A fine dinner

Sorry about the lack of a blog entry yesterday. I fell asleep around 7pm and stayed asleep most of the night.

Tonight a group of 10 of us went out for a "non-dress-down" dinner, where we wanted people to not wear t-shirts and jeans. Everyone dressed up a bit and looked nice which was good to see.

I didn't finish my dress in time for tonight but that's ok. Instead, I wore a knee-length black pencil skirt and a black belt overtop a stretch black short-sleeved blouse with white polka-dots, along with black nylons and black patent heels. I looked awesome, if I do say so myself :) I might have looked nice in the dress I'm making, too, but I wouldn't have looked as curvy.

We had dinner at Wildcraft, a newish restaurant here in Waterloo. Dinner was very good; I had walnut-crusted chicken which was tasty. For dessert I had the peanut butter cookie which was divine - it was very, very, very yummy. Some people ordered the hazelnut chocolate mousse cake but it wasn't as good as the peanut butter cookie.

We really enjoyed ourselves tonight; I was glad to see everyone and spend time with them over a nice meal. Now I'm stuffed, sleepy, and satiated.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a great time last night while bringing in the New Year. My friend and I ended up getting all dressed up and going for dinner. The dinner was very yummy and my friend and I had a great time - we both also decided that we each had great company in the other :)

Dancing was supposed to start after dinner but didn't like the music so didn't dance. We did look at all of the outfits and we did see that there were some interesting outfits there. Some of those even showed two sets of cleavage! Others barely contained their wearer, and still others were not at all dressy. Looking at the hair people had, it seems that the rise of clip-in extensions is most likely going to bring a modified mullet back. What else can happen if you have hair shorter than your chin and you slip in 10" or longer extensions on the back and sides?

The music was hip-hop and since I don't listen to it all the time, I wasn't familiar with everything they played. There were a lot of hip-hop listeners there, too.... and I wasn't totally comfortable around them. It seemed to me that the men looked at the women as though the women were pieces of meat; that they didn't appreciate the women's curves because they belonged to women but because they liked the curves. And the women allow them to look at them this way, which I thought was sad.

Of course I haven't been in a club in a few years and some things are different - like almost all women take their drink and purse on the dance floor (it isn't safe to leave them behind). This makes for a very strange dance for some, mostly involving shuffling feet while simultaneously pushing the butt out and nodding the head. I also noticed that many people use their cell phone to take a photo of themselves or their friends (or random strangers) doing, well, anything. Aside from the fact that I don't like camera flashes, I'm not comfortable with the lack of privacy this rampant picture-taking implies.

We left that club at about 11:30pm. We figured that we shouldn't ring in the new year in a place where we weren't totally happy - it's better to leave those places behind and do something else.

That something else wound up being the fireworks in Downtown Edmonton. I guess the fireworks we saw last night will be the last big one for a while. It seems that the fireworks' launch pad is on property that will be developed this upcoming year. The fireworks were amazing!!!! There were swirly ones and big blossom ones in multiple colours! (I only remember those in at most two colours). If we'd had a slightly better view and a real camera instead of a a camera-phone, then we could have taken some amazing photos. The fireworks were reflected by some of the mirrored buildings and I think those shots would have been cool.

Overall, I'm glad I went out with my friend and I'm really happy with the way things ended up going. We had a good time and I'm hoping that this will be a reflection of the upcoming year.

I wish I could wave a magic wand for all of us that would make the illnesses and unhappiness out there disappear. Since I don't know when that wand will appear, I will settle for wishing that 2008 brings me, you, and yours an abundance of joy, good health, and peace.

Ian's birthday

Ian's birthday is today and after curling we went to AM Africa for dinner with 7 other people. The food took quite a while to come out but it was delicious once it arrived. We ordered an all-meat platter and an all-vegetable platter and quite frankly, I prefer the vegetable platter. The meat tasted like gamey meat (with bones) and the different meat types didn't really taste different from each other. The vegetable dishes were definitely different - they had some interesting flavours and textures.

It was nice to spend time with everyone. We had quite a bit of time to talk before the food came out and that wasn't so bad :)

Going to the circus

We went to Avaia, the CirqueNiagara show in Niagara Falls tonight. Before that, we figured that since we were so close to the US anyways that we might as well go to Joanns fabric store as I was looking for a couple of specialty items. Unfortunately, we didn't plan on the 2 1/2 hour wait to get through customs. We thought we'd left plenty of time but we ended up a bit rushed. Fortunately, customs didn't charge us duty on the things we bought.

