How to Enjoy a Canadian Winter: Part 1

When I was younger, I used to love winter in Canada. Full of tobogganing, figure skating, building snowmen, and making snow forts, it was quite possibly my favourite season. Somewhere in my teens I lost my love of winter, and found that when you’re too old to make snowmen, the season just isn’t as fun. Here in Canada, we get snow from about the end of November until the end of March/beginning of April. It’s a long winter, but some years we get lucky and only have a few major snowstorms. This year we’ve got more snow than previous years, and I’ve actually rediscovered my love of winter (minus the driving in bad weather part). I’ve realized that winter is such a huge part of our year here, that there’s no use in grumbling and complaining about it. Instead, we’ve really embraced winter this year, and all of the activities that a Canadian winter has to offer.

On the weekend, Gabriel and I went ice-skating in Niagara Falls. They have “The Rink at the Brink” set up, which is basically an ice rink situated right at the brink of the Falls. It’s beautiful, and this year it’s completely open (in previous years there has been a tent-structure over it). I haven’t ice-skated since I was 13, and although I used to competitively figure-skate when I was younger, I was pretty sure I was going to fall a million times. Gabriel has only ever skated once in his life, when he was 7 years old. Luckily there were only two other people on the ice, so we had lots of room to tentatively skate around.

After a few times around gripping onto the boards for dear life, I managed to break-free and eventually picked it up easily. It was like riding a bike. Gabriel did great too, and was much better at staying on his feet than I would’ve anticipated for a first-time skater. It was so beautiful to skate on a sunny (but freeeezing cold) day, as we watched rainbows appear, disappear, and reappear over the icy Falls. We’re looking forward to going back to the Rink at the Brink soon to improve our skating!

I’ve been battling bronchitis for the past week, and was so glad to actually get out of the house and do some activities this weekend. I hope you all had a fun weekend!

Visiting Google

Warning: Serious amounts of geekiness below…

There’s something you should all know about Gabriel and I.

We’re super computer geeks.

I blame Gabriel entirely for this. When I met him 5 years ago, I knew nothing about computers. Zip. Zero. I had no clue what a blog was, or how to build a website. Basically all I knew was how to e-mail, use Word, and check my Facebook. Pretty sad. But then I met the super-computer-genius that is Gabriel, and he changed my life. Not only did he do all the amazing boyfriend stuff that keeps me loving him every day, but he introduced me (against my will at first) to the world of computers. He made this computer-clueless girl into a bona fide computer geek. He showed me how to create a blog. He encouraged me while we lived in Holland to keep blogging, and always helped me when I had a computer-related problem. He even gave me my very own laptop, which was one of the most useful gifts I’ve ever received. (He gave my Mom one too! We like to call him the Laptop Fairy around here…)

So how do I know that it’s come full circle, and that I am now a bigger computer geek than him? On our trip to California, we had to go to Silicon Valley on business. After passing a sign on the freeway that said “Mountain View”, I knew we had to make a slight detour. We found our way, with our trusty TomTom, to the Google campus.

And it was the highlight of my trip. Seriously. It was like I was in Disney World. Gabriel liked it, but not nearly as much as I did. I was over the moon.

I’m a Google girl. I use Google’s products religiously. I convert friends and family into Google-ites. I read books about Google, do projects and case studies on them at school, and am constantly keeping up with their latest products and services. I surprise myself sometimes, considering that I used to be completely computer illiterate, and only got a cell phone this past year (I know, I’m like the last person in the world to get a cell phone).

So we drove onto the Google campus, right at the peak of lunch time. My first inclination that we were getting close to Google was the street sign “Google”, as well as the groups of people cycling around on Google-coloured bicycles, wearing Google fleece jackets. “Those are Googlers!” I yelled at Gabriel as we drove by.

We parked at a nearby recreation area and walked onto the campus. We toured around the outside of the buildings, and then sat in the courtyard, under the red, blue, green, and yellow umbrellas as Googlers took advantage of the sunny weather for lunch. Everyone had security passes, and all the buildings were security-protected (obviously), so we didn’t actually go inside. Walking around the massive campus though was amazing. From the kooky statues to the free Google bicycles laying around, it was seriously cool to be at the heart of the technology industry.

There weren’t any other guests or visitors, except one couple with huge “VISITOR” passes that were being escorted around. I guess we sort of blended in, being the same age as most of the Googlers, and walking around in the midst of a busy time when they were all out and about. When I think of my daily activities on the computer, 90% takes place on a Google site. Whether it’s editing photos on Picnik, searching Google, or checking my Gmail, Google is a huge part of my life. It was seriously surreal to be at its headquarters, perhaps mere feet away from Larry and Sergey themselves (probably not, but it’s fun to imagine the level of geniusness inside those buildings we saw).

Afterwards, Gabriel offered to take a look at Yahoo and other large companies. Nah, I said. Google was more than enough for this computer geek. I loooved it. Thanks Google!

The Best Soup We Ever Ate…

…was in Chinatown. San Francisco has one of the largest Chinatown’s in the world. Did you know that the fortune cookie was even invented here? We stumbled into Chinatown one night, after shopping and watching the ice-skaters in Union Square. Before we knew where we were headed, we were passing under the thick iron pagoda of San Francisco’s Chinatown district. Lanterns, flags, and bright lights were everywhere. Hungry as usual, Gabriel wanted to stop into a place for a quick late-night snack. I don’t recall the name of the restaurant, nor which street it was on, but we ordered the best hot and spicy soup. Yum.