{a view of the Plaza, from Central Park}

I have said it before and I'll say it again: NYC is awesome.

As we did in 2008, Kurt and I met up with our good friends EAP and Mugsy for a fabulous time over the Easter long weekend. Only two weeks after our mini-trip to CayMAN, this made us a bit more jet-setting than usual but we've been talking about going back ever since 2008 and the deals from the Rock to NYC are pretty incredible. It is actually cheaper for us both to fly to New York and spend three nights in a 4 star Midtown hotel than it is to buy two return tickets to Ottawa. While going home is always appealing, something about the Chrysler Building was calling my name, so we decided to jump on the deal and spend 4 days enjoying the sights and sounds of the City.

Mission: accomplished. Once again, we had an AMAZING time. Captured in a few of the many shots I took over the weekend:

{New Yorkers, enjoying a sunny Saturday in Central Park}


{blossoming trees, everywhere we looked}

{looking up...waaaaaay up}

{the most amazing sandwich ever, courtesy of the Amish Market (45th & 2nd)}


Yeah...I fell in love again. You could spend months there and never run out of things to do or see. I just can't get enough.

We're home from work, safe and sound. The ferries stopped running mid-day, so my co-worker gave us a ride. I'm glad, because the backup "plan" was to ride the scooter home. Terrible plan, actually. So far, the Rock is getting lots of rain, lots of dark clouds and the air feels very electrified, like something is coming. The waves are gigantic, splashing up over the roads in some areas already, and Bill is still hours and hours away. However, we're safe inside, shutters closed, supplies handy, ready to take this on...whether it's just a lot of wind, a lot of rain, a lot of both, or - worst case scenario - a full on hurricane. They suspect that the storm will pass us in the wee hours of Saturday - somewhere between 4:00 and 7:00 a.m.

Bill is still rated a Category 3 hurricane, which means that he hasn't regained the speed that they thought he would. I suppose anything can happen, but I'm taking this as good news.

I'll keep you posted if things get interesting.

Not my favorite day. This is especially true after a long weekend spent doing pretty much nothing. Relaxing, sunning, a cold beverage or two, some time on a boat...that was about all we had on our agenda and we fulfilled our (two) obligations nicely. One being the boat, and the other being a hair appointment for me yesterday. Besides that, we just enjoyed ourselves. And we might have done some casual stalking around the new neighborhood, in a totally non-creepy way of course.

Anyways, back to Monday. It kind of sucked until about 3:00, when I was called into a meeting and told that...I GOT THE JOB. OMFG. It was all I could do to hold it together and muster up "professional" until the meeting was over, but as soon as it was...totally unprofessional. There might have been some squealing (concealed behind closed doors). It is just a really awesome opportunity and means good things all around.

I start at the beginning of September, though the actual start date is a bit fuzzy since I'll need to do a proper handover of my current position, which will be advertised soon.

YES!!! Anyways, that was GREAT news. It's an awesome promotion that I fought tooth and nail for, and won. Happy happy.

I didn't do much in the way of celebrating tonight, though I did indulge in my favorite pinot with my favorite guy, while watching one of HIS favorite movies, Swingers, which is actually a pretty decent way to spend a couple of hours. Now it's off to bed with The Poisonwood Bible, which I am finally reading and wondering...why did it take me so long to take this one off the shelf and get into it? It's fab.

Three sleeps.

Remember how the Rock has a four-day long weekend at the end of July? To celebrate...cricket? Yes, well, it does. And it starts today, when the work day ends at 5:00.

I'm not into cricket at all, and I certainly am not into snow cones (which seem to play a major role in the celebrations), but I am into a four-day weekend with hot, hot weather and maybe a tiny bit of boating thrown in for fun. That's pretty much all we have planned for the four days but I'm looking forward a lot of down time. I'm hoping to start taking photos of all of the stuff we're going to sell before we move...time to get rid of a lot of random furniture we never sit on/eat off of/look at. I'm also looking forward to sleeping in and eating some chips. Because that's what holidays are for.

I'm going to try to take some photos this weekend, because I haven't been doing a lot of that lately and think I should be trying to capture some summer shots. The weather has been great lately (hot though...our apartment is over 30 degrees when we get home after work) and not too humid yet, so that will probably set in while we're away and we'll come back to the greenhouse I remember the Rock being this time last year. Awesome.

In other news, I'm now a week and a half away from a plane ride!

