I wonder about this on my daily commute to work in the metro. Before January 1st 2011, the free newspaper in the metro was called Metro. It is green and colourful and interesting and I enjoyed reading it on my way to work.
Since January 1st 2011, the free newspaper in the metro is now 24 hours. It is grey and boring.
Here is what I wonder. Is it grey and boring just because I was accustomed to the other newspaper? Or is it really boring?
I also wonder how many other people feel the way I do and refuse to take the 24 hours newspaper from the distributor guys because it just doesn't feel like the right newspaper.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Ontario Trip
This will be quick because I've been putting it off:
Day 1: Pick up rental car; drive 6 or 7 hours to Niagara Falls with a stop in Trenton for food. Arrive in Niagara Falls, check in at hotel, go see the falls (still as beautiful as I remembered them when I was 12), have dinner (we had a really funny waitress: she was nice and seemed like one of those people who have always and will always be a waitress), lost money at the casino to slot machines.
Day 2: Continental breakfast at the hotel with a very old lady supervising the breakfast room. She was snooty and kicked people out for wearing pajamas and told me twice that I should 'just sit down now' (I was taking too long, apparently). Walk over to see the falls again. Walk to the 'strip': Niagara has turned into the Vegas of Canada. We went to the Guinness World Records Museum (highlight was playing the first Mario Bros game), to a 'fun' house (it was not fun, it was for kids), to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum (better than the Guinness one if you have a choice... highlight was ... mmm I wont tell you otherwise I'd ruin the surprise), to an outdoor maze (fun, but we completed it in 15 minutes), and to a moving theatre (I got a little dizzy). Then we hit the casino again but won at the roulette table. We ordered in and shared a bottle of wine that night while watching TV - the World Junior's Hockey championship among other things (that night Canada beat the USA- yay!).
Day 3: Went to an outlet mall to try to buy our wedding china which we still haven't gotten around to doing (I blogged about it a while ago), but the store didn't exist anymore! Then we drove to Toronto, checked in and went straight to the Hockey Hall of Fame. We had lunch at marché (a market-style) restaurant, which was really cool. You get a card when you walk in and then you pick what you want to eat and then you pay on your way out. It was very busy and packed full of businessmen, so Paul and I shared a table with three men. We clearly eavesdropped on everything they had to say about one of their colleagues who was buying an expensive house in the Richmond area and who also was dating the wrong girl (or maybe she was dating the wrong guy?). Anyway, it was an entertaining and very filling lunch! We took our time touring the Hockey Hall of Fame, the highlights being at the end of the tour where there are interactive games! Paul tried being a virtual goalie, and I tried being a commentator. It was hilarious, I was screaming ‘Et c’est le BUUUUUUUUT!’ really loudly, not realizing there were people behind me watching. I walked out of the little booth super red and embarrassed. We then went to the Eaton Center (I prefer the one in Montreal, but hey, shopping is shopping). We didn’t buy anything but there were amazing sales on! We then went to the movies to see Black Swan. What a trippy movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend you do. Natalie Portman is excellent. When we got back to our hotel, we finally got hungry (remember our lunch was huge) so we ordered in some chicken and watched TV, which was the night Canada lost to the Russians if I remember correctly.
Day 4: We went to the CN Tower first thing to make reservations at the 360o restaurant, which was really simple. We made an early reservation for 5pm because the sun set was scheduled for 4:30pm and we wanted to be able to see some of the city in the daylight and they let you go up half an hour before your dinnertime to walk on the glass floor. Then we walked towards a park because I thought it looked nice on the map. It wasn’t that nice in real life; if you go to Toronto during the wintertime, don’t bother. The skating rink at Nathan Philip’s Square was nice though. We kept walking and Paul had found a sports store near us so we walked towards that and when we got to it, it was an army surplus. Now I have to tell you, I did not have appropriate footwear on this day. I had looked out the window in the morning and thought, ‘oh, there isn’t any snow on the ground, I’ll be fine with shoes’. So I wore shoes. I also should mention that my boots (a copycat version of Uggs) got wet very easily, despite dousing them in waterproof spray. And it had started snowing. I found cute Sorel boots at the army surplus store, so I bought them. They were also very cheap because of a great sale they were having. We walked back towards the Eaton Center and stopped to look at books, soaps and outdoorsy things (Paul and I have odd shopping tastes, I know). We stopped by the hotel to change (and to drop off my shoes, now that I had my boots on) and then we continued on to the CN Tower. We walked on the glass floor and saw parts of the city (it was snowing, so we unfortunately did not get to see much). We had an amazing dinner at the 360o restaurant. Paul had a massive steak and I had salmon. Our starters and desert were awesome too. We both considered this to be the celebration of four years of dating (January 11th) but we later realized it was January 6th, one day after our 6 month wedding anniversary. I think we didn’t realize it because we were thinking years, not months.
