still soooo happy to be home!!

So, the past few days have been busy around here... well, relatively busy – not busy busy but we certainly have more going on here than we ever did in Yaroslavl. Steve’s parents are redoing the kitchen – we arrived just in time for the kitchen cabinet/cupboard assembly phase (Ikea), and Steve’s efforts were only slightly dampened when the newly installed all-powerful stove fan sucked him up and almost cut off his thumb. After waiting for almost two hours in an empty waiting room at the local hospital, he got four stitches (it took five minutes). It wasn’t too long ago that we’d watched Michael Moore’s Sicko, and all I could think of while we were waiting there in what seemed to be a completely empty hospital, was the part where he interviews cheery, satisfied patients who only had to wait five or ten minutes to see a doctor who immediately remedied their problems and left them smiling. I do like his movies but they are so disgustingly one-sided and subjective that every ounce of information that he feeds the viewer must be taken with a grain of salt. I think that someone made a movie about his movie-making style, and he refused to speak to them about this one-sided, subjective, pretend-to-reveal-the-truth routine. Anyways, Steve’s thumb - they didn’t have to amputate and all parts still remain – it will be thumbs-up all week.


before the injury... and after

The weather has been great too – though it’s taken a turn for the worse today. Yesterday we made our way downtown and up the CN Tower, where we were the tallest people in Toronto! We went all the way up to the Sky Pod (447m) where the ceiling height was just a bit shorter than Steve – he had to duck and crouch a little but claimed the honour of the highest person in the world! Okay, the tallest person on a man-made structure in the world! Or at least in Canada. We emerged to find a massive Sikh parade crawling down Lakeshore Blvd in honour of Vaisakhi, a celebration of the birth of Khalsa ("the collective body of baptized Sikhs") and the beginning of harvest season. According to the Toronto Star, there were 70,000 dancers and musicians, sword-fighters, walkers, and floats and cars of people that made their way along Lakeshore from Exhibition Place to Nathan Phillips Square in honour of this special day. There was also free food and drink and I had one of the most delicious samosas ever! It was so good. We also walked around the Harbourfront area and enjoyed the sunshine before heading back to our spiffy rental car to brave the traffic back and make our way home. The traffic was ridiculous – the parade and the TTY transit strike meant that ridiculous volumes of people (on SUNDAY!) were fighting for a way out. Blech. We’re still getting over the jet lag, but are managing to stay up late and get up early, on a normal-ish schedule. We were treated to pancakes with maple syrup yesterday morning (YUM!) and burgers with barbeque sauce last night – YUM again! And I ate all of the fresh spinach in the fridge (oops)... I love all of our food options!

I missed a few days of importance – World Book and Copyright Day (how did I miss a book day!?), World Malaria Day (!?), World Intellectual Property Day (!?) and, perhaps most importantly, Orthodox Easter! So happy belated Orthodox Easter. However, one day that I’m not missing is tomorrow’s National Dance Day... I like dancing! Yay. I still need a new blog name and am just being lazy. Will change soon. I should go and help with kitchen cabinet assembly.

the parade...


our rental wheels for the week

it was chills up there - but an awesome view!