The first Joanns we went to didn't have what I was looking for so we went to a bigger one. They had almost everything, but I wish that I'd been able to go back to the first store. We had dinner plans and there just wasn't time. The lighting in some parts of Joann's was terrible; it was dark and purple and I felt like I couldn't see. I found it very upsetting and disorienting. Between that and the fact that we were running late, I was a basket case for a little while. I wasn't able to coherently describe what I wanted - I couldn't find the words and I couldn't think. I did get most of what I wanted, including an adjustable skirt hemmer thingy with a thing that makes chalk puff out in a straight line.

The dinner at Mia Casa Ristorante was pretty good. The ambience was good and the server warned us that the kitchen was very busy because of three wedding parties, and then proceeded to make sure that we were out in time for our show. It was a little expensive but then, so is everything in Niagara Falls.

The circus was GREAT!!!! We all had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. One of the unique things about this circus is that it has real, live horses. The tricks they can do on the running horses are nothing short of amazing! The other acts including the transition clowns and acrobatics were very good, too. The circus took place in a tent with a ring in the middle and seating around the middle. It had a cozy, almost old-fashioned feel, like each member of the audience contributed to the circus. We'd highly recommend this show if you're in the Niagara region. The tickets range from $39-79 and a kid 12 and under is free with the purchase of an adult ticket (half-price otherwise). That really isn't that expensive compared to other forms of entertainment.

In other news, I've got some crazy rash thing in the corners of my elbows, my neck, and my back. Wherever my skin folds, I've got terrible itching and a red painful rash. I have no idea what this could be. Anyone know? I took my allergy medication this morning and we went to the pharmacist to figure out what to do. She recommended a hydrocortisone cream mixed with something else. This gives temporary relief but the rashes are still there. This is strange.

Dinner and a show (plus a showcase!)

This being the third Wednesday of the month, ordinarily I would have gone to my Young Women's support group. However, we had tickets to the Just for Laughs roadshow and we had dinner plans at a new restaurant in town, so I skipped my group.

The new restaurant is Wildcraft, and it's very good. The food is tasteful, attractive, well-priced, and has reasonable portion sizes. The service was good, as expected, although a little slow; dinner was 2 hours from start to finish. Some people like that kind of thing. The decor is very decorator to me, but it's still quite nice. The washrooms are especially nice, with granite slab sinks, lots of mirrors, and couches. We would recommend this restaurant to people in the KW area. I think reservations are required (or at least strongly recommended).

The show was funny. There was an emcee and three other comedians. I liked the second comedian (the third guy on stage) the best. He made fun of Kitchener, and he had me when he told the crowd that he saw a guy with a mullet outside and so he knew he was going to swear a lot. I know, it's less funny when I write it, but then I'm no good at telling jokes, either in person or in my blog :) Anyways, I'm glad that we went. It was a fun way to spend a Wednesday evening, and we each had a good laugh.

Oh!!!! Starting at midnight EDT on April 19 I'm supposed to have a place in the Mother's Day showcase on etsy. I hope I still have my place because my bill shows I've paid for it, even though it says I could have another showcase there if spots were available. Check it out :)

Home again!

We just got home from Las Vegas about 1/2 an hour ago. It's been a very long day traveling home and we're both quite tired. As well, I only got about 6 or 7 hours of sleep each night, which is about half of what I usually get so I'm quite exhausted.

We did have a great time and we enjoyed the shows and everything. We are both very glad that we went and that we did the things we did. I'm looking forward to showing you the few pictures that we took and to telling you everything but I'm too exhausted to do that tonight. Therefore, I'll update this entry over the next day or so.

Here's the update.... I haven't put the pictures up yet but hope to do this in the next day or so.

Hotels

We stayed at Bally's. The first night we had a room that backed onto one of the elevator banks, so we listened to the elevators all night. This room didn't have a very good view since it was far away from the Strip. We requested a better room for the second night and got one as far away from the elevators as possible. It overlooked the Eiffel Tower from Paris Las Vegas and we could see half of the water fountains from the Bellagio. We could hear the music, too, which was cool.

