My favourite little button

Chris and I finally had a free Sunday, so we hauled our asses off to Oakville to visit one, Maxwell Hunter Carefoot. We picked up the cutest onesie with a robot print from Hard Boiled (‘cause Max is a hipster baby).

Maxy Poo Poo had just turned nine weeks old and is one adorable little man.


Scott and Kat fired up the BBQ and we had ourselves a nice little afternoon lunch. Scott is the master of the grill, so the steaks were perfect, grill marks and all. I had gotten up early that morning to make the accoutrements (cole slaw and potato salad).

After lunch, we fired up the digi cam that Kat’s mom had just passed along to her.

Here is Max looking very unhappy in sunglasses, while his parents look so happy about their little bundle of joy:


And this is the cutest shot of them all. My favourite little button taking a snooze on my shoulder:


If you haven't seen this kid yet, I suggest you invite yourself over ASAP. You have to see Max to believe how cute he is.

Congratulations again Kat and Scott! You make good babies.

Travelocity and Expedia hate communists

So I am not in the mood to do much work today. And on these sorts of days I like to research pretend holidays. Today I thought I’d pretend to go to Cuba.

My favourite sites to use for this sort of thing are either Expedia or Travelocity, mainly because they search a bunch of different airlines and hotels.

So I started off with Travelocity and like a good Canadian I went to the dot ca site instead of the dot com.

Here’s what I got returned to me from my search:

So then I tried Expedia. Again on the dot ca site. Here’s what I got:



From what I last heard, Canadians were free to travel to Cuba.

I’m so glad that both Expedia and Travelocity so generously made the call for me as to whether or not I can go to Cuba — despite the fact that Canadians are free to travel co Cuba and I was on their Canadian sites. This will make it much easier to never ever use their Web sites to book another flight or hotel from them.

Tom Cruise is Pure Cheese

Ah the double finger air poke. You would think that in this day and age that it's done purely for comical reasons.

Tom still thinks it's the perfect pose.

I laughed my ass at this.

Eurotrip 2006

I do realize that this is a bit late coming as I’ve been back for about two weeks now. However, there have been a lot of things happening both at work and personally. I will have an update on some of it a bit later on.

For now, I just want to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Europe. Chris and I spent three days in London, three days in Paris and another three days in London. Then Chris went home and I was off to Florence with my good friend Hilda. Thanks to Hilda for putting us up while we were in London.

Here are my highlights.

London

• Shopping! I got red ruffled shoes, Jack Purcells, two bags, cufflinks, travel stuff from Muji. I love me some London shopping.
  
• The best curry outside of India. We had amazing Indian food on Brick Lane.
• Chez Bruce. This place cost us an arm and leg, but it was soooo worth it. The best duck I’ve ever had in my life and a cheese plate to die for.
• Eric Clapton at Royal Albert Hall. I’m not a huge fan, but to see him play at this venue was awesome.
• Tate Modern. I saw a lot of museums on this trip. This was my favourite by far. Great collection.
• The Thames. Low due to drought, but still powerful.
• Avenue Q. If you’re ever in New York or London, I highly recommend this show. Puppets giving each other oral sex!
• Fish and chips. I love love love fish and chips at the Rock and Sole Plaice. Chris and I had it as often as we could. Sadly this was only twice.
• Borough Market. I made Hilda and Chris go here almost every day. It’s like St. Lawrence Market on steroids. I cannot get enough of this place. I had the best bacon ever at this place. I still dream of that bacon…

Paris

• The Marais. This was the only area in Paris that wasn’t torn down and re-built by Napoleon. My absolute favourite part of Paris. We stayed at a cute little hotel here.
• Café culture. We’d have a cappuccino in the morning. Walk around a bit. Stop by for a glass of wine or a beer. Walk some more. More wine and beer. I love cafés.
• Steak frites. Chris and I had this every night we were there.
• Boulangeries, fromageries and bouchers. I wish grocery shopping were like this in Toronto.
• Charcuterie. Pork done 15 different ways. Does it get any better?
• Bordeaux wines. Chris and I spent 40 Euros on two bottles to bring back. A 1999 Bordeaux for under 20 Euros! What a steal!
• L’As du Falafel. The best falafel I’ve ever had. The eggplant was like butter.
• Chez Denise. Good traditional, rustic French cooking. Foie gras and steak frites. This place kicked ass.
• The Seine. The most romantic river ever.
• Louis Vuitton on the Champs Elysées. We had champagne while we waited for our purchase (his and hers wallets). Bling bling.
• Seeing Winged Victory at the Louvre.
• The view of Paris from Restaurant Georges, at the top of the Centre Pompidou.
• Losing Chris at the Gare du Nord. Poor guy. I had his passport and his ticket, plus he couldn't speak a word of French. Boy was he sweating bullets. Not so funny at the time, but fricking hilarious now!
  

Florence

• Even more shopping! We went to the outlets and cleaned up. Prada shoes, a Balenciaga bag and a Gucci bag for my sister. Add to that two more pairs of shoes, white gold pavé star earrings, two bottles of wine (including a 30 Euro Chianti) and two sets of La Perla lingerie for 240 Euro (the most I have ever spent on lingerie, but I have a boyfriend now.)
• Bistecca alla Fiorentina. Almost a kilo of steak, cooked rare, drenched in extra virgin olive oil. We had this with white bean salad, asparagus and a kick-ass bottle of Chianti.
• Fresh pasta. I am not normally a fan, but I ate it every day and effing loved it.
• Mercato Centrale. We ate here almost every day. Parma ham, authentic Florentine trippa burger (tripe burger), stews, pasta and gypsies — this place had it all.
• Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. I could not stop staring at this painting. It was breathtaking.
• Gelato. Pistachio gelato that actually tasted like pistachio. We had this every single day for a week.
• Buca Mario. So good, we had to eat here twice.
• Wild boar. I had this with pappardelle in a sauce the first time, then again as an entrée served with the best polenta.
• Chianti. We had a bottle every single night we were there. It doesn’t get any better.
• Piazzas. Why doesn’t Toronto have a piazza? Florence had dozens!
• The Arno. Simply gorgeous.
• Pontevecchio. The best jewellery you’ll ever find. True Florentine craftsmanship and tons of vintage art deco pieces (my favourite).
• Salvatore Ferragamo museum. This man was a genius.
• Boboli Gardens. The Medicis knew how to do excess well. This garden is huge and amazing.
• Basilica of Santa Croce. The tombs of Michelangelo and Marconi!

Overall a fantastic trip. After being away with no Internet access for a total of 17 days, I am much more relaxed. Check out my photos on Flickr.