Lancaster City & Listening Well

I just took a shower but my hair's still wet so I can't go to bed yet.

The heatwave that hit our area this week is still hanging around and the air still feels a little thick tonight. Unfortunately, I can't help but feel a little apprehensive at this reminder of what Singapore's humid air feels like on a daily basis. So here I go again... longing for what I do not have (snow, please!)?

Anyway, I drove Steph to Millersville University last night where she had to take an exam this morning.

At 07:20 sharp I put on my running shoes and went jogging around the neighbourhood. It was a tad creepy since nobody was out on the street and I felt as if people were watching me from their windows. As a result, for the rest of the morning, I dared not to step out of the house but waited inside instead for Steph to come back. I spent the whole time reading, sleeping and watching a part of Lion King.

The thing is, the special edition Lion King DVD that I watched included a new song called "Morning Report" and it totally spoiled the scene! I mean, it's a nice song and all but that's not the Lion King I memorised as a teenager. My childhood memories felt violated for a second there.

It was 37 Celsius outside and the 18 Celsius inside the house made it a whole lot more welcoming.

Steph came back and we drove off to Lancaster City. I felt like a tourist with a camera. As usual.

Before we got to Lancaster City, I tried to imagine what it would look like and to be honest I wasn't expecting much. I thought it would be more or less like a sleepy old Pennsylvanian town. I was quite surprised to see some familiar Jersey City-reminscent sights like Spanish billboards and grated windows.

They gave me an odd sensation of being at home. Guess Jersey City rubs off on you after a while.

But Steph is right. Every city is so different and has its own personality and culture. Lancaster City was definitely in a league of its own.

Met up with her friend Hilary for lunch.

Spyro Gyros.

You should have seen Hilary's face when her gigantic plate of food arrived. Nobody expected it to be so large and colourful.

My lamb and beef gyro was really good, but had none of that New York City grease that I was half-expecting to taste.

The drive back home wound through scenic Amish country. We passed quite a few horse buggies on the way.

Mummy cooked an amazing dinner as always. She doesn't know it, but I thought it was very delicious.

Stir-fried prawns.

豆芽。

Another weekend gone by. Spent.

I actually really appreciate the past few weeks of growing spiritually with Steph. I feel like we really got to know each other better through our countless conversations with and about God and I learnt so much from her too.

One thing that she has taught me, or reminded me of, is to stop cutting people off in conversation. Steph once mentioned how one of her pet peeves is when people cut her off in the middle of her speaking and I've been watching myself ever since. To my utter dismay, I discovered that I LOVE to cut people off in conversation and that I do it all the time without even thinking about it! I guess that's something I'll have to work on from now on.

I want to be a good listener because I can learn more from others by listening well than by speaking well anyway.

Bis dann, auf wiedersehen!

Roadtrip Part One!

Helloooooooo!!!!!

I've been M.I.A. for some time because I'm currently on a roadtrip with two gal pals and we haven't had any good Internet connection on the way. But now that I've got great connection and the pictures are all loaded, I can blog! Yay!

This trip started last Monday, on 13th June when I went to pick Talia up from John F Kennedy Airport.

She looked really glad to be done with the almost day-long flight from Singapore. Here's her happily snapping away with her camera in my car.

While we waited in FOUR HOURS of traffic!

By the time we got back into New Jersey, the sun was setting.

Met up with friends for dinner in... where else but K-Town (Korea Town) in NYC again?

The Kim Bop was super yummy for it costing only $5 for a large chunk.

As part of a tradition now, we headed over next door to Pinkberry for dessert.

We spent that night sleeping in the dorms at school instead of paying for a hotel.

In the morning, Talia, Nat and I got up bright and early for a run and then we bought bread and peanut butter to have for breakfast.

It wasn't until about 09:30 when we hit the road though.

We were driving north towards Toronto, Canada and that drive took us through the Delaware River Gap in Pennsylvania.

