You may call me Lasagna Noodle.

Hi y'all. Clair made me pasta!

What's new with me? WELL...

Yah, that was a bit too dramatic. You should know by now that I am not that exciting.

Today, officially moved out of our sublet and into our new place. We were trying to be jerks in some way since the sublet guys have sorta been jerks to us. When we moved in, they left some of their dirty dishes in the sink, they left all of their bathroom stuff exactly where I'm assuming it stays (as in, a loofa still hanging in the shower), didn't bother to empty out their closets for us, and just generally left the place like they had stepped out for coffee for a few minutes. Add to that the fact that one of the guys kept popping in with pretty short notice to pick up his mail or what not and the other guy sent Clair condescending text messages asking when we were planning on leaving, because he was getting back early (even though normally when you pay rent for the month, you get the whole month!), and asked us to clean up because he wouldn't have much time because he had to work on Monday. Then there was the whole internet thing. Needless to say, we were somewhat annoyed at them. But, we generally fail at being mean people. I am pretty sure that I am incapable of moving out of a place without cleaning the bathroom, sweeping, and wiping off things that are dirty. Clair and Dylan wouldn't let me wash the floors, though. Combine that with the fact that we are actually somewhat clean people and the apartment looked pretty good. They thanked us for it. I felt sad. But really, the only reason it ever looked bad was because all of our stuff was shoved in piles because there was no where to put it - take out our stuff, and it looks exactly the way they left it. Anyway, we take comfort in the fact that their fridge is almost completely empty, we ate a whole bunch of their food, they have no ink left in their printer, and they have no laundry detergent and that sort of stuff. We did refrained from stealing their Starbucks card. We also didn't steal their fridge.

In other news, as of this past Monday, I have been married for two years. Do I still count as a newly wed? How long before you are no longer newly wed? It seems like two years is both too long and not long enough. Anyway, we went for a picnic on the top of Mount Royal is the afternoon, which was pretty much perfect (although scampering down a mountain in flipflops and a dress is tricky). Then we took advantage of the fact that we had two places and spent the night here, hanging out just the two of us. We were going to have dinner and watch a movie, but we were still way too full from our picnic and forgot the movie back at the other place. Instead, we ate crackers and watched a couple of episodes of a Japanese tv show. Boring, but nice.

My top 3 reasons we've made it 2 years (other than loving each other, blah blah blah) (yes, I am too lazy to make a top 10 or even a top 5):

-Constantly bickering. If we are threatening to stab each other in the throat every 5 minutes because the other one left something on the floor or criticizes the way the first one parked the car, there really isn't a chance for problems to build up. It normally takes people a while to get used to, but it's our way.

-Our king sized bed. Stolen blankets, drowning with the other person's sweat and elbows to the face are just not an issue. Seriously. Love it.

-Our super-fantastic friends and family. The dudes and dudettes who would do anything, anytime to help us out. The ones that love and support not only us individually, but the two of us together. It is hard to think back on the wedding and to not realize how lucky we are, both for the people we knew then and for the people we have met since. It may be cheesy, but that don't make it any less true. We love you.

Oh, we also had dinner with two friends of Dylan's uncle last night. (Wow, talk about not following any sort of chronological order!) It was a lot of fun. They had us over to their house, they fed us, they answered all of our questions about Montreal, and gave us some suggestions about where to get a cheep fridge. Super nice people and they have an adorable baby too. They asked why we didn't bring along Clair. And man, did they ever feed us. So good. Chicken, and vegetables, potato salad, tea, tofu chocolate mousse, cherries. Nom nom nom. But it was really nice to go out, talk to new people and feel somewhat less alone here. What more could you ask for?

Ok, that's it. Night-night world.

Like the Boomerang.

Hmm, I feel like I should update you all on our lives. But we are pretty boring people, so I don't have much to say.

