Me, Susan and Michelle with William Wallace! (or a reasonable facsimile)
Me in front of Cawdor Castle
Susan and me in the Highlands!
Can you believe it's the last day of September already? I feel like I'm not even ready for the holiday end-of-year season to begin, and yet next weekend is already Thanksgiving!
Today Zorana and I went downtown for the grand opening of the new H&M store at Eaton Centre. It was pretty busy, but I did try some things on, and decided not to buy any of them. However, Michelle and I are going back on Saturday, so I probably won't manage to get out a second time with nothing. :-)
A few TV notes: I think I may have found a new show to watch! I caught the second half of the Lost pilot, and was really impressed with it! I had a feeling it would be good, since it is a J.J. Abrams show, but I got sucked in to it more than I expected. They're replaying both halves of the pilot on Saturday, so you should definitely check it out if you missed it!
Also, the Smallville season premiere finally came! And we got some shirtless Lex! Woo! :-) It was a pretty good episode - lots of stuff happened, Margot Kidder showed up, and did I mention Lex didn't have a shirt on? Oh, yeah, and I guess Clark was naked for a while too, if you care about that. ;-) Looking forward to next week, and Chloe not being dead!
I finished my liability assignments, so now I can put the books away until a week or so before the exam, right? :-) No, unfortunately, I have to start reading the other course now. I really hope I can pull off doing two of them at the same time!
I had sad news at work today, as I learned that one of my co-worker's cats died suddenly. He said that he was totally fine and normal, and then half an hour later, he was dead. The vet said it was something to do with his heart, and they'd had no warning whatsoever. I feel so bad for him. I would be totally unable to function if that happened to me! At least if the kitty been sick or something, they could have prepared for it. :-( And he wasn't even that old! It depresses me to think about it.
My brother is in London right now! I'm so happy for him, it's the first time he's been to Europe, and I think he'll really enjoy it. He and his girlfriend are just spending 8 days in London, though they might do a couple of daytrips as well.
Anyway, I better head off to the pool for a quick evening swim before it closes for the day. On to October!
This is going to be quick - I should be working on my test for my liability course, but I realized it had been quite a while since I'd written anything in here, so I wanted to at least say hi!
There is a gorgeous full moon outside right now - and it's also completely dark out. At 20 to 8! Summer sure fades fast. Although, we have had fabulous weather since I got back from Europe, so I can't complain about that at all. Harder than the fact that it's dark now is the fact that it's still totally dark when I have to get up for work - I'm looking forward to daylight savings time already!
I have been busy at work since I got back, but at least I am working - my mom is out on strike! They just started striking on Friday, and they're anticipating it could last a month or two, so she has to go out and picket for four hours every day! And not get paid much, of course. But for now, she's looking on the bright side, that she is still getting a few hours off every day that she doesn't have to work! :-)
I got my tickets for the Canstage season - we decided on Vigil (with Brent Carver, yay!), Side by Side by Sondheim, and Take Me Out. I may also go to see Unless separately. And of course, it's not that much longer until We Will Rock You and Wicked (possibly with Idina Menzel!).
Just wanted to note that The Woman in White got really good reviews, from what I've read - hopefully I will have mine up before too long!
Okay, enough procrastinating, and back to my reading!
It's finally the weekend, and I still woke up at 6:00! It doesn't usually take me so long to re-adjust to the time difference - maybe it has more to do with anticipating my cat wanting to get up. Speaking of Tiger, I've finished his section of the photo album, with a couple of new pictures in there as well.
And speaking of pictures, I've got a few from Scotland scanned - there are many, many more to come, but for now I'll just share these three.
Before I do, though, I just want to say how disappointed I am that Alias is not going to have its season premiere until January! I don't know if I can wait that long! At least Smallville is coming up soon - the premiere is actually on the 22nd in the U.S., but we don't get it here until the 28th. So I'll have to make sure I don't visit any sites that could spoil it for me!
Alright, and now the pictures! :-)
Me in front of Cawdor Castle
Susan and me in the Highlands!