Today we had a bit of a late start. I kept waking up last night...at 2:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., and then at 7:00 a.m. because some CRAZY rain was beating down on the roof so hard that it actually woke me up. I took a peek outside and couldn't even see across the street. And then when we headed out this morning, at around 10:00, there was not a cloud in the sky and everything was dry, dry, dry. I love weather like that. Things get watered...but I don't have to get wet. Plus, I love the sound of rain when I'm all cozy in bed. The best.

We saw another apartment this morning and I, for one, fell in love. Head over heels. It had absolutely everything on our "wishlist", minus a pool, but it had so many extras and bonuses that we never thought we'd be able to find in our price range, that I think we're going to go for it. I'm more of an impulse shopper, while Kurt likes to mull things over, so in fairness to him...I'm waiting out the mulling. I hope he's done mulling soon though, because I can't wait to call and say YES. I WOULD like the apartment with the gorgeous views, private backyard, granite and stainless kitchen and biggest closet ever. I would like that. And I would even like the pet it comes with - a 30 year old tortoise named George who lives behind the house in a little igloo. He reminded me a bit of Harley...about the same activity level. Anyways, it was amazing.

After we drooled all over the apartment, we headed to Melrose Place for an afternoon swim and BBQ. Melrose Place is what we call the complex that Sarah lives in, where we looked at the apartment last week. We spent the day floating around, evening out tan lines (where appropriate), and sipping on cold drinks. Not a terrible way to spend a Sunday, I have to say.

Tomorrow kicks off a three day work week for us, which is awesome. So, tonight is more like a Tuesday night than a Sunday night. I love that.

I hope everyone had an awesome weekend. Hopefully I'll have some big news this week...job or house related...or both!

...until we're on the plane! I'm seriously getting so excited. I'm like a kid before Christmas when I have a trip home looming...all of the things I miss the most packed into a fun week? Pretty much nothing better than that, in my opinion.

We've finally decided to drag ourselves outside into the sweltering heat and make something of our Saturday. It's so ridiculously hot here. Not even a good "let's go to the beach hot". It's more of an "oh my god my skin is melting" kind of hot. Blech.

We're going to go find ourselves a nice lunch and a cold drink somewhere, preferably in the shade. Tonight, I have a "date" with my friend Amy. We're going to find a bite to eat and then go and get a bit artsy by joining the art gallery and checking out their latest exhibit. Apparently, members can showcase photography, so this might be something I can do down the road, when I get my shit together and actually start taking some photographs again. Luckily, Amy is also into cameras and such, so maybe a future "date" could be to go out and take some photos of the flowers, the water, the fried chicken...you know. The cultural stuff.

K is going out with some guys from work to play poker, which is funny since I know for a fact that he does not know how to play poker at all. I'm glad he's taking his own money.

OK. Procrastination needs to stop...time to get OFF the COUCH and ON with the DAY. Because it's already half over! Happy Saturday!

For the past three weekends, we've been lucky enough to finangle our way onto one boat or another to spend a day, or at least a long afternoon, out on the water. We swim. We drink. We dance (so long as someone remembers the iPod). We eat chips. Sometimes hummus. It's fairly blissful. We all get off the boat hours later with a bit of a sunburn, a bit of a buzz, and a bit of dehydration. It's awesome.

Yesterday was a national holiday on the Rock, celebrated with a parade. Figuring that in our first year here we should probably do as much of these types of things as possible (just to say that we've done it), we headed into town yesterday morning on the Vespa, early enough (we figured) to find ourselves a spot to sit along the parade route and get some good pictures. Wrong. While the parade was scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m., we arrived at around noon to find that the entire street was already full of people who had arrived in the wee hours to tape off sections of sidewalk for their families and had set up elaborate buffets of food for themselves, fancy camp chairs, blankets, noise-makers, gas BBQs...the works. It was quite a show. I no longer have a hard time believing the rumours that locals "camp" with flat-screen televisions in their tents.

We finally found ourselves a spot, which I had to defend multiple times from encroaching tourists and even local families trying to edge us out by slowly moving their chairs closer and closer to where we were standing, trying to edge us out. They met their match with me though, and I held our ground, even while Kurt was off finding fried chicken (a parade requirement).

