Fun With Richard & Cheryl

One of the more bizarre incidents that occurred during the week at Lake Tahoe slipped my mind when I wrote up my memoirs. So through the fog of influenza and a high fever I relate:

One morning Kev woke up scarily early and took off for a morning of golf. I bade him farewell, expecting to see him again at noon or so. My morning, which started a good couple of hours later, would be spent travelling with Kev's parents, to see if we could spot a mountain quail, a bird that inhabits only select areas in the US.

The three of us drove for at least 45 minutes up the windy mountain roads, stopping at one lookout point that towered above a township below. Cheryl and I enjoyed the scenery but Richard was clearly eager to keep moving, so we didn't stop again until we arrived at an information centre (unfortunately unmanned that day) where I saw my very first ground squirrel.



So while Richard and Cheryl kept a lookout for the mountain quail, my eyes were trained on the bouncy little squirrels that flitted quickly across roads and up hills and over rocks. So cute!

As we drove further up the hill we spotted a quail in the distance, but it disappeared into the scrub by the road. Richard hunted for it, but no luck. We continued on, ascending higher and higher, but as we neared the top of our chosen peak we decided to turn back. The distant sighting was enough to be claimed as such, but it was not the preferred method for bird-watchers.

As we returned to the original spotting area, luck was on our side and another quail appeared on the road. We stopped the car and watched through the binoculars as it continued to cross to the other side of the road, away from the scrub. We crept quietly forward in the car, and the bird jumped up into a tree, sitting on a prominent branch. We pulled up closer and closer, until we were right alongside the cocky bird. Richard was silently in bird-watching bliss as he snapped photos from every angle. Once he was satisfied, we headed home.

We drove for less than 30 minutes before we were stopped by backed-up traffic. All that could be seen was a long line of cars stretching ahead of us. Cheryl hopped out of the car and walked off ahead to find out what was going on. She returned with the news that there had been a fatality - someone had driven off the road and down the side of the mountain. She hadn't made it to the front of the line, there were hundreds of cars in front, but news was being passed back. As we waited in the car, other vehicles gave up waiting in the line, shouting "2 hour wait", "Won't let us through til 1:30", "2pm", "3 hours"... I wanted to turn back and go and sit in the small restaurant we had passed (which must have had booming business that day, with all the cars we saw give up the wait). Richard wanted to stay put so we wouldn't lose our place in line, in case they only let dribbles of cars through at a time. We called Brian to say what was happening.

Fortunately for me I had brought both my Drama and English readers along for the ride, so I read oh-so-interesting articles about how to teach poetry and how to use teacher-in-role to teach Shakespeare. The Time. Just. Flew. I think I put in a solid hour of reading before my ears started bleeding, so I tried to snooze. Richard was more successful at this than I, as proved by his subtle yet grating snores.

Every now and again cars would shift forward, causing frenzies of excitement, when really they were moving to fill gaps left by cars who gave up. But eventually, the movement was unbroken and we poured through the hazard zone, past a car whose poor driver was fast asleep. Would have loved to have seen his reaction when he finally woke up... The road was covered in emergency vehicles, but we spotted the break in the low rock 'fence' that ran along the edge of the road. The break was quite close to the lookout we had first stopped at - let's hope the car didn't fly out far enough to land on the township below. From the way the emergency services were positioned, it looked like the vehicle must have landed on the cliff face below. We hoped to see more on the news, but no such luck.

We arrived back at the Tahoe Keys some time before 2pm, and played croquet. Mmm.

What I learneded

North American toilets have far too much water in them.

US sales/hospitality workers are, in general, far too chipper. Seriously, it's disturbing.

In the US, jeans are cheaper than t-shirts. And the t-shirts are usually see-through and reach down to your knees.

Portland, Oregon, has managed to implement and maintain a free city tram service. Are you listening, Melbourne?

• Canada has more water and hydro-electricity than it can use.
  
• Canada has frequent power black-outs during thunder and snow storms.
  
• Canada is incredibly slow to restore hydro-electricity and therefore running water.
  
• Canada has a limited sense of irony.
  

There is a depanneur in Buckingham that smells like Clifford uses it as a bathroom. But it's not apparently bad for business.

Supermarkets in North America are sometimes so huge that they need to include bathrooms and slushie stations for their customers. What's next? A reading lounge? Free massage booths?

There are many wrought-iron external stairwells in Montréal. Oh, it's famous for them?

North Americans overall have a disturbingly low understanding of the dangers of UV rays and use very little sun protection. Admittedly it's a very different sun: I spent an entire day outside in full sunlight, unprotected, and ended up with the same amount of sunburn that would take 30 minutes in Australia. On the day we arrived home, the sun peeked out from behind a cloud and I could feel my face sizzle. What a wake-up call. But North Americans are too complacent with their subtler sun. The UV danger is still there even if the heat is not...

Montréal has an underground city. For shopping!

For every fast food outlet in Australia, there are 17 in the US.

In the US, tabloid news is far more important than, say, catching an international flight.

North Americans have become so dependant on the combination of peanut butter and chocolate that very few of them can digest either ingredient separately.

The US has released a souvenir coin which features a 2-D representation of the Twin Towers on a hinge so you can stand it up when the coin lies flat. The representation is made out of silver that was found under Ground Zero. Don't believe it? Well, you get a certificate of authenticity when you buy the coin. Only $US29.99.

Even resorts at Lake Tahoe have crapness - Cheryl and Richard scored a giant bedroom with a queen bed (?) and a balcony with a great view; Steph and Rob scored a big bedroom with a double bed and an en suite bathroom. What was generously left for Kev and I? A dogbox of a room with a high window with broken blinds that let in just enough light to hit my face at 8am. Could I escape the offending beam? No, because our bed was in fact beds - two crappy singles that we tried to push together, but the thick frame left us with an awkward gap that could not be bridged. So to get out of the way of the beam I would have had to climb completely over to Kev's bed, and I didn't want to disrupt whatever sleep he had managed to claim in this uncomfortable situation. Crapness.

Lake Tahoe geese are very clever. We had one backed into a corner and it still managed to swim around us. Maybe we're just crap paddle-boaters.

The coolest pet store I've ever seen is in Montréal, in Fairfield (?). I will return.

Melbourne Airport is the best airport ever. Portland is ok. LAX should be the next target of terrorism if they have a sense of good taste.

Australian Qantas employees are the friendliest and smartest in their industry. American Qantas employees have as much brain activity as Pepsi Max.

My DNA is lacking the "tourism" gene. My holiday enjoyment is based on people, not places. Warm weather helps, but a stunning blue lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains? Fneh.

I like it when people comment on my blog. It's nice to know you have readers.

I might add more later. So much learning, so little time.

(Disclaimer: some of the above statements may by exaggerated for dramatic effect. The skin cancer awareness statement is not exaggerated. Wake up, North America.)

South Lake Tahoe/Stateline, California/Nevada

Well, I'm officially cheating now- I've been back in Australia for nearly a week and my memories of the holiday are already fading. Though for those of you who tend to speed read my more epic-sized posts, this may be a welcome change. And for those of you who read my blog just to check I was alive, well, you can phone me now, you cheap bastards.

