robodawno.com – Page 25 – Our Travel Blog

January 22, 2013July 3, 2018

Cuernavaca

Vene a Cuernavaca ayer despues de un largo dia de volar (era un ‘leche-corer’). Me encontre mi nueva familia y vi mi nueva casa por una semana. Est muy bonita. Vivo con mi ‘padres’ Francisco y Maru y con quatros autres estudientes. Eren de Los Estados Unidos.
(I came to Cuernavaca yesterday after a long day of flying (it was a milk-run). I met my new family and saw my new house for one week. It is very beautiful. I live with my ‘parents’ Francisto and Maru and with 4 other students. They are from the USA.)

Hoy estaba mi primera vez a la escuela espanol. Tenia 6 horas de idioma – 3 de gramatica y 3 de practicar conversasion. Despues, comi y luego fue al centro de la ciudad por un tour. Vi la cathedral y mercado. Me gusta Cuernavaca mucho.
(Today was my first day in Spanish school. I had 6 hours of language – 3 of grammar and 3 of conversation practice. After, I ate and then went to the center of the city for a tour. We saw the cathedral and market. I like Cuernavaca vey much.)

Estoy aprendiendo muchisimo espanol. No crio cuanto savo por que immersion. Hablo solo espanol aqui – est mejor por aprendir mas. Lociento a si que muchos faultas, pero escribe sin dictionario!
(I am learning lots of Spanish. I can’t believe how much I know because of immersion. I speak only Spanish here -is the best for learning more. I am sorry if there are many mistakes, but I wrote this without a dictionary!)

Photos de Cuernavaca:

September 11, 2012July 3, 2018

Summer of ’12

We were excited to meet our Austin, Texas friends Blake and Jessa for a weekend of camping in Waterton National Park. They are the first of our friends from Guyana to come visit us in Canada (no pressure)! We caught up around the campfire and hiked the famous Crypt Lake Trail. Of course, dill pickle chips and Canadian beers were shared. We hope they enjoyed the visit as much as we did.

Panoramic view of Crypt Hike

Sweaty Olsons

Blake and Jess at Crypt Lake

Real Canadian Snow

RobO gave me the best birthday present this year… a weekend backcountry camping trip! We had a beautifully cold 2 nights at Ribbon Lake in Kananaskis, complete with campfires, snow sliding off of our tent in the night, and the promise we can do it again next year. My heart grew three sizes that day.

Fresh start

The peak (campsite lake in background)

Defrosting on a dayhike

“Whadda you mean next year?!”

Ribbon Lake

September 11, 2012July 3, 2018

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

November 11, 2011July 3, 2018

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…

November 10, 2011July 3, 2018

A show not made for Mommies and Daddies

What a holiday!
Yesterday we dropped Granny off on Fashion Ave so she could ‘shop ’till she dropped’, then robO and I continued on to the East Village. One of the must-do things on my list was trying a ‘blintz’, and our sources say this is the place to get one. We had our lunch in a park (for the record the blintz was good but not addictive) and wandered through the vintage shops and record stores.
After a quick trip down to see ‘occupy Wall Street’ and where they’re building Tower 1, we had a Mexican dinner and headed to our show – The Book of Mormon.
A few months ago I had listened to a CBC radio interview with a Mormon woman who had gone to the show and said that it was tasteful humor and that she would recommend her Mormon friends to go see it. We, on the other hand, would NEVER suggest this show to any of our Mormon friends (and we have a few of them). In fact, Rob told my parents that this is not a show for Mommies and Daddies!
That being said, it was really funny and a well done show. A little like a Broadway Southpark. robO had a few occasions of knee-slapping laughter.
This morning robO took his turn getting up early for a ticket line – this time Jimmy Fallon. We’ll blog again after this final day in NYC so stay tuned!

November 9, 2011July 3, 2018

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.

November 8, 2011July 3, 2018

New York Minute

It has been a busy time for us so far in NYC! We have been behind in our blogging for a couple of reasons… 1) we haven’t had a minute to spare and 2) we (thus far) do not have a way to connect our camera to our iPad (we’re not kidding ourselves – we know many of our loyal readers are ‘skimmers’ and ‘photo gazers’).

After settling in on Friday night, we started Saturday with a visit to the race package pick up, followed by a visit to the top of the Empire State Building. What a good way to get our bearings in the big apple. The audio tour was well worth it, as was Granny’s wheelchair which got us to the front of all the lines! 🙂 I was tucked into bed early that night after a bit of a rampant carbo load on restaurant row.

Sunday morning was race day! I had to take the 5:30am bus to the start line and my race started at 9:40, so it had picked up some Value Village winter wear for the long wait. Compared to the thousands of other runners with full on sleeping bags and pillows I looked a little unprepared, though I was warm and cozy with my hand warmers tucked into my gloves and waistband.

The weather was perfect for race time and I enjoyed the start line comradery and Sinatra’s send off. Without going into too much detail, the race felt really great (famous last words) until about mile 20 where I started the decline in speed and muscle function. By the finish my shuffling feet got me across the line in a personal best 3:23:02. I was energized through the whole route by the infamous NYC fans and my own personal fans (Anne, Sjanne, RobO, my mom, dad, and Granny). It was a really cool experience.

We finished the day by going to a great Italian restaurant and to a Rangers/Jets game at Madison Square Garden.

Today we were up and at ’em for a big day of sight seeing. No rest for these weary legs!! We spent the morning in Central Park (race finish line revisited and the John Lennon memorial), then to the American Museum of Natural History, and on to a Circle Harbour boat cruise to see the skyline and Liberty herself. Tonight we went to an underground comedy club – how New York! It was improv with Scott Adsit from 30 Rock (props to Roxanne for the recommendation).

On tap for the next few days is more sights, Broadway shows, and, of course, food (that’s why we travel right?).

Empire State Shadow

Taxi

Murray Hill

Mile 25.5

DawnO and ErinP

Strawberry Fields

Constructing Tower1

Lady Liberty

Brooklyn Bridge

30Rock

Tourists

November 2, 2011July 3, 2018

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.

April 30, 2011July 3, 2018

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

April 29, 2011July 3, 2018

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!