Old Friends New Friends

The purpose of this visit to Winnipeg is to meet new babies, make new friends and reconnect with some old ones, and I've been able to do all of that. Earlier in the week I visited with two long-time friends, and oh it was lovely to realize that though it has been several years since I have seen either one, it felt like thirty minutes ago.

Today we went to Lower Fort Garry...me and the 7000 members of my friend's family. Okay, not really, but there were a lot of cousins and siblings and inlaws! It was all great. I appreciated getting to know them all a bit more, for I have certainly heard some of the stories. While I enjoyed the historical parts that I saw (and got a bit frustrated by all the flash photography) I have to say that I enjoyed the innocent antics of children much more. It was a good photographic exercise, but there is just so much joy in kids--and as my new friend said "when it is honest, it is so amazing". The weather was frustrating in some respects; it seemed that every time I pulled out the camera, the rain would come. Put the camera away and the rain would go too. Oh well--it didn't really interrupt our day.

Old friends, memory brushes the same years,
Silently sharing the same fears

Time it was and what a time it was,
A time of innocence,
A time of confidences,
Long ago it must be,
I have a photograph,
Preserve your memories,
Then all thats left you...is old friends.

(Paul Simon)

Here's to you, old friends. You've truly impacted my life.

And here's to you, new friends. I'm looking forward to what will be!

Looking back is looking forward

This weekend I had the pleasure to drive across the prairies again--for me a rather rare treat. Even more special was that my friend and her kids allowed me to go visit the place where my grandfather, two aunts, my great grandparents and my great-great grandparents are buried. It is a little tiny prairie cemetary where the tumbleweeds tumble and the swallows sing.
For reasons that I cannot express exactly, it is to me one of the most special places on earth and I was honored that the kids in particular seemed interested in what I had to tell them. After that, we went to the house where my great grandfather, as well as my grandfather, were born. To our great surprise, there was a man mowing the lawn and so we took advantage of this opportunity to talk with him for a few minutes. He allowed me to go see Grandpa's Cathedral--a grove of birch trees where we had church during summertime family reunions. How wonderful that he is interested in caring for the house, and restoring it somewhat. It was a lovely lovely visit.

And now, we are exploring my friends hometown. It is a weekend of discovery!

Camping!

We went to Tremblant for our annual camping trip with Dave last week, and it was wonderful, as usual.  We have certain traditions when we camp.  For example: 

• We hike every day.  We don't go fast, we go to take pictures, and to try and find the elusive moose.  We try to find it for Martin, and we fail miserably almost every time! 
• It rains every time we try to set up camp.  Don't know why that is, but this year was one of the best storms ever--if you like that sort of thing.  Personally, I can do without it! 
• We have ice cream, most days.  This is for me--the guys don't care, but they indulge me, and I love them for it.  
• We play Kuuduk, which is a deceptively complicated game.  We play it, and cribbage for hours
• Someone always brings a sudoku puzzle. This year, I brought a samurai sudoku which turned out to be a good thing.  
• Dave cooks.  It isn't that I can't cook, or that Martin can't.  It's that Dave likes it, and he's good at it, and he is always the first person up.  Who am I to mess with tradition? 

I don't actually like storms, ever since the tornado in Edmonton.  They kind of freak me out, and I get teased a lot.  This is where the samurai sudoku was a good thing--I concentrated on the puzzle, and only the puzzle, and in fact finished it.  Did I notice that the food tent was being flooded?  Or that everything in there, including us, was soaked, almost as if there was no awning over our heads.  No, of course not!  

As usual, we saw a lot of deer this year.  They are such gentle and quiet creatures.  However this year, I had a wonderful treat, all to myself.  I was folding clothes by the car, and was

 startled to see a deer running through the empty campsite opposite ours.  He was being chased by a wolf!  It was a magical fifteen seconds, because it was beautiful and terrible at the same time.  How I wish I were a skilled enough photographer to capture that moment.  

Later, I reported this finding to the park warden.  She was a lovely lady but she was French, and so I put my recently acquired skills to use.  It wasn't a perfect conversation but I was proud of myself.  She was able to understand me, she was surprised that the wolf was running through the tenting area, but she did not doubt my report, particularly when we showed her the print left behind. There are actually five wolf packs in the Tremblant area, each with a territory of approximately 200 km.  

When she left, she told me that my French was pretty good. It was a great moment for me! 

Next year?  We find the moose!! 

Dear Dad

I know you won't remember if I tell you at this moment, while you are watching the game, so this is just for you.