We went down and watched some fireworks this evening. Montreal has an international fireworks thing a lot like the Celebration of Light in Van. Tonight was Canada's night. Not that fireworks are a rare occurrence in Montreal, since apparently there are fireworks all the freaking time. I think that there are fireworks somehow related to Just For Laughs more or less every night. Between that and us living right down the street from the Alouette's stadium, night around here haven't been overly quiet. Luckily, I don't really care...

I've been putting some thought into going beck to school sometime. As of Sept. 2011, I will have been a resident of Quebec for a couple of months and be eligible for Quebec university prices. And, let me tell you, living a couple blocks away from a University is not making it any less tempting. Anyway, McGill offers a somewhat bizarre BSW/MSW two year combo thingy that looks pretty perfect. But there are a lot of things I need to figure out/do/get in order before deciding if that is what I want to do. For instance, they want some work/volunteering experience in a SW related field. Which, in case you are wondering, I do not have. I could also apply to U of T. Or I could kill Alyssa for the life insurance money. There are so many options! Life is just so intimidating. Dylan and I were talking the other day and apparently for us to successfully accomplish everything we want to in the next ten years, we should have started when we were 5. There are just so many things that seem easiest to do while we are this age.

Dylan has been spending most of his time at the new place since he is cat-sitting near there. Oh, except apparently we are on a yoga kick, so we hauled our butts down to the Y yesterday and are going back tomorrow (fyi, my muscles are not a fan of this plan).

I got jealous of Clair and all of her pictures that prove that she is alive, so I decided to steal her idea and take a picture with my webcam. I tried to use fancy effects and have us sitting in front of the Eiffle Tower (it is french, and I know people who are currently in Paris...) or on a beach at sunset, but that didn't work and came out really weird with lines and pixels in the wrong place and whatnot.



That is all I feel like sharing with you fine folks at this moment in time. Take that! So ha! Or something like that...

I'm watching you.

Ok, so I actually wrote this yesterday, but couldn't post it since our internets aren't working.

So, it might be somewhat uncouth to admit to this, but I've been stalking you all. Or at least watching you watch me. I added a gadget thingy that allows me to know who visits mine here blog. And I must say, there are more of you than I expected. I.e. more than just Clair and Alyssa read this. Well, ok, them and the occasional visit from various family members. Freaks me out! Not that there are more than a dozen of you. But now I feel all this pressure to be witty or entertaining or form coherent sentences. Don't feel too alarmed, though. The gadget more or less only tells me what city are from, so the 90% of you that are from Victoria are safe (except I've more or less pieced together which one is Alyssa!). None of this is at all important. But would it kill ya to say hi every once in a while? I feel like our relationship is somewhat one sided...

So, what has this crazy group of folk been up to? Well, a couple of days ago, while on the way to check out a stove for our new apartment, little Putt-Putt turned a corner and decided she needed a bit of a break. Luckily (the ridiculous kind of luck that only my husband's family has), it was RIGHT BESIDE a service station. LIterally, we stopped in front of the house next to it. A couple days and a few hundred dollars later, she's feeling back in tip top shape, now equipped with a new distributor (Anyone? Any ideas? 'Cause I have none). But congrats to Dylan and his dad (on the phone) for correctly figuring out what was wrong! I've been driving that car for over a year now and all I know is that she is red, you can't turn the key too hard or it gets stuck, and that making sure she has gas and oil is important. Oh, and Dylan's dad was trying to tell me that I needed to smell something sometimes to make sure something was working?

Ha, I just told Dylan that the ignition coil ignites coils. I think his head is going to explode. Bah, and he told me how little the battery does. The lazy bum!

Sorta related - we got ourselves a stove! Ahh, Craigslist, how we love thee. So, since we needed someway to pick up said stove and our one month free of storage was almost up, we rented ourselves a u-haul van and Monday was moving day. Acquired the stove (and the free kitchen table the guy threw in) and emptied out the storage unit, all with very few problems. Now all we have to do is move the stuff we have here to the new place and we are good to go. Well, and unpack. And get a fridge. That might be the biggest hurdle.

