Here is a slideshow from my first ever snow (23/11/2011). I do not have much to say as I spent most of the time in bed as I was sick and missed out. Willy and Javad did however wake me up at 2am to go outside and see the first snowfall, I instantly felt better and played outside for a while but this just made me feel worse the next morning… oh well totally worth it.
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“Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the official end of World War I on that date in 1918; hostilities formally ended “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.” – Wikipedia
For at least a week beforehand, people were wearing plastic Poppy flowers to show their respect all through Ottawa.
My housemates Javad, Willy and I met up with Vicky and decided to go out today to the War Memorial for Remembrance Day. It is a really well designed museum with many tanks and aircraft from previous wars around the world. They had a special exhibition on the health effects from war with many pictures of the disasters and the tools used over time to heal patients.
Vicky, Willy and Javad at the War Museum
Me with a post war tank
Vicky with a post war (snow?) tank
Javad with a tank
Javad next to military outfit
Javad and Willy with an old ships wheel
In the trenches
In Military gear
Vicky with a hiding soldier
Later that night we finally got to go to a Persian restaurant serving only kabob with rice and raw onion (but that’s all they needed =D) – this finally opened my taste buds to raw onion, it was awesome!
Willy and Javad at the Persian restaurant
mm kabob and rice!
Road trip from one country to another? Need a good check list then!
So now that we had everything to go we left for our trip from Ottawa, Canada to Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
We passed through Burlington, Vermont the first night and stopped to take in the quiet simplicity of the area and the end of the fall leave changing colour.
The next day we moved on to Boston, arriving at night-time and driving around the city looking for our hotel for the next hour or so. Eventually finding it, we went into the city centre that night to meet up with Vicky and get some dinner. Not being able to find anything open at midnight we resulted in dining in the most expensive Italian restaurant we could find (all that was open) but it was also the greatest dining experience I have ever had. We are pretty sure that the mafia took part in the operation of this restaurant but they know how to host 
Emma and I shared a pizza, salad and bottle of wine that was served to me in a very up-class manner. The boys were not too pleased as they ordered a very expensive dish that took two bites to complete.
Over the next few days we discovered everything Boston had to offer, we followed the red line around part of the city that was like a permanent tourist guide as it led you to many landmarks. I got to see my first “Cheers” restaurant, visited the Boston Celtics stadium and took night pictures from the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge, the city of Boston is very beautiful and the Italian atmosphere is very distinct and pleasant.
We visited Harvard university and attended a stand up comedy bar where I ridiculed for being Australian the entire show which made it even funnier, apparently slinky’s go upstairs in Australia.
One of our missions of Boston was completed when we left. We finally came across a Cheesecake factory where we dined for lunch, the servings are humongous! This was after visiting the ever famous Bapst library.
That night as we drove back towards Ottawa we decided to take longer than we had planned and stop in Salem, the town where the witches were hung and burnt. Arriving there in the middle of the night and exploring the graveyard was pretty cool and the town really plays with the witch theme, really cool place that I wish we had stayed for a night.
The drive home was quite tiring as we decided to pull an all nighter to get home on time. Emma had no one to substitute the driving with and had to stay up whilst all of us fell asleep in the car, I tried to stay awake I really did! But finally we found CANADA!
Oh and who is David you ask? Upon asking Patrick why everyone says “Boston Baby”, Emma was looking at a David St sign and managed to ask “Why does everyone says Boston David?” instead and then we just played on it replacing the word baby in every circumstance for the rest of the exchange. On that note I will leave you with a gallery of pictures and the song “David” by Patrick, Karen and I
After partying hard the week before my birthday in Montreal with the others, I didn’t have too much in plan for my actual birthday apart from going to Toronto for the next few days. That was until Florence and I decided the day before that it would be a good idea to celebrate our birthdays together the night before I leave at our house and so that’s what we did.
We both invited our closest friends and had many snacks and cakes as it was a pot luck where we asked people to bring food! The best of the cakes that I received (although grateful for all of them) was a cake made by my friends Emma, Vicky and Daphne that represents me all over….MOOSE! haha and it was chocolate mousse so I found that very humorous ;D
Birthday party at our house for Florence and I
Florence and I consuming the 1 litre of slurpee from Cristian
Thank you girls
Happy birthday to us
Linda and I making sure we get our photo together for my birthday like every year
The next morning after 1 hours sleep and cleaning of the house from the night before, Willy and I left our house, met up with the others and caught the Greyhound bus to Toronto. We joked before getting on the bus about the idea of one of us having to wait for another bus because of how long the line was. It was all a joke until I actually got left behind due to lack of space but it was okay I got one of the newer buses that were much more comfortable
Jump?!
The first night after finding our hostel a couple of us went to a small Irish pub and listened to some live music over Guinness.
Guinness Time
The next morning our tour guide arrived at the hostel to pick us up for our trip to Niagara Falls along with a wine tour. First stop was at Pillitteri Winery where we tried different wines, were taught how to analyse the wine and have a look around the shop. After this we continued on to a small town before Niagara Falls where we had many snacks to eat and of course there was a Starbucks (but where’s the Tim Hortons?!)
Our first wine stop
As we enter
The beginning of our wine experience
Starbucks...cottage style!
Our Toronto group
Niagara Falls
American side
Once we arrived at the Falls they gave everyone plastic rain coats to protect us against all the water as the boat would get fairly close. I was “lucky” enough to be given one back in Sydney by my friends Paul and Nadine that they insisted I use instead. I say “lucky” because it didn’t work so well and I would have been drier without it haha but it was fun standing out amongst the blue and getting incredible stares from the crowd and apparently the American side wore yellow (which we could see from the boat) and so it got a tad bit confusing.