This room was a long walk down a cold hallway from the elevators, but it was much quieter. We did prefer the outlay of the first room because it had a counter with a mirror in a separate area from the bathroom, which was a perfect setup to apply my makeup. The second room didn't have that kind of setup. It would have been perfect to have the first room in the second location. Still, the second room was nice.

Casino/Hotel layouts

The lobby at Bally's was fairly well laid out and it was pretty easy to find things. In our travels, we visited New York New York, Paris Las Vegas, Bellagio, Wynn, Aladdin, Caesar's Palace, Mandalay Bay, Luxor, MGM, Mirage, Harrah's, Rio, Bill's Gambling Saloon, Venetian, and the Four Seasons.

The high-end places like the Wynn, Bellagio, Four Seasons, and Venetian are beautiful. The ceilings are high, the carpet is soft, it's easy to get around, and they're well-signed. We couldn't smell much smoke in these places and everything looked expensive. The marble in these places was lovely and wonderful. The casinos had lovely ceilings, usually with draping and soft lighting. Even the slots areas didn't feel busy but felt elegant, spacious, and rich.

The one place that really stood out as being awful was New York, New York. It was loud, smoky, and confusing. We couldn't find our way through the place to find anything. Everything was crowded and it was hard to get around. Most places try to keep you in the hotel/casino because they want you to spent money, but they provide signs so that you can find your way out. New York, New York lacked these signs. I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone.

The other places kind of blurred together. Each place has its gimmick and those were sort of interesting. Every single place is HUGE. You could walk around for hours..... and since we visited a lot of the places, you can guess that we walked for hours and hours :)

Food

We had thought that we were going to eat at a really fancy restaurant at least once. That didn't happen. We had breakfast each morning at the hotel and it was so big that we really didn't eat much through the day. The last two days I had Cream of Wheat, which is one of my favourite breakfasts. I guess I was missing good old wholesome food. The servings were HUGE. You could practically eat for a week on one meal.

For lunches/dinners we tended to grab a small thing like a muffin or baked good before the show and then eat half a sandwich each after the show along with a pastry dessert.

Shopping

As you know, I love love love love shopping. We went to the Fashion Show Mall, the shops at the Aladdin, the shops at Wynn, Venetian, and Bellagio, and wandered by the shops in every other hotel. Ian was very patient in shopping with me because I know that he doesn't like shopping at all. I appreciate his willingness to go with me.

At Fashion Show Mall, I managed to try on Christian Louboutin shoes :) I am a size 6 (36) in most styles and a 6.5 (36.5) in some specialty styles. Of course I couldn't afford these shoes, but if I ever see them for a cheap price then I know what size to buy :) I looked at a lot of clothing, which was fun.

At the Wynn I tried on Jimmy Choo shoes. I love them almost as much as Christian Louboutins :) I learned that I am a 6.5 (36.5) in these shoes. Again, I can't afford these shoes but I wanted to know my shoe size in case I see them for cheap.

Everywhere I went, I looked at dresses, handbags, and clothes. I wanted inspiration for the handbags and earrings that I make, and I wanted to look at the clothes made by some top designers like Roberto Cavalli, bebe, Chanel, Dior, and others. It was satisfying to look at all of these shops.

The Venetian shops really do have a canal running through them, and you really can ride a gondola (which we didn't do). That was kind of cool.

Gambling

I'm not much of a gambler, but Ian sure likes to gamble. He did most of the gambling, but I tried craps at Bill's Gambling Saloon, blackjack at the Mirage, and table Texas Hold-em at Paris Las Vegas. I won money at blackjack and lost it at the other two games. I also played the slots and won some money there. Overall, I lost money, but I didn't lose as much as I thought I might.

Ian loves to gamble and spent most of his gambling time at Bally's in the Party Pit. He had a lot of fun. I think he ended up about even which is not too bad.

Getting around

We bought a Monorail pass, thinking we would use it a lot. Well, we didn't; we only used it to get to Fashion Show Mall. The main problem with the Monorail is that the stations are at the backs of the hotels, so you have to walk through the hotels to get to the strip. It also doesn't stop near the Fashion Show Mall so we had to walk a long, long way to get there.

A better option is taking the city bus. It's $2/ride and $5/24 hour pass. It stops at all the major hotels on the Strip, which makes it better and easier to take.

