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Québlog

   Hello all three of you and welcome to the second instalment of our Québec City vacation blog.  I guess it is my turn to fill you in on what we have been up to since DawnO’s last post.  First of all I feel a burning desire to explain something to you.  I am NOT a Celine Dion fan.  My love for her could not move mountains.  If she decides to call it quits tomorrow I am quite certain that my heart will go on.  However, I do appreciate the fact that she is a world class talent and respect her enough to sit on the side of a grassy hill and listen to her sing a tune for free.  Consider the matter clarified.

  The day after the concert we decided to find a tennis court to play on.  If you can believe it we actually brought luggage that we had to check (roller blades, tennis rackets, books).  We thought it would be a good idea to walk to Laval University, play tennis, and then take the bus back home.  It didn’t look too unreasonable on the map… we need to smarten up.  After DawnO kicked my tired ass all over the court we headed out for crépes.
  Yesterday DawnO planned a superdate which involved a trip to the Île d’Orléans.  It’s an island located in the mouth of the St. Lawrence river that is connected by a bridge to Québec City.  We rented bikes and rode around the island stopping at cool shops and fruit stands along the way.  Afterwards we headed back to town for some pretty good Nachos.  
  Last night we tried to get into the “free” Cirque du Soleil performance but we were foiled because we were standing in the family line.  Also, most people had tickets that were given to them by the hotels they were staying at.  Once they let the ticket holders in you have a small chance of getting any leftover seats.  Since we did not have any children with us in the family line, we were hooped.  We ended up going to the waterfront to watch the image mill.  It’s a film the city projects on to the mill across the water.  They have speakers set up all along the docks where people can sit and watch the show.  It was pretty amazing how they used the entire mill to tell their story.
  Anyway, on to the pictures.  We’ll blog again soon!

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Cub-log (The long awaited)

It has been too long since our last blog, and quite frankly, it’s been too long since we’ve been to Cuba.  In February we spent a week in Cuba, spread between Havana, Viñales, and las Terraces.  We met up with our friends, Ryan and Amanda, from home and enjoyed the local culture. Highlights included home stays with locals, 50cent street pizza,  the idyllic Viñales Valley, the friendly people, and seeing the western world start to break into the uninfluenced Cuba.

On the Malecon

Cuban graffiti/propaganda

A little off the top

Our neighbourhood market

Havana street concert

Sunset on the plaza

Ché

Lennon Park

Tobacco harvest

Viñales Valley

Holà

Playa solo

Calle Obispo

Rough around the edges
Pizza sin cebollo
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Thursday – NYC

Today was a bit of a mixed bag. I got up early to get in line for Jimmy Fallon stand-by tickets and was successful. Afterwards DawnO and I went to the Museum of Modern Art and spent the morning realizing that as much as we’d like to be, we’re not really museum people. I kind of feel the same way about malls. Except I know I don’t like malls.
Regardless, it was a cool building and we did see some nice pieces.
We headed to the Flatiron building (skinny building below) and took a few MoMA worthy pictures and then headed to the all you can eat Indian buffet before our date with Jimmy Fallon. Or so we thought. After about an hour and a half of waiting, signing in, getting in line, getting out of the way, waiting some more and so on, we were told that only the first 5 people would get in to see the show. We were numbers 15 and 16. Sadly, we had to find something else to do with our evening so we tried to take in a musical. This too was a complete bust. Either the show was full, or it wasn’t running on Thursdays. Our only option was a naked man chorus line. Great, singing dinks… is this what our evening had come to? Instead, we found the NHL headquarters where I spotted Gary Bettman(speaking of weenies) finishing a radio interview on the NHL network. I strategically placed myself near the exit to the studio. As he came out I shook the man’s hand and said, ‘nice to meet you.’ His hand shake was firmer than I thought it would be.
After that brief yet awkward encounter we went to the Top of the Rock (the observation deck of 30 Rockefeller Center) for some evening shots of the city. Then we got an ice cream and headed for home.
We fly Back to Calgary tomorrow and we’ll be sad to go. We may not blog again until the New Year when we have trips to Austin, TX and Cuba lined up. Until we write again…

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The President, an Angel, and the Boy Who Lived

