Hello again, everyone!
This month kicked off with me being in the air on my way to Canada. After a rocky start - my domestic flight into Auckland was delayed by over an hour due to the plane being an hour late into Nelson and bad weather over the North Island ...I had to run from the domestic terminal to the international gate (again) - the Air New Zealand international flight was also delayed by half an hour. Phew. I had time to wipe the sweat away before I boarded! With the wizardry of time zones I arrived in Canada five hours after I left New Zealand, to be met by Jan at the airport.
The apartment we had booked was a couple of blocks off Lake Ontario, with a Longos supermarket half a block away, a pub half a block away, and a coffee shop half a block away. Superb! We did a lot of walking, and did all the things that we had put on our wish list; as we felt like doing them.
Toronto was going off while we were there, due to the New York Yankees being there for a series of games against the Toronto Blue Jays, and the Raptors being in the NBA finals against the Golden State Warriors. There was also a run and a bike ride during our time there for a couple of charities (Heart Health or something), and a "Mac&Cheese" Festival (macaroni and cheese, I assume). All within two blocks of where we were staying.
We had excellent weather, with only one day of wet: and luckily we had some indoor things that we could do, where we needed to drive further out of the city. The perfect use of a rainy day.
We went to Niagara for a day to see the falls; visited some museums and galleries; went shoe shopping (of course!); went for a lake cruise through some of the harbour islands; went up the CN Tower; went to a Blue Jays/NY Yankees game; went out for dinner; and and walked and walked.
Following are a few of our photos:
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| A present from home (Pic's Peanut Butter t-shirt) |
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| A bit of shoe trying on |
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| A fair flat white |
Surprisingly, it was hard to find decent coffee. The best two I got were at the Ontario Science Museum, and Avo in the Distillery District - both flat whites. Aroma Coffee was OK if you stirred it - they don't swirl the milk though, they float it, so you can end up with an interesting coffee hit when you get to the bottom!
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| Le Tour Eiffel in meccano |
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| The Fluevog haul |
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| City-scape from the apartment |
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| The Distillery District entry |
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| Fluevog Distillery |
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| The covered entry to the ICE building (our apartment) |
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| CN Tower |
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| Niagara on the Canadian side. That mist and the wind from the falls made it surprisingly cold |
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| On the boat tour to the Falls |
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| A nice covered colonnade near the St Lawrence market |
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| Our temporary abode - RH side, 33rd floor |
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| Various views of the CN Tower |
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| If you click into this you can see how green the greater Toronto district is |
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| The Toronto Blue Jays vs the NY Yankees |
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| Jan showing his coffee allegiance |
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| Casa Loma - a 3.5m folly |
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| On the roof of Casa Loma in the rain |
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| View from the apartment on the only manky day we had |
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| Roundhouse Park train museum |
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| Toronto waterfront |
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| The harbour & islands cruise on the Serenity Princess |
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| View from the Art Museum |
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| Jimmys for coffee in the Kensington Art Market |
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| St Lawrence markets |
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| View of the CN Tower from Aroma Coffee |
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| Mac & Cheese Festival at Roundhouse Park |
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| Home again in Nelson |
We had a busy, but fairly relaxed time in Toronto. Unfortunately I caught a cold, and our one free day was spent with me in bed in the apartment feeling terrible. I was walking wounded by the next day, and, armed with Ibuprofen and a large box of tissues, Jan dropped me off at the airport.
My trip home was very tight: I had an hour to catch my international flight, but luckily my connector got in 15 minutes early, and the AirNZ flight home left fifteen minutes late, so I even had time to go to the loo before I boarded (after racing across the airport trailing tissues). Travel agents really shouldn't book flights with so little leeway: a 3 hour safety margin between legs makes more sense.
The flight home was pretty empty, so I was able to lie down for a while, and get some sleep. With there being so many empty seats, I think I managed to keep my bugs away from the passengers and crew - I had hand sanitiser and almost finished the whole bottle.
I liked my first short taste of Canada, and wish I had been able to spend some time in Vancouver. Next year, perhaps. There is already talk :-)
Jan caught the cold as well, so he went back to work in Grayling and felt grotty for ten days (as was I, in NZ).
I had already finished teaching, so have been marking all my student papers at home, carrying on with Master's supervision one day on campus each week. I am still finding more pockets of the house which need tidying up and reorganising, and have been reading, and writing. I caught up with Warren and Erica the first weekend I was back (for coffee, naturally ;-D).
This past weekend I was at Kathleen & Frits's for a midwinter Christmas celebration, with some people that I didn't know, and others whom I did: including Ian McL whom I hadn't seen for years. We had a nice, easy catch up, on the same theme as the previous two years: three light courses of nibbles, soup and dessert with a flaming Christmas pudding, even! All the 'presents' were recycled, which was really fun.
I had lunch with Jenny L, Jessica and Tracey, then had a wonderful afternoon of Op Shopping with Jenny and Jessica, and visited the Ladleys at Karanga twice. We traded eggs for jam :-)
Negatives: I had my credit card hacked, so had to order a new one: I picked up the fraudulent transaction on the day it happened, and put a stop on it. The last time this happened, the bank made things awkward, but - since the Australian Royal Commission into banking, I suspect - the bank were really great about reversing the charge and I got superb customer service. Positives: I went to the movies! I saw Bohemian Rhapsody (ho hum - perhaps less trying to look like Freddy Mercury and more trying to
be Freddy Mercury would have helped), Rocketman (great fun), and Tolkien (lovely, but needed a 30 minute haircut imho). I discovered two new to me crime fiction writers (Michael Innes and Carol Wyer), and have some ebooks by both authors stashed to read later on in the winter. I have also discovered the documentaries of Dr Lucy Worsley, and have been watching those on YouTube.
Jan is still doing lots of overtime. He hasn't been anywhere outside Grayling since he got back from Canada, but has been paddling, been to an airshow, and been for a few walks:
Jan gets back to NZ at the end of the first week of July. We have a few days, then are off to Fiji for the Hutties collective 50th birthday party. Then we are back for a few days before Jan is gone again. He is back in New Zealand again at the end of September.
Hopefully Lara will come down to Nelson in the October holidays to spend a few days with me while Otto is engaged with hockey, and I am also considering doing the Wangapeka track (but that might have to wait until next year: I will have to see what dog sitting arrangements I can make and what time I have).
Then Jan & I meet in Europe in late November for a Danube River cruise from Budapest to Prague (where we will hopefully meet Justine). We are aiming to arrive in Germany a few days before the cruise starts, so will hopefully catch up with some of you there. Jan will be in contact with you soon to see what we can arrange!
Take care until next time
Sam (& Jan on another continent)
