Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Hey there again,
Well, Happy New Year to all. All of ye in Ireland will have celebrated New Years 7 hours before us so I hope 2004 is good. Let us know if it isn't so that we can postpone the New Year here!!!!
Sinead is off working again today so I'm here on the net again. Was just on the webcam to home and they are just starting their celebrations. Its weird being here!!
Yesterday I went food shopping and I was walking home through the snow with my hat (toque!), scarf and gloves...wrapped up tightly, and its so weird here...all the cars stop to let you cross the road, so I'd say they were looking at me strangely. I felt like I looked like McCauley Culkin out of the Home Alone movie!!
Well, gotta run now and see what the plans are for tonight. Jeff invited us for food but we had already said we would go to the party with Erin and all the rest in Matts house....so I gotta discuss it with the Boss!!!
Hope all your New Years go well. All the best for 2004
Dave
Well, Happy New Year to all. All of ye in Ireland will have celebrated New Years 7 hours before us so I hope 2004 is good. Let us know if it isn't so that we can postpone the New Year here!!!!
Sinead is off working again today so I'm here on the net again. Was just on the webcam to home and they are just starting their celebrations. Its weird being here!!
Yesterday I went food shopping and I was walking home through the snow with my hat (toque!), scarf and gloves...wrapped up tightly, and its so weird here...all the cars stop to let you cross the road, so I'd say they were looking at me strangely. I felt like I looked like McCauley Culkin out of the Home Alone movie!!
Well, gotta run now and see what the plans are for tonight. Jeff invited us for food but we had already said we would go to the party with Erin and all the rest in Matts house....so I gotta discuss it with the Boss!!!
Hope all your New Years go well. All the best for 2004
Dave
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Hi there,
Well this the day before the eve of the New Year and tis getiing God damn cold in this city of Calgary. We were walking around yesterday in about -13 cold, and its supposed to get even colder at the weekend. We go around wearing coats, gloves, scarves up to our eyes, and our hats (or "toques" as they are called here!!)....so all you can see is our eyes!! You can see your breath through the scarf and the other day it was so cold that the steam rising from my breath was hitting the air and it was condensing into water as soon as it hit, and we came home with beads of water lodged in our eyelashes!! It is really cool to see, but just wait until those beads freeze...then we'll be in trouble!!
So, Sinead went to the chiropractor yesterday we finally made it to Captain Jacks for our 19cent miniburgers. They are so nice. We got 5 each and they were enough to fill us up. Sinead tried to convince me that I had 6 and she only had 4 but I'm not believing any of it!!
Sinead got a call yesterday too from Jacob, where she worked on Boxing day so she is working there again today and Friday. Boxing Day sales is actually Boxing "Week" Sales so its still a bit crazy in all the shopping malls (centres!!!) I don't envy her task!! But she has a couple of leads on lab work that might come her way, but she needs her individual results of all the subjects from the college and all of the email addresses for the lecturers seem to be broken at the moment. It sucks!! Hopefully the job can wait til she sorts something out to get her results.
Well, we have no real plans yet for New Years but Erin has invited us to go for a drink with a few of them and the gang from the church choir etc. who we go out with every Sunday night mentioned a party some time ago but we're not sure if that will materialise...but we are going to enjoy it anyway.
Happy New Year to all and I wish I was there to celebrate the "Anything but Turkey" New Years Eve dinner at home. I'll miss ye!
I don't have any idea how I could get the recipe for those parogies that we had at Christmas....bloody gorgeous. They take a good while to make though, apparantly. I'll have to try to bribe Erin's mum to give us the recipe!!
I don't know if I told you already but this Christmas I experienced my first "Caesar". Kinda spicy but not too bad at all! The ingredients are kind of scary though!!....
1 Lime
Tabasco Sauce
Worchester Sauce
Clamato Juice (Preferable Motts, if not substitute..Tomato
Juice with clam juice)
Celery Salt
Celery
Ice
Vodka
Method:
Rim glass with use of the lime....and dip glass into a plate filled with celery salt.
Put ice in glass.
Next, measure 1 1/2 ounces of Vodka and pour into glass.
Fill glass with Clamato Juice (leaving 1 inch on top).
Add 3 twirls of Worchester Sauce (or measure your degree of Heat!)
Now add, the Tabasco Sauce (I use 1 drop, but you can use to your taste)
Add a slice of lime (squeeze into drink).
Salt, Pepper to taste (I don't personally use any plain salt or pepper)
Add a stock of Celery (Makes for a nice decoration, or if you are hungry
you may eat it also).
