Why am I sitting on the couch in the middle of the day when I should be in a bubbly hot tub right about now, well let me tell ya.
About 30 minutes ago I wore my swim trunks, wore my warm pants, put my warm winter socks on, and my sandals (this is a pool after all), wore a long sleeved T-shirt, my fleece, winter hat and my coat.
Got in to the car , drove 1.2 minutes or less in the light snow; reached the gym.
Entered the secret code (shhhh 19770), got a towel, went into the locker room, took off my sandals, socks, coat, fleece, shirt and hat and place them in a locker. Notices a sign saying to lock valuables and other lockers with keys on them, so moved my stuff into a secured locker, tried to lock the locket, it wouldn’t cooperate, noticed that you need money (1 quarter) to close it. If you recall I didn’t specify taking money with me, so left the locker open. Took the towel walked around the pool to the outdoors hot tub, and of course it was closed; never mind the sign saying open daily, every day could be 6-7 PM…
So I went back, around the pool into the locker room, opened the unlocked locker, wore my socks, pants, shirt, fleece, coat, hat and sandals, left the towel in their laundry , go into the car, drove 1.2 minutes and now I am sitting on the couch.
Why am I here on the couch in the middle of the day instead of being on the mountain?
I began skiing yesterday morning with my brand new ski boots and skis, even before the lesson began I started having serious pain, so they rushed me to the emergency rental office, when I kicked off my sucky brand new ski boots (which were comfortable at the store) and put on an old warn out pair of boots; The relief was instantaneous.
So I joined my group lesson with a couple of Peruvians whom do not know each other and was skiing at my best (which is still a beginner level). After 2 hours I was a bit sore but felt comfortable so I kept going. I stopped for lunch and rest and decided to take a longer more challenging course, but still on the green level (the beginners). So we took 2 lifts up and started heading down. This course passes next to many blue and black level course, and those look scary as hell, I am not doing those, yet. But since I was sore by now, I started doing the wrong movements, so more regularly unused muscles are used and cramp and ache, so very quickly the pain level increased , and I couldn’t focus on what I had to do and all I wanted to do was finish the course. Too bad it was a long long long run. I was depressed , and after an hour of pain made it down.
The only good thing is since they rushed me to the rental place (since the lesson has begun) I got the equipment for free.. the minor joys of life.
We went in to the ski shop in the afternoon where they heated and molded my insoles to my feet and taught me how to put them on better, there is a technique. And of course in the store it doesn’t hurt, I thing they use aerosol morphine or something. I crashed in early yesterday feeling super tired and woke up fearing the mountain.
Again, I put on my newly molded brand new boots and skis and there was no pain, so I went to the lesson, and no pain. We waited for about 15 minutes where they divided the groups in to levels and pain started… and I was doing nothing but standing (in the boots). We took the lift up and pain increased.
The 1st run in a basic hill, very wide (good for me, far from the trees) , not that steep, yesterday I did it with ease, but I couldn’t with the pain, it increased with every second, I left the group lesson after 1 hill and went to the lodge where I told myself. Go relax your muscles at the hot tub… so I took off my snow pants, long under layer, snow socks, snickers, ski shirt, vest, coat, neck scarf, hat, ski goggles and wore my… oh I already covered this part in the 1st paragraph.
So now while everyone ski’s and having a great time, I am sitting here on the warm couch.
Oh, at one point during my long painful run on the slopes; my nephew little Michael, age six was passing with his teacher without a care in the world, enjoying himself effortlessly on the steep(for me) slopes.
So far its mountain 3, Gil 0
Lucky for me, I recently purchased an online soccer channel which usually shows not the most wanted games, and I checked now and they show the Israel game (which is definitely not a prime time match, so I have what to do, game begins in 15 minutes, till then, I will go back in time to the last few days.
Last week we put the bird feeder back on, put it high in the tree (or as high as we can reach on a small ladder). We can see the tree clearly from the kitchen, that is why we put the feeder there so we can see the birds.
So far I have identified the following species: Northern cardinal, Carolina chickadee, downy woodpecker and the last common may be a titmouse. We also had a crow of some kind, a hawk and I am pretty sure I heard an owl (I know the sounds after going to an owl lecture recently), but only the first four use the bird feeder. We noticed that the birds are not eating as we know birds eat, but instead they devour the food, it is early spring, they may be hungry, but so much, for tiny birds! On Friday I found the answer and discovered a new species unknown to science. They are called the common back yard squirrel birds. These are not your typical bird, they have no feathers but fur instead and a long tail; this unusual bird climbs the tree and go on the small branches and uses its feet to lean down to the feeder and gorge. Soon I will upload a movie to YouTube so you can see this unusual species that eat like a flock of angry birds.
On Friday after noon we were on our way east, we took another book of the ember series, and although I am now at the end of CD 5 (of 5 CDs) I still say the story will begin in the next CD, it’s not boring, just nothing really happens. So we drove on and had some decisions to make, go to Vermont or go to Montreal (for the weekend before the ski week). Finally we decided and from Syracuse, we headed north , passed the amazing 1000 islands region in the dark (you don’t see a single island at this time) and stopped at 1 am an hour away from Montreal.
In the morning we checked the little town we stopped by and found some new things
1, MacDonald’s have a gas station of their own, the source of the gas is the same as the meat btw; since I will not eat at mc’s I chose to fill the car elsewhere.
2, the town has a food shack knows as the ‘fryer truck’ it is shaped like a truck, and I remembered a character in a book I once read (and you SHOULD know who from a famous movie, that was recreated several times)
3. the last and most interesting is a hotel- motel. I have been to motels many times, and also to hotels, but a ‘motel-hotel’ is unusual, not sure what is the difference, but I thought it was interesting.