What a slow week! The first week back from vacation is always brutal, and this is no exception. Work is still hectic, since members of my team are still missing, and then I have to start looking at my textbooks for my insurance courses (I did decide to do two after all), which I don't want to do at all. Plus, I should clean my apartment, and I want to redecorate it too...
Anyway, instead of doing any of that, I spent last night watching the World Cup hockey final, which we won, naturally. :-) That was good! And then, I was checking my skating boards, and found the astonishing news that Shae-Lynn Bourne and Peter Tchernyshev are teaming up and skating amateur for Canada! I did NOT see that coming. There have been rumours for quite a while, but I honestly thought they were ridiculous. And now it's true! I'm looking forward to seeing them, but I think a lot of people will have trouble getting used to the two of them together.
Other than that, not much to report - we're getting our pictures back tomorrow, so I'll post a couple here at least to whet your appetites for the huge photo album to come. :-)
I am back in Canada! Sorry about not updating during the trip - I thought I might have time, but actually didn't end up being online for very much time at all. We arrived home yesterday, actually, and so I've had some time to adjust to being back before I have to return to work tomorrow. I went to Peggy's this afternoon to pick up my keys and see how everything went with Tiger, and then we went for a walk since it is a gorgeous day out, and I bought some groceries and stuff since my fridge was bare. Tiger is fine, though apparently he hissed at Peggy when she came over! He's so friendly.
Anyway, the trip! It was fantastic! So many good things, and only a few mishaps, which were easily balanced by the highs. For those of you who didn't get my trip recaps (those of you that did can skip the rest of this entry right now), here are the highlights. More details will be available on the Scotland site later!
London - we went to Hampton Court, the Tower of London, and the British Museum. I saw The Woman in White, and saw Andrew Lloyd Webber there too! I went to Mass at Westminster Cathedral, and we walked down by the Thames to hear Big Ben. We also went on a walking tour of the City to hear some ghost stories.
Paris - saw lots of art at the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay. Ate lunch on the grass by the Eiffel Tower, and Susan had French onion soup and French fries at a French restaurant. :-) We sat beneath the Arc de Triomphe and went on a night-time cruise down the Seine.
Edinburgh - ghosts and castles! We toured Edinburgh Castle, the Museum of Scotland, and I went to Holyrood Palace. We ate in pubs and had big Scottish breakfasts. There were two ghost tours, one of the Covenanter's Prison in Greyfriar's Cemetery, and one of the underground vaults. I also climbed the Scott Monument, and Calton Hill.
St. Andrews - a quick stop, we just visited the ruins of the cathedral and castle, and stopped for a picture at the golf course!
Aberdeen - we weren't here very long either, but I did see a historical house and the Aberdeen Art Gallery. We also stopped at a stone circle outside the city.
Inverness - before arriving in the city, we visited Cawdor Castle (maybe my favourite one of the trip), the Clava Cairns, and Culloden Battlefield. In Inverness, we saw a band playing traditional music, and experienced the 1:00 a.m. curfew. We tried to find dolphins and seals, but ended up at the laundromat instead. No wildlife sightings in Loch Ness either, where we went for a cruise and tour of Urquhart Castle. We stayed at our own haunted castle just out of Dingwall for the night.
Isle of Skye - gorgeous place!! We drove out to the Neist Point lighthouse, and spent the night in the town of Portree. The next day, we visited Dunvegan Castle, and went hiking on the Straithard peninsula.
Stirling - we stopped outside the city at Doune to see Doune Castle (another of my favourites), and then toured Stirling Castle too. We were too late to climb the Wallace monument, but walked up the hill it's on anyway.
Glasgow - visited the People's Palace, and saw the Cathedral and Necropolis. Did some shopping and went to a movie, and experienced lots of the nightlife!
As I said, it was a wonderful trip! I can't wait to get the pictures back - many of which will be posted at the Scotland trip site too once I have the chance to scan them.
Now I have to work on updating my theatre site, and getting my email back to a manageable level! I hope you've all had a good couple of weeks as well!