April and May and June??

This post goes out to Chantal and Andrew for calling me out on abandoning my procrastination station. 

I have no idea where spring went, but now I'm sitting barefoot in my apartment in a sundress with the AC on (very low). Fortunately, my digital photos are date-stamped, so I can recover some idea of what happened.

In April I went to an "I'm on a boat"-themed bachelorette party for our beloved T-bride Meg,

Landlubber Liz and Admiral Anna

and Chantal made her famous jello shots (only one bottle of vodka! .... a texas mickey).

Not pictured: two additional trays

Dave and I went to Kingston to celebrate Easter with family,

Posing with my lovely cousins. 

and then went off to Ottawa for a wedding. We paused in Montebello to drink a caesar by the lake before returning to Montreal.

I started May by jetting off to Naples, Forida for the annual Vision Sciences Society conference. The banquets and beach were nearly as much fun as the lectures and posters.

The cabanas by the small pool. Life in Naples is rough.

After I got back, Twiggy missed me terribly and needed some serious snuggles.

That's her holding on to my arm.
It was difficult to work in this position. 

Twiggy and I together worked hard on some papers (both for degree requirements and publication).

And by "together" I mean "she napped"

I went out for dumplings with friends from the lab,

Where the teacups are beyond adorable - it's a little dumpling.

and then we watched a live taping of Quirks and Quarks Questions. A professor in our research unit was one of the experts they had answering questions.

"Do we all see the same colours?"

In June, Dave and I were in Peterborough for his sister Andrea and now brother-in-law Matt's gorgeous wedding,

I love this photo - I don't care if it isn't in focus

and then in Ottawa, reunited with the 152 Johnson ladies for Megan & Earl's fantastic wedding party. My feet hurt more than my head the next morning, so I know I'm getting old. And need to stop wearing stilettos if they don't have platforms.

Roomies (n. plural). Sisters, therapists, lovahs, chocolate dealers,
fellow procrastinators, motivators, and people who make sure you never drink alone.

In between, I've been keeping up with yoga, finished the course work for my last class ever, submitted my first journal article, read the latest book from Wheel of Time (and have since been re-reading the original series), and have been admiring the pictures on too many wedding websites.

Whew.

The Pink Shoe Saga

I bought a fabulous pair of shoes at Guess to wear for a wedding this past weekend.

Shiny, pink, platform, heel -
what more can a former 90s tween ask for?

And classy with a modest skirt.

I think I will be remembered as the girl who danced for hours in ridiculous heels - if only they knew what a whiner I am, they might have believed me when I said the shoes were actually comfy.

The photographers thought the shoes were awesome, and took a few photos before we went to take the pre-wedding photos of the groomsmen. In a field.

Narrow heels + damp grass = disaster.
Not pictured: muddy tights from taking a spill after getting stuck.

So at that point, I gave up on the shoes, but not on observing the photography.

It was cold, but I was more concerned about what needing
a tetanus shot would do to the schedule.

The fact that I (of the constantly ice cold feet) did not mind wandering around almost barefoot for 20 minutes is especially incredible considering that by evening the view outside was like this:

So I stayed inside and danced.

This week, I have promised my feet I will be wearing sneakers. Unless I need snow boots.

Québec City and Château Frontenac

(alternate title: Holy monster post, Batman!; alternate alternate title: The scary big post that has made me procrastinate on my procrastination device)

On April 24th (thank goodness digital photos are automatically time-stamped), Dave took me on a mystery road trip. We (read: Dave) had been doing a lot of research on the Fairmont hotel properties (because of our upcoming Rockies trip and stays planned at Lake Louise and Jasper Park Lodge) so I guessed that we were probably staying at a Fairmont (poor me), but wasn't sure which one. My first guess - Le Château Frontenac, in Québec City - was correct.

One of the many lovely views of Québec City on the drive in.

When we got to the hotel, Dave learned that we had been upgraded from a regular room to a corner Gold Floor room. With a turret.

See that room at the top of the turret? The corner room right under the green roof? That was us.

A Gold Floor hallway. It was lovely and quiet in addition to being pretty.

Except it's an "Or" room, because we're in Québec and things are French here. 

I have been impressed by hotel rooms before, but when we walked into our room I think I actually exclaimed something in surprise. It was like the fancy hotel room where the wealthy people in movies stay.

From the door, we had a closet on the left and a bathroom on the right. Ahead was a side view of the most luxuriously appointed bed I'd ever seen outside of decorating magazines. Classical music was playing on a small clock radio with better sound quality than my speakers.

The bed. Yes, there are bedside lights and canopy lights. 

The sitting area as viewed from the foot of the bed.

Through the sitting area, to the left of the fireplace, was the turret.

Turret room at night. I want to write my thesis here.

One of the turret views by day.

One of the turret views by night. 

We had a package that included a table d'hôte dinner at Restaurant le Champlain downstairs, which was amazing.

Still life of the bottle of wine that was included with our dinner package.

The service was incredible, and the food was so so very good. My favourite course was the tuna tartar appetizer, with avocado and curry oil, wasabi mustard, and fresh coriander:

I wish I could eat this again. It has been maimed because I tucked in before remembering to take a photo.  It's also the only time I've ever enjoyed avocado in anything.