Anyway, the day of flying that delivered us to Reno featured a bag-check at EVERY airport (Ottawa, Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco) and even a super-special pat-down entering Portland (remember the felt-up reference a few posts back? There ya go).

We had a 6 hour stopover in Portland, an airport which fortunately featured free wireless internet access. I would use the laptop to blog and surf the 'net while Kev would read comics, and then we would swap. During this journey I read the entire Dark Elf Trilogy (in graphic novel form) as I had already finished the first 50 issues of Fables. So I was officially out of 'entertainment' reading materials, therefore leaving me with my English and Drama Uni readers... Woo.

We arrived in Reno, Nevada disgustingly late to discover that our hotel did not provide a free shuttle service after a certain time. It was about 11:45pm, which was 2:45am to our EST-set body clocks. Our luggage took forever to arrive, and we struggled to haul our haul out to the taxi lane. We hopped into a taxi that featured a revolving sign on the roof; one side proclaiming the dubiously "mysterious" joys of a Gentleman's Club, and the other advertising the all-new musical, "Debbie Loves Dallas". That's right, "LOVES". It's an American porn movie, and it's being shown in Nevada, and yet they needed to censor the oh-so-naughty word "Does". Does no one care to preserve the beauty of alliteration these days?

We got to our hotel, dragged our bags to our room (a fair hike from the reception to boot) and collapsed into bed. We were being picked up by Kev's Dad at 11am so it wasn't going to be a short night anyway.

We woke up still tired at 9:30am, and battled with rusty bathroom fittings and ultra-bright lights to get ourselves looking halfway presentable. At 10:30am Richard called to say he wouldn't be picking us up until 2pm!! Grrrrrrr... But even better, we could only delay our check-out until 1pm, so that gave us an oh-so-enjoyable hour sitting in the uncomfortably warm reception area of the hotel, surrounded by our baggage. Being stuck guarding our baggage stole all my energy, so by the time Richard finally arrived I was drained and tired. So much for the first day of our holiday.

We arrived at the Tahoe Keys Resort at 3:30pm-ish, and the rest of the Bosworth clan dribbled in over the following hours. I worked hard to assimilate everyone's name; I think I did pretty well. I've never been the type to call people by their names during greetings and conversations anyway, not sure why. I'm more of a visual person perhaps...

The first day ended with a fine spag and sauce meal prepared by Cheryl, and Charades.

On Tuesday Kev and I sourced free bike hire and toured around the resort looking at some seriously swanky houses, and some not-so-swanky ones that were being furiously renovated. We nominated unit 188 as the common unit, and Kat had brought jigsaw puzzles to be communally completed, so I made a solid start on that. I spent time online finding an interesting dessert recipe, and ended up combining some fruit cobbler recipes to make a low-fat, ultimate fruit cobbler featuring all the delicious summer fruits California had to offer. Steph and Rob served up a mind-blowing stir-fry, followed by my cobbler. I was very happy with how it turned out, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. My pleasure was soured when it was revealed to me that certain members of the family were interpreting my dessert as a "please like me" appeal from me... Like hell I would do that with pie. I made the dessert cos I like eating dessert, damnit. If I was going to buy someone's favour I'd do it with real money. Or blackmail.

Kev had to write his SitePoint newsletter on Wednesday so I spent time getting to know his rellies. I went to the Mini Golf course with Greg(arious), Angie, Ben and Louisa which was a laugh. It was a windy day and I was concerned that my green skirt wasn't the best attire for the day, but it was too hot to consider wearing jeans. For my first time mini-putting I did ok, sometimes getting par, sometimes getting birdies, and sometimes getting the max of 5 strokes. I took Kev's camera along so I was forever whipping out the camera to get some fun shots. Watch Kev's photo album for some especially flattering shots of Greg... Hey, he posed for them. The course itself had some classic holes such as the paddle-wheel, as well as an interesting par 1 hole where a spider dangling from a web swept across to either carry the ball into the hole, or far from it. There was also a disturbing giant purple kangaroo. The course was called "Castle"...

The Pirate Ship hole was my undoing. It was raised above ground level, and as I leaned in to take my shot, the wind whipped in to take my skirt and wrap it neatly around my ears. Well heck, I was wearing cute undies. I gathered up my skirt and what was left of my modesty, and tidily tapped my ball into the hole. I'm such a lady.

We returned to Tahoe Keys and I played Scrabble against Richard. I've always enjoyed the game, although the use of a Scrabble dictionary and a "play until everyone has finished" rule took the fun out of it a little for me. Nonetheless, we played a good game and I won. I was informed that Angie was a keen player and I looked forward to the challenge.

Dinner was served by Angie and Greg - a BBQ and salad fiesta, capped by a delicious "Mexican fried ice-cream"-esque dessert. I don't know what Mexican fried ice-cream is, but someone said Angie's dessert was similar. So, if you know what Mexican fried ice-cream is, this was similar. Got it? Good. Afterwards the Pai Gow express took most of the adults to Harrah's Casino, and the remaining young people played various card games, culminating in a mean game of Spoons. Christine was sitting pretty without a loss to her name right down to the final three - Ben, Christine and I. We managed to give Christine an "S" before Ben was ousted, and I was still sitting on "S-P-O-O". Ah, the tension! And also the finger pain - that Ben has some seriously long nails, taking a chunk out of both Kev and myself. Spoons is not for pansies. It's also not that fun when it's down to two people - the loser becomes 'the last to get 4 of a kind' rather than 'the last to notice someone has got four of a kind'. I was lucky enough to get four of a kind first when Christine was dealer, and I'm very quick to pick up cards when I'm dealer, so amazingly I won 4 times in a row without copping a loss that would have won Christine the game. Afterwards we played "Mau" which is a card game with one rule - you cannot teach the rules of Mau. However, I've now done the mandatory Google search, but ironically the most interesting page that came up has rules that are all but completely different to those we discovered as we played. That's what you get when no one is allowed to write down the rules (or at least their sense of ethics should prevent them for doing so. Shame on you, Steve Harris.

Now, you'd think that since Kev had to spend all of Wednesday indoors, he'd be gunning to get the most out of his next day in California. He did - if you count sitting indoors reading comics as 'making the most' of a day in summer paradise. I think this was the day 'the girls' went down to The Y factory outlets and I found a gorgeous pair of black, shiny yoga pants at a scary $US45... $AU60 isn't really what I would spend on sports pants, but I did need some work-out pants to go with my pricey gym membership... I needed time to think, so I returned to our unit empty-handed. I learned Pai Gow Poker and made a couple of bucks in a friendly $5 game with Rob, Greg, Angie, Brian and Ben. I then played Scrabbled against Angie and Richard, a drawn-out game (especially for me, since I've used to playing with a timer) which was broken up by dinner. Dinner was provided by Kathy Mac, and during the meal Don scoped interest in hiring a pontoon boat for Friday. $40AU seemed a bit much for 4 hours on a boat but, like, everyone was doing it so I followed along. At least I was ensured a swim in Lake Tahoe, which had at that point evaded my pale legs. After dinner we completed Scrabble, which I won by a couple of points. It came down to the last few letters, which isn't fun because by the time someone wins the others aren't enjoying themselves anymore. I much much much prefer the 'first to use all their letters' ending, tabulating points from there. It's a more definite ending. Anyway, this game was to be my last Scrabble game as after winning two games I was declared "unbeatable" and no one wanted to play me anymore. So instead I taught everyone the card game "Oh Bother" which I've played since I was teeny - it's very simple but has a tantalising level of tension so it works for all ages.

