Kiff blog

Guess What I’m doing !! 😉
Photo… more to come soon…

Well here they are, just incase anyone cares 😉
Photos of Montreal!!

Er… Last few days in Toronto were quite busy, trying to catch up with everyone befor heading off to Vancouver, we Met Mias great Uncle Ken (Got a tour through his Factory) Untie JJ came over from Guelph for dinner to say goodbye…. it was all very busy.
We Went to the Zoo.. (it was snowing and most of the Animals were Hibernating but it was still really nice, when we got back from the zoo Mia’s Uncle Charles toolk us to a Hockey game.. we had front row seats, people getting slammed into the wall right infront of us.. it was really exciting. after that we went out for drinks and dinner.. stumbled back home at 4am then up at 8am to fly to Vancouver… all in all a great trip… now for skiing 🙂
Zoo Photos
hockey Photos

It was nice to relax at Mia’s Granparents place in Peterborough after a Crazy Road trip through French Canada, we watched T.V, went to a great Arthouse movie called “Everything is Illuminated” Saw a Curling game on T.V, went to the Canoe Museum… It was really nice.. I really enjoyed listening to all of the old storys about mias family.. and learning more about American History from Mias Nanna and Grandad.
FYI (Peterborough is the home of the “Bare Naked Ladys”)

Photos here.

We spent a couple of days in Torronto, Visited the Science Centre where the “Body Worlds 2” Exhibit was on… that was pretty cool, Gaelle gave us a lovely tour through the city showing us all the great Achitecture (she achitectual Engineere?) and giving us a good overview of the lay of the land.
on Tues Morning Gaelle picked up the rental Chevy People mover and we headed off early for Montreal in the province of Quebec…into French speaking country.
Montreal was a beautiful City, full of lovely old buildings and covererd in snow! great shopping, Friendly people and SNOW!!! yay!!
We stayed in a hotel for the night and spent the next day walking up around the hills in Montreal giving us a great view of the city and a chance to get out into a bit of nature, it was so amazing to wander through a forest of trees all covrered in snow with all the little Birds (Chickadees) and Squirrels running around.
That night we headed off to Quebec City, prob one of the oldest citys in North America, our B&B where we stayed for 3 nights was located in the heart of the old part of the city, inside the huge Stone wall “Fortifications” that protected the city from the english invaders! our B&B along with all the other buildings in the area were all between 200 to 300+ years old and so beautiful! along with the oldest Chatau style hotel in North America.
So much history so little time, we spent the whole day on thursday Walking through the city and down past the fortification walls to the partialy Frozen river below, all the walls of the city were lined in huge cannons to stop any English Pigs from invading 😉 Gealle was a great tour guide, not only her vast knowledge of french architecture and history but also her ability to speak fluent French and talk to locals to try and fill any gaps, find directions.. order drinks .. and so on (altho just about every person we met spoke very good english, and seemes only too pleased to speak whatever we prefered, Quebec City is a huge tourist destination and so the french there are very friendly and acomodating)
Thursday night we Ran around acting like children playing in the snow,we hired some Ice skates and had a play on an outside rink then we had a tabogan race, Kiwis Vs Torrono …. Kiwis won !! So much fun, we then made up a drinking game using Texas Holdem Poker and had a couple of quiet drinks befor heading to bed.
On friday Morning we loaded up the Car and headed up to “Le Massif” for a day of skiing, They had a 300+cm Base and it snowed over a foot in the time we were there, so much powder! and the most amazing views of the River (looked more like a lake you couln’t see the other side) The bottom of the field is right down by the water, and most of the runs were between 1.5- 2km long!! they seemed to go on for ever! It was a great preview of what Skiing in Canada is like, I can’t wait for whistler !!
We got back into Quebec city that night and spent our last night in French Canada (We had Cheese Fondue for dinner at a French Resturaunt and I had snails for the first time since I was about 3 years old 😉 Sat morning we Made our way Back to Ontario stopping off for lunch at Gaelles Mums place, they have a great spot out in the middle of no where, the forest backing their house was the home of Coyotes, Wolves, foxes, Mooses, Deer, Raccons etc etc.
I was hopeing to see some but they were all hiding from me 🙁
We arrived in Peterbourough at around 9pm at Mias Grandparents house, we spent the next few days there but thats another story 😉