And these last few days all we have done is stew in our own sweat. But it should be cooling off by Saturday, I think? Tomorrow is going to suck though, since it is supposed to be low thirties, with humidity up at about 90%.

P.S. Ok, so the weather was no where near as bad as expected today. It poured rain and there was a pleasant breeze. Humidity was still a pain, but we were much happier. Well, between that and the Bones marathon...

Life as we know it.

Bonnaroo ended and we come to Montreal to return to life as usual. So, naturally, the first thing we did was go to a concert. The New Pornographers, to be more specific. We actually bought the tickets quite a while ago and they were the first real commitment we made to being in Montreal at a set date. Very good show. We were pretty much front and center and crowds in Montreal are apparently not the pushing and shoving kind.

Since, then life has quieted down. Being applying to jobs, checking out apartments, and getting to know the fair city of Montreal. I got a call from the first place I applied and went in for a trial shift. But it sucked, so I'm planning on turning it down. In terms of apartments, we hit up Craigslist, sent out a bunch of emails, and went and looked at a couple. And the landlord at one of the places really liked us, and we thought the place was cute and within our budget. If that wasn't enough, she offered us July free to move in, so we took it. But, since we are the people we are, it turns out that in Montreal refrigerators and stoves are not included in unfurnished apartments. No worries though, we went back to our bff, Craigslist, and have so far found a stove for $50.

Oh, we went to Ottawa! Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day a big deal in Quebec and falls on the 24th of June, and Canada kinda takes a back seat. So, we figured, 'What better way to celebrate the Nation's birthday that to go to the Nation's capital?' Saw the Parliament Buildings, some pretty cool fireworks and wandered around. Ottawa definitely falls at the top of my list of most livable cities in Ontario, with the only real competition being Kenora.

Sorry for the short, lame update.

Finale

Ok, so. Finally finishing what happened with Bonnaroo trip. Yes.

Ok, so we left Bonnaroo with the plan of driving for a few hours, sleeping in the car for a bit and then making it to Virginia to camp for the next night. The night is pretty fuzzy for me, so I don't really know where we stopped. Dylan and Clair tell me that it was in a parking lot, but can't really tell me more than that. Oop, ok, so I was driving at this point. That has to have been safe. it was behind a shopping center! And I pulled off the highway because I was looking for somewhere to stop and there was a sign for Fuddrucker and I didn't think those existed anymore. I couldn't find it, but Dylan was still way too sleepy to drive, so we stopped and slept. Then we woke up, drove for a while and stopped for breakfast at Subway/gas station where the gas attendant was freakishly nice and we ended up talking to the Subway guy for quite a long time. He was adorable. I don't think he had ever really left Tennessee, said that he didn't think that most of the States were worth seeing, but that he would like to visit Canada sometime. And that Bonnaroo would be fun to go to sometime. There was also a mean truck driver who rolled his eyes when we told him that we were from Canada and accused Canadians of all disliking Americans. Drove for a while through until we got to Virginia and stopped for lunch/dinner at the Waffle House. Cutest restaurant ever. Well, mainly just the cutest waitress ever and the food was decent. Lots of processed cheese and that sort of thing. None of us had waffles. Eww, and Southern Sweet Tea is the grossest thing in the world.

Drove for a while, until we finally found a KOA kampground outside of Lexington. Dylan stayed in one on his Sasquatch trip and thought they were great. And they were. They had camp sites that were not right on top of other ones, clean showers, running water, a flush toilet, and a fire pit. Aww, it was paradise. There was even ping pong, but the pool closed early. Sadness. We ate, slept, and were merry.

