montreal

on a crisp clear morning in ottawa, kylie and i were dropped off at the train station by dan, ushered into a neat canadian line to board the train (we have not lined up to board a train in any other country we've visited) and whisked by viarail to station centrale in the heart of downtown montreal. all of the montreal metro stations are designed in unique ways and many feature beautiful art.
upon exiting the train and making our way to the conveniently located metro station, it was immediately and clearly apparent to both kylie and i that we had entered another country, except that we hadnt. the buildings were older and more ornate, the locals dressed much more elegantly (especially the ladies... i dont think we saw a single hoodie or pair of lulu lemon pants) and all the signs were in a funny language that i could speak only with a deliberately appalling franglais accent.
this was our second time in montreal and we gravitated quickly to that which we loved most about the city: food and friends. our lovely B&B was located a block off of st. denis at its foodiest, and equally close to the restaurant/club district on prince arthur.

we had a quick walk to the sherbrooke metro station, through this lovely park. from there our pass touristique allowed us to thunder underground to any part of central montreal we wished to visit. on our first day we walked through mount royal park and downtown montreal, stopping at 2 different restaurants on st. denis to enjoy its culinary wonders.
the next day our friend kate picked us up at a chocolatier on st. denis (where one is encouraged to drink melted chocolate straight rather than dip things in in or apply it in small quantities to a crepe) and took us to her house in lesalle where we met her husband paul and their 2 year old daughter natalie. kate was a classmate of mine from medschool and we have availed ourselves of her hospitality on previous trips to both san francisco and montreal. with her parents' dedicated tutelate, natalie proved to be a budding bilingual prodigy, with a solid grip of 1-40 in english and french, as well as the alphabet and the days of the week.
paul, relishing his opportunity to be a stay at home dad, served up a fantastic chicken and chayote with cornbread. afterwards a walk was necessary to digest the cornbread, as well as the significance of giant chubby rock legs on the st. lawrence.
unfortunately, this is the only picture we have of kate and paul. the dark night was more conducive to the taking of silly pictures.


the next day was marked by a bike ride up mount royal to view the squirrels, the children and downtown montreal. we are proud to have participated in a mass transit revolution by renting 2 of the cities fleet of drop anywhere commuter bikes.



every park we went to in ottawa and montreal was overrun by cheeky squirrels.


these sturdy beasts of burden bore us up and down the mountain and all the way to fairmont bagels for some fresh sesame bagels. from there we took the back streets and back alleys, past some (dys)legitimate tagging:
and eventually back to the metro, where we returned our bikes and boarded a subway to meet our friend christine at the upstairs jazz club.
3 youngsters from gay paris were playing and they were fantastic. some old standards, some original material and a few unrepentantly deviant takes on current pop made up the bulk of the 2 sets we saw.
the food and the company were also excellent.

on our final day in montreal we wandered around downtown once more and met dan's brother jonathan, who gave us a tour of his adopted home neighbourhood around concordia university. we had some tasty lattes and then boarded the metro on a quest for the famous montreal smoked meat sandwich.
we found it. this place was crazy busy, and the people certainly did NOT come for the decor.

after a packed but restful time in montreal, we proceeded back to station centrale, encumbered with stained glass for carlynne and pipe tobacco for dan (and me) and were ceremoniously whisked back to ottawa where we were picked up by a smiling carlynne. spreading our family across the continent has made travelling so much easier!

ottawa

here in our nation's capital, the very seat of power from which all things good flow across the canadian shield, over the plains to the grateful west, is where my sister carlynne and her husband dan have decided to make their home. a wonderful place to visit.

first things first. kylie and carlynne and i poked around the parliamentary grounds.
at the front door to the halls of power, a unicorn sticks his tongue out at you, the citizen of canada.
from the top of the peace tower (the big pointy one).


the locks behind parliament. an important shipping lane for all the $$ arriving from out west and all the redundant paperwork exiting parliament hill destined for the rest of the country. note the ship stranded on the right.

dan, chris and i took dan's hunting rifle and bow out to the shooting range for a little target practice. dan had his bow set to full hunting strength and i was only able to draw it once.
the gun was much easier to load, but being a winchester .300 it had a pretty fair kick.

whilst the men where hunting styrofoam turkeys and deer, carlynne and kylie were luring unsuspecting geese with bread and then snapping their necks to cook them up for dinner. sooo much better than the styrofoam ones.

that night, after all our redneck activities, we attended the ottawa symphony, which was enjoyable, but the NAC does not allow cameras. after the symphony we walked down elgin street to observe the drunk children and eat poutine.

the next day we went for a wander in the gatineau region of quebec, once again in the company of the intrepid chris and katherine.
the leaves were lovely, although in the gatineau there were more on the ground than on the trees.
out in the forest we met 2 angels, who pointed the proper path to the persevering pilgrims.
as well as the benefits of newfoundland made mittens.