Of course we took taxis to and from the airport and from different places when we were tired. It takes a long, long time to get down the Strip in a taxi because of the amount of traffic there. A good taxi driver will drive through parking lots or around the back streets to get you where you're going. A bad taxi driver will either drive up and down the Strip or will go WAY out of the way. It's easy to get a taxi at each hotel because the hotels employ people who can get you a taxi. Every hotel has a taxi line; stand in it and you will get on a taxi within about 10 minutes or so.

Grand Canyon

The bus tour to the grand canyon was fantastic. We got on a shuttle that took us only two blocks. The tour bus was comfortable; I'm glad we took it as it meant that we could see the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon without straining ourselves much.

If you're planning on visiting the Hoover Dam, you'll want to do it soon as they're building an overpass that takes you away from it. It's because of 9/11; they're worried that someone will smuggle a bomb of something and destroy the dam. Therefore, everyone going over the structure is questioned before they go over it. An officer came onto our bus each time to check that we weren't carrying a weapon or bomb or something.

We made two stops at the Grand Canyon to take photos. The first one was much better as the view was pretty and unspoiled by people's buildings. The second one was more historical as it had all of the hotels that were built to house people wanting to visit the Canyon. That stop was less fun because it was more touristy.

Shows

We first saw Zumanity, which is a Cirque du Soleil show celebrating sex and sexuality. It was very, very good. Of course the circus acts were amazing, and the strangeness of seeing the bare breasts did leave us. This show is rated adults-only and for good reason; they don't do anything overtly sexual, but it is very, very sensual in nature. If you are uncomfortable with some expressions of sexuality, including bondage and homosexuality, you may not like this show. We loved it; it was very, very good.

We saw Penn and Teller on the third night (my birthday). We thought that we would enjoy the show very much, but unfortunately it wasn't as good as we thought it might be. It was sort of funny but it wasn't quite as good as the tv show. There were some funny bits; just not as much funny as we might have hoped.

Finally, we saw O, another Cirque du Soleil show, and it was amazing. If you see only one show in Las Vegas, make it O. The choreography, costumes, and sets are spectacular. Even the theatre is wonderful. The fact that it all takes place on and under water makes it all the more amazing. Go see this show. Even though it's expensive, go and see it. We were up on the second balcony and could see pretty much everything, so you have a good view even in the cheap(er) seats.

Other attractions

Aside from the hotels themselves, the only other attraction we paid for was the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. It was really cool. I love aquariums and this one was huge. Ian made me touch a manta ray that they had. They looked funny trying to get out of the pool they were in. I didn't think that they would be able to breathe air, but this one ray did everything it could to get out. It was a pretty good show; I'd recommend it.

A fun Friday

Someone suggested that I tweak my arty and ruler photos in my etsy store just a little bit to lighten them, so I did that today. They do look better that way, I think. I finished that around 1pm EST today, so if you saw the pictures before that and haven't looked at them again, please have another look :)

Oh!!!!!!! I got some silver-plated clip-on earring things today. So if you don't have pierced ears and can handle silver then you can wear my earrings :) I'll be announcing this on my etsy store tomorrow. I didn't get sterling silver because they're MUCH more expensive and I figured in this one case I could get away with the plated stuff - anyone who wears clip-on earrings isn't going to be wearing them all day every day.

Some of the people we see regularly also have birthdays next week and so we went to dinner tonight at Caesar Martini's. The food was very good. The service was a tiny bit slow, but it wasn't too bad. Our waitress had trouble with the flambe part of the bananas foster dessert that some people ordered - then again, I'd be wary of doing things with flames and food as well. The restaurant turns into a bar in the later evening, and they turned up the music early on (before 8pm). Unfortunately, all we could hear was the bass and it didn't sound all that good. So when the manager asked if everything was all right, well, I told him that I wasn't happy about the music, especially since it was so early. He did turn it down, which I appreciated very much. I'd recommend this restaurant if you want a nice meal in the Waterloo area.