Well, what a fantastic Country! after landing at Toronto Airport we were met by Mias Auntie JJ she dove us up to her home in Guelph where I got to meet the first of mias Cousins Dylan, Sean and Morgen.
That night I was taken to my first ice Hockey game! the game was between the local pro team (just under the NHL league) the Guelph Storms. and some other team that wasn’t important enough to remember…. we won! what a great Sport! the next day we took the dog (Bear) for a walk, it was fun walking in the snow around the neighbourhood.
at around 10 am We were off to Niagra Falls:) That was amazing ! we took the scenic route down to Niagra following the river up stream, driving through the old town of Niagra lake..really pretty scenery, the falls were Huge! pictures just dont do them justice, Its somthing that has to be experienced! we had a look around the tacky township that was more like a fairground with haunted houses and wax museums very colourful! Mia took morgan through one of the Haunted houses and she laughed all the way through!
We went up the large Skytower for Dinner up the top (it was dang expensive and JJ spoilt us rotton!) the view of Niagra from the top was incredible, all the lights had been put on by that point and it looked great! after that we drove back up to guelph (about 1.5 hrs only)
the next day Untie JJ, Mia and myself drove to Torronto for Mias cousin Gaelles Engagement lunch were I met a whole lot more of mias family, and stuffed myself with the most wonderfull Italian food at this great resturaunt!
after the lunch (late evening) we headed to her Uncles place not far from the resturaunt where Mia and I would be staying for the next few days until we head off on our big road trip up to Montreal and Quebec with Gaelle and her partner Carlo.

Photos here !

Hey guys, another busy day in NewYork…
Mia and I got up and jumped on the subwayand headed to the bottom tip of Manhatten to get a couple of pics of the Statue of Liberty, we then walked up to the World Trade centre Memorial.. just a big hole in the graound still!
after that we hit China town, (that was a bit of a let down.. just heaps of bad drivers) then on to Little Italy where we found a nice French cafe? (Go figure) where I found a nice coffee.. yay! there is a god!
we spent the late afternoon wlking through Central Park, from the top to the bottom.. we saw a Hawk that had just caught a pigeon while in mid flight and sat eatin it in Central Park, there were another 2 Hawks in the tree above it, (acording to the locals there are only 6 in New York and it was rare to see 2 in the same place! we had 3!!)
More walking.. then off to find a Taco Bell for Mias Dinner! more Subway rides, after we discovered Starbucks has eaten most of the taco bells we finally found one in bed with Pizza Hutt, that was great.. Mia got to eat Taco’s I ate Pizza.. perfect 😉

Thats it really, New York was a great place, (walking around in -5 degress was fun!!) Central park is really great, Squirrels, Hawks, Cardinals, Geese, Ducks and heaps more all playin in the heart of the city!! I loved it!

Well off to Canada tomorrow morning, Torronto 🙂

Good night.
Photos Added

Well, Mia and I arrived in NY last night and checked into out hotel.. (Its in a great spot just a short walk from Central Park, Time square etc right in the heart of Manhatten) we had a few Dramas with Hotwire which is the company I usually use to book my hotels.. like they decided they were not sure if my credit card was actually mine.. and so canceled my Reservations and refunded the money to my account.. it did mean we didn’t have a place to stay! the hotel offered me a good rate on another room (still more than i was going to pay through hotwire but almost affordable) and so we were finally able to dump our bags and go and explore time square at night 🙂

This morning after a much needed sleep in we went for a walk through Central park and up to the Natural History Museum.. its much just like any other NH Museum but bigger.. much bigger! it took Hours to skim through the many dioramas and displays.. saw some cool animals tho, all dead most killed just so we could look at them in a museum, such was the way back then, poor little guys!

After the Building of death we jumped on the Subway… well I jumped on the subway, Mia was a few steps behind and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop the door from closing locking her out of the train and me in it…. all I can say is we met up at the next station .. and had a good laugh. we headed down to hearald square and the Empire state building… we forked out the $16 each to go up to the observation deck and spent a while up the top taking far too many photos and freezing out butts off… still well worth the effort. afterwards we had a bit of a break by walking through Macys (the largest store in the world!!) when we finally emerged it was Dark out, we walked across to 5th Ave and in the direction of Saint Pats and the Chrysler building, once again taking heaps of photos.. (god bless digital cameras)
on our way home we stopped in at a great pizza place for.. well… pizza… (yes eating very healthy over here) only one more day in NY to go then its off the Canada!! might try to get down to the Statue of Liberty tomorrow and check out china town if we have time.

Thats all for now, check out the photos from today if you want 🙂

Photos

Here they are 🙂
photos

Here they are…photos