I was asked to run an impro session after dinner so I set up game after game for brave and not-so-brave Bosworths to play. Hilarity rightly ensued. Some in-jokes for posterity:

• Greg and Don help Brian deliver a baby in 3.75 seconds.
  
• A kittenish Louisa and a slothful Cheryl dodge their sssnake-like boss Richard.
  
• Picking on a random stranger at a bus stop until he explodes, in 1, 2, 3 words.
  
• An especially disturbing dentistry scene...
  
• A thoroughly thwarted bank robbery attempt.
  
• "Martha Stewart?"
  
• "My accountant?"
  
• "My wife?"
  
• "ME?"
  

Afterwards I joined the Pai Gow Express and spent a couple of hours at Harrah's Casino in Stateline, Nevada. I watched a few hands of Pai Gow, and then joined Angie at the penny slots, where I quickly made a dollar, and downed three free drinks. Well, free if you don't count the tip. Angie made ten bucks in a lucky spin and left for the Pai Gow tables. I joined her, until Cheryl wanted to go to the cheap slots, "to get a free drink." Unfortunately the waitress wasn't as diligent this time and I spent my dollar plus two more before she turned up and took our order. I then sat and waited for my drink, watching Cheryl slowly spin her dollar away. By the time our drinks arrived the others were ready to leave, so we snuck our drinks out with us and downed them in the car. Norty.

Friday was Pontoon Day. We went out for breakfast at Heidi's, a Swiss-themed pancakes-and-more restaurant, with Steph and Rob, and Greg et al. My pancakes were disappointing - so dry they crumbled, and the strawberry topping was sickly and sticky. Shame. We had ordered some link sausages as a side so that was lucky. We drove back (with one back-track to check for a misplaced mobile phone and one stop for grog) and jumped onto the pontoon boat.

It took a good 40 minutes to get over to Emerald Bay, and another hour struggling with a crap anchor before we gave up and decided to drift. A few of us took the opportunity to swim, which was very very pleasant, using life jackets as floaties. It was all over far too soon and we raced back to Tahoe Keys as not to miss our boat-return time. The rest of the afternoon was probably spent playing cards or working on the puzzle - much harder than it originally seemed. We ordered pizza for dinner, and attempted to finish all the left-overs from the previous dinners. Good tucker. I don't know what we did after dinner - the evening activities I've listed so far are probably all out of chronological order, but meh.

Saturday was "finish the puzzle or else" day. Kev and I started our day with a ride in the paddle boats - we went on a literal "wild goose chase" - I snapped many of a photo of goose posterior during that trip. Then straight to the puzzle - I spent a couple of hours, with Kev's help, filling in the majority of the puzzle before I was joined by Christine and Meg. We finished the puzzle in a frenzy of twisting, thumping and sighing. Awesome. I then went to the bathroom (you can't take breaks during such a concentrated puzzling) and when I returned Cheryl had efficiently disassembled the puzzle and returned the pieces into its box. Well, I think I got to see it in its complete form for about 15 seconds. Kev managed to snap a photo first, so it wasn't all wasted. I taught Christine and Louisa the card game Euchre which we played until Greg announced that it was time for the Grand Croquet Tournament.

Croquet had been a feature of the holiday thus far, and although I was new to the game, I did ok. The anything-but-flat grassy area outside Greg's unit was the designated playing field, where on-lookers could sit in the shade as players smacked their ball around trees, dodged rocks, and attempted to roll up small hills. The Grand Final was won by Greg, despite the best efforts by Pirate Ben, with silver going to Rob and Bronze to Stephanie.

I decided on Saturday that the yoga pants were worth the $AU60+ and I asked Cheryl how far The Y was by foot. It was apparently too far, and Kathy Mac generously offered to drive me over. I soon had the pants in my hot little hands, and wrapped them in five layers of cotton wool and laser security as soon as we were home. Well, you know, I tucked them carefully into my suitcase at any rate.

Dinner was originally going to be Chinese food until I protested (i.e. commented audibly how nice the Mexican restaurants looked when we drove past them on the way to the casino on Thursday night) so we headed out to Chevy's Fresh Mex and piled around a table for 17. Angie presented various members of the group with knick-knack prizes: gold, silver and bronze souvenir keyrings for the croquet champs, a large pencil to our organiser Don, and a novelty Monopoly pinball pen for me (they didn't have Scrabble). Dinner was good, I had a bit of everything, and we left with stuffed stomachs and tequila headaches. We farewelled Don and birthday girl Kat, and Steph and Rob who had a very early start on Sunday.

Sunday itself was the day of goodbyes, which were atmospherically sad but not too physically emotional. Christine, Kev and I were left in unit 196 as we had evening flights out of Reno. We watched a doco on Tokyo before calling a taxi to take us into Stateline. We dropped our luggage at Montbleu and went across to the Horizon Casino to watch the movie "Accepted". Not as cheesy as I was expecting - I enjoyed the random slapstick comedy that occurred in the background of scenes, and also some of the jokes were deliciously dry. We then returned to Montbleu and caught the bus to Reno airport. Upon arrival we were informed that our flight had been delayed by 90 minutes - we could have watched another movie! The three of us wandered through the casino, looking for souvenirs (I bought the cutest bear ever!) and played some slots (I had a $US1 note that I wanted to part ways with anyway...) because taking up residence in a restaurant for our four hour wait. Christine bought some cards so we played Oh Bother, Oh Hell and Hearts, while picking at fries and sipping soft drink.

When our plane finally arrived we headed to our gate, only to have my bag searched at security (the officer was pleasant enough, he enjoyed the look of my monopoly pen which was the cause of the search - and also the x-ray provoked an officer to say "well, that's either a piece of fruit and a hairbrush, or something dangerous". Guess which?). Christine's nutritional syrup was to be confiscated, so she ran back to the restaurant to get a drink so she could at least take some of the syrup. As we finally boarded the plane we realised that the check-in officer had lied to us when she said our three seats were together - in fact Kev and I were sitting on the right of the plane, and Christine was sitting a row behind us, to the far left. Boo. The short flight to LAX was made very tense by the realisation that we were going to have about 40 minutes to run from our arrival gate to our international departure... The plane landed and the flight attendant informed the passengers that some people had very tight connections so we were to be let off the plane first... So we prepared to leave, as the plane... slowly... taxied around and around the airstrips looking for the gate... Oh my god I could have killed everyone on board. And to add insult to injury, we probably taxied right past the plane that would take us to Australia.

When we were finally at the gate, we waved goodbye to Christine and started some serious power-walking out of the terminal. Thankfully our bags were to be automatically transferred to our next flight (though I was quite sure they wouldn't make it, as checked luggage closes 45 minutes before the flight, and we only had about 30 minutes to get ourselves checked in). I wished fervently that I wasn't wearing my new pink shoes, as their strange flatness made running painfully impossible. My legs soon cramped from the awkwardness of power-walking in such crappy shoes. The distance between terminal 8 and the international terminal seemed impossible to cover in the few minutes we had left, but after a crippling 10 or so minutes it was in sight.

