The Ocean's Cool Side

Safely arrived in Germany!

However, that doesn't mean that my senses have caught up with my body; I think they are still floating around Amsterdam. I do hope that jet lag will be kind enough to give them back to me by tomorrow.

My last week back at home was exceptionally enjoyable, including a trip to the Green Door with my favourite ladies, a trip to Lennoxville with much moving and too much pizza, a delightful outing to Merrickville, which included a yummy restaurant and fudge and a neat museum, and a fun trip with Alex and Andrea to Canada's Wonderland and shortly afterwards, to Barry's funny new dwelling in Waterloo.

The Green Door was better than I thought it was going to be, and Merrickville was colder than I thought it would be, but Lennoxville was, unfortunately, just as rainy as expected. Speaking of fudge, I still have a piece of it with me. Lucky the lady behind the counter let us sample it, so I didn't accidentally end up buying a piece of that smores vomitrotious stuff. The chocolate fudge is simply divine, and we bought a pound and a half of it.

Wonderland was a lot of fun, and it was much warmer than last year's expedition. Also, because it was a Tuesday in May, there were hardly any line-ups and no screeching children! Next year, I am hoping that a bunch of us will be able to go to an amusement park because halfway through the day, Andrea and Alex wimped out, whilst I was still going strong (you can call me, "Stomach of Steel"). That's right, next year, whether she likes it or not, Alanna is coming with me!

We ended up seeing the Da Vinci code that night, which was surprisingly just how I thought it was going to be. I was anticipating great things from it, but then my brother warned me that it was not that great, so my expectations were considerably lowered. It really doesn't matter either way because I thought the movie was great, and unlike many avid readers who have read the book before, I wasn't expecting a magical way that they were going to incorporate their thoughts (only accessible from the novel) into the action. In movies, it is always less prominent, and I knew that going into it.

Thursday night, I left Montreal airport and was bound for Amsterdam. I switched flights there and got on a quick flight to Frankfurt. Despite a few train and bus confusions, I managed to find the hostel in Frankfurt, and after almost 12 hours of sleep (interrupted, however), I made it to Bonn with the group and am raring to go. I had forgotten how utterly quaint and pretty all the towns are here and how you come across a town every few kilometres you travel. The roads are impossibly small, and the shops are impossibly lovely. It is neat hearing German everywhere you go, and it is even more fun trying to answer questions when they are expecting that you are a fluent and extremely fast speaker as they are. Not always easy, but it is fun, and they are always understanding.

The German spoken here is a lot more hoity toity compared to the few Austrian speakers that I am accustomed to hearing. It is clear, albeit quite quick at times. I am looking foward to hearing the accent of those in Bavaria.

Much more to come! And much more sausages (Wurst) and pretzels (Bretzel) to be consumed!