Leaving Rhode Island

Quick post:  leaving Rhode Island

Well the plan was originally to have lunch with Greg before leaving but because the weather is nice now with no guarantees for this afternoon and he being concerned with my driving in the dark again, we’re off to Burlington, Vermont now.

I will see if there’s a chance for stopping at the B&J on the way again but they may already be closed by that time.

I’ll try to blog a little tonight when I’m settled in Vermont but will for sure reply to some emails that have been waiting in my inbox.

See you up there!

Weekend Activities in New England

We visited the IHOP for breakfast on Saturday before heading up to Boston for the day. Greg had grandiose plans to hop on the 'T' (the subway for those who aren't too lazy to say the whole thing) and visit the Boston Public Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Commons and then dinner at Legal. We then rearranged plans a little to see our friend who lives in Cambridge and found ourselves first in Harvard Square for a bite of lunch at Grendel's Den.
Now the weather was so gorgeous that we all only wore our shoes. But Boston got a load of snow in the days before the weekend and in the warm temperature it was all melting so there was water and slush everywhere! Poor Liam got himself a good soaker crossing the streets so he and I went off in search of a change of footwear while Greg and the girl stayed behind at the Coop Bookstore to wait for our friend.

The boy and I ended up at the Coop Clothing store and holy cow was I impressed with the magnificent selection of Harvard-wear available here. A whole department store floor of women and men's clothing (let's not even make a comparison to UofW's sampling of clothes) and a big section of kid's clothes too. I found Liam a pair of thick Harvard socks (hee!) and also got both kids long-sleeved tees with Harvard on the front. The book store was equally impressive with 3 floors of books and they even had a small choir singing Christmas carols for the shoppers.

Once we met up with our friend and trucked on down to Grendel's (thanks to Kanti for asking for directions because Greg would have gotten us lost!) and enjoyed the company and meal there wasn't much time for the museum any longer. But we did get another idea to visit the Museum of Science for a Star Wars exhibit but unfortunately there wasn't much time for that either that day.

We hopped back onto the T towards Boston Commons but had to get off because there was construction to the tunnels about halfway there from Cambridge. So we hopped onto a shuttle to get down to the square but got off too soon and ended up walking a ways. Was good though to get some exercise and the weather was still mild. Got a few pictures along the way.

Once we arrived at the square we checked out the Halifax Christmas Tree. This is a tree that the city of Halifax donates to Boston for their eternal gratitude for the aid Boston sent up during the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion. Now we believe this was the Halifax tree, we didn't see a sign. But it was huge and decorated so pretty.
Walking some more through the square we came upon the Frog Pond which is an ice rink in the winter. Lots of people skating and it was interesting to me that no one came with skates. Maybe it was all tourists just renting from the skate shop there. It was pretty busy though and looked like fun.

The Commons is very large and Greg says that it was originally used by the residents of Boston to graze their farm animals. Near the end of the square Greg thought it might be prudent to check if we could reserve a table at Legal for dinner. Well, it was good thinking on his part because the earliest time they could get us in was 5:45p (we called at almost 5pm), after that we'd have to wait until late late late. So there went our plans to see the public library and we just walked through the park a little more before heading straight to Legal.

We waited about an hour for our table by the time we got there. It was jam-packed with people waiting for tables and we were lucky to have reserved even though we still had quite a wait. The kids were terrific and waited patiently without any fuss for the entire time and we ended up having a lovely meal. I had the Dover Sole for which they had to fillet it right at the table in front of me. That was fun to watch and I enjoyed the fish and wine that was paired with it. To end the meal, Greg and I shared a Boston Cream Pie (I could not possibly have resisted that!). It was late already by that time so we just headed straight home. Winks totally dropped off in the car ride home and it's no skin off my back to say Greg didn't last the ride either. *rolls eyes*

Sunday turned out to be a completely relaxing day for us all. Greg let me sleep in (yay me!) while he brought the kids down for breakfast and then, oh the lovely man, he sent me off to have breakfast on my own at the Panera downtown. Panera is a favourite coffee/pastry/sandwich chain of his that he thought I would enjoy. So at about 11am I set off with camera and book in hand to enjoy a morning off.

Because it was yet another gorgeous day I walked through most of historic downtown Newport taking pictures and then down to the wharf to see the water and more pics. Then I had my breakfast at Panera reading my book. I figured that so much time had to have gone by this point so I headed back to find that I'd only been gone for 2 hours! Wow! It was a great treat though.

Then we pretty much vegged all afternoon and at 4:30p Greg decided that it was time to take the kids swimming in the hotel pool. It was at this time that I realized I forgot to pack Liam swim trunks. oy! After it was obvious that he would not fit into Greg's shorts (!) I stomped off to find a place that sold kids clothes and that was still open on a Sunday evening! oh what a dolt I was not to have packed swim trunks! But lo and behold I was lucky enough to find a place open (as well as pretty lucky that everyone is on holiday hours!) and found a few pairs of shorts for Liam to choose from. In about half an hour the family was in the pool!

