Summary

Here's a summary of what I've been up to in the past couple of weeks:

 

• Moving from Montreal to Chicago, on a Greyhound via Toronto, Buffalo and Cleveland
• Meeting my Mum at the airport (first time I've been standing on that side of the doors!)
• Being a tourist in Chicago with Mum for a few days
• Driving (or more accurately, being driven) up to Kenora and spending a few days out at the Lake of the Woods, showing Mum round camp and catching up with people there and generally enjoying the lake-ness of it all
• Driving across to Regina to meet up with the Tullochs, going to a concert that Ian's school was doing, driving round Regina in the rain (it's where Rob grew up and I'd never been there)
• More driving up to Naicam for the wedding of James (Rob's cousin) and Kelly (which was so much fun, even though we were camping in the rain and Mum got to stay in the hotel in the next town – the town was full of wedding party people and there were no more rooms)
• Leaving bright and early the following morning and driving south for 14 hours one day and then 9 the next
• Having dinner at Naperville when we got there, then heading back into the centre of Chicago for the night
• Packing Rob off to work the next day and going shopping with Mum before taking her back to the airport exhausted
• Trying to have a quiet couple of days cleaning and tidying before James and Kelly came to use the condo for their honeymoon – this was thwarted by video games and then Rob being recruited for softball
• Meeting James and Kelly and then going out for beer and pizza, and then walking round Chicago at 1am looking at all the fancy cars
• Shopping at the outlet village on Saturday, then having a barbecue out in Naperville
• Going to the track that John (Rob's dad) is a member of and getting driven round it very fast, then making the cars limp home with no brake pads left (that was more scary than the track!)
• Playing in the Children's Garden in the Arboretum J
• Realising that I've got so much to write it'll take me about three weeks to get it all done.

 

So as you can see, been a bit busy! I'll spend time this week writing it all up, probably in sections so I don't get too bored and neither do you.

 

Also want to say Happy Father's Day to my Dad – there's a card, but it's not even posted yet… I'm a bad daughter.

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Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Friday

I've managed to pay my phone bill (in the third bank I tried... why do they close at 3? this is not a reasonable time for things to close).
Have not managed to cancel my phone, despite walking up to the shop with phone in box with everything, the bill to pay and the bills that were wrong. The stores don't take payments unless they're credit card and they don't deal with cancellations, meaniing I will still have my phone. What is wrong with this company? They've given me a $150 phone and I can't give it back to them? weird. So I came to the decision that procrastinating is good - I can keep my phone till I have finished with Canada altogether (after the wedding and stuff) and then cancel it, since I need to do that over the phone and pay the cancellation charge with my credit card anyway.

Still need to call the bank so I can see how much money I don't have (and be able to pay off my credit card bill when necessary, which was probably about 3 months ago). I hate companies.

My hands have decided to randomly generate black smudges on them whnever I do anything. This strikes me as odd. Must be bird flu/SARS (remember that?)/mad cow disease or something.

Anyway, I'm clearly going insane so I'll stop typing now and drink my coffee.

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Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

I also bought another suitcase a few days ago in order to get my massively expanded amount of stuff down to Chicago. I'm blaming (most of) it on Rob, since every time he came to visit he'd bring one of those business-type cases which contained more stuff for me (DVDs, books and the like) than stuff that he was going to use... but since he never took any of the stuff home, I now have all my stuff from Russia, stuff that I've bought here, and a whole schwackload of extra stuff. Ah well, I must say I appreciated having lots of reading material and stuff to watch.

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

I'm going to miss Quebecois

despite it's ridiculousness... for people who don't know what I'm talking about, there's this site (passed on to me by Lisa) which demonstrates the linguistic differences through the medium of Batman... funny! (Even if you don't understand French, just listen - they're supposed to be the same language, but you'd never know).

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

I think I forgot to mention...

that Rob and I have an apartment to live in over the summer :)

Rob's just put some photos up on his blog so you can see the area and stuff (and so can I, since I haven't actually been there yet)... we don't move in till the 24th June so Mum doesn't get to see it, but still. I get to be a housewife this summer, yay?

