The Urminskys

And so to Canada

Filed under: Uncategorized — Neyir @ 12:45 am Comments 10

Hello folks, sorry to have not posted earlier. I had a lovely if uneventful flight on Friday, the most annoying bit was having to wait for 45 min for my bags. I managed to stay up until 10pm and even slept until 8am on Saturday morning. After a nice and relaxing breakfast with David and his fantastic parents, David and I jumped into the car and headed to Belleville. This was not originally in the plans but as there was snow on the ground and we were headed to Montreal, the birthplace of Canadian snow, we thought we had better stop off at my parents and pick up my boots. Happily both of my parents were home and we had a brief but wonderful visit and located my boots - Basil however is a little confused about the whole thing.

We spent the weekend in Montreal with my wonderful friend Michelle who I met in first year at McGill and her husband Jeremy. We were treated to yummy Mexican inspired food and delicious chocolate cake and spent lots of time shopping - I was obsessively trying to find jeans (it seemed reasonable as Jeremy is a designer and Michelle knows more about jeans than I would have thought possible, but I am impossible!! - sorry guys.) The best part of the weekend though was just having the chance to hang out and get to know each other. Michelle, Jeremy and David had only met at our wedding and Michelle and I have not spent more than an afternoon together in 6 years or so!!! They were fantastic hosts and we also got lots of cuddling in with their cat Ella - though she may never recover from the trauma!!!!

We are now back in Toronto and will be here until Christmas day when we will head back to Belleville. I believe our agenda is mostly full of time spent with friends and family, a little shopping and I suspect some chocolate!!!

So far the things about Canada that make me happy are, in no particular order;

1. Seeing our parents and being reminded yet again how blessed we are.
2. Getting to re-connect with friends.
3. Going to Tim Hortons
4. How darn nice everybody is.
5. Snow, crisp air and Canadian vegetation.
6. Realising how funny we really do sound - I don’t think Bob and Doug were overdoing it at all!
7. Knowing exactly how every social interaction is going to go and how to handle it.
8. Being smothered, cared for and loved in the way that makes you so totally relaxed.
9. Driving in a car on the ‘other side of the road’.
10. Recycling - it is everywhere!!!!!

Snow Report

Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 2:24 pm Comments 1

Yesterday I got to drive through a snow storm. I was only driving from Toronto to Cambridge (Ontario) a distance of only about 100 km. But the snow was coming down fast and piling up on the highway. I was pleased to note that even though I haven’t been living in climate where this happens frequently, I was still at ease with the snow and was doing even better than some poor suckers who ended up in the ditch on the side of the road.

My destination was Ben and Amy’s house. Ben is an old friend from my Undergrad. He was the other guy in my program. We had every class together and we drank a lot of beer and ate lots of nachos and wings together. For old time sake we went to the local watering hole for some Richard’s Red (its a beer) and had nachos, wings, battered cheese sticks and some other stuff that made us feel really gross. It was awesome. It made us feel like we were too old cause in the past we could eat that stuff and feel great. Now, we had to crash on the couch and recuperate. There was lots of “do you remember the time…” and “What happened to … ” and “Mmmmmm beer and nachos”.

I drove back early this morning and was happy that the snow wasn’t shoveled yet from my parents drive way as I got to do it! I can’t believe I miss shoveling snow.

Today Neyir arrives in Toronto….Woo Hoo… It will be nice to be reunited with her. The unfortunate part of her arriving is that I will become none existent to my mother (she has been pampering me, since the moment of my arrival) as she dumps me for her daughter in law. After raising 3 boys, my Mother is desperate for female companionship. The pampering will shift to Neyir and I’ll have to get up off my butt. Ahh, well… Neyir deserves it. After all, she has to live with me!

Snow

Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 1:08 pm Comments 4

As I write this it is currently snowing outside. Not very hard, but there is snow nonetheless. This is one of the things that Neyir and I miss most about Canada, the seasons. You just don’t get extreem weather conditions in edinburgh (high winds and rain doesn’t count!). When I landed Monday night I purposely waited outside in the -15C weather for my parents to pick me up instead of waiting inside where it was warm. It was a nice crisp cold feeling. My snot was freezing in my nose and I was loving it! I was most happy to see that my body is still able to cope with semi cold weather and hasn’t been corrupted by the warm weather of Vancouver and Edinburgh.

One of the weird things about being back is that I am surrounded by Canadian Accents. Everywhere I go, people are speaking with the good old maple leaf speak. I even hear the phrase “Double Double”. I almost cried.

Oh yeah, the shower pressure here is out of control! I had almost forgotten what a nice powerfull spray of water feels like. Proper central heating is great too. My parents even cranked up the heat a few degrees for my first two days here.

Today I head to the eye doctor, the hairdresser and my GP. Perhaps even the Roots Store to get a sweater and a new briefcase bag.

Lets hope I still remember how to drive in the snow. It is probably the same as remembering how to ride a bike. It’ll come back!

