This person may be responsible for the greatest contribution to western culture this century.
I have needed a watch for years. I thunk about binary watches, real retro watches, and even some exciting post-modern future retro watches. I am rather taken with LED watches.
While wandering around the Village on Manhattan Island, we passed a watch shop. This was not a jewellery shop that sold watches, nor a watch concession in a department store, it was a shop with watches wall-to-wall and filling the window.
Being the village, it was staffed by a couple of gay guys, a big friendly one and a thin, more catty, one. The thin one found a straight man deeply offensive and fled to the back of the shop to gaze disapprovingly at me and my filthy heterosexual ways. Rachael soon put him at his ease by mentioning Sex & the City and we got directions to all the best shoe shopping and the Magnolia Bakery. ( [use a rising terminal at each comma when reading the following] “If you go out the shop, make a right turn on Bleecker, and go about 5 blocks, they’re smaller blocks here, then there’s this bakery, you’ll see a line outside of people just quivering for the cupcakes,!”)
Well, I rejected a Nooka Zot (too dainty) and the Fossil Red LED (too geeky and numbers too small) and went for the superbly chunky an retro-cop-show Fossil “Josh”.
I like it, and it IS a manly watch, the poof in the shop told me so.
After grunging around New York state (I cannot recommend Motel6 Albany: it felt like we were likely to have drug deals and hooker activity going on in the next room) and around Montreal, we were starting to get a bit grimy and tired and full of stodgy food. Then…
(cut to sequence of clouds parting accompanied by choral music)
We found Le Commensal. (Also here)
This is a fantastic buffet restaurant, unfortunately found only in Canada (I hope they open one in Manhattan before we go again as we could have done with it there too) . There was a huge hot and cold buffet, bread was free, and you simply weighed your plate at the end and paid accordingly. CAN$10 would get you a good fill. The dishes were aromatic, colourful, tasty, interesting, fresh, well-prepared, and 100% vegetarian.
That meal set us up, not just for the evening, but for the following couple of days. Each time we ate at a commensal we had a couple of days of less stress, more pleasure, more energy and general sense of wellbeing.
Hurrah for vegetables! Hurrah for Quebec! And likewise for Le Commensal.
What do you look for in a pork pie?
French style answer:
The pastry is hard and dense with a mid to dark sienna colour. It should crumble to the bite and give to the white layer beneath that should be about 5-8mm deep. Some jelly is acceptable but should be minimal. The meat should be densely packed but come apart easily in the mouth. The pie itself should be between 6 and 12 cm across to keep the meat and pastry in correct proportions. The flavour should not be too metallic. It should be served with A medium mature cheddar and Branston pickle.
The English style answer:
Pork.
… before the holibags fade and I’m stuck back in my old existence …
How To Do Niagara Falls
- Go to Niagara Falls Canada not USA
- Canadians pick up litter, say please and thankyou, and charge 20% less for stuff than Americans
- Stay in Niagara-on-the-lake
- It’s prettier, more sedate, and it’s full of wineries. Most of the restaurants cost the earth but it’s a very short drive from Niagara falls. The Tudor Vineyards B&B has possibly the best bed in the whole of Canada.
- Don’t bother with the walk under the falls
- We didn’t, after hearing that it wasn’t much cop.
- Strip off for the Maid Of The Mist
- It doesn’t matter how tightly you tie your big blue tourist-condom rainmac (provided free by the maid in the mist crew) you will get DRENCHED. You’re better off in shorts and flip flops than trousers and walking boots.
- Don’t play Rachael at Mini-golf
- She’s really rather good at it
The falls themselves are absolutely amazing, literally breathtaking when you go on the boat. Vertigo-inducing when viewed from above, and awe-inspiring when you try to picture the amount of water that pours away every hour. Definitely recommended.
Well, my back fortunately got betterer and betterer. The day before the holidays I spent doing back exercises and packing. By the second day of the holiday I was completely rehabilitated, at least, enough to lug the cases up and down stairs and so on. So far the jollies have involved:
- Chinese food in Chinatown, Flushing, complete with bones, gristle and pipes
- A drive through the bronx on the expressway
- Visits to places with names like Poughkeepsie, Schenectady, Saugerties. In fact names exactly like that.
- Motel 6 in Albany, which gave us the impression there was a real possibility of bumping into a drug dealer and some Hoes at any moment
- Albany itself in the evening which is spectacular but mostly unwelcoming
- DeJohns restaurant in Albany, where our waiter Seth thought it was simply “Gorgeous” that we already had ordered our drinks
- Geysers and bathing in Saratoga Springs
- Ausable Chasm, which we chanced upon completely by accident and thus was a free bonus
- Entering Canada at night, the radio going all French, and the approach to Montreal at night
- A day wandering round the Quartier Latin and Vielle Montréal with excellent food, lots of crap and some fascinating art, and a great atmosphere.
Low points in Montréal:
- An indecipherable parking fine accrued through indecipherable parking signs.
- CAN$12 for a coke and a lemonade
- A biiiiatch waitress giving our table away in a salsa club and removing our bag containing our passports and failing to tell us where the hell she had put it and us thinking it had been stolen.
- Homeless people EVERYwhere. I’m thinking their landlords must be related to that waitress.
On balance, we’re doing alright. The parking fine comes to UKP20 for two days’ parking, so not too bad. Just have to figure out how to pay it. Or maybe I’ll just never visit the USA again.