I just read that Settlers of Catan is coming out on the 360 on Wednesday. They have a website up with some screenshots. It’s going to be 4 player only and cost 800 microsoft points (about $10 CAD). I read that Carcassonne is coming out by the end of May as well.
Rach and I got back in 2 days to Saskatoon. The 2nd day of driving was pretty insane as we drove from Marquette to Saskatoon. It was totally worth driving all day so that we could sleep at home (plus not having to pay for another hotel).
The first week back I managed to eat at Fudds, The Wok, The Keg, Amigos, and Las Palapos (no one can spell it). I also played frisbee, tennis and biked to work (way harder to do then just walking 5 feet to work like in Montreal). It’s been pretty awesome to be back in Saskatoon.
On the weekend Rach and I spent a short time looking at houses around Saskatoon. It turns out for us to buy a new house with what we want costs $350k! Ouch. We are going to the bank this week to see if we can even afford it for next year when we come back. Stupid houses.
So Rach and I left Montreal (yah!) at about 7am today. I think we made pretty good time. The GPS said we were stopped for about 30 minutes total and drove for about 13 hours or so. Tonight we are staying in Marquette, Michigan. We just ate one of the worst meals I’ve ever had (plus it cost $30USD). Tomorrow our goal is Winnipeg which is only ~1000km away.
So did anything exciting so far on our trip home? Well since we are driving through the states this time we had to go through customs. Our RAV4 is packed with stuff so we were hoping we wouldn’t get searched. We pull up to the customs desk and I pass the guy our passports. He goes through the usual drill of asking what I do for a living, where are we coming from, where are we are going. I respond. So far he seems friendly. Then he starts asking if we have any drugs, alchohol, tobacco (no,no,no) and then trouble starts to brew. He asks “Do you have any beef?”
I think for a few seconds and realize we bought some beef sandwich meat from costco which we were eating for lunches while we drive. I respond with “We have some sandwich meat.” Assuming this was answering his beef question.
“Is it beef?” he goes.
I respond quickly with “It would be beef.” Apparently this is where I went wrong.
“Don’t get smart with me! You are going to need to pull over up ahead for the 2 officers to search your vehicle. You don’t need to act like a smart ass.”
Frick. So that didn’t go well at all. I pull the RAV4 ahead and slow down by the officers. Rach rolls down her window just in time to catch something on their walkie talkie… “ya they have beef and the driver is a smart ass.” We stop the car and get out. They bring a dog over to the car and I start hoping they don’t unpack our entire car. The officer asks me some questions “Are there drugs? Alchohol? Tobacco?” I think to myself that I already answered these questions. Refraining from being a smart ass I respond no to each. Then he asks “Is there anything that may injure the dog?” Umm ya. If you start rummaging around something heavy might fall on it. I’m sure there are sharp things some place inside. Or how about if it licks something under the car that is really hot? I respond with no. Playing it safe. They send us inside to wait and dispose of our beef (I should have just ate it instead of letting them get rid of it).
The whole time we are inside I watch while they go through our car. Thankfully they didn’t take much of anything out of it. I think we were only held up for 10 minutes or so. Rach figures that’s what we get for being too honest. Tomorrow I have to go through customs again and Rach is worried about me being a smart ass. I’m hoping Canada will not cause us any problems.
Rach and I just got back from my first Cirque du Soleil viewing. It was OK. I was kind of expecting to be blown away by most of it but not so much. The clowns were dumb. Juggling seemed silly. Who comes up with the juggling acts? It’s like they go “OK, I can juggle 5 balls at once” and someone comes up with the bright idea “But can you juggle 5 balls at once while balancing a 10 foot pole on your forehead?” The contortionists were alright but I had seen most of the stuff they did from Cirque du Soleil videos that Dustin showed me. They also had a couple of gymnastic acts which were OK as well. Rachel liked when the people got on a single stilt and were launched in the air. They had a short act where some guy did a bunch of sleight of hand tricks on a volunteer. I had just watched a video about Teller (from Penn and Teller) where he talks about sleight of hand stuff and it was really just the same thing.
