In Canada...they do things a little differently

As most of you know, I'm spending the week in Canada at Mont Tremblant -- what I can only deem as the greatest place to go snowboarding on the face of the earth. An over-statement, I'm positive, but that's how I feel at the moment so I'm just gonna go with it.

Here's a little background information: I'm on vacation for a week with my brother, Michael -- who might be the exact opposite of me except for the fact that we are brother and sister. I'm much more of the social butterfly, loudest person you will ever meet and my brother would be perfectly happy for the rest of his life never having to speak to another person face to face and operate strictly through text messaging. Regardless of our different personalities, we get along extremely well. Well enough to spend an entire week together in a foreign land (hey...they speak French out here...that's foreign enough for us). I thought I would recap some of our funnier moments thus far. Please keep in mind that my brother and I find the most ridiculous things funny- so while we may have spent several minutes laughing our asses off at this stuff...you might not even find this remotely interesting.

The Drive Up: Otherwise known as the longest drive of my life. We woke up at 3AM so that we could hit the road at 4. This was extremely unnecessary because this only made us tired enough that everything else the rest of the day was 10 times more difficult. Highlights from the drive: We stopped at almost every rest stop to use the bathroom, the rest stops in New York look like they've been taken directly off of a baseball field in Middletown or are coming off of an Indian reservation. Very strange. Oh- and entering into Canada would have been more exciting if it didn't look like the entire place had just experienced a serious fire. There were no trees...nothing but barren fields. Regardless- we were in Canada and psyched!

The French: Ok so I have had a pretty bad impression of the French ever since I was 14 and in Cannes and I was robbed while I was sleeping in my hotel room. This did not leave a great taste in my mouth and I guess I haven't gotten over it. But our first experience with the French was the grocery store: Metro. I'm not sure if it was because it was crowded or what- but this place was so confusing. We couldn't find cereal to save our lives -- only to realize the next day that that's because it was in the same aisle as the toilet paper. Not sure I see the connection there but whatever. And the strangest thing- when you go to pay- you cannot take your cart through with you. You have to leave that on the one side and they load your bags into a completely different type of cart. I'm not sure I see the logic in this, but again...we are just gonna go with it.

Dinner the first night: After an awesome day on the mountain...and by awesome I mean that this is by far the most fun I have ever had snowboarding in my life...we are ready to go out and get some dinner. Now it's a Sunday night and probably around 8PM. We go into the town that we are staying in and my brother suggests going into a place that has a massive sign on the outside that says Pizza, Beef Steak, and a whole bunch of other random foods. I'm like- yeah I'm not eating here. So we try to go to a place that I saw that said Pizza and Cle- this place was closed. We try to go back to the place he wanted to go into- that place is closed. We park across the street from a place that looks very open, put one foot in the door and hear a woman singing at the top of her lungs and not well and we turn around and leave. Michael didn't even walk in. I had one foot in- heard the noise- and left. Now we're just laughing hysterically thinking- where the hell are we gonna eat? So we drive back to a place we passed on our way into town and it's still open. Super. So we go in, we're the only people there other than 3 french women. We sit down, order, and the lady barely speaks English. While we are sitting there, we realize that these 3 ladies are just straight chillin', drinking wine and eating their dinner. Totally unphased by the patrons (us). Regardless, our server comes over and tries to make small talk with us and she is having a hard time with the English. To the point where she says- you know...I no speak good English...and I have the wine...and yeah. She just laughs and me and Michael just laugh. She was wasted and we loved it.

And then there was Monday: So we're back on the mountain for Day 2 and just feeling great. The only soreness I have is from sleeping in the twin bed that is hard as a rock- but that's fine. Our condo is adorable! We decide that we're going to spend the majority of the day learning to ride switch. For those of you who don't know much about snowboarding- this just means that you ride with the opposite foot in front that you would normally ride. My brother is clearly a natural at this- and has been doing it longer- so this looks effortless to him and for that I hate him. I am doing relatively well. Surprising myself at how well I'm doing in fact and then BOOM! I catch an edge and hit the ground so hard...which is always followed by me playing Peter Griffin for a good minute with the 'OOOOO...AAAAHHHHH...OOOOOOOO ....AHHHHH' Hilarious! Only not. I was in so much pain I thought I was going to cry. And my brother is just like giving me the thumbs up or down. I want to throw rocks at his face for that I'm in so much pain (just kidding about the rocks). So yeah. I proceeded to fall again down that run and I was in excruciating pain. So much pain that I'm not snowboarding today, but that's okay. My A%^ can use a day off.

And there's the recap. I apologize for the long entry but I've been away from Blindfolded for a couple of days and was really missing it so I thought I would bring the A game.

I hope all is well with everyone in Jersey. I miss you all terribly and hope to have more stories as the week goes on.

Until next time....