My most difficult to believe memory of the holiday: as we raced along the single footpath connecting the terminals, we saw a film crew set up ahead. I thought about going around them, and dodging the on-coming traffic, but I could see that the news reader was revising her lines, and therefore filming was not in progress. Kevin was in front of me and went to power through the film crew. A burly man stepped in front of him, put out his arm and said "you can't come through here." Reflecting the panic I was feeling, Kevin yelled "We're trying to get to our flight!" I was possessed by an unstoppable force and while Kev had stopped to yell at the man, I charged ahead. The same man put out his hand but I smacked it down and kept walking. The man again told Kev he would have to go around, but Kev soon followed me through the inactive film set.

What kind of people block the one and only footpath to film a bullshit news story such as the arrival of JonBenet Ramsey's suspected killer's arrival in a freaking airport?? Get over it! The story isn't more believable just because you're in front of the building! I still wish I'd been the one to be first stopped by that poncy producer - he'd have a black eye, a ringing in the ears and psychological trauma due to verbal harassment from an Australian. Ask my Mum if you don't believe I have a violent streak... It's waiting, dormant, for some inconsiderate &#%* to piss me off...

Anyway - we made it to the international terminal and to our joy the Qantas area wasn't nearly as full as it had been the night we first arrived in LAX, all those weeks ago. We rushed to the nearest counter and began the check-in dance. We handed over our details, and the three employees looked at each other, and asked us to wait a moment. They then slooowly wandered over to another area of the check-in counter and possibly asked whether it was too late for us to check in. Either way, they sloooowly returned and solemnly processed our information. AW YEAH! We made it! I wept with joy. Or maybe because now that I wasn't walking, I could feel the full force of my leg cramps... We went through security without a hurdle (I offered to bet with Kev that my bag would be searched, but since I took the monopoly game out of my bag and put it in the tub they obviously didn't see anything interesting. We rushed to our gate and lined up to board. That plane was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

The plane had lots of spare seats so after take-off the stranger beside us moved to an empty row, leaving us with lots of room. I spent the first hour or so completing my EPSS assignment for Uni, and then relaxed into the rest of the 14-or-so hour journey. We watched Keeping Mum which I had been dying to see for a long time - enjoyable but not as good as I expected. We then managed to sleep for most of the remaining journey, which made the likeliness of jetlag a little less definite, since we landed on Tuesday morning at just after 8am. The one out-of-the-ordinary moment of the flight was when they ran out of continental breakfasts and had to give me the first class cereal - wow. I'm talking real nuts and seeds. I had to declare my stomach contents at Customs. Bwahahaha... No, that was a joke. But how cool would it have been if the little sniffer dog had started barking at my gut?? Instead the sniffer dog was excited by my backpack, which reeked of the banana I had recently disposed off - it had gotten a bit black and squashed during the flights.

Our bags didn't make it, as I expected. But I sooo didn't care. We completed the necessary paperwork and went home via Skybus and a train. I didn't have a jumper, so I used my Qantas blanket (yes, I stashed it in my bag, I knew I'd be cold if our luggage wasn't on board) as a fashionable wrap. We took a train to Flinders St to grab a bite to eat as the Epping train was still 15 minutes away. As I ordered my Leonda (?) roll from Baguette, I noticed a familiar face beside me. Michael Veitch. I knew I was home.

Our bags joined us 36 hours later.

The Rest of the Montréal Stay

On Wednesday we relaxed and recovered from our collective heat-stroke, foot pain and head-rattlage. Kev and I popped out to do some more DVD hunting at another Future Shop and Best Buy, and had more luck this time. I might miss something, but our DVD collection additions list looks something like this:

• ER Season 5 (I think)
  
• Dazed & Confused - Criterion Edition
  
• Zoolander (that's mine)
  
• Superstar (mine too)
  
• The War Of The Roses (yep)
  
• Due South (Kev's)
  
• Terminator 3 (guess)
  
• Final Fantasy: Advent Children (...)
  
• March Of The Penguins (we only saw the first half on the plane, and it's such a gripping narrative...)
  

We were looking for Frasier 8, if I'm not mistaken, but no luck, or at least not for a reasonable price. I'm not completely sold on the premise that Canadian DVD retailers sell for cheaper than online Australian stores etc, so I'll look for my Sex & The City collection when I get home. Which, incidentally, is in three days.

After our intense shopping experiences we popped into the mall and had Burger King for lunch, where we were served by the surliest, most incompetent girl imaginable. Yuck. But hey, I was still buoyed by my near-head-injury giddiness so I let it go.

Home, and I remember us watching South Park, or was that Tuesday night? We watched the episode where Cartman finally gets his million dollars and buys an amusement park for his sole use because he was sick of waiting in lines! Ah, empathy.

Ah, I remember. We went out to "Mix Movies In The Park" and saw 'Fun With Dick & Jane' which was surpringly better than I expected. Kev was apparently frustrated by all the 'hedging' before the whole robbery stuff, but I had no idea what the movie was about so that wasn't a problem for me. Ah, innocence... We were joined by Kev's old Uni friends Bev and Nick, and I also finally met the renowned Callaghan, who did not disappoint. (Anyone who knows me who is intrigued by this comment, or wants the goss on any of Kev's friends need only email me. Oooh, how leading...) Afterwards we went to Cheaters restaurant, whose name does not refer to adultery but in fact to cheating on your diet. We had disappointing waffles and some low-key banter, before calling it a night.

A note about Cheaters - they serve the "Australian Waffle" which is topped with kiwi (ok...), pineapple (...sure) and strawberries (what?). Fair dinkum. I guess the cook was served pavlova once while Down Under and assumed the patriotic side refered to the fruit...

On Thursday we explored some of Old Montréal (including the Basilica of Notre Dame, where Celine Dion got married! Wooo! I would describe the things we saw but this person did it already, so...) until it started raining. We took cover in a Tim Hortons where Kev bought lunch. The place was packed, understandably, and a lady offered us a seat at her table. Well, when I say offered, I should really say "she conceded, after long and pointed stares from us, that it was a tad selfish of her to take up a four seater table by herself." Then, foolishly, I said something to Kev, and the lady (American) became all excited when she recognised my accent, and proceeded to talk about her travels in the N.T. and blah blah blah. Then her (American) husband joined us at the table, picks up the conversation, and thanks me - as a representative of all of Australia - for joining the war effort in Iraq! Not awkward at all... But that wasn't all. Oh no. We are then joined by a random lady who has noticed my "friendly" accent, and introduced herself as "random" from Hobart. She speaks to the Americans for a bit, then the conversation runs dry and she sort of stands there uncomfortably. She finally excuses herself, the Americans also leave, and we spot that the rain has ceased so we split too.

All I wanted as a souvenir from Canada was a singlet top saying "Canada" or "Montréal" but they all seemed to be designed to stop at the belly-button on women with very small breasts... So on me they were a few centimetres short of a crop-top.