Day 5: Drove to Belleville and hit some crazy traffic on the highway. It was stop and go for about an hour. We didn’t see any accidents, but we think the snowplows might have been slowing everything down. We arrived in Belleville and got to catch up with Sherrie and meet Lily. Adam got home after work and we continued catching up, chatting and having a great time. We discovered the joys of PVR and watched some TV shows. Adam and Paul also played the NHL 2011 PS3 hockey game.
Day 6: Drove home to Montreal after enjoying more chats and a long breakfast and more cuddle time with Lily.
All in all it was a great trip!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Happy 2011!
Paul and I just got back from a week with my family celebrating Christmas, New Years, and time together. Everything was great!
On the 24th, we went to the Notre Dame cathedral here in Montreal for midnight mass. It was beautiful, but quite long and boring. At 2am or so, we got home to eat our 'révellion' and were so full and tired by 3am that we decided to save desert for breakfast! My sister made a traditional 'buche' that was delicious!
The 25th was spend opening presents, eating and watching Inception. A very relaxing day.
On the 26th, we had a family get together with my dad's side of the family. One of my cousins just got back from Australia, so we had a great time catching up. We opened more presents, ate more, and played games together. It was a great success!
The 27th was spent packing and planning for our family tradition - an expedition to a cabin with no running water or electricity. This year we went to La Forêt Montmorency, near Quebec City.
On the 28th we arrived and skied up to the cabin, it was supposedly 5 kilometers, but we got lost because the trails weren't marked. At one point, a patroller told us to take a short cut, which ended up not being one at all. He told us we'd be able to cross a river because he thought it was frozen or that there would be a bridge (I don't exactly remember the details) but it ended up being pretty wide, not frozen at all and there was no bridge in sight, so we had to go back a bit to go back to the original trail we were on. We ended up making it fine, and that night we discovered light painting! It was so much fun to think of new ideas for pictures, I wish I had some to show you, but they're all on my dad's camera. We also played papelitos. You can find out how to play here.
As we ate breakfast on the 29th, we saw some grey jays (birds) outside on a tree. My sister went out with some pumpkin seeds to see if they would eat out of her hand and they came really close! It seemed as though they weren't afraid of humans at all! My mom has a great picture of the moment. During the day, we explored a bit, cross-country skiing and hiking around. We found a rope bridge that we crossed. In the afternoon, the patroller who had gotten us super lost came by to say sorry! We all thought that was really sweet of him! The evening consisted of more games, some we made-up, and papelitos, of course.
On the 30th, we set off exploring again and found a steep trail that led up to an observation tower. We were able to see our cabin from the tower, which was neat. Paul has the pictures for this event. On the way down, we did some ski-sledding. We sat on our skis and slid down! Back at the cabin, we read, played sudoku and crossword puzzles and talked about anything and everything, including religion and politics. At one point, my dad screams: "Come outside and see this!" So we all obliged and saw a beautiful red fox. Similar to the jays we had seen previously, it was not afraid of us at all. Paul threw some snowballs in the foxes' direction to get it to come closer, and the fox came really close to us! My dad has the pictures for this event. Scattegories and papelitos brought our evening to a close.
At about 4am, my mom yelled out: "Paul, I think someone is in the cabin". What a way to wake us up! I have to explain that we were all sleeping in different areas of the cabin, which is why my mom called out to Paul and not my dad, who was sleeping outside (partly because he was hot and partly because he likes to do that kind of stuff). Also, we were all upstairs and my mom was sleeping downstairs, because she was too hot. You could think a small cabin in the woods in the winter would be cold, but we know how to work a wood stove. So Paul, being the great guy he is, wakes up and goes downstairs to check out the situation. My brother very intelligently, turns on his flashlight and checks to see if the front door was open, which it wasn't. Unknown intruder was ruled out pretty quick, but we all heard the noise. Now that we knew the animals around us weren't afraid, we all assumed it could be a porcupine or a raccoon, because it was creating such a racket! But no, it was the cutest little mouse! Paul saw it and showed us (we all got up to see) it was definitely my fault for not wrapping up my cookies and putting them away. So this tiny mouse was taking a huge cookie back to its' home. It was the cutest thing ever! It kind of looked like this:
We drove back to Montreal on the 31st, with a stop at Tim Hortons. I love the picture on the doughnut box, I feel like it is the epitome of a Canadian winter:
The 25th was spend opening presents, eating and watching Inception. A very relaxing day.
