Travels with Dan

From Curling to Movies

The week is thundering by! Our trip to Las Vegas seems like a lifetime ago when really it’s been less than a week. Thursday and Friday were spent playing catch-up. I had two days of work to get through; Glen was at work as usual. Because we’d just been away and spent a bunch of money, we decided to forgo skiing (which leave us with just one more ski day for this season).

Curling

Instead of going skiing on Saturday, we went curling instead. Our friend Cam is in a gay curling team (nothing to do with hairdressing, just so we’re clear) and the Canadian gay curling championships were taking place. Knowing next to nothing about the sport of curling (other than what I picked up from watching that David Attenborough narrated spoof), we were keen to go along and watch this quaint sport in action.

Julian and Nat came along too, and Dave, Antony and Josh showed up as well as it was near their house. We had a good position on the top floor where we could check out all the action taking place on the ‘sheets’. Cam and his team (Cam and the Holograms) were on Sheet B…and I don’t know who they were playing against. I probably should have asked.

Anyway, Cam had given us a few pointers before he’d gone to play, but luckily there was a knitting woman sitting near us who helpfully told us what the hell was going on. And when we thought it was a bad shot, she said it was good, and vice versa. We were also clued in, ever so subtly, to Cam as he looked up at us and silent swore after particular shots. It was actually fun to watch and the two hour match went by pretty quickly.

After the game, Glen, Julian, Nat and I went for lunch at Prohibition Gastropub, and then home to have a nap. The intention was to go out later that evening after Julian and Nat got home from dinner but…Glen and I were too comfortable on the couch getting through more episodes of House of Cards. We’d watched six the night before and then another four on Saturday night. By the time Nat and Julian were home and ready to go out, we were ready for bed. Sad but true.

Shopping and Eating

On Sunday we lost an hour as daylight savings kicked in. It took me a long while to understand why I had woken up so late. We pottered around at home for a while before going shopping with Nat and Julian at Loblaw’s. They were hosting dinner that night and needed supplies. I needed a few things as I was making stuffed mushrooms to bring. We also just needed more food.

Back at home we finished watching House of Cards. The season is finished now. All 13 episodes devoured. Now we must wait until next year for more. I joked to Glen that we’d have to return next year for a weekend in February to watch the fourth season. At least, I think it was a joke.

In the evening we went down to Julian’s for dinner with the neighbours. There was a tonne of food that Julian had made and everyone brought something too. There were so many leftovers. It had felt like a long time since we’d seen everyone when it’s probably only been a couple of weeks. It was really good so see them, and made me feel a little sad about going home and not having the opportunity to do this again.

A New Week

Monday and Tuesday haven’t been all that thrilling. More work. Went to the gym. It’s now over 0°C in Toronto and everything is melting. The ice that’s left is black and there are lots of cigarette butts and rubbish just left on the side of the road. It’s pretty gross. Don’t need the Canada Goose jackets at the moment, that’s for sure. I hope it doesn’t melt too much just yet as I want to go to an outdoor ice skating rink on Sunday and I’ll be really annoyed if it’s melted by then.

Tonight Glen and I went to the movies to see a French comedy called Serial (Bad) Weddings. It’s about a family in which three of the four daughters have married, for want of a better term, “non-French” men, so a Muslim, a Jew and a Chinese man. The parents are “French” and despair of this, there’s lots of racial tension between all of them. The fourth daughter says she’s getting married. The parents are relieved when the daughter says he’s Catholic but she doesn’t reveal that’s he’s black. And it goes from there… The upshot of it all was that everyone’s racists but we can all get along.

We laughed a lot. It was typical French farce with plenty of the jokes cutting close to the bone. It was ridiculous in parts but we had a good chuckle. I’d recommend going to see it.