Planes, doritos and some yummy chicken

Filed under: Uncategorized — David @ 11:25 am Comments 5

My journey began with a mad dash down Leith Walk so that I could make the bus from St. Andrews Square to Glasgow Airport. I could have waited for the bus but I figured I could use that 80p instead on Doritos and Coke. Next began the slowest bus ride I ever took to Glasgow. I haven’t taken he bus that often to Glasgow but this seemed abnormally slow. Not only was that bus slow but the bus from the Glasgow bus station to the airport seemed to take forever.
Glasgow airport was very uneventful. I purchased my Doritos and Coke and made my way to the gate to read my book and eat the doritos. This is one of my favorite time during traveling. I like getting to the airport early and relaxing while staring at people, reading a book and eating doritos.
The flight I that I figured was only about 6 hours was in fact a 8 hour groulling affair, marked with a 2.5 hour span of heavy air turbulence. Man Alive, for the first time while flying I thought I was going to puke. It was so bad on of the flight attendance took a nose dive in the aisle right in front of me. She was alright but shaken up. On top of all this there was a English racist jerk beside me poking fun at various ethnic/sexual groups. I was not impressed. I told the guy off and hoped that would be the end of it. But then I had to put up with him hitting on the stewardesses. Can you belive he was actually a Canadian as well. Maybe we need to be a little more selective who we let in the Motherland!
There were also an unusual number of older people on the plane. It was a little surreal how many there were. I’m sure they were all just going to visit family in Canada, but it was still a little strange. Twice during all the turbulence the pilot asked for a doctor to come to the front o the airplane to deal with people with heart problems. I also thought the woman across the aisle from me was going to die at any moment. She looked like death!

I couldn’t even escape into the movies. How does this sound for a good entertainment:
-some Christmas movie staring Ben Afleck
-the polar express
- and bewitched
Yeah… crappy movies! The only cool thing about the entertainment was they also showed a Warren Miller Ski movie. I love Warren Millar Ski movies. Especially living in Scotland for so long where there is mostly rain and very little snow!
The landing was a little sketch. The plane did an abnormally large amount of swerving on the runway, I wasn’t scared but after the plane settled down on the runway, there was a lot of clapping from the octogenarian. I guess they appreciate life just a little more than someone my age.
The Highlight of the journey was the stop at Swiss Chalet for the Quarter Chicken Dinner. I was going to get the half chicken dinner but my stomach was all in knots from the turbulence.
Well, that all from the journey, I am safe and sound in Toronto and looking forward to doing very little during the next few days!

Oh-oh

Filed under: Uncategorized — Neyir @ 3:07 pm Comments 5

There is really no good way to put this…our computer is broken and I did it. Apparently you can drop a laptop from approximately 3 feet once (David’s turn) but not twice (my turn). On the pro side we think only the screen is broken, having said that the screen is broken so we do not really know what else is wrong. We do have an extended warranty and insurance on our flat so hopefully one of those will pay for the computer. The con is that we needed the computer to finish X-mas presents so we are currently holed up in David’s office at school, we have been here for 3 hours and I would guess are 2 hours away from being done. I feel like a mathy grad student, I am on my second mug of tea using hot water courtesy of the common room kettle.

Maybe I will get my Mac afterall - not that we would get enough money from our PC to buy a Mac ;-(. I am surprisingly calm when you consider if we are not covered I have just cost us between 2000 - 3000 CAD. Maybe it is because this time next week I will be in Canada!!!!

Ill

Filed under: Uncategorized — Neyir @ 4:51 pm Comments 4

That’s right folks I am a sickie and frankly I am taking it pretty well. You see I do not like being sick. It is out of my control and that is something I hate. Also to be sick is to be weak (all in my mind of course) and that is something else I do not like. Having said that I am doing not doing too badly mostly due to the fact that my head feels like it is going to explode so I am quite happy to sit here and do nothing. Well not nothing, thanks to Richard H, I have now watched all of season 4 of 6 feet under and season 2 of Spaced - I wonder do further seasons exist for these shows? I have been off sick for the last two days, though I did make it to the Dr yesterday - initially it seemed I had a throat infection but then my sickness settled into my head and now chest and oddly my jaw. I was supposed to be doing an audition tommorrow but when I called to see if I could come later in the week they told me that I sounded awful and that they would hear me in January - relief. I did try to sing but anytime I tried to take a decent breath I started coughing, well really hacking, so that is singing off the agenda.

I am going to try and go to work tommorrow. I am out of unwatched DVDs here and nearly climbing the walls, one of the downsides of a flat - not enough variety, the upside being less cleaning. Though watching season two of Buffy does have it’s appeal… I was going to venture out today for some more tissue/kleenex but I will see if I can have it ‘brought in’ instead and if not will go out and maybe rent a movie in the process. You see I have also been abandoned. David will not be home for dinner nor ’till late as this evening all the astronomers, accidental and otherwise, are headed off for their Christmas dinner. I cannot really begrudge him as I have a work lunch next week where I plan to each so much it will also qualify as dinner.

Hope everyone else is well and my apologies if I have or will make any of you sick. Most of you Canadians should be safe though - cannot imagine I will still be contagious on the 16th. Home for Christmas hee-hee. Post to come!