Month: December 2004

Went on a walkabout of Leicester today. The only museum that was supposed in fact wasn't, but we did see New Walk Lane, which was really nice, then Victoria Park, Ayleston Road Cemetary, the Leicester Tigers rugby pitch, Leicester University campus, and Castle Gardens. Katy describes Leicester as a generally minging (i.e. crappy) place with a few hidden jewels here and there. I agree.

Had coffee with Rita and her friend Matthew and then went on a bit of a shopping run in the market, the Shires and the Arcades. I bought some books at Whaterstones for a good price (until you factor in the exchange rate), and bought myself a Pink Floyd vinyl at a retro shop. I have decorating plans for that thing :)

Got home just before my feet really started to hurt – perfect timing – where Katy's mom had a real authentic Indian curry dinner waiting for us. Can you say NUMMY? That was toe-curling good!.

Had a good talk with Katy's parents about our upcoming trip to London and now Katy is inflicting some sort of brit comic on me. Must go watch…

Went to see House of Flying Daggers at the cinema. The movie is nice eye candy, but at the same time, it is just baaaaaaaad! The characters are insipid and the story doesn't go anywhere.

Best review quote: “that girl should have stayed dead the first time”.

Tesco is a Leicester institution. From what I managed to gather, it started out of a little jewish guy selling teabags on a street corner and is now a huuuuuuuuuuge superstore chain. Imagine a weird cross between Zellers, Canadian Tire, Future Shop and Loblaws and you get Tesco. It's a place where you can do your groceries, shop for clothes, get your tires aligned, buy oil for a lube job and buy a big screen TV all under one roof.

Food shopping, while different from my usual jaunts with Sara, was still nonetheless fun. I'd brought my camera with me and delighted in teasing Katy by taking pictures of everything and generally embarassing her :) My favourite quote of hers was oh dear lord, he's taking pictures of the cheese followed by a shake of her head. Heeheehee!

It still unnerves me that their grocery stores have a better scotch selection than the neighborhood SAQ. They also have tesco brand EVERYTHING! Tesco vodka, Tesco VSOP cognac, even Tesco Champagne!!!

I have photographic evidence of these outrageous claims, but it'll have to wait a bit until I can upload them. In the meantime, look for yourself here: http://www.tesco.com/

Went shopping today with Katy and her parents. It's weird. Different brands than what I'm used to seeing, different chains. Went to an electronics store, the equivalent of future shop, because my digicam had rekindled the gadget lust of Katy's father. He bought a cool camera with a photo printer, hehe. I'm a bad influence, according to Katy :D

Shopping is an interesting adveture. I'm constantly going, oooooh, cheap until I realize that the price is in quids and i have to multiply it by 2.4, durrrr. Still, I managed to find some interesting stuff, and I want to hit the tea shop and a bookstore while I'm here.

Oh, and just so you know, while I'm writing this, Jeff is scampering across the keyboard and sniffing madly at my shirt. Just wanted to share that.

I watched a movie with Katy last night called Shooting Fish. At one point, one of the guys is dancing with Kate Beckinsale and utters the cheesiest line in movie history. It made me giggle:

I want to pleasure you with my tongue…

It rained last night. Finally. All this blue sky was getting me worried.

Went out and about yesterday. I got my first “I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto” moment. It wasn't people driving on the wrong side of the road, or the architecture, or the crosswalks. It was seeing friggin' razor wire EVERYWHERE! People put the stuff on top of fences around parking lots. It's nuts…

We went to the Space Center, the millenium project of Leicester. It was a fun visit. Got a good case of vertigo while taking a picture of a Thor booster rocket. After that, we walked along Abbey Park to the city center for a bit of shopping for dinner. It is profoundly bizarre to go food shopping here. Brands are different, formats and containers as well for the brands that I do know. Another jolting moment is to see that you can buy scotch and vodka and other types of booze in a corne store. Another weird moment came when we went to Marks & Spencer for food. That used to be a clothing chain in Canada before they closed their doors. Here, it sells just about anything you want.

One place I want to go back to is Whittards. They have the coolest selection of coffees and teas I've seen in a long time. I'm going to bring back some for myself. Anybody want anything?

I'm your ally, but I can't do much to help you… Katy's dad.

You're way too soft on her… Katy's mom.

Yesterday was food and booze. Today will be food and booze. I foresee a theme here.

Travel is a pain.

Air Canada deserves to go under, with the quality of service they're offering.

My mom drove me to McDonald-Cartier airport at 3:45 for a 6am flight. Loads of time, you'd think. Of course not! The check-in counters weren't manned yet, and people were still in line from all the weather cancelled flights from the 23rd. To make a long and tedious story short, I checked-in at 5:30, passed the security checkpoint in 5:45 (with every square inch of my body beeping – even my wallet, a new one for me) and finally sat down in the plane for 5:55. We were an hour late for liftoff.

Toronto-Pearson was a blur. We got there, had to rush to take a shuttle to get to the right gate. I just had enogh time to stop at the duty-free for a bottle of scotch for Katy's dad before making it to the gate. My flught was scheduled to leave at 9, I sat down at 8:45. We finally ended up taking off 1h45 min late. Urgh.

What can I say about the trip. It was long. I ate the food I'd packed, listened to all my pink floyd albums on minidisc and watched I,Robot. Got to Heathrow, breezed through customs and baggage claim and saw my sweetie. As a side note, Heathrow has the politest elevators I've ever seen. After a drive where Katy, her dad and her uncle scared me with children TV show references, we got to her place and promptly went to bed (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

This morning was spend watching Jeff eat breakfast cereal (I have to say it, the little rat is kyooooote) and opening presents. Yay, presents :D I'll write more later. Now is time for food and drink.

Today was hectic. What should have been a chill day kinda sorta rapidly devolved. Woke up this morning, realized that I didn't have any more coffee. Always a sure sign of trouble to come.

The spare keys I'd had made for Sara and my sister so they could come and take care of Boris didn't work. The locksmith had miscut them, so I had to go back downtown early this morning and have new keys cut. Got downtown, only to find that the locksmith didn't open until 30 minutes. I bought a large coffee and went to get some UK money and a new epipen. Finally got the keys cut, and headed home to make sure they worked. They did, woohoo.

After making a list and checking it way too many times, I called a cab and went to give Sara her set of keys and head to the bus station in the ohpes of catching the noon bus. GAAH! I have NEVER seen that many people at the bus stop. To make a long story short, I had to wait a stupid amount of time to get my ticket, then wait a stupider amount of time to finally get on the bus. I got in to Ottawa at 3pm.

So, I'm now at my parents' place, waiting to leave at 3am to arrive at the Ottawa airport for 4am for my 6am flight to Toronto. From there, my flight to London leaves at 9am. Or that's the plan. Reality is…. I dunno. The shit weather meant that no flight went in or out from Ottawa today, and Pearson had a hundred flights cancelled. Last time I checked, the weather forecast for Ottawa was clear, with flurries for Toronto. Both my flights are still on schedule, according to the Air Canada website. I'll keep you guys updated. Pray for nice weather. I will :)

Before I sign off, I'm going to take a moment to wish all of you people in LJ land a merry xmas and a happy new year. I met a lot of you this year through this forum, and I'm glad I did. You make my life a better place. Love you all :)