so, to continue the weekend recap, on saturday we took the corolla to the local dealer to get its starting problems fixed. later, they told us the starter was hosed, so that had to be replaced. i also had them replaced all the drive belts, oil, and coolant at the same time. i picked up the car on monday, and all seemed well (except for our emergency account balance for november).
saturday we also had brunch erika and dave at solid grounds. nathan, katy, and her s. o. were also there. katy had just gotten back recently from a trip from italy and was telling us about the trip. during brunch, amanda and i decided to go to dave’s time share place north of toronto with him and erika. we would only be there for the night and part of the day sunday; dave and erika would stay for the entire week.
i spent the rest of the afternoon working since i had thought amanda and i would be working on sunday; amanda amused herself by cleaning up the apartment. piglet simply looked angry that she could not go outside. our kitchen sink developed a pinpoint hole in its s-tube drain thing (whatever its called), so that was a bit of a bummer, but fortunately, it leaks very very slowly. i plugged it with some caulking until the landlord can take care of it.
we took off for canada kinda late in the evening; amanda just followed dave in our car since we were being cavelier with directions and whatnot. we stopped on the duty free shop on the peace bridge so dave could stock up on various alcoholic beverages (which we distributed amongst ourselves to avoid any bonus duties).
we stopped in toronto’s chinatown for dinner. its was pretty cold, but i suppose that was to be expected. we settled on a vietnamese place called ms. saigon. amanda and i had a six course veggie dinner for two for a mere $21 canadian total. it was very very tasty, but amanda could not eat the soup because it had too much cilantro; cilantro tastes soapy to her for some genetic reason (exact process is unknown to me, tho i have heard of it). dave bought crazy amounts of food; he rattled off all kinds of orders to the waitress (who for some reason was wearing very visible dark blue underwear underneath her pale yellow dress). however, he intended on taking the extra stuff back to the timeshare anyway.
amanda was shocked that the big fish tank with the huge colorful carp was not really for decoration, but so people could verify their dinner would be fresh! i was not really sure initially myself, since they were very colorful and seemed decorative, but the table beside us had actually ordered one.
anyway, it was the kind of place i wished existed in buffalo or ithaca, but i suppose that’s one of the benefits of living in a truly large multicultural city.
after dinner we headed to the resort place which was about 100km north of toronto. dave definitely had a leadfoot; i could not keep up with him even going around 81mph. i was a bit nervous driving that fast (quite a bit over the limit) since the conditions for speeding were not optimal (lots of hiding places for the authorities, most traffic going slow, sparse traffic), so after a while dave just vanished ahead of me. we caught up with him before exiting the highway as he had slowed down to wait for us.
we got to the timeshare (which was very condo-like) very late, so all of us just went to bed. it turned out that the heat did not work in the unit, so everyone felt pretty frigid. i tend to give off heat like a blast furnace, so perhaps amanda and i did not notice as much.
the next morning, amanda and i slept a bit late while erika and dave sat in bed, watched tv, and ate their vietnamese leftovers. we eventually got up and considered the timeshare; it was basically a one bedroom condo unit, with large master bedroom, kitchen area, living room, and jacuzzi. it was rather nice. i don’t know how many units there were in the resort, but there were quite a lot.
the resort itself had the usual stuff: restaurants, spa, bars, pools, golf courses, skiing, etc.. it was the shoulder season; too early to ski (which is what dave would normally do) even though there was snow on the ground. but, then we were there only for the novelty, so it didn’t really matter. amanda and i ate breakfast at the main building, and then we went off to explore the surrounding area for a couple of hours before heading back home to buffalo.
the area was very touristy… lots of what i assume are summer homes by the beaches. of course, practically everything was closed down for the season. we stopped in one town whose name i forget and looked into a shop (“pedro’s”) that weirdly was open. it sold that usual random knick-knacks, statues, elvises, and had a miniature golf couse and water slides in the back. the guy didn’t seem to understand why we were around, but then, why was he even open?
after more random cruising about, coffee at another bar/restaurant (“the surf shop”) in another little town, we headed back to condo. the maintenance staff was unable to get the heat working, but the fake fireplace was able to pump a lot of heat out. dave was inclined to demand reimbursement (i.e. free food and stuff) for the inconvenience. he is an “owner” after all.
we took off around 5pm to head back. not surprisingly, since we did not have a map and neither of us had much experience with the area north of toronto, we managed to waste much time getting across the city especially since there was an mysterious amount of traffic for a sunday night. eventually we stopped to get a map and gas, and all was well.
amanda and i were a bit brain dead by the time we got back to buffalo since we had nothing much to eat all day, so we stopped at olive garden for a late dinner. i was going to do a lot of work once we got home, but i had a killer headache, so i alternated working and spacing out while amanda watched the divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood. eventually, amanda went to bed whilst i kept working and spacing out, until i went to bed as well.
monday, amanda and i worked. amanda started ob/gyn clinic so no more surgery for her for a while perhaps. i did not go to the gym as would be normal, since there was much work to be done and i had to arrange to pick up the corolla anyway. when amanda came home we had rice and beans for dinner and then went to erika’s place to feed and check up on her cat. amanda finished watching her movie, and i worked and puttered about until around 2am. such is life.
this entry certainly is a long one… toronto was nice. we should go back more often, but i suppose the usual limitations of time and money (more time since toronto is so close) conspire against us.