Morning, woke up, showered again (ahh, the luxury), and decided to see this Natural Bridge we kept hearing so much about. But, in true American style, they had put a big fence up around it and were charging $18 to go and look at it. They added a bunch of random crap to try and justify it, but I really had no desire to see their wax museum or whatever. Drove through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey at which point we realized that New York City was a mere two hours away. Took that detour and made our way to the George Washington Bridge. Crossed that, got really, really lost, took a few wrong turns, almost caused a horrible accident, and broke a law or two. This resulted in a police officer whipping around the block and pulling up in front of us. Asked us what was up, you know. We told him we were a bit lost, look for Manhattan... He told us that we were in Harlem - at around 11 or 12 at night. Was super nice and pointed us in the right direction. We parked for the cheap cheap price of $16 or so for an hour and a half. Saw Times Square (where I had pepperoni pizza!! In New York! How cool am I?), walked past Rockefeller Center, drove past Ground Zero, and saw the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park.

Our plan from there was to drive enough to get out of the New York surrounding areas and find a nice rest stop to sleep (we left NYC at about 3 a.m.). This took a lot longer than we anticipated and took us through the terrifying Blairstown. There were ghosts. But we ended up finding a swanky rest stop with an underground parking lot that was nice and dark. Ate, and then more or less made our way back into Montreal. The border guard was pretty nice, passed back in no prob.

The End (oh my gosh, finally)!

So, since we got into Bonnaroo so late, we had missed a few of the bands we had hoped to see. But, luckily, the organizers had thought ahead and not booked anyone huge to play on the first day. Regardless, we parked our car in our spot and headed out to catch a few bands. First band of the festival (that we saw): Need to Breath. After them, a few others, and some delicious samosas, we went back to the campsite (read: tiny square in a sea of cars and tents) to set up our tent and then collapse. Woke up in the morning way earlier than planned due to crazy heat that turned our little tent into an oven.

Got up, lazed around and spent the day watching people and stuff. Noteworthy bands: Ok Go, Kings of Lion, and LCD Soundsystem. Oh, and Dylan and I both cleaned ourselves off in the centre fountain, aka the mud fountain. I'm pretty sure the water in this fountain started off clean at least every morning and was just reused throughout the day. Since there were people in constantly, it got really dirty really quickly. However, it seemed like a better option than paying $7 for a shower. Since LCD Soundsystem finished up at 4am, we were completely exhausted by the end and crawled back to our tent.

Saturday, our morning started off more or less the same. Except we went to the bathrooms earlier since the day before was unfortunate. Wanted to see Conan O'Brian, but were pissed to find out that you were supposed to get ticket way earlier that day and couldn't get in without one, but no one had told us this. Highlights of the day: Norah Jones, the Avett Brothers, and Stevie Wonder. Laying on the grass, drinking copious amounts of water and relaxing to Norah was actually a personal favourite moment in life. Other than those forced moments that are supposed to mean a lot to you, like graduating high school and whatnot. We decided not to stick around and watch Jay-Z and wandered back to our campsite so that we could actually get some sleep. Well, our dear Dylan stayed up and went back to listen to some of the late night bands. He's a crazy man. But a sweet crazy man, since he slept in the car that night as to not disturb us when he came back.

Sunday was the last day of the festival, so we decided that our need for gas was now pressing. We figured we had about a quarter of a gallon left, so most likely not enough to make it out. Especially since we had no idea how busy the roads would be and had heard that it could be quite bad. So we took some hose (that Dylan had acquired the night before...) and asked (or more so re-asked since we had asked them earlier) our dear neighbours (from Nebraska!) if we could siphon some of their gas. Unfortunately, they had a huge SUV whose gas tank was really far away from the fill cap and our hose wasn't long enough. So, on we went, asking kind strangers if we could siphon out some of their gas and people were really nice. Except that most people who owned cars didn't know if they had enough gas to make it out and very apologetically said no, and we had the same problem with other people's SUVs as we'd had with the first one. Enter a nice man with a car who did have gas and was willing to let us steal some. Our initial tube was too wide to make it to the tank, but we duct taped it to another more narrow one. And finally Dylan got a mouthful of gas instead of just fumes (we had a few concerns about the long term consequences to his health), but that was pretty much it. We probably got about a cup of gas, but it just would not flow. We think because of the difference in diameter of the two hoses. So, defeated, we pulled out the hose. Ooops. Duct tape doesn't handle getting wet real well. There is, in fact, a man driving around somewhere in the States who has a piece of hose stuck in his car put there by us. He took it really well. After that, we decided to cave and call a local towing company that had been coming around to the festival and picking people's locks for them, giving them boosts, and selling them gas at the low, low price of $10 a gallon (normally costs about $2.75 a gallon in that area). WIth a 5 gallon minimum. Sucked, but at least we didn't have to worry anymore. Packed up our tent and off we went to enjoy the last day of fun in the sun. Remarkable acts of the day: Regina Spektor and Phoenix. None of us were ridiculously crazy about seeing all of the headliner for that day, Dave Matthews Band, so we stuck around for a few songs and then headed to the car and said goodbye to Bonnaroo.