 The next night, we still needed to eat so we asked the concierge for a recommendation. Between her very helpful advice and some TripAdvisor reviews, we ended up at Conti Caffe, just down the street.

Another wine still life. Loved the custom wine glasses.

We both ordered from the table d'hôte, and the best dish of the night was Dave's starter: the veal cannelloni. 

Mmmmmmmmmm..... I had two bites, but I wanted the whole thing.

Dave's note: I did offer to swap appetizers...

The next morning, before heading back to Montreal, we had the breakfast buffet in Le Café de la Terasse. It was included in our package, and I'm glad because we wouldn't have checked it out otherwise. I'm not a huge fan of breakfast buffets, because I don't ever eat enough to make them worth it, and I really like my eggs fresh. This breakfast buffet was amazing though. A few things that caught my attention were: the cheese platter, lots of fresh bread for toast, the generous selection of good fruit (kiwi! strawberries!), and really delicious coffee.

We were sad to leave.

Staying at the Château Frontenac was so much fun. I'm excited to see the other Fairmont hotels we have booked in Alberta at the end of June!

PS - President's Club. It's free to sign up online, and you get free internet during your stay among other perks. Being able to check TripAdvisor and email from the room was really nice. 

Losing Confidence in the Signs of Spring

After a weekend of sangria,

sunshine,

and patios,

the weather has decided that it is a tease. It is cold, windy, snowing, slushy, and miserable. Our plans for a Thursday soccer game have been put on hold because the pitch is currently under 5-10cm of snow. Montreal, you win this round.

I'm moving to California.

Maybe Africa.

I can haz nap?

This weekend, Dave and I are at the Château Frontenac in Québec City. It is incredible, and we have lots of photos to share. In the meantime, a teaser:

Signs of Spring

Minus ten degrees Celsius. That's the average winter temperature in Montreal. If you've ever lived in the northern reaches of the world, you know that statistic is nonsense. Temperature means nothing without a windchill factored in. If you hate the cold as much as I do, it usually feels like minus a million.

Winter in Montreal sucks. Many of my foreign co-workers moved to Canada hearing little else about it other than "It's cold! Haha! We'll think of you when we're on the beach at Christmas, mate!". That said, this past winter has sucked a little less hard than usual. The snow was gone by mid-March. If that doesn't sound remarkable, here's a picture from March 11th 2008:

Montreal approaching spring. Really! Look at all the melting snow on the sidewalk. 

This winter, there weren't very many days where it dipped below -20, let alone -30. This winter, there was never this much snow on the ground at any one time. This winter, my dad didn't get a chance to use the snowblower that March 2008 prompted him to buy. This year, on March 11th, it was 10 degrees ABOVE zero, and people were walking around in shorts and T-shirts.

SO, because I'm a horrible Canadian for loving how early spring has come this year, and thinking that this global warming stuff isn't so bad, I (maybe) lost it a little when I saw the first daffodils blooming in the hospital garden today. I might have cooed. I might have forced Jesse to stop walking, just a second please please I need to take a picture of the flower.

Daffodil. Date stamp: April 19th. It happened. 

Unknown blue flower. The onset of spring has co-incided with the installation of "Hipstamatic", A riotously fun photo app, on my iPhone.

Green grass, green shrubs, spring spring SPRING!!

Spring is wonderful, the same way Fridays are wonderful. Sure, Friday isn't the WEEKEND, but it's great because you're so close you can taste it and since it hasn't started yet you're not sad about how soon it's going to be over.

Maybe I need to live somewhere where it's summer all year round.

Niagara Falls (2008 trip)

Continuing my recollections of past trips to Niagara Falls ...

On this trip, made over the May long weekend in 2008, we spent our first two nights at the brand-new Stirling Inn. It was incredible. The decor was modern and attractive, but not overdone. The building is a refurbished factory. It doesn't look like much on the outside, but inside is awesome.

I didn't take any photos of the bathroom, which is tragic, because the bathroom was my favourite part of the suite. It had a normal-ish sink, toilet, vanity (kind of lousy lighting for makeup), but the SHOWER. It was as almost as big as the whole bathroom in my apartment, had several different shower heads for an all-over water massage, and doubled as a STEAM ROOM. There were jets whose only purpose was to fill the shower with steam. I may or may not have taken four showers in two days.

Stirling Inn, exterior. Ok, maybe that's self-evident...

Our room. The bathroom is on the right, fireplace up the step and to the left. The couch is that dark form in the distance. This room was so massive that the king size bed wasn't the focal point. 

The "Healthy Breakfast" that was delivered to our room at 8:30am. This was included in the rate of the room, and was really yummy. Mmmm, coffee. 

May 23, 2008

After a good sleep and a healthy breakfast, we ventured out into the city of Niagara Falls. We strolled around a little, enjoying some good weather and taking a few obligatory photos of the falls while we waited for the shuttle up to Niagara Glen where we planned to hike. 