And in other news, I just found out (from watching a CBC show about the princes and the Prince's Trust) that Prince Charles likes Leonard Cohen. Who'd've guessed?

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Most especially for my Mum, so she can spot me in the airport... but also cos I'm proud of it :)

Only two weeks left!

Well 12 days actually. Where has my time gone?

It took me about an hour and a half to buy a coach ticket to Chicago yesterday. An hour and a half. I had to go from one counter to another, wait for an office to open, go back to hte first counter, and finally just refuse to move until people told me what I wanted to be told. That was an effective tactic, I think I'll use it again in future.

Anyway, I eventually managed to buy a ticket to Chicago via Toronto and Detroit. It'll take about 18hours, but that's better than the 24 - 36 they originally threatened me with.

And that's all I have for now, except that "V for Vendetta" is a much better film than the title implies. It's all very Orwellian (I like that adjective) and has some serious psychological themes, which is a refreshing change for a film based on a comic. Wow I made it sound really heavy. Oops.

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Ah travelling

it's complicated...

I want to buy a Greyhound ticket to go from Montreal to Chicago. This should be simple. I go to greyhound.ca, and fill in all the things, and it tells me that if my travel plans involve the US I should go to the American site. So I do, and fill in all the forms again, and then I get to the billing page. Which wants US credit cards only. Ok, I think to myself, I can get Rob to buy it for me (hehehe)... and then I notice the shipping thing. It wants a US shipping address, and won't take any other kind. For a journey starting in Montreal, on a site I was told to go to by the Canadian version. I'm confused. Maybe I'll just have to be old-fashioned and physically buy my ticket <gasp>!

I went to the Biodome today, which was fun. There are different areas based on different climates in the Americas, starting in a rainforest and ending up in the Arctic and Antartic (yeah opposite sides of the globe but same kinda coldness). Lots of birds and fish and bats and the odd capybara :) which are fun, and puffins which wanted to swim on their backs which is just ridiculous but really funny to watch (they just kinda flip back the right way up despite all their best efforts) and penguins, which were the stars of the show after everyone saw "March of the Penguins" at Christmas :) . Lots of fun, even with bunches of kids around... I managed to time it so that I was between groups, and when I found something I wanted to watch for longer than the kids behind me (ie everything, but most particularly the beavers) I just let them pass... at the end I watched a falconry display, which made me want to be a falconer like they always do (how do you get involved in that kind of job anyway?).

And that's that for now, quick update. Oh and my photos worked last time, yay for that.

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com

Just a quick one

Cos I've been doing stuff and the library is going to close soon.

I've been quite adventurous the past few days, getting up early and going to places like a good tourist. On Tuesday I went up the mountain twice (once because it was really early and nowhere was open, and then again after paying my tuition and buying the new Chili Peppers CD because I enjoyed it the first time) and took photos. And when I went home I collapsed on the bed and slept, because that was the most exercise I've done in ages and I'm pathetic... then today I went to the Jardin Botanique, which was really pretty with more flowers that when I was last there (for the butterflies) and yet still free because it's not tourist season yet :) this made me happy when I was expecting to pay to get in. I took a lot of photos there too, but my camera didn't seem to want to give them to me... some of them are also various strange colours, as if the ink was running out or something (except there's no ink in digital cameras, so I think it's just dying a death). I fought and won, but I don't know whether I will next time...

As for posting photos, I'll give it a shot on here but if anyone is on FaceBook and would like to see them, I'm in the Durham network (you may need to sign up for the site to see them, so don't worry if you don't want to).

Have also persuaded my mum to come to Canada when she's over visiting me in Chicago :) Rob's cousin James is getting married, so there's a wedding to go to! (Amazing how many people keep assuming it's my wedding - Mindy, you weren't the first). So that'll be fun.

Anyways, going to try and post some pics now, wish me luck with this temperamental thing...

--
Coffee is thicker than water...

http://avatarofcunning.blogspot.com