Start at the bottom. That's right, scroll all the way down, and start reading the posts at the bottom first. That way you'll get to read about the trip in the same order we wrote it.

love you!

your daughter

A few pictures

I've added some pictures to the old posts...but there are many more. I'm working on the digital album right now, so if you want to see all of them (in a much bigger, labeled format) when it is done, either send me an email or leave a comment on this post. When it's done, I'll send it your way!

Be impressed! (we are)

We left for our trip with two carry-on bags, one purse and one briefcase. We checked nothing.

We returned with two carry-on bags, one purse and one box. We checked nothing. The briefcase was packed inside one of the bags, and the box had most of our purchases!

I'm so glad Dad taught me how to pack things!

Our own Amazing Race

As I wrote earlier, I suspected that our travel day would be very long, and it was, but surprisingly most of the time went quite quickly. That's because the day itself was not without it's own adventures.

First, we planned on catching the 9:44 train from Brussels to Schipol Airport (Amsterdam). I was a little slow getting going, so we raised across the street from our hotel at 9:10 to have the quickest of breakfasts (and it was really good too--those Belgiums know how to make good coffee!). Then we raced back to the hotel to check out, and then get to the railway station, which thankfully was just a block away. We got there at 9:38...a few minutes to spare.

Now, the trains in Europe are pretty darned reliable, and when the schedule says 9:44, that is what it means. When it was 9:54 we were pretty sure that there was a problem. And there was--the train had broken down on the track, which meant that the other trains behind it were stalled too. The announcement eventually said that the train would be fifteen minutes late, which it didn't mean because it had already been twenty....and so, together with a contingent from Dubai, we waited and waited. Thankfully, the Dubai group had a lovely guide who kindly helped us make sense of the announcements--she could understand all three languages and she had some experience with the trains. She told us that she was pretty sure we would make our plane, because usually, when there was a delay, they got things going again reasonably quickly.

One announcement said that we could get on a different train, go to a different city and transfer to an appropriate train from there. She didn't recommend we do that, because we could easily be stranded in that city. She encouraged us to wait, and in the end, we are glad that we did. Her group however was not patient, afraid to miss a luncheon in den Haag. We were sorry to see them go! In the meantime, there was a young couple named David and Victoria who were planning a romantic day in Amsterdam. They were frustrated too, but eventually, the train came at 11:14.

It was a great train....we sat in the front of the car, going forwards for a change, and had ample space to stretch out with our luggage. What a relief, it looked like we would make it after all...the two hour trip would put us at the airport in time. So we sat back, enjoyed stroopwaffles from the concession cart and enjoyed the ride.

Until Rotterdam which was about half way there. Apparently, even though they said this train went to Schipol, they meant that it would connect to a train to Schipol. So, off we got, and waited with David and Victoria for a half hour for the new train (though it was challenging finding the right track in the first place). We were no longer sure that we would meet our plane...we were still an hour away!

When we finally got to Schipol, we literally ran for the ticket counter, only to find out that we had seats 12 rows apart. We were already twenty minutes late for boarding, so we ran through the airport. The boarding time however was actually the time to start going through security so after all of that, we were good to go. Whew, that was a relief!

Well, as plane rides go, this was really long. I had the seat-by-the-screaming child, and as much as I love kids, I have to admit that I sure wasn't liking this one. He kicked, he shrieked, he screamed, his parents got up and down and up and down, and since I had the aisle seat, so did I. He stuck his hand in my spaghetti, and then grabbed my shirt...in short, he was such a delight.

I was so glad when we landed--and very thankful that this was a B747-400 instead of the scheduled MD-11 because the trip was actually an hour shorter than advertised. YEA!

Customs was no big deal, and then we waited for the bus to come. We were in Montreal, and this was the charter bus to Ottawa that was part of the ticket. It was slow in coming and even slower than leaving (and this was possibly the most tiring part of the whole entire trip). Of course we had to wait for the last person to clear customs before we could leave....which sort of made it frustrating because we had packed so well and were off the plane and out of the airport in just a few minutes. Oh well.

The bus ride was a little hairy and I was praying the whole time. The fog was thicker than snot, and our driver did a great job of getting us home safely and in a reasonable time. If the bus hadn't been part of the ticket, we would have stayed an extra day in Montreal. There is no way we would have attempted to drive in that. And we didn't really want to stay so we just sat quietly and watched him.

Getting to the train station was the best part--we traveled with only carry-on luggage the whole entire way, and it paid off big time when the bus arrived at the station. Within a minute we were in a cab, and on our way to the girls.

Boy my feather pillows felt good! And Charlie's purring...not much beats that!