Afterwards we had a nice Mexican dinner and that was the weekend.

now I have some pics from the weekend at Flickr and you're welcome to check them out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47091617@N00/sets/1564762/

Here's a little sample

Newport City Hall art shot
Originally uploaded by Lara K.

Activities in RI

Here’s some of the things that I’ve been doing while here in RI:

• been shopping.  As I mentioned previously I was at LNT to look for curtains.  I figure that if they had the ones I wanted at home, they’d probably have them here.  Well, here’s the whole story:  I want new curtains for my living room and I found the perfect ones at LNT.  And I had found them ages ago when I first started looking for curtains.  So just last week, I decided to go and get them (actually I wanted to have them installed by the time Greg got back from India, what a surprise that would have been!) but as luck would have it, they were completely sold out!  Seriously, every time I’ve been in to LNT to drool over these curtains, they’d always have many and the one time that I finally get in there to make the purchase, they’re all gone!  So after a bit of weeping that I’ll never find the ones that I want anywhere I did some surfing and found the exact same panels on sale at JC Penney.  And wouldn’t you know that I’d be in the States for a week!  I found a location in Newport not even 5 minutes from the hotel with the plan to go and buy them as soon as I settled in here.  Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans?  It ends up that the JC Penney here is only a catalogue merchant and not actually the whole department store.  Argh!  And this is why I ended up at LNT just down the road from the hotel, hoping that I would find them there without having to drive all the way out to Providence to get them.  At any rate, the LNT didn’t have them either so off to Providence I will go.


• More shopping.  Browsed through Michael’s and realized that I haven’t much time to send out Christmas cards, especially if I wait to start them when I get home.  Saw a lovely design that I’m going to attempt to duplicate and bought all the materials.


• And yet more shopping.  Barnes&Noble is sin itself.  My plan was just to pick out a few cheap books for the kids to browse through while we snacked and I had a coffee in the adjoining coffee shop but it ended up being a couple of hours of browsing and buying yet more Christmas presents and getting ideas for even more Christmas presents.  And I’m not talking about prezzies for people I haven’t already bought for!  These are all ideas for people I’ve already bought tons of gifts for!  I think however I will go back again to pick up a few more things.

• While in the States I always have this strange yearning to go to the local IHOP.  There isn’t anything special about the place really.  It’s like a Denny’s.  But there’s just something about a place called the International House of Pancakes, it just pulls me to it like some sort of magnet, or like a spirit singing me towards my pancake doom.  And what’s even more odd is that the last time I was at an IHOP it was an unpleasant experience, hardly living up to my high expectations.  Yet despite that, I found myself piling the kids into the car, in highly inclement weather to boot, to drive to the IHOP for a bit of breakfast (brunch as it was after 10am by the time I got my butt in gear).  And my faith in the IHOP has been restored!  No wait, no lines and the food was yum yum yummy (though I think anyone would be hard pressed not to impress me with custard stuffed French toast anywhere else).  The girl was equally impressed (and I’m like the best mommy in the world letting her eat sweet, custardy, strawberry drenched bread with sausages and chocolate milk for breakfast!) and the IHOP did well by the boy with their side serving of bacon and totally excellent fun kids menu.

• Watched The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  Opening day, 3:45pm.  Greg got out of work just after noon and after a short snooze we were out the door to watch the flick.  I got a little lost getting to the cinema (which incidently is right across the street from our hotel but I took the long way around, a somewhat fortunate incident in that we saw 2 huge airplane carriers because I did a U-turn at a naval base and we were able to look out over the ocean and the carriers were just sitting in dock – totally cool!), and then had a spot of trouble paying for movie snacks (interac didn’t work for me), which made me miss the first few scenes of the movie.  Once I was settled in though I enjoyed the movie oh so immensely.  It’s an excellent adaptation of the book and the actors played the characters to a tee.  There was only one part that strayed a tiny little bit from the book, which I thought a little unnecessary but it was a very small part and nothing at all to complain over.  It all followed the book very accurately.  My favourite part was the battle with all the different animals and creatures.  Peter did absolutely excellent as did Edmund and I was always reminded of Olivia’s chubby cheeks whenever I watched Lucy.  She was so cute.  And I was suitably impressed by the centaurs.  I do believe it’s a see-again!

• also watched Superman 3 on tv with the winks while we ate dinner.  That is a great movie!  When I was a kid I was in love with Superman.  I wished I was Lois Lane.  *sigh*  really takes me back…

Random Things I've Noticed Here in the US of A

Random things I’ve noticed here in the US of A

• Driving through the “mountains” of Vermont the snow drifts are strange and beautiful.  The snow swirls up and around on the sides of the highway in the oddest places one wouldn’t think the wind would even be blowing.  And the snow looks lovely swirling in the wind, making circles in the air along the road, not like at home where the wind will just blow the snow straight across the highway.  Also, the weather changed so quickly up there.  One minute we’d be up high and the snow would be raging down in a blizzard, the skies all gray and forboding.  Then we’d dip into a valley and the snow disappeared and the sun would be shining and the skies all clear and blue!