Talia was still feeling a bit of jet lag and promptly fell asleep in the backseat.

After about a four hour drive, we stopped at a place in New York called Arnot Mall for lunch. I made a lot of lame jokes about that afterwards.

"We are not at Arnot Mall anymore"

I don't think anyone else was amused haha.

My crusty sausage pizza!

Though the weather was a little cloudy overall, we would get an occasional stretch of blue sky.

Found a New York signboard enroute to Toronto!

Any guesses as to where this is?

One of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World- Niagara Falls!

It was quite cool to come here again after eight years and to notice how things have changed. I remembered a lot more tourists and felt that the falls were a little further back than I'd remembered.

The smell of Indian food brought us to this stall in the mall that sold roti and curry for a whopping price of $9.99!

In Singapore that would NOT go down. But at such a touristy spot like Niagara Falls, I figured there was nothing else that could beat that price.

Since Niagara Falls lies right between the border of the U.S. and Canada, it barely took us a few minutes to get into Canada. Ontario is one of the provinces of Canada and Toronto is a city in Ontario.

Finally got to our hostel in Toronto- The Canadian Backpackers Inn.

It was a nice cosy room with a deck and a view into other people's backyards.

Upon arrival, we promptly put our things away and changed our clothes so that we could go out for the night.

The first place we headed to was also the most prominent at night. The CN Tower! We wanted to go up but it was closing in half an hour.

Then we just strolled around and went down to the waterfront which was really pretty in the moonlight.

Woke up the next morning to a nice big plate of pancakes.

Ready for some more walking!

Went up the CN Tower for a look around.

The view from the top was lovely. It was like looking at Google map in HD!

Then we went and lay on the beach all day!

Not really...

We just found a fake beach thing in the parking lot where the car was parked. After taking a bunch of photos on the fake beach, we left Toronto and started driving towards Sandbanks Provincial Park which is about three hours from Toronto.

On the way, we stopped by Walmart to shop for essentials.

By the time we arrived at Sandbanks, the clouds had more or less cleared and we got to enjoy a whole afternoon of clear skies.

Sandbanks Provincial Park borders Lake Ontario and it is such a big lake that you can't even see the end of it. The winds blowing over such long distances then creates little waves that were reminiscent of the ones at East Coast Park in Singapore.

For some reason, there were a million ladybirds out on the beach that day too.

We were at Sandbanks to camp out that night and dinner was cooked on a nicely fired up grill.

Woke up the next morning to fresh air flowing in from the lake and into our tent.

After packing up, we drove about four hours to Montreal in the next Canadian province- Quebec.

Stayed at this really nice boutique hotel called Celebrities Hotel. I really recommend this place to anyone who may be visiting Montreal in the future because of its awesome location. It's literally a few blocks away from Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal) and there are buses running everywhere near it.

Not to mention, the rooms are cheap (around $30 per pax), clean and tres chic!

We were so excited by this time that we were in Montreal because of all the french signs on the way in. Most people speak French in Montreal, which is just fantastic because then I could pretend that I was in France!

The evening was just the right temperature and the city lights were just beginning to come on.

A quick walk around Vieux Montreal landed us at a French cuisine restaurant called La Sauvagine.

I had lamb shanks for dinner and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't fantastic either. Maybe I just wasn't that much in the mood for lamb than I thought I was.

More walking around after dinner brought us to some pretty interesting sights, like this field of giant air fresheners.

Vieux Montreal at night looks stunning. The tourist websites and brochures all said the same thing- that this place is the closest thing to Europe in the whole of North America.

Can't say that I know that for sure because I've never strolled the streets of Paris. Sadly.

Found the beaver hats I'd always wanted! Unfortunately I did not get one because they cost about as much as 10 meals for 10 hungry grownups.

Finished off the night with some Canadian brew. Wasn't bad, but wasn't my kind of thing anyway. A tad too fizzy and light.

And that's it for now!