ENJOY!!
Milestones: This Drink is the creation of a Canadian from Calgary,Alberta, Canada. Walter Chell lived to be a ripe old age...maybe because of his invention? Ode.....to Caesar!! He lives!! Forever!
Another Canadian experience had to be the "Yule Log". Ok, so they have a program on Christmas morning on the TV which is just a picture of a log of firewood burning in the fireplace and they play this recording, the same picture, for about two hours with just Christmas tunes in the background....quite an experience!!!
Hope you all have a great New Year. Take it easy
David
Well this the day before the eve of the New Year and tis getiing God damn cold in this city of Calgary. We were walking around yesterday in about -13 cold, and its supposed to get even colder at the weekend. We go around wearing coats, gloves, scarves up to our eyes, and our hats (or "toques" as they are called here!!)....so all you can see is our eyes!! You can see your breath through the scarf and the other day it was so cold that the steam rising from my breath was hitting the air and it was condensing into water as soon as it hit, and we came home with beads of water lodged in our eyelashes!! It is really cool to see, but just wait until those beads freeze...then we'll be in trouble!!
So, Sinead went to the chiropractor yesterday we finally made it to Captain Jacks for our 19cent miniburgers. They are so nice. We got 5 each and they were enough to fill us up. Sinead tried to convince me that I had 6 and she only had 4 but I'm not believing any of it!!
Sinead got a call yesterday too from Jacob, where she worked on Boxing day so she is working there again today and Friday. Boxing Day sales is actually Boxing "Week" Sales so its still a bit crazy in all the shopping malls (centres!!!) I don't envy her task!! But she has a couple of leads on lab work that might come her way, but she needs her individual results of all the subjects from the college and all of the email addresses for the lecturers seem to be broken at the moment. It sucks!! Hopefully the job can wait til she sorts something out to get her results.
Well, we have no real plans yet for New Years but Erin has invited us to go for a drink with a few of them and the gang from the church choir etc. who we go out with every Sunday night mentioned a party some time ago but we're not sure if that will materialise...but we are going to enjoy it anyway.
Happy New Year to all and I wish I was there to celebrate the "Anything but Turkey" New Years Eve dinner at home. I'll miss ye!
I don't have any idea how I could get the recipe for those parogies that we had at Christmas....bloody gorgeous. They take a good while to make though, apparantly. I'll have to try to bribe Erin's mum to give us the recipe!!
I don't know if I told you already but this Christmas I experienced my first "Caesar". Kinda spicy but not too bad at all! The ingredients are kind of scary though!!....
1 Lime
Tabasco Sauce
Worchester Sauce
Clamato Juice (Preferable Motts, if not substitute..Tomato
Juice with clam juice)
Celery Salt
Celery
Ice
Vodka
Method:
Rim glass with use of the lime....and dip glass into a plate filled with celery salt.
Put ice in glass.
Next, measure 1 1/2 ounces of Vodka and pour into glass.
Fill glass with Clamato Juice (leaving 1 inch on top).
Add 3 twirls of Worchester Sauce (or measure your degree of Heat!)
Now add, the Tabasco Sauce (I use 1 drop, but you can use to your taste)
Add a slice of lime (squeeze into drink).
Salt, Pepper to taste (I don't personally use any plain salt or pepper)
Add a stock of Celery (Makes for a nice decoration, or if you are hungry
you may eat it also).
ENJOY!!
Milestones: This Drink is the creation of a Canadian from Calgary,Alberta, Canada. Walter Chell lived to be a ripe old age...maybe because of his invention? Ode.....to Caesar!! He lives!! Forever!
Another Canadian experience had to be the "Yule Log". Ok, so they have a program on Christmas morning on the TV which is just a picture of a log of firewood burning in the fireplace and they play this recording, the same picture, for about two hours with just Christmas tunes in the background....quite an experience!!!
Hope you all have a great New Year. Take it easy
David
Monday, December 29, 2003
Well, here it is, the beginning of the end!! Its one of those diary things where the whole world can see whats going on in the life of an Irish guy living in Canada. It will be primarily be a chance for us (Sinead and me) to keep you up to date with all of the little things that are of little interest, but are filling our days here in this great country!
Well, there has been so much so far to catch up on and write about now, but I'll try to remember all of the useless bits of information as the Blog continues. I probably won't be able to write every day but I will try to update it as often as possible.