Later on, we watched the original The Hills Have Eyes movie. It was pretty good; there was a lot of suspense and it was generally a good horror movie. The story was reasonably believable, too. The special effects did leave something to be desired, but this is kind of to be expected for a movie in 1977. We'd recommend this one :)

We also rented the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. We'll watch that before we go to Vegas. They had a promotion on to get three 7-day movies for only $9 (two cost $7.50) so we took a chance on Dead and Breakfast. How can a movie with the tagline "It's like a bad horror movie...... only worse!" be bad? :) I'll let you know what we think of this one, too :)

A night out

We went with some friends to see Sex and the Second City tonight. It was funny :) We all laughed and laughed. The story revolved around a couple who was getting a divorce. It's a musical and was very well done; the songs and music were very good. We'd wondered how it would be, seeing this kind of show in a place where interactivity between the performers and audience was difficult, but they did very well. There were a few improv elements that worked out pretty well, too. I'd recommend the show.

I did some shopping this afternoon because I didn't feel that I had anything to wear, and I managed to get a great top for only $15! The elbow-length sleeves are cut in one with the body of the top. There is a 4" clingy black band at the bottom with matching 2" non-clingy bands on the sleeves. It blouses out over the bottom band and has a nice wide-ish oval neckline. The fabric is a black background with red and cream things on it - it's vaguely Oriental-inspired, I guess. It's not like anything I'd ever tried on before. Anyways, it looks fantastic on me, and it looked great with my black pencil skirt. I think it would look good with black pants, too. I got some cheap but awesome jewelry, too.

We went for dinner at Ellison's Bistro, this new place in Kitchener. It's Caribbean and soul-inspired with a European twist. We had just over an hour for dinner before we had to leave for the show, which should have been enough time for dinner. Unfortunately, the place got very busy just before we arrived (they were about half-full), and there was only the one cook and the one person in the front. We told the person that we had to leave by 7:30pm.... she looked a little worried, but didn't say anything. I guess we should have asked whether there would actually have been time, but I wish she had told us that there wouldn't be enough time.

We waited 1 hour and 15 minutes without receiving our entrees and ended up leaving to make our show. We paid for the drinks we'd had and the appetizers but not the entrees. They kept saying that our food was just about ready but we felt that we had waited too long and we absolutely had to leave. I felt kinda bad about walking out like that - when we walked out, they were actually finally plating our food - but we had to leave to make the show on time.

The food seemed pretty good, but the service is excruciatingly slow. They need more people in the kitchen and the person in the front wasn't very good. She couldn't do more than one thing at a time and she was very linear about the way things were done. She had a queue of tasks and she stuck to that without fail, which was frustrating - as we were trying to pay, she asked if we could wait while she dealt with someone else... well, no, we couldn't because we had to leave. The cook ended up figuring out our bill. We might go back to the restaurant when they've had time to settle in a bit more (or if no one else is there) because the food actually looks good.

Crowds, more crowds, and a movie

We went to IKEA today. Oh my goodness that place is busy on a Saturday afternoon :) There were people everywhere - each time I turned around, I ran into someone. It was a rather exhausting experience, as I'm sure you can imagine. Adding to the crowding were people who weren't very good at driving their carts. Many people take their carts down every aisle, no matter how small, whether they actually needed the cart or not. It's always better to park the cart to the side, if you can, while browsing narrow aisles. Those are the same people, I think, who stop in the middle of the aisle, with their carts and entourages of people, blocking the aisle entirely. We persevered, however, and managed to get a new coffee table, bookshelf, dresser, and some dishes, though, so the trip was worthwhile.

For dinner, we ended up at the Keg steakhouse. It was only 5:30pm, but there was already a 20-30 minute wait for a table for two. We had no idea that restaurants were so busy that early on a Saturday night - we had tried to go to Boston Pizza beforehand, but their wait was also 20-30 minutes. We ended up sitting at one of the last tables in the Keg lounge; by the end of the meal, we had people who were waiting for a table crowding all around us. There were three separate groups surrounding us, and I couldn't even get my coat off of my chair without brushing against someone. The food was yummy, as usual, but the experience was unfortunately quite unpleasant. We will go back, but I won't sit in the lounge again to eat.

We also saw The Departed tonight. We both enjoyed it very much. There were a few story issues (they never noticed he was always on his cellphone?), and the twist at the end wasn't all that unexpected, but the film overall was quite good. I'd recommend this movie if you like a good cops-against-the-mob story with no all-good or all-bad characters, and don't mind some gore. It is a very bloody movie, with quite a lot of shooting.