Thanks to my friend Paul I stood out very much
Barry and I standing out
Yep...standing out heaps
Larke representing Canada
Getting closer
and closer
It's gettin windy cap'n
The last photo before my camera stopped working
The falls were quite impressive by the volume of water that fell however I expected them to be larger and higher than what they were. The area around the falls isn’t very “pretty’, much too commercial with the carnival like village beside it as well as all the transport bays alongside it but that is standard tourism for you. To my dismay, my camera did not see its happiest days during the boat ride as it got a tad wet, like a light sprinkle (at which point I put it in a case away from the moisture) and died for the next two months so that is all the photos you get until I buy a camera from Boston (next post).
Thanksgiving – a holiday celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada (not the recent thanksgiving the US had) is a day that dates back to the early 17th century when French settlers came to New France and used to celebrate their harvest each year at the end of the season with food and activities, even sharing with indigenous people.
The day can be celebrated with friends or family, often with a turkey, cranberry sauce and many other treats (just like another Christmas) and so this is what I did, being taken in by my lovely family in Montreal yet again as we got together and celebrated in Ray’s holiday cottage beside the lake.
The first night was spent in Montreal with my cousin Michael, and Matt. I won’t tell all the details of that night for I do not remember all the details thanks to the vodka, but it was enjoyed mostly (not so much by my friends Emma and Daphne who met up with us later in the night when I had already lost most of my senses).
The next morning we headed up to the cottage house between Montreal and Mont Tremblant thanks to Ray. Awaiting us was my family and my very first Thanksgiving lunch with mashed potatoes, vegetables and of course the turkey and oh so good cranberry sauce. Not only did they celebrate thanksgiving, we also had cake for my birthday that would be the following week. Thank you everyone it was delicious!
During the night we all sat down and watched a movie so bad that I don’t remember what it was and ended up going outside to take a photo by the fire, resulting in this:
Once the movie had finished everyone was leaving to drive home, except for Michael, Matt and I who would now proceed to drive up to Mont Tremblant to party for the second night in a row. Mont Tremblant was gorgeous, a very christmassy feeling ski village with a mountain and cottages at the bottom which also included the pub we would party at the amazing pizza shop where I had the best pizza I have ever tasted in my life.
The party was fun yet the bar was filled with francophones and my conversations with people were very limited so I decided to dance on the bar instead =)
The next day we left the cottage to go back to Montreal and convinced ourselves that we could party one final night before Matt and I went home. We met up with Daphne and Emma a lot earlier this time and went to the top of the mountain to see the cross and the amazing view of Montreal. The mountain was filled with people as well as raccoons, so many raccoons!!! We then went and had a few drinks back down in town.
This was my first and best thanksgiving! Thank you to everyone who helped me celebrate it (and ensured my survival on the first night) )
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As my first Halloween was fast approaching and my plans to run around Ottawa in a kangaroo suit were ruined by the extreme cost to purchase a suit and little time to make one that was really cool, I had to get ready to decide on a last minute costume…of course being a zombie. Before this was to occur, we had other plans to thrill ourselves: Saunders Farm - an outdoor/indoor thrillpark that had monsters and ghouls, zombies and large dudes running around with chainsaws.
Daphs, Vicky and Willy at Saunders Farm
The park was amazing with its huge cornfields and scarecrows, a couple of indoor horror houses that got all the girls screaming but they could have done so much more with the space they had.
Daph's and I with pumpkin and Skeleton man
I be in my mini house
Tea anyone?
Willy - New Batman movie
How many pumpkins tall are you?
We had to wait until it got dark for many of the attractions to open and even then the best attraction was the first haunted house we went in, mostly due to the fact that people were freaking out because the people inside the horror house were very interactive and would sneak up on you when you would least expect them, it was very cool.
We then waited in line to do something I was hoping to do this Halloween, go on a haunted tractor ride through the forest. It was not as thrilling as I expected and would have been much more thrilling if they had dropped us off in the forest.
Black light leads to shiny teeth with Willy =)
Daphne's new boyfriend, isn't he something
I stole her boyfriend
Are you scared yet?
At the end of the park we went to the shop and tried many of the delicious seasonal cakes including whoopie cakes!
Willy really likes pumpkins
Very cool chair
Vicky's lovely hairpiece
Daph's new hairstyle
Whoopie cake!
For Halloween we were invited to a small house party at Marie’s house with the expectation that you had to dress up of course! Before we went to the party we decorated our house, carved our first ever pumpkins and opened our doors to the many trick or treaters…it was amazing, second best festive day apart from Christmas! We attracted about 100 children and ended up running out of candy very quickly =D
Once people stopped arriving, we finally got ready as zombies. I helped do the make-up for Willy, Emma and myself.
Willy the zombie pirate
Emma trying to rip the stick out of my throat
Then me biting her back
Many people were quite freaked out, some not even knowing who we were until we talked to them, which works perfectly for me =)
All in all it was an awesome first Halloween and I am glad I got to celebrate it for once
Also Happy Birthday to my cousins Lara and David on this day =)
Here is a quick blog on the Kings of Leon…why you ask? Because I got to see them again live in Ottawa! The show was at Scotiabank Place on October 15th 2011 as they were touring North America (don’t worry they should be down in Aus soon I guess )
I went with my friends Willy, Christian and Margaux, however it was only Christian and I who were in the mosh-pit as it was originally myself and Louise going until she sold her ticket to him.
The concert was amazing with opening guests “The Sheepdogs” – an awesome Canadian rock band focusing on boogie rock.
Again, just like the concert in Sydney, the Kings of Leon knew how to get the crowd going as they went straight into it and played some of their old songs as well as songs from their new album Come Around Sundown.
Lead singer Caleb Followill
KOL
On another note, I was also lucky enough to see Mumford and Sons live in Toronto the week later, it was fantastic even if I did go alone haha