I do deClair!

Things I learned at Bonnaroo (and on the way there/back):

-Being a dirty hippy is fun. It would, however, potentially be more enjoyable if it were in a place that was somewhat cooler (i.e. not mid to high 30s). And it would be infinitely more enjoyable if it weren't for the dirty part (we totally showered while we were there...yah...)

-You can drink an incredibly large amount of water and not pee at all if all you are doing is sweating.

-Only putting sunscreen on once in a day = getting a sunburn. Putting sunscreen on three times in one day = somehow getting a worse sunburn, this time with ear-blistering consequences. My tan/burn lines are ridiculous.

-All sorts of slang the cool kids use for drugs. There was frequently people standing on the side of walkways calling out for "Lucy" or "Molly." Oh, and lots of people were selling "ice" from their campsite.

-That a LOT of people smoke pot. A LOT.

-And drink beer, which is just gross. Because beer is gross.

-Misting tents are the best thing in the world. They don't really help with the being dirty thing though, since you end up standing in a giant mud pit.

-Our car is awesome. Still running just fine, thank you!

-Siphoning gas is a lot harder than it looks. Even though there were plenty of lovely people who were willing to let us try, and even more people who would have been willing if they had been at all confident that they would be able to leave with enough gas.

So, we left for Tennessee Tuesday evening. Hit New York after talking to a lovely border guard who seemed to think we were weird for going to a music festival when none of us had jobs. The jerk. Drove down through New York, and stayed in Eerie, Pennsylvania for the night. It was a fairly long drive and was the first in a series of late nights for us. In the morning, we lazily got up, Dylan had waffles from a machine and we headed out. Went through Ohio and into Kentucky. We stopped in Columbus for gas and, all of a sudden, there were, seriously, no caucasians. No, wait, there was one guy. After, we went across the street to KFC (the entire staff was African American) and Dylan got a sandwich made of chicken, with some bacon. Oh, and when we drove through Cincinnati and a guy randomly swerved into my lane and scared me. Dylan leaned over and honked at him for me. Stopped for the night in Bowling Green. I was pretty excited for Little Put-Put, aka Big Red, who got to re-visit her ol' stomping grounds. Woke up in the morning with the plan of stopping at the Walmart in Bowling Green, picking up groceries, and making the quick two hour drive to Bonnaroo. Did not turn out that way. Apparently the Walmart website and Google Maps are both liars, because the Walmart was not where it was supposed to be. There was, howevere, a very cute dog. So, we drove around for a while and decided to go to the Walmart in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Did that and headed out to get to Bonnaroo with plenty of time to get our tent set up before the first concert we wanted to see started. And then we hit the interstate. Met both some really nice and really jerkish people in line. Seriously, who cuts ahead of someone who they are going to be in line with for who knows how long?! What should have been a two hour drive, max, ended up taking 8 hours of us crawling along the highway and then side roads. Hence being really low on gas - starting and stopping for that long is hard on a car. We did make it there on our own steam though, thanks to our trusted jerrycan. Actually being able to leave isn't important, right?

Anyway, this is going to have to be a three part installment, because this is already long and I haven't even gotten to the specifics of the festival yet.