Fun (again) with Nic and Tim...

Yesterday Nic and Tim made a trek northbound to visit Josh and I for the day. We met up at our apartment and I gave them the 'grand tour' of our place and they met Deuce (who was acting a bit more shy than usual). Though in all honesty, he's not too social a kitty with people he doesn't know.

We went across the street to a bagel restaurant and I think we had the crabbiest (or maybe that should be 'double p') waitress I've ever seen. We placed our orders and waited to die while she brought the food out. She brought out our drinks and even placed Josh's orange juice in her armpit. Yes, armpit orange juice is a delicacy here...(not).

After we ate, we waited for quite a while for her to bring the bill. Though it wasn't entirely her fault, there was a group of four older/elderly people next to us who decided after they got the bill that they wanted separate cheques and sent our waitress into a tizzy. They tried to figure out their totals, and then after about 10 minutes realized that they pretty much owed the same amount. I swear we had to be the youngest in the restaurant. Oy.

Afterwards we headed downtown on the subway. Josh went out in the morning to pick up a bunch of tickets so we could just hop on the subway and head downtown rather than stopping on the way.

We started off by going to Chinatown, while we have a rather large Chinatown, I can't say that I've ever spent much time there. We did a huge walk through the area, looked in an overpriced pet store (I'm sorry, but tetra fish should NOT cost $2.99) and saw a bunch of 'interesting' things. Nic found a magazine that had a chick wearing a low cut bra on the cover and there was a corpse on the back page. DON'T ASK.

After that we walked down Queen Street which is the 'hip' area of town. After avoiding the piles of dog poop and the pot smoking hippies and, of course, the Condom Shack, we headed over to Nathan Phillips Square (City Hall) and watched the ice skaters. The rink was so utterly overcrowded, I don't know how anyone could have enjoyed themselves.

We then went through the Eaton Centre and saw the Swarovski tree (it apparently has $1,000,000 worth of crystals on it). The picture above just doesn't do it justice!

Since we were getting a bit peckish and they had to drive 2+ hours home, we decided to head to Queen of Sheba (an Ethiopian restaurant) for dinner. If you haven't tried Ethiopian food, it's amazing. You don't eat with cutlery, but with injera (a sourdough bread) and pick the food up with it, and it's communal eating. Since we got there relatively early the food wasn't as spicy as it usually is, basically the later in the day that you go, the hotter the food is. It's made in a large pot and the deeper they go into the pot, the hotter it becomes.

Also because it was so early, at least early for that place, we had the entire restaurant to ourselves for quite some time. Then a few families came in with their kiddies. While I love the food myself, I don't know if I'd bring a little one in there, because two things are likely to happen: the ritual flinging of the injera and the unholy explosive diaper that will meet you and greet you in the morning. Oh the horror! Oh the humanity! Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!

"Why is mommy in the corner crying?"

"Why is daddy on the floor in the fetal position repeating the phrase 'Calm blue ocean...calm blue ocean. My kingdom for a scuba mask!'"

Of course all during dinner, and for most of the day actually, we were talking about adoption. As we were leaving the restaurant, a man came up to us and said "I couldn't help but overhear you, you're adopting?" So we went into all the details about it and he told us that his brother adopted from Nepal.

As we were leaving the restaurant I got one helluva migraine (I had woken up with one but it went away before Nic and Tim arrived). We got back to our place, said our goodbyes and wished each other well for the New Year. Hopefully we'll meet up again later in January.

When we got home I ended up taking a "happy pill" but didn't end up falling asleep until 3:00. Let's just say, playing sudoku and having one of those pills makes for an...interesting game.

To say that Nic and Tim are cool people is an understatement. Both Josh and I really enjoyed spending the day with them and look forward to many more get-togethers in the future. :)