the 5 Best Picture nominees in a row. And survived.

Went to a birthday party where they had a buffet of every flavor of Doritos

Played a bunch of guitar hero

Took some of Ian’s clients to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ate lots of snacks to ward off the study blues

Spent 4 hours setting up three display cases of work at the Japanese bookstore. Tore it down in about thirty seconds three months later.

Started playing guitar and drums in church again (K)

Tried to look cool learning to snowboard, but failed

Played a basketball game with the Harlem Wizards (like the Harlem Globetrotters)

Performed in a talent show

Ate some very delicious food and discovered a new favorite restaurant

We each threw each other a surprise birthday party

Did some MJ tribute karaoke

Joined Ian in doing the grad school thing

Finally succeeded in making a pavlova!

Watched NYC fireworks on the Hudson from behind a tree

Picnicked in the park (PICNIC, not PANIC)

Introduced egg creams to a few friends

Failed on a first attempt to grow a feijoa plant, now on child-plant #2 and so far, so good!

Saw some great concerts

Bought our bikes, “Queen” and “Charlie” and went biking with Uncle Ray and Aunt Gail

Ian bought me a waffle maker for my birthday and has made waffles every weekend since. Every time he does, he gives it to me and says, “Happy Birthday!” Love that guy.