Yesterday we had an amazing day due to some hard work and a dash of luck. DawnO got up early yesterday morning and sat in a line to get last minute tickets for “How To Suceed – In Business Without Really Trying”. It is a broadway musical starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and John Larroquette. She returned home with 2 tickets in hand and we set off on our day. We hit a few stores, had lunch in central park, and walked down to Barnes & Noble. We got inside and made our way upstairs to where DawnO believed her book would be and I could use the washroom. We quickly found out that most of that floor was blocked off because President Clinton was there signing his new book. We stuck around and DawnO managed to get a picture of him while the secret service was shouting, “NO CAMERAS! NO PICTURES!” at her. Let me be clear because I’m not going to say this again, we did not… have… photographic relations with that man. But if we did you can see the paparazzi shot below.
After Bill left the building we were free to shop and urinate. We made our way home and got ready for our Broadway show. We got some excellent Thai food for dinner and got to the theatre in time to get to our 7th row seats. The show was great. It rivaled any Harry Potter movie I’ve seen and there is no episode of Night Court that can touch it. Seriously though it was really great. The sets were amazing, the music was fantastic and the story was hilarious. 8.5 out of 10.
On the way back from the theatre I am 100% certain we walked past the guy who plays Angel Batista from Dexter. Dawn wasn’t sure and wanted to follow him. After our earlier brush with the secret service I didn’t want to press our luck so we kept walking.
All-in-all it was a great day. Tonight we’re going to the Book of Mormon musical so we’ll let you know how that one is.

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Start Spreading The News…

DawnO and I will be headed to New York, NY so DawnO can participate in the New York Marathon this coming weekend. I will be joined by her parents and her Granny as we try to find a decent place to watch from amongst the crowds.  You can watch too!
Here’s how:
Her bib# is 12273 and you can track her progress during the race by visiting www.ingnycmarathon.org during the race and clicking on the “TrackMyRunners” link or by buying the TrackMyRunners app on the iTunes app store or Android market.
Dawn starts at 09:40 Eastern Standard Time, so it’s going to be a bit early on Sunday morning if you’re tracking live from the west coast of North America.

NBC Sports will be showing highlights from the NY Marathon sometime later that day.  Check your local listings for details.


After the race we’re going rest up, and prepare for a week in the big apple.  First up is an NHL game at Madison Square Garden where the Winnipeg Jets take on the NY Rangers.  We’ll be blogging as usual so stay tuned for more.

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Queen’s Day

 It’s our last night in Amsterdam. Before we go we thought we’d blog about Queen’s day which was today (April 30th).
 
  We headed to the city center where the streets were lined with flea markets.  It was the largest garage sale we had ever seen.  People mark off stalls on the sidewalk the day before and then set up tables of things to sell.  Meanwhile boats cruise up and down the canals full of people dancing to the makeshift DJ’s who are somehow powering their oversized speakers on the rickety boats.  Everyone is clad in orange and there isn’t much room to move through the large crowds of Dutch celebrators.

  We spent most of the day listening to the local bands that were performing on a boat that was converted to a rock stage.  DawnO found a pair of shoes at one of the nearby stalls and I was happy to people watch while the craziness unfolded before us.

  Tomorrow we get on a plane headed home.  It’s been a great two weeks.  Hopefully it won’t be another year before we blog again.

Jente, DawnO, RobO
A one-handed bra removal contest.
Yes, that’s the Queen’s head on each manaquin



The scene in the city centre





Palio Superspeed Donkey
– My new favorite Amsterdam band
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Den Haag, Keukenhof, Gouda, Delft and other things I mispronounce

Anne

  Hoi everyone.  It’s been a while and we have done a lot of Europy stuff since we last wrote so I’ll get right to it.   On Tuesday we began our day at the Anne Frank house.  It was was quite amazing and recommend it to anyone that has the opportunity to see it.  Later that day we took a train to Den Haag, a smaller city outside of Amsterdam.  Once again we couch surfed, this time on Albert’s couch.  He was a fantastic host and his place was incredible.  He has a habit of constantly hosting travellers so when we arrived we were greeted by 4 french girls, 3 Estonian girls and 2 Italian girls cooking supper.  Most of them were also staying at the house but there was plenty of room.