chris collapsed at the top due to extreme exhaustion and dehydration, but he got better.

while at the lookout we formed a rock band and took the opportunity for a band shot. EP pending.

good bye gatineau.
meech lake, of accord fame.

after our taxing journey, we stopped in lovely chelsea for an amazing fish and chips and chamblis noir, finishing with the french grandmother special - tart sucre.

the final day in our long weekend was spent touring a different part of ottawa, looking at the art museum, the market and the royal canadian mint.
in the mint proper, we were not allowed to take pictures, but we WERE allowed to pick up a real gold brick, weighing in at ~$450,000. i accidentally nicked it with my thumbnail, but they wouldnt sell it to me for a discount.

after an extremely healthy dinner we spent our evening obtaining the newly available H1N1 vaccination for kylie, carlynne and dan. i had to apply a bit of pressure to get kylie vaccinated despite being out of province, but she got it in the end. somehow we accidentally skipped the line as well. not sure how that happened, but we didnt feel too bad.
yes, i do think you should all go and get vaccinated as soon as it is available. your personal risk from H1N1 is very low, but as a population it is a problem and i hope you do your part to help out your country and its overburdened health care system. the vaccine itself has been demonized on facebook and in inane discussion forums, but i believe it is safer than unimmunized exposure to H1N1.

after our personal successful vaccination campaign we opted to celebrate with poutine, milkshakes and ice cream sundays, thus negating our extremely healthy dinner.

after that it was goodbye carlynne and dan, hello montreal!

d&k

some good friends of ours, darren and kathleen, recently made the trek across the rockies to come visit us and to attend a david crowder concert. it was a quick visit, but we were able to spend some quality time with them.
darren is a camera buff, so we took them out to the forest so he could practice his art.
i love the trees on the mountains east of cultus lake. these are some of my attempts to capture their splendour. i havent seen darren's yet, but i know he got some nice shots.

niko took good care of our guests and did his best to make them feel welcome. darren and kathleen enjoyed him and appreciated his foibles; at one point darren picked up my camera to record niko in his makeshift lair under the table. kathleen grew up with dogs and they are thinking of getting a puppy soon.

having darren around inspired me to fiddle with my nikon a bit more.

now we are across the continent in ottawa, staying with carlynne and dan. it is beautiful here and we spent a sunny day today in the hills of gatineau with chris and katherine. more on that to come.

Thanksgiving Indeed

We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Victoria with Marc's family (minus Dan and Carlynne). Pete, Bette, Julie and Lowell were supposed to arrive on Saturday morning but unfortunately Air Canada Jazz's computers went down for the day (as did the ferries, oh the transport weekend woes) and they did not arrive until Saturday at dinner. We went to pick up their race packages for the 8K, somehow I think I felt a little strange about it . . .

Oh there, that's better . . .

The race packages were at the Empress hotel and Marc got this great shot of the promenade.
And this one of a church downtown.
The next morning bright and Pete, Bette, Julie, Lowell and Marc set off to run their 8K race. Shareen, Gillian and I were the official picture takers.

Lowell ran by first.

Followed soon after by Marc.

Julie soon raced by (she is in the green shirt)!
Then Pete . . .
and Bette.
The official photographers, they certainly don't look as tired as the runners. ;)
Afterwards we had a lovely lunch.
Followed by a visit with Marc's extended family of uncles, aunts and cousins. Some of his cousins and his uncle Tom had run the half marathon and marathon. They certainly looked great for having run so many km that morning!

That evening it was present time! It was Julie (and Carlynne's) birthday last Tuesday and we had picked this apron up last year in Holland, thankfully we remembered where we had stuck it and actually remembered to bring it!
We also received some unexpected gifts for our bambino. This great blanket that Shareen sewed and some books and a bib. (Yes that is for the baby, although I probably could have used it later at dinner.)
Birthday dinner for Julie at Milestones . . .

On Monday we celebrated Thanksgiving with some of Shareen's friends. A great time was had by all and the food was excellent!This article that was in the Globe and Mail the other day about a family of Bhutanese refugees who recently came to Canada reminded me why I should be so thankful to live in the country I do and why refugees like this make our country a better place to live. Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone!

bend

bend, oregon is known for its proximity to a panoply of outdoor recreation. we ventured there in search of biking trails, hiking trails and good food and found all 3.
the drive through oregon was beautiful and took us out onto some smaller highways.