We spent the rest of the day shopping, but to find out where and for what you will have to be a close friend and email me privately.

In the evening we went over to Tracy's house, as that was where Chris had spent the day. They had tried to disguise the marijuana fog with a quick spray of air freshner. Subtle. We held our noses and walked through to the living room, and watched a couple of episodes of Scrubs. Mmmm, Scrubs. Maybe that should be my next DVD collection purchase. We then headed into 'Downtown Montréal' to do a spot of shopping in the underground malls (but failed to find anything interesting)and then had dinner at Nickels (which used to be owned by Celine Dion - ooh, if only I was a fan!) and had a fairly ordinary chicken-y fettucine-y plate. The gimmick apparently is that if you buy a beer, you get the second beer for a nickel. There used to be a whole bunch of nickel-oriented offers but I guess they can't afford it now that Celine pulled her finger out.

We decided to watch 'Dazed & Confused' at Tracy's, so we got the gang together again (Tracy, Chris, Lou, Vince, his girlfriend, and later Justin) to eat popcorn and relive the 70's. I loved the movie, so much better than other movies that "show" the way things were rather than truly fleshing out the world. If famous faces like Ben Affleck and Parker Posey hadn't been in it, I wouldn't have known it wasn't made in the 70's for real... Oh, and Best. Soundtrack. Ever.

Friday was going home day. Steph made her way to Chris's house while Kev and I watched some 'Due South' which I quite enjoyed. Then we drove back to Cumberland with a stop at Harvey's for a Kev Burger and a Jess Burger. If you're seen/heard the ad you'll understand. If you're Australian, know this - the Jess Burger wasn't actually made out of Jess meat, ok?

Friday night was spent packing all our things together (Cheryl kindly gave me one of her old suitcases, featuring a stunning pastel floral decor) ready for a super-early start on Saturday. This of course was when the liquid explosive saga hit, and we made sure to have all liquids and gels packed into our checked luggage.

After about 3 hours of sleep, we got up at 3:15am to hop in our 'taxi', a private courier van of some sort. The trip to the airport wasn't too painful, I think we passed about 12 Tim Hortons' and a lot of disturbingly large factories, like Coke. We went through check-in, where we scored priority luggage tags because of Richard's VIP air-travel status, and went through the slowest security check EVER. Steph, Cheryl and Richard went ahead of us as they were on an earlier flight, and Kev and I had to wait for eons as a guard checked and re-checked my backpack for the bottle which he "could swear" he could see on the x-ray monitor. He also chose to confiscate my moisturiser - how exactly is that either liquid or gel, hmm? They could at least have mentioned a 'no cream' ruling. Bastards. And I thought that would be the worst that would happen...

By the by...

For those who are interested, Kev found his wallet on our return to the apartment on Tuesday night.

It had fallen down behind Chris's very oddly-shaped couch, and then been disguised by bedding as Kev had stripped our bed to clear the lounge room.

Fun.

Amusement

We woke up bright and early on Tuesday, 8:30am to be precise, in order to get an early start to La Ronde. At 9:30am, our planned leaving time, Kev noticed that his wallet wasn’t in his pants. In fact, it wasn’t anywhere in sight. We searched the apartment and our bags, but Kev was now convinced that he had left his wallet on his seat at the cinema. His rationale was that the wallet was uncomfortable to sit on when it was in his back pocket, so he put it on his lap and tried to make sure not to stand up without remembering it was on his lap… About as comforting as the Honolulu rationale, eh? Chris looked up the cinema’s phone number but they didn’t open until noon. We decide to go to La Ronde anyway (it’s now 10:30am) and hope for the best.

10:30am in Montreal on a Tuesday – traffic would be pretty quiet, right? Right. No, wait – wrong. It’s pretty much bumper to bumper all the way to La Ronde, especially leading up to the bridge. We get to the park at noon, which of course is when everyone else arrives too. Sadly, our ‘waiting’ experiences on the roads, in the parking lot and in the ticket queue pale in comparison to the crowdedness of the actual park. Which means the queues for the good rides would be ridiculously long. Lucky it wasn’t a stinking hot 38 degree day. Oh wait, it was. Tops.

But really, the average queue time of an hour per ride was tolerable – the rides made up for the boredom and physical pain of standing around in the scorching heat. We started with the spanky new rollercoaster, the Goliath which from my Roller-Coaster Tycoon 2 experience I deduced to be of the giga-coaster variety, but I need to go home and play to make sure. Either way, it was dolled up in the three primary colours, stretched out of the park and over the parking lot, and had some seriously steep drops. It wasn’t that exciting, other than the first two drops – after that it just went up and down a lot. There was a neat moment where the ride tilted to the left and dropped, and there was a pole that seemed likely to take our heads off, but – shock – it was just a scary effect.

If you want a ride where you really do fear for your head, go on our second ride of the day, the Monster. The Monster is of the wooden roller coaster variety, where the whole ride seems so old and rickety that most of the anticipation and excitement is wondering whether the car is going to stay on the tracks. The sun was hitting us full force by then and much of the queue lane was uncovered. Half-way to the top Lou started feeling sick so she left the line to sit in the shade. Apparently she has a genetic digestive aversion to roller-coasters. Chris, Kev and I made it onto the ride; Kev and I in the front of our car, and Chris and a young boy in back. Chris gleefully informed us after the ride that in conversation with the lad the boy had asked of Kev and myself, “Are they your parents?” Charming. The ride was very exciting, possibly my favourite of the day, as it was of considerable length and had twists and turns and frightening dips, though not as severe as the Goliath. Unfortunately, the Monster caused me my first injury of the day – the hard plastic seat had a nasty corner that the lateral G’s constantly threw me against, digging into my underarm area. We went on Part 2 of the ride, which has two separate tracks that take different courses. I was keen to come back for Part 1 at the end of our day but it didn’t happen.

We wanted to do something non-roller-coastery for Lou, so we went to the moving chair cinema, which was showing a 3-D version of “Bob l’Eponge”, otherwise known as the French version of “Sponge Bob Square Pants.” I was dubious, but Chris promised that it at least had a short waiting time because so many people could go on the ride at once. Yeeeahh no. The wait for this ride was by far the worst of the day, completely unprotected from the sun, and due to the nature of the ride the queue was full of excited children. Toddlers, really. I think I may have been touched by sun stroke by the end of our wait and I was feeling very faint and came close to vomiting a number of times. Yum. But finally we were allowed in, and lo and behold we discover that the set-up for this ride was actually supposed to have most of the queue waiting indoors, but the sadistic ride operators had us in the sun instead! Lovely! We make it through to the main doors to the cinema, get our snazzy 3-D glasses, and wait yet some more. Eventually an introduction to the world of "Bob l’Eponge" shows on small TVs, all in French, so Kev and Chris sum up what was said afterwards. After a few more painful minutes of waiting, the cinema doors open and we find seats. Another irony – once we’re all seated, there are a good 20 seats still empty. 20 people who are now standing in the sun could be inside on the ride. Ludicrous. We clamp ourselves to the seats, and the ride shimmies into action. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but this was a really really enjoyable ride, I was giggling the whole time even though it was in French. There’s something about being bounced around in a chair that is very evocative of child’s play. Super fun! And the bonus – air conditioning. Super cool!