At 1:30 on the dot, the parade began with a stream of scooters and motorcycles, the requisite random people being driven around in fancy cars (with no signage to alert the crowd as to who they might be), the various Queens (Teen Queen, Big & Beautiful Queen, etc.) and the Regiment's marching band. After that, it was a steady stream of majorettes, drumlines and Gombey dancers. It was colorful, loud, and incorporated some questionable dance moves, but was altogether probably the best parade I've been to. For such a long route, I couldn't believe how young some of the little majorettes and Gombeys were...tiny little ones marching around, dancing up a storm, hamming it up for the crowd. Mind you, we were at the beginning of what had to be at least a 5km route, so I'm sure the people sitting at the end of the parade got a very different show. It was a pretty hot day...hot enough that I should have been wearing a hat or standing in the shade, because I ended up with a pretty nasty headache after 6 hours in the sun and we ended up leaving before the parade was over (apparently it went until after 6:00...yes...a 4.5 hour parade).

I took (of course) about a billion photos. The "best of" are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=116887&l=71870&id=614495246

Back to work today, but it's a three day work week for me, since we're off to Toronto on Friday morning for Teresa and Evans' wedding. As usual, it was hard to tear myself away from weekend life and back to the office, and even more so when it's a long weekend. The sun headache is persisting...boo. I really need to get myself a hat.

Right behind our house, there is a tiny beach. No more than 20 feet long and not very deep, it's just wide enough for a few towels and a picnic. Unfortunately, we've never used it because I've always assumed that it was dirty, because every time we walked by it I could see broken glass everywhere, along the sand and in the water.

Yesterday afternoon, Kurt and I decided to take advantage of some amazing weather (it was probably at least 23 degrees) and go for a walk. There were boats everywhere, full of people out enjoying the day. It was pretty much the perfect afternoon. We walked up to this old cemetary we've been running and driving past for the past 5 months without exploring and finally walked through it. I have a small obsession with old cemetaries and this one fit the bill - graves dating back to the 1700s. I think the oldest person in the whole cemetary died at 53. Most were sailors between 21 and 35, many died of yellow fever or had drowned. We spent a long time there, walking through the paths and reading the stones. I'm glad we finally stopped...I've never seen anyone walking through it before and I think it deserves a visit every now and then.

On the way home, we decided to skip the road and walk along the rocks at the water's edge. They're all volcanic, with some very flat spots like someone had scraped off the ragged parts, and some jagged towers that we had to pick our way around carefully. Every now and then, we'd jump over a crevass with waves splashing up into it or have to find our way around big tidepools. We were just about to scramble back up to the road when I saw a little rocky patch that looked like it was covered in glass, like our backyard beach. I jumped down into it to get a better look and realized that the glass wasn't tossed from the road, like I had assumed, but had washed up in the waves. Smooth, tumbled chunks of glass in all different colors were scattered through the rocks, along with chunks of painted ceramics and china and all sorts of other "treasures" from the depths. I was in heaven. Kurt looked patient, but I think he probably could have skipped the whole thing and been happy. It was the same look he had on when we watched The Little Mermaid.

When I was a kid, my Dad used to pile Kelsey and I into his boat and take us to beaches on the little islands off Oak Bay. They don't need to be named...I'm afraid that they're already too popular, but back then they weren't visited very often and the beaches were totally untouched. There was no litter anywhere, no bottle caps or chunks of plastic or beer cans. They were pristine and without another soul around, they were our own private playground. My Dad, being the ultimate beach scavenger for neat old things, taught us where to look for the good stuff and we'd spend entire afternoons digging through the rocks and finding chunks of pottery and bits of brightly painted china, all of which had been tumbled smooth by the ocean and somehow found its way to the shore. I have no idea why old dishes end up in the ocean, but apparently they do. Lots of them. We used to take home bags of bits and pieces, rinse them off in fresh water and then try to piece them together, like we actually thought we could reassemble an old bowl or plate. Needless to say, we never got very far, but we loved looking at them anyways and imagining where they had come from.

I guess that beach scavenger still lives inside of me because I was crouched down on those rocks for ages yesterday. I found pieces of painted china, a rusty old fish hook, a railway spike, a few pieces of different colored glass and a couple of pieces of coral. Thanks to Kurt's pockets, they all made it back to the apartment, where they're currently scattered on a table awaiting some kind of artsy project...or maybe a return to the sea.

A bit of Googling today revealed that the island is actually known for beach glass. It's a destination for beach glass collectors because it's full of pockets, like the one we found yesterday, where foreign objects have a tendency to wash up by the thousands. I got the heads up on a few other beaches that are known for their treasures, and I think we'll make our way out there next weekend with Clay in tow. At least then Kurt will have someone to comiserate with and that will buy me more time to find treasures.

By the time we got home from our walk, we'd been gone for 3 hours and had probably walked about 7km in total, but it was just too nice of an afternoon to do anything else. I got a bit of a sunburn on my nose, but my table full of finds made it worth it.