Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Stevie Wonder
We went pretty early, yes as in 5hrs earlier than this show started. And it rained... we knew it was going to... and if you know me you know I hate to be in the rain, yeah like absolutely detest it... I don't mind watching it from inside... My relationship with the rain is sort of like that between homophobic but politically correct people and gays: "I really don't mind the gays, whatever they do is their business, but I will not stand and watch if my kids are gay"!!! queleque chose comme ca... Ok, it is not that bad - me and the rain...
Anyway, there we stood in the pouring rain, waiting for Stevie Wonder to come and show us some love for free... And then like a miracle, the rain stopped about 10 to 9 and the man came on stage about half hour after that... It was great... A little too much Micheal Jackson for my taste, but hey... I understand this king of pop legend... it's just that the bitter hippie is a little bitter (!!!!) about the coverage he got that surpassed all other news items about war and famine and what not...
The music was great, but it was the ambiance, that made this the best concert I ever went to...
a new PhD
Friday, June 19, 2009
P Bears
I don't normally like to visit zoos, as the pathetic looking animals make me sad... I am split in my opinion about zoos themselves however, as I understand it is the best way to educate kids on what animals we have on this planet and raise global/environmental awareness in them...
So I was dragged in to the Quebec City zoo, kicking and screaming... well not quite, it was raining, so we were limited in what we could do....
I was watching these polar bears, knowing that anytime now I am gonna cry... but as I was waiting to be poked in my eye, it dawned on me that these guys, specially the girl, are actually having a really good time... Look at her play with her makeshift toy... But then apparently she injured herself, so when we came back she was taken away to a different cage and the boy was by himself... now he looked super sad... awww...
But anyway, it made me think... if you had never experienced the limitless spaces in the wild, what would you really miss by being in a zoo? They were both born in captivity....
Thursday, June 18, 2009
New Brunswick
Reversing Falls, one of the many cheesy tourist attractions in NB
St John, NB : We had more than one suggestion on how to improve the vista of this town... The paper mill, steel plant and other manufacturing facilities clashed with the old city and nature...
New Brunswick, on the outskirts of Fundy National park, I first witnessed a moose accident. It was not pretty, I never actually went near to see, so the memory is not that startling; but I heard painful groans and that was not pretty...
So we are driving, it's 10pm and dark... I was telling how I ran over a already hit deer while driving to Sudbury and thought it was a moose... we see one headlight, I say 'ah look a motorcycle?'. We get close, it is in fact a car and it looks damaged. We think, oh that car hit a moose but we see from the headlight of another car that just stopped that there is no one in the car, so we are thinking, whoever got hit was taken to the hospital. We stop anyway, and as my friend gets out, the driver of the other car who was had approached the damaged car before us, who, I kid you not, was wearing a monocle, runs towards us saying 'call 911, call 911'. We pull out our cell phones, no signal... this is in the middle of no where after all... There's apparently a girl lying on the road, on the forest side of the car... My friend (who, a couple days earlier could not put a live homard into a pot of boiling water and when I finally put it after much ado, cos I didn't want to do it either, felt fainitish...) takes some paper towels to her and comes back with blood soaked paper... I get out of the vehicle and start walking away - I am thinking, as far as I could so I would not hear the dying girls groans... I hear some rustle in the woods and think, 'well more moose', so I come back... The driver of the other car leaves his wife at the scene and says he's going to drive as far as it takes to get cell phone reception. My friend and the wife are talking to the girl trying to keep her alive or something... Several cars stop by... 'I am a 3rd year med student' one of them says, 'from NYC'. Everyone's so relieved, but the med student takes one look at the blood soaked girls and almost faints... the police come after 45 minutes... the paramedics too... The police take statements from all of us... we bid each other good bye, the med student extends his hand to us, my friend says "I am sorry I don't shake hands for hygienic reasons" - well I thought that was ironical after being all over the dying girl, but hey... The police says this is a suspicious incident...
On our way back from that creepy province, we see no less than 7 moose on the roadside, turns out NB puts up these huge fences by the highway for a reason...
We are analyzing - Hmmm.... the perfectly parked-on-the-side-of-the-road car, the woman lying on the ground on the non-driver side of the car, even though the passenger side door was un-openable as the police said, the hustle in the woods... Did we see another truck that looked like it was putting up construction signs about a half a mile before this incident..? The two extremes: 'a murder mystery' to 'well the woman was driving by herself', and everything in between came in to mind...
Back in Quebec, we google this incident... :
"SUSSEX - A 36-year-old man from Mechanic Settlement charged with leaving his girlfriend seriously injured as he dodged an accident will go to court next month.
It was at 10 p.m. on June 17 in Mechanic Settlement that a vehicle collided with a moose on Highway 114. When police arrived they found a single female accident victim and pleaded through the airwaves for information to identify her. They believed at the time she was the driver of the 1990 Pontiac.
Later that day, as she lay in serious condition in the hospital, someone heard the identity explained on the radio and contacted police, identifying her as a 32-year-old Mechanic Settlement woman. She remains in serious condition.
Police have charged the Mechanic Settlement man with leaving the scene of the accident. Police believe he was the driver of the car and took off on foot after the crash.
Police say the vehicle was not licensed or registered.
"RCMP identified a suspect and made several attempts to locate him," Sgt, Bruce Reid of the Sussex RCMP said. "On June 24, the driver turned himself in to the RCMP."
He will appear in court in Sussex on July 9."
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Nova Scotia
From the ferry to Nova Scotia... the sunset was stunning, but when you are on a ferry, it is hard to find a nice silhouette... but it still conveys the pretty color...
I put him back...
Cheticamp, Nova Scotia... a tiny French village... so we come from Quebec and I am all up in arms against the French and I go to Nova Scotia, an anglophone province... Looking for a fish monger, I was told that the little French village up there must have good fish and my brain immediately says 'we are going there, it is French, its grocery stores must have better food'... I think in a previous post I mentioned my love hate relationship with these French Canadians...
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Iles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Beautiful Iles-de-la-Madeleine...
At the end of that long day walking to Etang-du-Nord and back, ~30km, taking pictures that turned out mediocre because of the humidity, looking for Pas Perdus, exhausted to the bone... we sat at this restaurant... And here I was moved by the joie de vivre of the people of this tiny island...
Several from the audience took turns playing the guitar and singing, but the whole restaurant joined... It was a very sentimental moment... for the first time in a long long time, I paused and questioned my draw to the hustle and bustle of city life. I still maintain Montreal people are very very nice... but I could live in a small house on the beach of Iles-de-la-Madeleine... I think... :)
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
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