Graceful as an... Ox?!?!

Hi everyone – hope you are all well this week. I have heard that the weather is warming up nicely for everyone’s southern hemisphere Christmas break so I hope you are out there enjoying it enough for me too! It has actually warmed up here this week too, yesterday (a week after the -19 situation!) was about 10 when I walked home from work so I don’t know whether my dreams of a white Christmas will come true but we can hope!

Things have been pretty quiet this week really. A group of longer-term folks from my hostel have either left or leave over the weekend so from next week we will become a very small little group until after the new year. Still, it is a nice group of people and it will be nice to have a group of orphans to spend Christmas day with I reckon!

My most interesting outing of the week was a trip ice-skating on Wednesday night. I was basically attempting to recapture my teenage years spent circling around the ice rink in Christchurch looking at boys, but I was a bit too rusty to look at anything other than my feet for the first twenty minutes! Still, an hour of skating later and I had not fallen down and had even managed to help a few others make some nervous laps around the place (there are no hand rails or walls so I appreciated why you might be nervous!). Patrick suggested that perhaps I am more co-ordinated on ice than I am on land and I had to admit that he may have a point!!! Z – thoughts? As another friend suggested to me recently perhaps all that slipper sliding in the hall trained me well for Canada!

The skating was lots of fun though, outside surrounded by all the Christmas lights and the Christmas music, although oddly sometimes they played Creed songs but I guess they are a Christian rock group so perhaps that is close enough?!?!

Anyway – there really isn’t much else to tell you. My contract at work has been extended for another month or so (until February) so at least I have some certainty for the next few weeks and I have started to form a plan for my travel in the new year, which I will fill you all in on one it is official.

Until next time… have fun!
Clare

Christmas, Thermals, and Honest Eds!

Hello there dear readers – hope you are all well out there in cyberland!

It has been a pretty quiet week for me recovering from my Boston trip but I thought I would give you a bit of an update anyway! It has been a bit of a week of Christmas preparations really – the last of the presents have been posted, a bunch of cards have been sent off, the worlds smallest Christmas tree has been purchased and decorated, and an advent chocolate or two has also been consumed (thanks Mum!)!

Other than Christmas preparations I really just spent the week working and muddling along at the hostel. On Thursday night Patrick and I went to a restaurant called Captain Johns, which is a big old ship that sits in the harbour and has now been converted to a seafood restaurant. The food was gorgeous and it was really lovely surroundings, especially with the Christmas decorations and lights up. These Canadian’s are very big on their Christmas lights and I have to say… I like it!

Friday night I went to a girls night at my work-mate Sharon’s house. We played board-games, had a few drinks and ate lots of yummy food – we finished off the evening by watching The Wizard of Oz (with whole new eyes now that we have seen Wicked!) and Sharon dropped us all home about 2am… bunch of nana’s that we are, we were all pretty much falling asleep at 2am but still!

Saturday I finally visited Honest Eds – a bit of a Toronto institution on the shopping front! It is a big discount store, which would be totally at home in Vegas with its Neon lights and big signs proclaiming things like “Honest Eds… it is only the floor that’s crooked!” and “Honest Eds… its not pretty but its cheap!”. Ed (who is sadly no longer with us) seems to have met a lot of famous people in his lifetime and there are signed posters and photos of celebrities all over the show. My favourite was possibly the personal letter from Princess Di, congratulating Ed on his long and successful career in retail! Anyway, it was really fun and I managed to get a couple of souvenirs for myself and even made a start on next year’s birthday shopping!

Other than that there really is not too much to report on this week. The weather has been getting noticeably colder, although today it is raining a little so the temperature has crept up a bit. The coldest day last week got down to -9, with a wind-chill taking it down to -19… good thing Honest Eds sold thermal leggings I reckon!

Have a great week everyone!
Clare