My favorite parts were where there was a chance of injury. All of the acts but the tight rope walking had safety cords. So that immediately makes the tight rope walking the best they had. What made it even better was the one stunt where one guy jumps over the other on the tight rope and then fell. He caught the rope with his hands when he fell so he didn’t actually get hurt. It probably wasn’t a stunt to get more applause but after this happened everyone sure clapped a lot for the tight rope walkers. You would think they would clap less since the guy messed up. The crowd liked to give standing ovations to pretty much every act which I found odd. You have to save standing o’s for when they really deserve them.
There was another act where 2 big circles spun around with a guy in each of them. They did tricks inside the circles for a bit and then eventually did tricks outside of the circles. Pretty cool. The last act we saw had this almost naked guy (Rach looked at his bum) climb on a chair and do all these arm stands. After doing a couple moves he would stack couple chairs and do some more stances. I would say the only point of going higher would be a higher chance of injury/death but as soon as he got 5+ chairs he had a safety cord on.
So will I goto cirque again? Sure. Would I prefer watching the videos at home instead of paying $50+/seat? Yes.
After returning from Boston with Michelle and Rachel we were expecting a couple more guests staying at our place. Shawn (aka Stubbs) came from Edmonton to stay for a week and Sean (aka The Sean) from Halifax was here for the weekend. Stubbs had a pretty hectic schedule of drinking and drinking. We didn’t really have all that much planned so most nights we just went out to a random pub in Montreal.
When Sean arrived on Friday we went to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to see Once upon a Time Walt Disney: The Sources of Inspiration for the Disney Studios since Sean, Rach and Michelle all wanted to see it. It cost $15/ea to get in just to see the exhibit. There was a lot of original art work, old books, and videos for how Walter Disney (ya I call him Walter) came up with all his ideas. I paid extra to get a little audio tour so it would explain each of the exhibits (I paid $15 already I was going to get my moneys worth). There were 14 rooms filled with Disney stuff. It was pretty funny with all the security there. Every room had a least one security guard watching everything you did. I kept thinking of all the heists that must happen there. You know, people trying to steal pictures of Goofy.
After the Disney exhibit we went out to some Italian restaurant followed by a short evening of Guitar Hero 2. Sean had been up for quite awhile so everyone checked in early (except for Stubbs, he had drinking to do). Saturday our goals were “go shopping for new clothes” and “eat dim sum”. Sean and I missed out on the dim sum (I’m not sad about it) but we did shop in one store for like 2 hours. Andrew was the big winner with almost $500 worth of new stuff. The most important purchases made were matching underwear. I’m assuming everyone has bought matching underwear with their friends? Right? Anyone? How about underwear that says “BRAZIL” on the ass.
Rach figured I should take Sean down to old Montreal while he was here. I managed to lead Andrew, Stubbs, and Sean successfully to old Montreal even though it was my first time around Montreal without Rachel. While we walked around I filled everyone in on some Montreal history. I think they appreciated the story about when French Frankenstein attacked the harbor since he wanted some Bone Sekors (whatever they are) from Bonsecours Market but then Jesus fought him off. I may be a little rusty on my Montreal history but this story sounds pretty solid.
Sunday was another day of shopping in a different area of the city (Andrew once again was the big spender). Andrew is in Montreal for work related stuff so we had to stop by and check out his suite that work was paying for. His suite was way nicer than our apartment. We had time to have pretty much everyone sport the Brazil underwear and even for Rachel to invade Stubbs’ personal space.
Our last evening together consisted of more hanging out at our place and playing some Guitar Hero. Sean had brought his guitar so we were able to play co-op for all the songs. It turns out we are all rock stars (maybe some more than others *cough* 100% notes hit *cough*). Stubbs still had a successful night after we quit Guitar Hero as he managed to find time to hit another pub.
As I post this I have 6 more sleeps in Montreal. Thursday I’m going to Cirque du Soleil, Friday I’m packing, and Saturday-Monday I’m driving way too much. Feels like it’s going to be a busy week.