Afterwards, we bought some slushie-esque ice-cream drinks, and said farewell to Lou. We then headed over to the Vampire, an inverted roller-coaster which sent you upside-down. This wait was our longest – an hour and twenty minutes. But the ride was very exciting; after being whooshed upside-down (which actually feels more secure than being in the dangling chairs in their upright position) we were whirled around sharp turns and hit with a surprise bed of steam! Chris had purposefully neglected to tell me about that, which I appreciate as it was a kick-ass surprise. I have potentially now ruined it for anyone who reads this and goes on the Vampire in the future, but I’ll take my chances. The bad part of the Vampire was that during one section the cars were rattled, which meant the passengers’ heads were quickly flung from side to side, hitting the not-so-soft “chest seat belt” quite violently. I already had ear problems from wearing a bad earring on the flight over, so these were compounded, plus I quickly developed a splitting headache which remained with me for the next couple of days. I often felt a bit drunk – every cloud…

During the queue for the Vampire, Chris had rung his friend KJ multiple times, and we received word that she was now at the park. We met up with her and then went on the Tornado – a bank of seats that you are securely tucked into, as it is them tipped and spun backwards and forwards as the arm takes you up above the crowd. Rather than screams of terror, this ride was punctuated with groans and moans as we hung upside down, and were later lowered face first towards the ground… painfully… slowly… Apparently the ride used to involved a degree of moisture – the line of squirting fountains could be controlled and they would be randomly activated during the face-first stage, to fire up at individual riders. Neat, but possibly blinding. With the temperature of the day finally starting to creep down, it’s probably best that we didn’t get a soaking.

Our next destination was the Boomerang, but the line was extreme so we back-tracked a little and went on the Manitou, a unique ride with décor inspired by North American tribal art. Mmm, chic. The ride involved a ring of seats facing inwards, hanging from a mechanical arm vertically above. The arm then swung the seats back and forth, until they were higher than parallel to the ground, and also spun the ring around, alternating directions. What looked enjoyable but not scary from the ground was surprisingly intense – to find yourself at the outer edge of the ring, farthest from the ground, you were essentially face-first to the ground which was a loooong way down. The ride was one of my favourites though – I felt totally safe but still got a thrill, and there wasn’t the risk of pain like taking sharp turns on a rollercoaster.


The Boomerang still looked packed so we decided to make it our final destination. That meant we still had one thing to do – eat a Beavertail. A Beavertail is essentially a stretch of crêpe-y pastry which is then covered in dessert-y treats. Kev and I shared an original Beavertail, with sugar, lemon and cinnamon, while Chris devoured one with Nutella, Reece’s Pieces, and other gooey goodies. Mmmm… Next time…

Back to the Boomerang. We lined up, essentially next to the “60 Minutes” sign, stuck behind a bunch of illegal smokers. My patience was already at an all-time low but I managed to restrain my urge to rip the offending death nails from their yellowed grip and press the burning ends into my palm. Instead I sent them hate thoughts and eventually they de-fagged and moved on. Then something wonderful happened. First, let me describe the ride. The ride initially drags the cars backwards up a steep chain lift hill, then without hesitation drops then to go back through the loading area, up and over two opposing half-corkscrews, through a loop-the-loop, and back up another chain lift hill. The chain activates and drags the cars to the top of the hill, which usually isn’t very much further, before dropping them to go through the ride again, but backwards. Now, the wonderful thing could have actually been a devastating thing – while we were in the queue, the cars went through the ride forward, and up the second lift hill, but something went wrong with the chain and rather than being dragged upwards, the cars stopped in place. The wonderful part – people in the queue quickly tired of standing and waiting to see whether the cars would move or whether the ride would be closed down, and they left! So suddenly rather than being 60 minutes from the front, it was more like 30. Awesome. While we waited Kev dug out the very melty Mr Chew Big from his bag, and we slurped it out of the packaging. Chris pooh-poohed our uncouth behaviour, proclaiming that he couldn’t believe we were eating “something like that”. I retorted, “Well what did you just eat?” … “Touché”. The ride was good too – Kev and I sat together, and held hands the whole time. Awwww. It was as romantic as a thrilling roller-coaster can be – sitting together, watching the sun set, albeit while flying upside-down…


We were done by this time so we left the park and took a city bus to the Metro station. My first look at the Metro – it’s smelly and there weren’t enough seats for this headachy and slightly nauseous girl, but there were also mega-sized TV screens displaying news etc for the waiting populace to watch. The afternoon mX pales in comparison…

Kev and I walked down to the hilariously named Au Coq (yes, Oh Cock) for dinner, which was quite good. Then it was quickly to bed for two very drained and over-heated bodies, for another night of non-restful sleep on a thin mattress. We did layer some blankets under the sheet to cut the ouch level, but the narrowness and the general heat of the room weren’t as easy to remedy. Ah well.

Sleepless Nights

The drive to Montréal was pleasant enough, watching the road signs change from English/French to just French. I saw a lot of barns.

We spent our first day exploring Kev's childhood, driving around the West Island in the suburbs of Beaconsfield and Baie-d'Urfé where Kev lived and went to school. Uber suburbia, very leafy and green and friendly. It was a lil emotional to see where Kev spent his childhood, so many basketball rings and bikes against front doors...

We then headed in to a shopping strip, it may have been called Fairfield, to try a Dagwoods sandwich/sub/Dag? Kev realised that the reason he loved Dagwoods so much was because of their sauce. I hate sauce. But then the friendly, competent, considerate sandwich maker chucked sauce all over my sandwich and then turned and asked, "Oh, did you want dressing?" Thanks. It was ok though, I felt like my mouth was being violated by mustard, but whatever. Kev was happy, so...

Then we began a DVD hunt, starting at Future Shop. We noticed a pet store in the same strip so we went in there first. Guinea pigs everywhere!!!! Really cute ones (not as cute as Sunny and Toffee of course) with tufty hair and cute colouring, and also some breeds that aren't available in Australia - the American Crested which reminded me of my Dad (the colour and the fluffy head), and the 'Teddy' which looked just like a teddy bear!! Their hair stands straight out from their bodies, so they are sooo cuddly! The one we saw was dark brown, like a wombat, but this one is very cute too.

Future Shop was disappointing, as it apparently has reduced its DVD selection and the prices weren't that great. So we left for Chris's house. As we left it started raining, and it wasn't light Aussie rain, it was the kind of rain where one drop could saturate you. And this is Montréal's summer rain...

We arrived at Chris's and found a KFC... I'm sorry, PFK, and grabbed a disappointing dinner. We then decided to go to a movie, "A Scanner Darkly" at the Pepsi Forum. Kev tried to get friends to join us, but it was too short notice. So the four of us headed in and took in the very entertaining movie. Best performance I've ever seen from Robert Downey Jr. If you liked the style of "Waking Life", Richard Linklater's other 'animated' movie but craved a narrative, you'll love this.

Upon our return to Chris's house in Verdun, we attempted to assemble a comfortable arrangement of a single foam mattress, two pillows and a sheet. It was like sleeping on cement. Or rather, lying for 8 hours on cement. Mmmm. But we appreciated the generous accommodation regardless.