  The next day Albert lent us bikes so we could ride to Leiden.  From there we met our friend Jente and took a bus to the Keukenhof which is the worlds largest flower garden which mainly contains tulips.  I’ve never seen DawnO so camera happy.  I’ll include some flower pictures below but if you want to see more we can provide.  Once it was checked off DawnO’s bucket list we took a bus back to Leiden and discovered our bikes were missing.  We found out that we had parked them in a no bike parking zone and every day the cops come by and load up all the bikes in that area and impound them somewhere on the other side of town.  The sign indicating the parking zones was about the size of a sugar packet and was in Dutch so we were destined to fail.  Leiden must make a lot of money off that tourist tax because there were at least 30 other bikes parked there when we dropped ours off and 30 more when we found out they were gone.  Sadly we had to leave them behind and tell Albert their fate.  The next day he was gracious enough to drive to Leiden and pick them up for us after he dropped us off at the train station.



Gouda



  Yesterday we headed to Gouda (the G makes an H sound) and sampled a LOT of cheese.  We then took a train to Delft and saw the local potters hand paint glaze onto their famous pottery.  Both places were quite charming and like the rest of the country they were preparing their town for Queen’s night (tonight) and Queen’s day (tomorrow).  Will and Kate?  Will and Schmate…  No one in the Netherlands will be tuned to the royal wedding while these days are going on.  Think Mardi Gras, only dress everyone in orange and legalize marijuana.
  We’ll blog about it next!



Delft Potter



Wheels of Gouda
Queen’s Day Preparations

Tourists



Welcome to the tulip pictures
Twisted Tulips



These looked freshly painted

 

Hair-lips

Ok, so maybe the Dutch were watching Kate and William
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Prague Blog – Day 3

Hello all (three of you),
  We have had a busy past few days.  The first day we walked all over the city but today we were fortunate enough to have bicycles!  That meant we covered more ground, and even left the city.
  When we got back into town Dawn had planned a date night where we took in a classical concert in a basilica. There was a 7 piece strings section playing Cannon in D, a Mozart piece, and Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’.  After that we headed to the main square where we ate some pretty delicious street grub and waited for the sun to go down.  Then it was of to the Charles bridge to look at the glowing castle.
  How did we do all this with snow everywhere you ask?  Well, it was 25 above 0.  I even have a wicked farmer tan in the works.  Sorry Hatters, but spring has sprung in the Czech Republic.
  Dawn would like to give a shout out to the awesome fried cheese she had yesterday.  Picture fried cheese in a bun.  With mayo.  Good night.
  I experienced pickled cheese which was introduced to me by our fantastic hosts Liba and Tomas.  They took us to a club last night that was pretty cool.  They also lent us their bikes and have been our personal tour planners.  We can’t say enough good things about our first couch surfing experience.
  Tomorrow we plan to head out of the city so we’ll have more to report in a couple of days.
Here are some photos:

St Vitas Cathedral
John Lennon Wall
Lunch Break
Dancing Building

Night view from Charles Bridge
Charles Bridge at night
 (I was standing, you were there)


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Ooo La Laa Praha

After our long flight we arrived in Prague at 11am (local time).  We figured out the local transport to get to our accommodations.  Our host Liba gave us a tour of the beautiful penthouse condo (it even has a rooftop patio) and introduced us to some classic Czech bread, cheese, and meats.

As usual we decided to try to ‘beat the jetlag’, so we walked through Old Town for most of the afternoon.  We knew it was time to come home when we were sitting on a bench and both of us started doing the ‘head bob’.

From what we’ve seen so far, Prague has a lot of really beautiful buildings.  We’re looking forward to exploring more tomorrow when we’ve had a night’s rest.  I’m also looking forward to trying some of the street food that we saw today.

Here are some pictures of the view from our place and some of the sites in Old Town.

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Springcouver

We’re almost at the end of our Olympic trip.  So far we’ve been to the Men’s Hockey game (see last blog), a women’s hockey game (RUS vs SVK) and men’s curling where we got to see the Norwegian pants up close and personal.  We’ve been in the downtown crowds and are on our way to some of the pavilions today before we wrap it up at another women’s hockey game tonight where the Swiss take on Russia.

  Tomorrow DawnO takes off for London where she’ll get to see our friends before she continues on to India!  I’ll head back to Medicine Hat tomorrow night and continue to follow the games on TV and DawnO’s adventures on Skype.
  As usual, I have more interesting pictures than things to write so I’ll sign off and upload more photos.