Go Sens, go!

In case you were wondering why there was no post this weekend: we were in Ottawa!! (Canadian anglophones pronouce this as "Oddewa").

We took the Greyhound bus friday afternoon (next time we should book online coz the 75% discount for the 2nd companion could only be granted online, much to my astonishment. Despite my complaining at the bus station I had to pay full price). 120 dollars and 2,5h later we arrived in Ottawa, where Craig picked us up at the busstop. We went to Craig's & Nathalie's place and got first row entertainment by their kids Petra & Anna. When the kid's went to bed, we had a lovely mushroom lasagna and enough wine and Scotch (check out Highland Park single malt, it has the nice smokey peaty flavour that you can expect from an Islay Whiskey, no wonder coz it's from the Corkney Islands, but it surprisingly has this warm, velvety, vanilla and bourbonish taste ) to keep us warm. We went to bed past midnight and that was not bad considering I was awake without sleep for 30hours non-stop.

Next day, Corey picked us up to meet up with his wife Bonny and his 2 kids Carson & Jordana and their dog Denver. After a hearty lunch we (Corey, Bonny, Craig, Tinneke and I) went to the Scotia Bank Place, the home of the Ottawa Senators to watch the Sens' hockey battle against the Rangers (from New York). Corey is a sportsjournalist for CTV and as many Canadians very much into hockey. First, he showed us the luxurious CTV lounge in the stadium and then we went to our seats, high up. People who know me, know that I'm not really fond of sports, but I do like hockey now. 20.000 outrageous fans, boy what a feeling!
Unfortunately the game was pretty lame, the Sens lost 3-1, and no real fighting (usually they let the players fight a little before breaking them up). After the game we ordered some take-away pizza (and chicken wings and hot sauce :-) and when everybody went home and the kids went to bed, we were challenged to a game of Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture, and sorry Corey & Bonny but we kicked your ass!!

After sleeping late, we hung out a little bit longer with the kids before finally taking the Greyhound back to Montreal. Since we had been pampered and taken care of during a whole weekend, we just continued our little holiday by having some take-out Sechewan Chinese and a DVD (BTW: Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" is really good).

So what's up for this week? Besides me still doing nightshifts and being grumpy because lack of sleep? (Got my first salary and it feels good knowing that we're back to the same amount of money we first had when we arrived):

• I gotta get our driving licenses converted to Quebec licenses so we can subscribe to Communauto, a car sharing program in Montreal so we can have access to a car when we need one.
• X-mas shopping (this year Tinneke and I are going together and buying gifts for ourselves but we will try and restrain ourselves from opening them up before Christmas) and buying a X-mas tree for the first time in our life. Maybe it's because being far away from friends and families, maybe because of the snow, but I am getting in a real Christmas mood and nothing better than an authentic pine fragrant Christmas tree to give in to the spirit. I still have to figure out what to eat at Christmas and New Year's Eve, but Caribou will be on somemmenu for sure. Eric will be joining us for Christmas. And hopefully Brigitte will be joining us for New Year's.
• And Tinneke will try to see all Christmas films on CBC. I was amazed to hear she saw "The Sound of Music" only once! But as "Metal Molly" sings: doesn't everybody love Julie Andrews?!