Spotted: Chipmunk

After spending hours glued to the windows at Kev's parents' house, I FINALLY saw the reclusive chipmunk!!


He was quite a distance from the window so this was the best shot we could get before he ducked back into his drain-pipe hidey-hole.

I therefore I had no further use for the Cumberland residence at this time, so I ordered Kev to procure a vehicle and drive me to Montreal. He's so well trained.

The Yanks Go To Poltimore

On Sunday afternoon we took a couple of cars to transport us to the little town of Poltimore, for a reunion of the Yank clan at Earl & Earla Yank's. Glorious weather and beautiful scenery awaited our arrival, and the day turned out to be quite the scorcher.

After a round of awkward introductions, Kev, Cheryl, Aunt Sylvie and I went down to the "watering hole" for a bit of a paddle.

A world first - a picture in my blog! As you can tell, I had to do some serious skirt readjustment in order to stay dry, which I kind of failed at during my exit from the water. Nothing traumatic though, a bit of dampness around my knees was welcome relief from the heat of the day.

Picture: Jess, Cheryl, Sylvie, random boys watching crayfish. (Note, I'm on dial-up so I've scaled the pic quality way down. Might be able to beef up the quality when I'm back home.)


We discovered a neat wooden rocking 'thing' like a dining set, but on a swinging platform. Sat there for quite the while, until dinner. A BBQ feast like no other - Arctic Char was the pick of the bunch, with various trout as accompaniment, alongside burgers and chops for the fish-phobic. I had the best potato salad of my life, and for dessert there was a spread of slices and such, as expected from a potluck kind of occasion.

The event ended with a ‘door raffle’, which was tedious beyond tedium in the worst way. The organizers were using the most random methods possible: everyone picked a playing card from a bag (randomly), and then the organizers would pull a card from another bag (randomly) and whoever it matched would then pick a number (randomly) from yet another bag which would match a prize. So this took forever, and worst of all the prizes were pretty much rubbish. They were almost all from a company called “Promo Graphix”, so the prizes were samples of items companies could buy and have their logo inscribed upon. I scored a travel mug made out of plastic, which Cheryl acquired from me, and Kev got a business card holder which was actually kind of cool, even if it had “Promo Graphix” emblazoned upon it. Then we were free to leave, and we did. Back to Cumberland, and to bed.

Viva la Hawk Lake

I was felt up by a total stranger today.

But hey, I’ve got two weeks of Canadian goodness to catch you up on, so let’s not get distracted.

So, here we were at the Hawk Lake cottage, sans power, propane, and running water. After a good night’s sleep, I wake up to find Kev and Chris plotting to head into Buckingham, a 30 minute drive, to gather supplies such as ice and propane. Not wanting to be left at the cottage with three total strangers (I’m shy until you break down my barriers) I hopped into the car with the boys. As we left, Marty appeared, barely awake, and asked what we were doing. Kev replied, “We’re heading into town for supplies” to which Marty drawled, “So… We’re making a stand” and went back to bed.
The trip to Buckingham was interesting, and I got to hear Chris and Kev chat about boy stuff, like video games. We found a much bigger supermarket than the day before, yet the bastards still didn’t stock Pepsi Max. We grabbed about 16 litres of water, and some other vital bits and pieces. I started to develop the awareness that some employees at ‘common’ stores only spoke French, so I kept Kev close by whenever we were purchasing anything. We grabbed Propane and bag after bag of ice, and sped to the cottage once more. I do mean sped.

Once the supplies were organised we had lunch (BBQ) and slipped on our swimwear. In two trips we travelled out to the island in the main part of Hawk Lake via the motor boat, to grab some sun and consume some booze (not me, Mum). The island is quite a popular spot, even though it’s quite small, as it has a smooth stone area facing north, perfect to sunbake on and a safe launch pad for entry into the water. We enjoyed a couple of hours chatting and generally hanging out, bothered only by the occasional insect. Marty swam the substantial distance to the other island, and was followed by Chris. Kev and I made the same journey through the superficially warm water (water more than 50cm down from the surface became uncomfortably cold so there was a lot of safety backstroke happening). Our return was met by complaints from the others concerning flies that bit – soon identified to be black flies. We decided to flee, so I went in the first run back home. The second load apparently was followed by a swarm of black flies that literally surrounded the boat and had to be outrun from the dock to the cottage! No one was seriously injured, but not many of us were keen to go back to the island.

We had, wait for it, BBQ for dinner, including some President’s Choice filet mignon that Kev’s mum was saving in the cottage freezer. Sadly it had defrosted due to the power outage so we thought we should do the right thing and eat it all. You’re welcome.

We had the rest of Kev’s team of friends arriving that night, supposedly for dinner, but we received multiple calls informing us that the arrival had been delayed… Meanwhile, we had been calling Hydro-Quebec, the electricity company, to get updates concerning our reigniting of power. At 6:30pm they said it would be back at 7:15pm. At 7:20pm they said “in 10 minutes.” But at 9pm, the glorious sound of a fridge groaning back into action evoked excited cheers from the team! Indulging in the electric lights and waiting for the fridges to cool, we played a super-fun card game called Asshole. I was never the Asshole, Kev frequently was. We finally tired of the game at 11:30pm, in time for Chris and Kev to meet the convoy at the Hawk Lake anti-hunter gate. I stayed up to meet the newbies – Tracy, Justin, Vince, and his bride whose name I won’t ever dare try to spell (if someone wants to email me the correct spelling, I’ll edit this). I figured that even though I was really tired, it would be best to meet Kev’s friends and then we’d all head to bed. Wrong. All the new arrivals wanted to chat and enjoy their first night of cottage-life. I stayed up as long as I could, but ended up piking at 1am or so, and Kev joined me an hour or so later. Dang those guys were loud, I may well have stayed up cos I didn’t get any sleep until the new crew finally went to bed at 3am or so. But that was fine – there was no pressure at the cottage to stick to a regular sleep-wake cycle, so sleeping in was fine. Chantal in particular enjoyed this freedom, often passing out in her chair at 7pm and sleeping until noon, with varying wakefulness in between. That girl even put my cat-like love of sleeping to shame.

The next day, Friday, some of us went for an early morning (well, 11am) swim near the dock. Had to be there moment that I don’t want to forget about – Justin swimming back from the far side of the lake, stopping briefly to ask which dock was ours, but without waiting for an answer swims to the neighbour’s dock, climbs up their ladder, takes off his goggles… Kev and I wave from our dock. “Your dock is red??” Gold. Almost platinum, if only the neighbours had been on their dock at the time.