our visit to bend coincided with its annual fall festival. they had a good turnout despite the crisp 5C. our friend justin recently lent me his 18-200 lens and i was enjoying the extra reach over my 18-105. initially i was unhappy with the pictures i was taking, but then i started taking pictures of kids and got some great shots.
we also heard some good music, particularly from a 3 piece band in a used bookship/wine and coffee bar. what a startling and serendipitous juxtaposition of 3 of my favourite things: books, music and wine. we took a picture of the band with kylie's cellphone. maybe i will try to get it online. we did get a good safari shot of a lion in the grass though.
and a lion on a pony!

kids and haybales make nice pictures.


while in bend i attended a trauma course at st. charles medical centre (oops, it is most likely in actuality a center) that was very engaging and useful. also they had excellent food. as i mentioned in the last post, the hospital looked like a high end hotel lobby, complete with marble fountain in the entrance and a jazz pianist in the hospital lounge. their emerg waiting room has a brick fireplace. as an aside, while in the states, it was very weird to hear radio ads touting various hospitals "we have orthopedics, gynecology and a colonoscopy suite all under one roof!"
somehow it got around the class that i was from canada, and the other docs were very eager to discuss the canadian healthcare system, as obama's healthcare reform bill is being tabled this week. most of them seemed to want a more equitable system, but all saw serious flaws in the current legislation, mosltly around the lack of liability reform (ie. if you dont limit the amount that i get sued, i can guarantee you i am going to waste the taxpayer's money). the course itself was informative and well taught, and the food was available all day!

we went on walks around bend, and i went mtn biking one day. bend has hiking, biking, skiing, kayaking and climbing right around town.
the mtns west of bend are webbed with tight singletrack trails. i didnt slow down that often to take pictures so i dont feel like these do the windy xc trail justice. the packed dirt was smooth like lethbridge riding, but with sharp pointy lava rocks in large bands across the landscape. at one point it was hailing and i had to keep going hard just to stay warm. the hottub at the inn/bed and breakfast we stayed at felt good that evening.
another flat... i put my 2.6 tire back on as soon as we got home.

the next morning i woke early to go biking again and saw this scene out our window.

no biking that day. instead we packed up the snowy 4runner and drove over the cascade mountains to sunny and 20C in portland.
here we stayed in an old school that has been converted into a boutique hotel and brewpub. a beautiful building and kylie could write on the chalkboards all she wanted.
we wandered around downtown and spent an evening in powell's books, the biggest used bookstore in the world... it's big. i could spend a few days there easily.
after a nice drive back to canada (during which we narrowly missed rearending someone) and after stopping to restock our groceries and wine cupboard at trader joes in bellingham, we returned to chilliwack to set up our house again, i worked 2 days at the hospital and fiddled with our imploding plumbing and then yesterday we set off again for victoria to visit shareen and craig for thanksgiving. tomorrow our family is doing the 8k portion of the royal victoria marathon. wish us luck!

M O M A R cumberland 2009

last week was that time of year again. time for marc to run, bike, kayak and attempt to get thoroughly lost in the wilds outside of cumberland BC, along with 359 other mildly mentally ill people running around in the woods with numbers pinned to their chests and straws hanging over their shoulders.

on the short urban course through downtown cumberland, a guy about my age with a big bushy black beard and a knee length black trenchcoat asked me while sitting on the curb, "what's up? are all you guys in jail or something?"

at 50km, the course this year was 5km longer than last year, but i felt much stronger and finished almost 30 min faster (what a sweet map of the course eh? thanks google earth and whoever made this map!) we started with a 10 km kayak, and in the tight starting rush i got knocked sideways from behind and piled into another boat and got turned around backwards. by the time i recovered i was solidly in the back of the pack, as the course designer reminded us every time we passed his boat.

after the kayak was an unmarked trail run up a mountain and i was able to make up some time and pass a number of teams. the navigation was with a topo map and compass and i lucked into the second checkpoint ahead of a number of lost people. from there it was a lot of technical downhill running and i had a great time jumping off things. at one point i ran up a vertical wall ride meant for mtn bikes, using it as a superelevated corner. after calling down the hill for other racers to "hit the wallride!" and having a few take me up on it i felt i had to up the ante by taking 2 full strides up the wall and i leapt off about 6 feet in the air. higher than i anticipated but with a clean landing. knowing the cumberland trails a bit definitely helped my time on this portion of the race.

at the bottom of the mountain we ran along a bike trail into cumberland where we picked up our bikes. having decided on mostly liquid nutrition this year i took the opportunity to down one of my 3 ensure meal replacements (my stomach having learned to process this during my surgical rotation in medical school) and a few complimentary orange slices. with my adrenalin pumping and my blood sugar surging i saw a photographer at the transition gate and attempted to wheelie past him for the photo op. unfortunately i was stronger than anticipated and i flipped over backwards and landed on my back, scraping my right leg in the process, directly in front of the spectator gallery! i have not yet seen this photo posted on the web, but if i find it i will post it.