Niagara Glen is a short drive from the crazy tourism of Niagara Falls the city. If you've any interest in geology, there is plenty to see. It was a short-ish, easy hike with lots of fun photo opportunities. Especially if your photographer boyfriend likes to make you pretend to lift rock ledges, give you the camera as he pretends to fall into the niagara river, etc..

Dave pretends to fall into the niagara river

What? Of course I hike in argyle. Here I enjoy the view and look irritated about being posed.

One of the nicest things about the glen hiking trails is that they're not nearly as popular as a lot of the other Niagara Falls tourist attractions. I really enjoyed the peaceful quiet of it. We were alone most of the hike, except for a few times when we crossed paths with other groups of people. 

That evening, we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner and a magic show at Greg Frewin Theatre. Dinner was a plentiful, yummy, buffet but nothing to write home about. The show on the other hand, was pretty incredible. Greg Frewin is a fantastic showman, with a really exciting and novel collection of illusions. His show includes all the tigers, sequins, doves, and lovely magician's assistants one could ask for. The only unfortunate thing is that (possibly) because he's in a theatre in Niagara Falls rather than in Las Vegas, the show opened with a somewhat awkward "The guy you're about to see is actually a big deal. World class. Even though he's in Canada." video montage. I understand why they did it, but for me anyway, the quality of the show spoke for itself.

May 24, 2008

The next day, we packed up and bid adieu to the Stirling Inn. We drove from Niagara Falls to Niagara on the Lake on the beautiful Niagara Parkway. This is one of the only drives that I really enjoy. There are so many beautiful houses and wineries to admire. Coming from further north at this time of year, it's also nice to just be surrounded by green things.

Niagara on the Lake is a complete change of pace from Niagara Falls. It's still extremely touristy and overpriced, but the focus shifts from wax museums to wine, food, and theatre. We checked in at Pillar and Post somewhat early, but they accommodated us. We, unfortunately, didn't have the foresight to take many location photos. Oops. This one of the Pillar and Post is from niagaraviews.com:

We had dinner plans at Peller Estates winery, but needed a light lunch to get us through. We wandered around a bit before stopping at Zees to eat on their gorgeous patio right across from the Shaw theatre. The food at Zees was wonderful, I had the best Macaroni and cheese of my life, and Dave had memorable crab cakes. We also had a half-litre of Inniskillin's pinot grigio, which has since become one of my favourite white wines.

After lunch, we took a walk around Niagara on the Lake, which can kill about an hour if you have a leisurely stride and maybe two if you like ducking in to look at the shops. The shopping definitely caters to the older crowd - I wouldn't have seriously shopped for myself in any of the clothing stores. That said, there were some cute jewelry and craft stores that were fun to look at. They have a Cows ice cream and T-shirt store - excellent ice cream, seriously corny t-shirts.

Pillar and Post provides a complimentary shuttle for guests around Niagara on the Lake. Peller Estates was a bit out of town, so we hopped in a van and got there well in advance of our reservation. This is the dining room, brought to you by tourismniagara.com:

Outside the windows on the left, there's a terrace that overlooks the vineyard. It was a little too chilly on this trip, but someday I hope to have a less extravagant dinner on the patio. I love eating outdoors.

The Peller Estates dining room has a couple of options: you can eat like at a regular restaurant and order each plate and wine individually, or you can do a tasting menu. They have three tasting menus: the red, white, and signature menus. The red and white are each five courses, the signature is seven. Each course comes with a not-quite-full-but-generous glass of paired wine. We did the signature menu over three hours. It is expensive, but you can consider it your food and your entertainment for the evening.

Dave's tip: finish your wine quickly, and if they aren't too busy you'll get a refill.
Liz's tip: take your time with the wine, or else you'll end up drunk. That said, I don't think they come to bring the next course until you've finished the food and the wine. If you particularly like any of the wines, you can tell your waiter and buy a bottle. They bring you the bottle at the end of the meal and just add the cost to your bill. Caution: some of the glasses of wine come from extremely expensive bottles.

Each course is small, and exotic. If there's something you don't like (Liz: foie gras, Dave: hen's egg poached in rosé, still runny yolk), you don't have to eat too many bites of it. The most amazing thing was the blue cheese saturated with ice wine. It takes two years to completely saturate a wheel of cheese. The coolest thing was the soup course where we were presented with shallow soup bowls, empty save a scallop. We each had two servers at this point, one of whom poured the soup in around the scallop (a substitution from the menu), the other drizzled cream over the soup. They did this at exactly the same time for both of us.

It was very fancy, and by the end of it we were both quite tipsy, but not totally drunk. We'd eaten a huge array of things, and definitely weren't hungry, but we weren't so stuffed we could hardly move either. When we were done, our waiter arranged the shuttle, and we were chauffeured back to Pillar and Post. After a tasting menu, you should not plan to be able to drive.

Pillar and Post does a turn-down of your bed with a lovely rose while you're out for the evening. This might prompt you to take a series of ridiculous pictures, only some of which are not blurry:

This pictures have been post-processed more extensively than usual. You know, to up the class factor. 

Shortly thereafter, we passed out. The end.

Epilogue, May 25, 2008
On our last day, we stopped at Inniskillin and bought the pinot grigio we'd enjoyed at Zees. I enjoyed it again in Montreal later.