• They have pretty much the same kid shows down here as they do at home.  However, watching a couple of the shows I noticed something rather weird.  One of the shows, Little Robots, had all new music for the intro and all the characters sounded different.  I thought it odd that they would have all different voices but thought nothing else of it.  Then Peppa Pig came on and it hit me what the difference was in the shows from back home.  These americans have redone all the voices so none of the characters have accents!  Both Little Robots and Peppa Pig are Brit shows and have all been re-dubbed for viewing here.  What the…?  How ridiculous…  It’s not as if the accents would render the characters unintelligible.  Why do they do that?

• I believe New Hampshire has only one liquor store in the entire state.  Either that or the powers that be in that state have one strange sense of location when it comes to liquor stores.  So the winks and I are tooting along Hwy 93 and there’s a sign for a Rest Area coming up.  You know, it’s one of those stops along the highway that cars can drive off.  Sometimes they have facilities, other times it’s only just a place that people can go to stretch their legs or take a snooze.  Anyway, this rest area is special because along with the sign for the Rest Area is also a sign for an N.H. Liquor Store.  Now I don’t know about you, but my first thought at reading the 2 signs together was that they just seemed so at odds with each other.  It’s like a welcome sign for drivers to come and take a rest and have a little nip of something while you’re at it!  Definitely another “What the…?” moment.  Then as we drove past the rest area/liquor store I was even more surprised to see that the liquor store was huge!  It’s like a warehouse just off the highway!  So so odd…  and funny…  and just a little disturbing.

• It doesn’t matter how far away you get from home you’ll always find things that are exactly like home.  For instance, people who work at Wendy’s don’t really want to be working there.  Also, people curse at their cellphones here the same as they do at home.  (I know I curse at my cellphone all the time and I giggled when I saw a woman doing exactly the same thing as I drove by her the other day.)  And I’ve found that I can spend just as much time shopping in Linens ‘N Things, Michael’s and Barnes&Noble here as I do at home (though it’s Chapters at home).

• Avoid traffic in the big cities here as you would back home.  I got stuck in Montreal traffic on Tuesday.  Then I got stuck in Boston traffic on Wednesday.  Note to self:  find another way home next week that does not involve driving anywhere near big cities, regardless of the time of day, but definitely during rush hour.

I’m sure there’s more that I’ve noticed but I’ve forgotten for now…

I made it to RI!
It's currently 4:30am and Greg and I are up enjoying a pint (each) of Ben&Jerry's. :D
(Yes, I did go to the factory but yes, I did make it to RI!)

As soon as we finished dinner though once we got in, we lost power in the room, so at 9pm we all tooted off to bed. We got up however because the kids were hacking but I think we'll be off to sleep again soon to get a few zzz's before 7am.

will write more tomorrow, especially regarding the drive down.

So I don't sound like such a grumpy old man I'm going to post something fun (though I am grrr'ing about my teeth being sore, but I won't bore you with the details or the hissy fit).

ok, go download this song and I challenge you NOT to shake your money-maker:

darn... can't get yousendit to work right now. This challenge is on hold until I can actually get this song downloaded.
*trying not to have a full-blown hissy fit*

***

and while I'm on the music train of thought, I found that song that I heard on some movie soundtrack but couldn't remember the words and only the tune. It's called Mad World by Gary Jules. If anyone is so inclined to download it and yousendit to me I would be eternally grateful. Of course, if no one bites then I'll just do it myself when I'm home...

ewww! All I can smell in my room now is cigarette smoke.
It's so disgusting! I mean, really disgusting.

I have a non-smoking room. I started to wonder why the hotel would bother to put a non-smoking room to an adjoining smoking room until I went out into the hallway to find that the room next to us is a non-smoking room too. Do I call to complain? I certainly don't want to be moved now that the kids are lying down for the night. I resorted to putting a towel at the foot of the door but it's all in my nose now. Y-U-C-K!

grrr... if I have to grrr one more time tonight I'm throwing a hissy fit!

cripes! honestly this Blogger is getting me down.
I haven't a clue why I can get to this blog from my profile but not from my username link (ie. from Greg's blog for instance). seriously, LJ kind of kicks Blogger's *ss! ;)

anyway, I totally had something I wanted to post about and now have completely forgotten what it is in trying to figure out Blogger. grrrr.....

ok, so I have driven down to Burlington, Vermont today as the halfway point between home and Rhode Island where the winks and I will be spending a week with the hub. am currently kicking back in the hotel with the winks, we're all in our jams and watching cartoons on the Toon Network before bed. got free high-speed internet and a currently operating laptop so I'm going to enjoy while I can before it crashes and burns on me!

on another happy note, we may visit the Ben&Jerry's ice-cream factory before heading to RI tomorrow.

And last but certainly not least,
Happy Birthday Erica! :D