Well we are now sitting in an internet cafe on 17th Ave SW and just passing the time until Sinead goes to her Chiropractors appointment, with a fill-in for Jason (Ryan's brother), while he is away visiting his parents with Ryan in Cairo.
We will probably go for something to eat then. We have been recommended a place to go here on 17th Ave. called Captain Jacks which has 17cent mini-burgers! (Thanks Alison!)
Last night we went to see Chad's band playing in the Black Swan pub. I was a bit shocked at one of the conversations that arised there. In some of the highschools here they actually have to wear name-tag ID's around their necks, as a precaution ever since the whole Columbine school shootings in America. Kinda scary, eh?!!
We were supposed to be going to a Calgary Flames game again tonight but all the cheap-seats were gone (and by cheap I mean $28!!!) so we would have had to be paying about $40 for seats so we said we would try to organise it a bit better and get tickets well in advance of one of their next games, instead of the day of the game!! We are really getting into the hockey and American football. Its pretty exciting to watch. Some of the ice-hockey fights are amazing and it actaully says in the rules that the referees cant break up the fight until one of the players is on the floor...how cool is that!! We were trying to convince Jeff that Hurling is just as good but he's having none of it!! That hasn't stopped him from picking up some valuable Irish vocabulary though - "Alright ya fecker!!"
We go to Mass in the church where Ryan works, every Sunday night at 7:30pm. Sinead has joined the choir there too, and they sing every Sunday night, but its supposed to be a youth mass so the choir is made up of a piano, electric and acoustic guitars (and whatever other instruments Ryan picks up along the way), as well as a set of drums, so its quite a different sound. Mass here is a bit different than what we are used to too, and there's no kneeling, all standing, so at home when they kneel, just think of us here in Canada.... standing!!!
We live quite a distance from the church too so every Sunday our ritual is to walk for about 10 - 15 mins to the train and spend about 20 mins on the train and then walk for another 20 mins to the church and so we have to leave about an hour and a half before mass to get there on time, and since Sinead has to be there an hour early for choir practice, we leave at 5pm for 7:30 Mass - If this doesn't get us into heaven, nothing will!!!!!
Well we have to run now, our time is almost up here. Talk to you all again soon.
Well, there has been so much so far to catch up on and write about now, but I'll try to remember all of the useless bits of information as the Blog continues. I probably won't be able to write every day but I will try to update it as often as possible.
Well we are now sitting in an internet cafe on 17th Ave SW and just passing the time until Sinead goes to her Chiropractors appointment, with a fill-in for Jason (Ryan's brother), while he is away visiting his parents with Ryan in Cairo.
We will probably go for something to eat then. We have been recommended a place to go here on 17th Ave. called Captain Jacks which has 17cent mini-burgers! (Thanks Alison!)
Last night we went to see Chad's band playing in the Black Swan pub. I was a bit shocked at one of the conversations that arised there. In some of the highschools here they actually have to wear name-tag ID's around their necks, as a precaution ever since the whole Columbine school shootings in America. Kinda scary, eh?!!
We were supposed to be going to a Calgary Flames game again tonight but all the cheap-seats were gone (and by cheap I mean $28!!!) so we would have had to be paying about $40 for seats so we said we would try to organise it a bit better and get tickets well in advance of one of their next games, instead of the day of the game!! We are really getting into the hockey and American football. Its pretty exciting to watch. Some of the ice-hockey fights are amazing and it actaully says in the rules that the referees cant break up the fight until one of the players is on the floor...how cool is that!! We were trying to convince Jeff that Hurling is just as good but he's having none of it!! That hasn't stopped him from picking up some valuable Irish vocabulary though - "Alright ya fecker!!"
We go to Mass in the church where Ryan works, every Sunday night at 7:30pm. Sinead has joined the choir there too, and they sing every Sunday night, but its supposed to be a youth mass so the choir is made up of a piano, electric and acoustic guitars (and whatever other instruments Ryan picks up along the way), as well as a set of drums, so its quite a different sound. Mass here is a bit different than what we are used to too, and there's no kneeling, all standing, so at home when they kneel, just think of us here in Canada.... standing!!!
We live quite a distance from the church too so every Sunday our ritual is to walk for about 10 - 15 mins to the train and spend about 20 mins on the train and then walk for another 20 mins to the church and so we have to leave about an hour and a half before mass to get there on time, and since Sinead has to be there an hour early for choir practice, we leave at 5pm for 7:30 Mass - If this doesn't get us into heaven, nothing will!!!!!
Well we have to run now, our time is almost up here. Talk to you all again soon.