Well we left this town which I don’t even recall its name and soon crossed over to Quebec, making it my 5th province out of Canada’s 10.
We entered Montreal on a sunny , cloudless and cold day.
We dressed warm and toured the city. We stopped at some impressive church (don’t have the name) then walked to the old district, stopping at the Notre Dame which I found unimpressive from the outside (though it’s a replica of the real Notre-Dame, perhaps the smaller size or the fact that the real one has nothing next to it, makes it stand out). But from the inside it was very impressive.
We proceeded to the museum of history and archeology. The number of museums I see definitely increased since I met racer. She stops at every single information sign, from the founding of the city to the instructions on how to open this windows in case of emergency. The museum was ok for me, it passes in the actual streets of old, under the current city level. After that we walked in the gallery street with the many souvenir shops where for once we didn’t buy a single souvenir. And stopped for lunch in a French craperie. Alla loves those and I cannot say no to chocolate (after losing 22 pounds lately …..:) ) . we ordered a lobster bisque with cognac and a crape with strawberries, bananas, vanilla ice cream and more stuff, and we got some yummy rolls with butter…mmmmmm. Alla had some Cider with cognac and loved it, I had a hot chocolate which was not bad.
We walked on passing more shops and passed a booth which made a new treat. It was liquid taffy, they pour it on some ice chips and you roll it on a stick, and it quickly hardens and becomes a taffy lollypop, of course we had to try, they said it may be messy so we were extra carefully. I found the result to be too sweet for me, but racer liked it. We moved on to another area of shops, where we got no souvenirs but a gift for Rita whom is today’s birthday girl. We walked more in the city and found a hotel, then drove up the Montreal mountain for a high city views at sunset. The city is not pretty in the winter but the sun’s red glow makes it shimmer. Unexpectedly I saw 3 raccoons just below the observation point, 2 walking and one resting on a tree.
We changed at the hotel and went for dinner. Alla like’s French food, so we found a fancy but not too schmency place and got there by subway. The place seemed closed, but they had a bar downstairs, so we went in to an empty place (also closed, but the door was open) and the waiter who was setting up for the next day, brought us upstairs to the real place which was open but usually works with reservations.
A snobby waiter showed us in and a request for some meat to be cooked well done was enough for him to offer Alla some chicken. She surprised the waiter by ordering a plate of calf liver, I surprised myself by ordering bison ribs on a bed of lentils (and I don’t like lentils), but I am on a major menu rejuvenation spree.
I started with another lobster bisque, which I ordered in French ( I used to know French, but forgot it, so now is a perfect time to recall).
And 1:0 Israel ……… yehhhahhhhhhhh.
Alla started with some vegetable soup which I tasted and tasted lentils inside and didn’t like it and was concerned from my approaching main dish. My soup was very good and so was the bread and butterrrrr…. I bison was ok, not soft enough but I actually ate the lentils (it was also potatoes and celery I think) so that was my crazy thing of the week.
We checked out next morning and drove to the Olympic stadium. We started at the botanical gardens and learned a bit about various fruit trees, saw some ferns and impressive orchids.
On the other side of the garden they have a buterflarium, but the queue was long and it goes through the botanical gardens so we chose not to wait an hour in line and skip the 2nd part and walked by to the stadium. We took the guided tour; the guide was funny and full of stadium facts but the stadium itself being a huge empty area (they have a major roofing issue, the roof fell twice! So the stadium is unused in the winter), we took the lift to the tower which is the tallest leaning tower in the world for some more views, decent views probably in the summer when the trees are in bloom but not bad now.
We moved on to the bio dome which used to be the Olympic velodrome (which is not a spelling mistake, I googled it). They have 4 unique environments, it’s kind of an indoor zoo where most animals are free to roam where ever they want. Cute small brown monkeys rules the jungle habitat. Playful sea otters dominated the 2nd part with their digging and sliding down a water slide. The beavers were boring since they were asleep and not very much mobile while sleeping. The lynx (type of cat with lots of fur) was hiding but I got a great facial shot of 2 of them (3 eyes in one frame).
The tiny colorful poisonous frogs were amazing, the unsacred turtles by the alligators were cute, but the highlight were a pair of blue parrots. They were arguing and bickering and not sure if biting or kissing each other, they were hanging on the branches with their big claws, with their beaks, on and off making loops, it was a never ending show. After that we saw some cute penguins and motionless fossils.
Oh almost forgot, on stairs next to the stadium a movie was filmed. Not sure what the movie was about, it was some kind of introductory movie , not a Hollywood type movie. A guy was supposed to jump with his snowboard above some 20 stairs and top metal rails which were made in parts, it wasn’t 1 long rails, but 5 sections of rail one after another with a gap of about 1 meter in between. We were just overhead when he made the 1st jump, he kind of made it but not to the liking of the camera crew, while they were preparing for the next jump, we walked down below them and they were no ready to go, so I got my camera and put it on photo mode( idiotic of me) , the guy rolled down on the ice, jumped and crashed in between the metal gaps. The camera crew rushed to his aid and he was in serious pain and was wailing and all I could think about is why I didn’t use the video mode, there goes my YouTube fame. Not sure who they guy was (tried to Google it and no luck) but there goes his summer.
We left Montreal and headed south to Vermont, we arrived at around 9 PM, rested and next morning went skiing and you know the rest
Cheers from a couch in Killington Vermont. I hear the hot tub opens soon, time to put on my……
