Two summers ago you all helped me have a really good time in Toronto. So I’m returning for more travel advice. December 28th to 30th I would like to attend RIS in Toronto. However the previous four days I’d like to check out Ottawa and Montreal. So I need help planning this fiasco. First of all, what’s there to see and do in Ottawa in Montreal? Secondly how best to go about the transportation? I was thinking busing or training between the cities and then renting cars within the city. That seems quite expensive though. I could rely solely on public transportation in Ottawa and Montreal but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea or not. In Toronto it was fine but I don’t know if it’s wise for Ottawa and Montreal.

So please. Give all the advice you can people!

Feeling so blah and meh. At first I thought it was because my nose and eyes were watering for days. Now they’re clearing up but I still feel so meh. So tired and uninspired all the time. I think I’m bored. Crap to do, needs to get done. Want to do other things, can’t keep it together enough to get to them.

I didn’t see the first installment of this film series called Elizabeth. Cate Blanchett earned an Academy award for her portrayal the first time around. Her acting is very strong again in Golden Age. All of her costumes are gorgeous as well. I would be surprised if the people responsible for the dresses and wigs were not recognized. Unfortunately the film itself kind of sucked. It was somehow unfulfilling. It wasn’t boring exactly but it felt as though more could have been done to keep the film stimulating.

In this film Elizabeth I is starting to have difficulties with her power and her chances of getting married. She yearns to be a normal woman who can choose more freely. Also, Spain is ambitiously angling to take over England with the Armada.

Saw this movie a while ago but didn’t get a chance to post anything. If you’ve seen the previews for this movie then you pretty much know the plot. There’s a bombing in Saudi in an American governed area. Many die. FBI agents fly into Saudi to investigate. The agents become targets themselves. It’s a fairly simple plot. The acting is good. There were welcomed jokes throughout. I’m impressed with this movie because it goes through the events swiftly without too much pause. The movie is set up very well in the introduction where a timeline of events between the US and Saudi is presented. I was pretty nervous about seeing this movie. I thought, “here we go again”. This was the first movie I have seen that didn’t demonize muslims as they pray. Instead, there were two touching scenes of a man with his wife and kids praying together and then a son and his elderly father. Both scenes were tied together with musical accompaniment.

I liked the ending because nothing was really resolved. I like endings like that. You can’t just magically conclude complicated issues dragged through centuries of time in one motion picture. It’s just a window of time.

Grandma is not Nanu (my mom’s mom) or Dadu (my dad’s mom). Grandma is an 83 old woman who with her husband took care of me in a town called Winkler between grades 1 and 3. Grandpa passed away recently and I missed the funeral because I didn’t check my messages. We went to go see her a few days ago. She’s wearing her wedding ring and her late husband’s ring. She still says “we” instead of “I”. She admits it hasn’t hit her yet.

I never saw Grandpa upset once. He was a quiet man, he smiled and was warm. He used to take me on his motorcycle. He liked desserts. He played golf whenever he got a chance. If his score was not looking so good he’d play with multiple balls, as in hit two at a time. He was fairly successful. He started out as a farmer and then moved into construction and real estate. He and his wife were some of the founding members of a Mennonite church in Winkler. They started it because other churches at the time insisted on conducting everything in the German language including sermons and Sunday schools and they didn’t think that was best for the kids. Grandma and Grandpa had one son of their own and adopted two daughters. They have tons of grandkids and some great grandkids too.

Visiting Winkler was fun. Went to our old condo. Went to the old school. Swung on the swings I nearly skinned my knees off of as a kid, still have scars. Saw the tree I planted. Saw the monkey bars I dedicated hours towards. Mom suspects I’m taller than the average Bangladeshi because I hung so much. Checked out the mall, hasn’t changed much, it was closed. We went on a Sunday and most of the town including Grandma was at church. All the lawns were nice with little flower gardens in front.

The last time I talked to Grandpa he told me to listen to Grandma and go on vacation.