the mountain biking was certainly my strongest event and i gained a lot of places, despite having a flat tire at one point and having to change tubes on the fly. my pump wasnt engaging properly but luckily my friends trevor and matt happened by and lent me their pump. it was frustrating watching everyone pass me while i worked on my bike, but i had the satisfaction of passing most of them again on the downhill. i hit a few of the logrides and most of the drops but took it pretty easy as i didnt trust my little 2.1 tire to protect my last tube. this year the bikers were nicely spread out though, so i was able to fly without slowing down to pass too often. a big improvement over last year.

after the bike ride we ditched the bikes for a short run through town, just long enough to convince the locals that we were crazy, or escaped convicts, or both, then we jumped back on the bikes for another self navigated portion of the race up through some scrub and down a fast loose trail to get us back to the starting gate at comox lake. here we were given a detailed orienteering map and sent on a scrambling, bushwacking adventure to find 8 checkpoints hidden in the rocks and trees. i love navigating with map and compass on the fly and this part was seriously fun.

having found all 8 checkpoints i arrived at the finishline feeling great, and was happy to find my beautiful wife waiting to meet me! i knew my time was under 6 hrs this year, but i didnt find out until 2 days later that i got 23rd out of 130 teams, and 11th in the solo male category. my time was 5hr 43 min. i was thrilled with both my time and my place, as last year i finished the race in 43rd place with a time of 6 hrs 10 min. better knowledge of the terrain certainly helped, but i was also a lot stronger this year which was fun. my buddy matt bested his time last year by over an hour, so he was pretty happy as well. what a great day!

once again i was also very impressed with the town of cumberland. if an emerg position ever opens up in neighbouring comox, it is the town in which i want to raise a family.

speaking of great towns, kylie and i are currently in bend, oregon. we are here for a medical course as well as for the mtn biking. so far i can tell you that americans are very friendly and open, and that they have jazz piano players in the lounge in their hospital... chilliwack hospital doesnt even have a lounge! just some grungy tables outside the mini tim hortons. no piano player either, although sometimes i sing without realizing it.

From Surgery and Beyond

We have been absent from here for a while but we have a good reason . . . I had surgery last week. But let's start from the beginning - Marc and I are having a BABY! We are very excited and are even more excited now that my surgery is over. We found out at the beginning of summer that we were having a baby and I very quickly found that my pants didn't fit and I was looking VERY pregnant. Marc examined me and thought we could be having multiple babies (i.e. triplets or more!) or thought there could be something wrong. After going to the doctor and getting an ultrasound we found out we did not have quadruplets (much to my relief!) but instead a very rapidly growing ovarian cyst. Because of the size of the cyst I had to have surgery to remove it last week. All went well and I delivered our first spawn - a 2L pop bottle sized one and am very happy to be rid of it!!

Right before surgery, I look a lot happier than I felt!

Home 2 days later, Niko greeted me very calmly and very gingerly came up on the couch beside me. I have no idea what he sensed as he is usually super excited to see me after a couple of days absence but it sure was nice when he laid his head on my legs!

I am feeling better everyday and on Sunday our friend Jarrid arrived for a visit and last night we went boating with friends. Although I was unable to surf :( it was still fun to be out on the water on a beautiful day!

The leftover vestiges of corn
I am not sure what Jarrid is trying to do here, maybe make sure that all the remnants of my cyst are gone!

Marc surfing behind the boat, you start with the rope then once you feel balanced, throw it in and surf the eternal wave. DUDE!
Yesterday Marc took me to emerg and we did an ultrasound and saw our baby waving to us! (Oh the perks of having a doctor for a husband!) Needless to say, we were very relieved that all is well and excited to get on the with the more important things in life now that include multiple trips in October- one to the island this weekend, then off to Bend, Oregon for a course, to Victoria for Thanksgiving then to Ottawa and New York for Halloween!!!!

We have been so blessed by all our wonderful family and friends here with meals, phone calls, visits and flowers! Thanks so much everyone!

september is always beautiful here

the annual chilliwack airshow is conveniently located 1 block from our house.
great community event

last week kylie and i picked over 20 lbs of sumptuous blackberries on vedder mtn. i froze them for use in smoothies and other fruity drinks, along with a 20 lb flat of blueberries (for $17). i derive a strong dopamine rush from the act of picking berries. much more than is justified by the mere cost savings. my 21st century brain still wants to store up for the winter. niko likes slurping them off the bush as well.

after a busy summer we were able to once again connect with friends.

just this week, we attended our friend madison's second birthday party. where are all the people? checking out uncle kevin's firetruck of course!

"did i hear something about a firetruck?"

i have never been a daschund fan, but butch's new pup wheatsie is super cute.



and of course, the birthday girl graciously opening presents.