We had some experimental sandwiches for lunch – deli meat, mustard, cheese, oregano… apple? We packed them into bags, mixed up some booze and some 5 Alive for Kev and myself, and made preparations to head over to the island. Kev and I did recon to check for black flies, but not a one was to be seen. We also boated over to the other island to see if there were any blueberries – there were but they were teeny. We headed back and started ferrying the rest of the team over to the island. I don’t remember a whole lot about the afternoon on the island – lots of chatting, relaxing, some shenanigans with Justin falling into the water and Vince telling us about his wedding. Tracy and Justin, who had done some rescue shopping on their way to the cottage to help our powerlessness (mozzie lamp, biodegradable shampoo, etc) had also bought a water pistol for everyone! So the island was rife with water wars – super fun! Sadly the weather was a bit patchy, very cloudy, and at about 4pm drops of rain started falling randomly from a very nasty looking storm cloud. Kev took Tracy, Chris, Vince and Lou back to the cottage, and while they were doing that the storm clouds disappeared and the sun beamed down stronger than it had all day. Chantal, aided by certain smoking materials, was eager to stay and enjoy the sunshine, and I’m also one to indulge in water activities wherever possible, so we leapt into the water. Marty and Justin were also suitably comfortable in the warming weather, so when Kevin returned we decided to spend some more time on the island. Chantal, Kev and I floated around with pool noodles, until the boys wanted to leave. Kev ferried the boys back, leaving Chantal and I to chat about stuff. She’s one cool chick.

One for Mum: on our way onto the motorboat, Kev spotted a frog in the grass – big as ya hand! I wanted to get a photo but it sprang into denser grass.

I love motorboats. I love the sun beaming down while the wind whips across me – hot but comfortable. I’d love to try water-skiing. I saw some families with an inflatable ring being towed behind speedboats, it looks so fun! One day…

Friday night was my introduction to “The Tick”, a defunct comedy TV show about superheroes that are a bit dysfunctional. Very funny. We then played “Cranium” which is a board game combining Pictionary, Charades, Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble, sort of. We split our group into two teams using a random team allocation method, yet all couples were together except Kevin and myself. My team won. Aw yeah.

Saturday was a bit of a wasted day. I made pancakes for everyone’s breakfast, which were devoured passionately. We went down and sat on the dock for a bit. Watched a couple of X-Files episodes. Played “Scene-It” and then sat around the campfire (at 10pm) and toasted marshmallows and had hot dogs. Poor foolish Aussie girl me, I thought hot dogs were normal ones that you had to cook, you know, like saveloys. So there I was with my hotdog slowly turning black because I feared uncooked meat, until someone finally pointed out that these hotdogs were ones that were processed and people used them ‘raw’ in salads and stuff. Bah. It was good anyway.

I will let Kevin relate this tale in his blog, but it concerns $50, the dock at night-time, and wet shoes. Look out for it.

We all went back inside and watched “Batman Begins”. That night we were all very happy to go to bed.

Sunday was tinged with sadness as we packed up everything and prepared to say farewell to the cottage for what could be a couple of years, if not more. Luckily, some of Kev’s friends have very original ways of lightening a sombre mood:

Early in the week I had been told a story about a party that had been attended by Chris and family, and Tracy, and probably more people so that would be a small party. Apparently Chris’s mother over-indulged in certain beverages and walked through a screen door. Now, Chris also enjoys the odd drink, but on Saturday he was 100% sober. However, as we were arranging ourselves to be photographed on the cottage balcony, Chris managed to go inside for something, and upon his return… The screen door popped clean out of its frame and the door jumped the track a little. Hoo, my cheeks still remember the pain of laughing so hard, so long… We all smiled a little broader in the photos – except Chris, who claims he left the door open when he went inside so he didn’t expect anyone to have closed it. Fair, but still funny.

The team went down to the dock for a final smoke-up while Kev and I finished packing our things. Our leaving time was about 5 minutes away. Next thing we know, Chris and Marty come bounding in to change into their swimmers. It would seem that Lou, after enjoying a smoke on the dock, got up to leave but forgot she had her car keys on her lap. Kachink-sploosh! Fortunately, Tracy spotted the keys through the dock and Marty had no trouble diving in to fish them out. We were on our way at 1:30pm, only half an hour later than planned. Bye-bye Hawk Lake.

Chris and team drove us to Kev’s granddad’s place in Buckingham – it was a miracle of luggage manipulation that we all fitted into the two teeny cars. The farewell at Buckingham was fairly non-existent as we planned to see each other in Montreal. Had to say goodbye to Marty and Chantal though, which was sad. They’re a cool couple.

Next: the Yank family reunion in Poltimore. Now: time to board the plane to Reno.

So, Canada, eh?

As it is the eve of my departure from the birthplace of the ever-delightful Kevin Yank, I wanted to make some inroads on my Canadian entry (oooh, blogging about blogging, how n00b-ish of me).

So, after spending a couple of days at Kev's parents' place in Cumberland, we wasted Wednesday waiting for Chris and some of Kev's other friends to pick us up and take us to the cottage. They were quite delayed so we watched X-Files. I'm very proud of how well we took advantage of our spare hours.

We finally met up near the ferry, and I was introduced to Chris, Lou, Marty and Chantal via the usual awkwardness of meeting new people (do we shake hands - oh, hug? Oop, was that supposed to be a peck on the cheek... Two kisses??) We then divided ourselves and our luggage into the two cars, and I was allocated a seat in the back on Chris's two-door vehicle, in with Chris, Kev and Marty. Guess they pigeon-holed me as a tomboy from the get-go, eh? Meanwhile, getting in and out of two-doors while wearing flowy knee-length skirts? Tricky.

We started our trip with a ride on the ferry and then a stop at a small supermarket in Buckingham. We bought essentials: mr chew big, coffee crisps, twizzlers (for Kev... about 4 kilos of the stuff at that), and some other chocolate bars. About, say, one of every kind. Well, I want to really explore Canadian culture, and the chocolate bars are different and stuff. Ooh hey, Smarties are Canadian. Who knew?

The rest of the trip was fairly fun, although I did have to face one of my worst fears - talking to strangers who are wearing dark sunglasses. I need to read people's eyes to see if they like me! We burned up the bumpy, windy, unsealed road to the cottage, I don't think I loosened my grip of the armrest even to smooth my hair, which became ever the more crazed thanks to the open windows. Ah, the boy's life.


We arrived at the cottage at about 6pm. We entered the cottage loaded with bags and coolers full of meat and milk (and booze), and I reached out and flicked the light switch.

Nothing happened.

So I tried another light.

*sigh*

The freezer had defrosted and the fridges were warm inside. The day was heading into dusk quickly and we were confronted with having to cook up all the meat and pack it into coolers so it wouldn't spoil. We started putting items such as chicken kebabs into bowls of water so they would defrost safely so we could BBQ them.

During this process we realised that the running water in the cottage must be powered by an electric pump.

Still buoyed by a mix of humour, irony and fury, we cooked up some delicious M&Ms hamburgers. We also planned to toast some burger buns. "Planned?" Yes, planned. Because about 15 minutes into the cooking process, the Propane tank ran out. The boys went to the garage, where we had been guaranteed by Kev's Dad that we would find one, if not two, extra Propane tanks.

Well, sure, the tanks were there, but one was empty and the other had the wrong sort of outlet-thingy.

So we ate our delicious, if slightly rare, burgers on soft buns and lit every candle in the house. Thankfully cottage country is known for blackouts so there were candles a-plenty. We sat and nursed drinks of various potency as we discussed the situation at hand. Would we give up and go home? Or would we make a stand and "rough it" in the powerless, waterless, luxury cottage by the lake?


Maybe you'll never know...