Light...

is a wave and a particle...

Look at this beautiful diffraction showing the kids behind the bars of the railings of my condo... Reminded me of all the diffraction grating experiments I did back in college... I looooved light experiments...

Kids waiting for their school bus... Kids who know not of racial barriers - the value in being brought up in the city instead of the god damn suburbs...

Quebec Strawberries

Quebec strawberries - the best strawberries I have had... smaller and tastier than the Californian ones - see how they shine even when they are out of focus in the second pic... You can tell which ones are the Californian and which ones are ours right?

yum yummmm...

Portugese

Restaurant Casa Maison Minhota 3959 Boulevard Saint Laurent Montréal, QC H2W1Y4

In Montreal's Portugese neighborhood - a little shi shi, but makes for a nice date, with nice music, candle light and tables tucked in cozy corners... We had sardines and ... (I forgot the other...) Now I loooove sardines, and coming from an island, having grown up with fish I think that statement carries a lot of weight. The sardines were grilled and came with a garden salad that I could have done without, and boiled-with-herbs potatoes. Yum yum sardines... The waiter was mildly funny and very helpful with my numerous questions. We even learnt of a new fish store - San Miguel on Rachel and St Urbain. I'll have to check it out to see how it compares with La Mer on Rene Levesque.

Montreal in Toronto

Montreal Jazz fest given some press in Toronto...

Niagara Falls

I came here first in 2001 from the US side, ironically in June also... This is the apparently more beautiful, but surely more touristy, Canadian side...

Today I stood in front of this waterfall that made me whisper in respect (I know it sounds so kitsch to say that about the touristy Niagara Falls, but that's how I felt then...) the first time I saw it, a much mature woman, with a lighter air about relationships in general - enjoy it while you still love him and move out when you don't anymore... My heart is too big to be tied to just one man... ok, I really don't have a heart... but I like to say it like that... :D

Love is why I came here in the first place; love is now the reason I must go.
- John Denver

We discussed the physics of rainbows... and how we would not see the rainbow from the Canadian side in the morning as the sun is rising from the other side of the falls...

Riverbend Vineyard

ok so not as romantic as wine country Italy... but still...

On the way to Niagara Falls, in Ontario...

shee shee

351m high... 360 revolving restaurant...

Ok, so I am not the one to eat in the most expensive restaurants in town, that is the job of my French friend... In fact I think small holes of restaurants serve better food, at least in my experience most of the time...

But as we climbed CN tower the boys asked the ticket counter woman if we might be able to have dinner at the restaurant... they were told 'no'... I said 'oh well let's just go upto the restaurant and ask - maybe there are cancellations' and there we marched in, in our shorts, in our flip flops, totally in with the hippy tourist look... the maître d' took a long and painful look at us, conferred with some others and said 'ok... let me explain to you how this works... each one of you *has* to order at least one main dish' - yeah of course it didn't look from the way we were dressed, that we might not order just one main dish and share it four ways (in fact I really am not sure we wouldn't have done this if we weren't given all that prep talk)!!!! So we all individually spent quite a bit... twice or more of our per-diem, still we were not buying even the medium expensive dishes... But it was worth every bit of it... the restaurant was revolving... whoa!!!!! I was not aware of this going in... As we were waiting to be seated, I said 'look it is revolving...' and we were all soo sooo happy... :)

My French friend who wasn't there as he was out with his girlfriend celebrating his birthday, was not happy the next day we went here without him... We didn't do it on purpose, we just stumbled upon this... But in retrospect, I am glad he wasn't there... if he was we would have spent twice as much for some fancy wine, that tasted all the same to us... and some aperitif, and some cognac to finish off...

I love North America... if you can pay for it, you can enjoy it... you don't have to dress to kill... you might be given a long painful look, but you will get the green light at the end...