The 27th was spent packing and planning for our family tradition - an expedition to a cabin with no running water or electricity. This year we went to La Forêt Montmorency, near Quebec City.
On the 28th we arrived and skied up to the cabin, it was supposedly 5 kilometers, but we got lost because the trails weren't marked. At one point, a patroller told us to take a short cut, which ended up not being one at all. He told us we'd be able to cross a river because he thought it was frozen or that there would be a bridge (I don't exactly remember the details) but it ended up being pretty wide, not frozen at all and there was no bridge in sight, so we had to go back a bit to go back to the original trail we were on. We ended up making it fine, and that night we discovered light painting! It was so much fun to think of new ideas for pictures, I wish I had some to show you, but they're all on my dad's camera. We also played papelitos. You can find out how to play here.
As we ate breakfast on the 29th, we saw some grey jays (birds) outside on a tree. My sister went out with some pumpkin seeds to see if they would eat out of her hand and they came really close! It seemed as though they weren't afraid of humans at all! My mom has a great picture of the moment. During the day, we explored a bit, cross-country skiing and hiking around. We found a rope bridge that we crossed. In the afternoon, the patroller who had gotten us super lost came by to say sorry! We all thought that was really sweet of him! The evening consisted of more games, some we made-up, and papelitos, of course.
On the 30th, we set off exploring again and found a steep trail that led up to an observation tower. We were able to see our cabin from the tower, which was neat. Paul has the pictures for this event. On the way down, we did some ski-sledding. We sat on our skis and slid down! Back at the cabin, we read, played sudoku and crossword puzzles and talked about anything and everything, including religion and politics. At one point, my dad screams: "Come outside and see this!" So we all obliged and saw a beautiful red fox. Similar to the jays we had seen previously, it was not afraid of us at all. Paul threw some snowballs in the foxes' direction to get it to come closer, and the fox came really close to us! My dad has the pictures for this event. Scattegories and papelitos brought our evening to a close.
At about 4am, my mom yelled out: "Paul, I think someone is in the cabin". What a way to wake us up! I have to explain that we were all sleeping in different areas of the cabin, which is why my mom called out to Paul and not my dad, who was sleeping outside (partly because he was hot and partly because he likes to do that kind of stuff). Also, we were all upstairs and my mom was sleeping downstairs, because she was too hot. You could think a small cabin in the woods in the winter would be cold, but we know how to work a wood stove. So Paul, being the great guy he is, wakes up and goes downstairs to check out the situation. My brother very intelligently, turns on his flashlight and checks to see if the front door was open, which it wasn't. Unknown intruder was ruled out pretty quick, but we all heard the noise. Now that we knew the animals around us weren't afraid, we all assumed it could be a porcupine or a raccoon, because it was creating such a racket! But no, it was the cutest little mouse! Paul saw it and showed us (we all got up to see) it was definitely my fault for not wrapping up my cookies and putting them away. So this tiny mouse was taking a huge cookie back to its' home. It was the cutest thing ever! It kind of looked like this:
We drove back to Montreal on the 31st, with a stop at Tim Hortons. I love the picture on the doughnut box, I feel like it is the epitome of a Canadian winter: 
We also stopped at the Madrid, a crazy restaurant on Highway 20 with dinosaurs for decoration:
We rang in the New Year by washing our dirty selves and dirty clothes and watching the 'Bye bye'. All in all, it was a great week!
Papelitos
During our vacation, we often played papelitos. We learned how to play papelitos Christmas 2008 with Paul's family in Mexico. Here are the basic rules:
- everyone writes names of famous people, movies or things on small pieces of paper (hence the name papelitos, which is Spanish for small piece of paper) and puts them into a large bowl
- two teams need to be made (we usually play boys against girls)
- Round #1: you describe the word on the paper without saying that word (kind of like the game Taboo) and your team members have to guess.
- Round #2: you can only say one word and your other team members have to guess what’s written on your paper. Both teams always have to be listening because some associations are repeated.
- Round #3: you have to act out what is on your paper and your team has to guess. If they guess right, you place the paper into your individual team bowl and pick up another paper, if not, you have to keep describing until they get it. You each get one minute to do this until the papers are out of the big bowl and into individual team bowls.
- The team with the most points wins!
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