Borealis Grille

Last night, we had a "girls only dinner" at Borealis - the local restaurant in Guelph. By local, I don't mean it is in the area. Yes it is, but I mean local in the produce-sense of the word. Borealis is the only restaurant in town that crafts their menu around local and naturally raised foods. Even the decor within the restaurant is locally sourced (wood and even the decorations).

We had dinner reservations for 7pm - Kendra, Jerlene, Mina, Kris and I. I've driven by the restaurant before and always thought it looked quite nice from the outside. The inside was beautiful as well and had a slightly homey feel to it - although I think that might be attributed to the huge wine rack that was on display behind our table.

The menu was quite impressive and although I wanted to try a lot of things, I wasn't actually that hungry for an entire meal. I ended up choosing the flatbread special for that night (prime rib and arugula), which was absolutely delish! I was expecting an open top type flatbread sandwich, so I was a little disappointed that my prime rib actually came cut up into pieces and spread over my flatbread, but it was very good still.

Borealis does a good job marketing the fact that it serves locally grown foods. Given that ingredients are local and organic, their menu prices definitely still fall under the affordable range. I probably wouldn't go to the restaurant on a regular basis, simply because I wouldn't want to wear out the novelty factor, but it is a restaurant that I would absolutely return to to try out their other dishes.

Fredericton

The day after Halloween, I was schedule to fly out to Fredericton, New Brunswick for a 2 day conference. As a master's student working with the potato crop, I am part of the BioPotato Network. There are yearly conferences for everyone in the network to meet and discuss current activities etc. I was lucky enough to have started my master's just in time to make it to the meeting, so I flew out from Toronto Sunday night with my advisor and many others coming from all around the Toronto region.

The BioPotato Network consists of 2 government agencies, 2 industries and 7 universities across Canada:

• Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada
• NRC
• BioAtlantech
• PEI Food Technology Centre
  
• University of Guelph
• University of Toronto
• McMaster University
• Dalhousie University
  
• University of New Brunswick
• University of Prince Edward Island
• Holland College

Having scientists scattered all over Canada led to great networking while I was there. The network is not only made up of scientists, but actually has a large proportion of engineers, who are part of the BioPlastics stream.

Although I was mainly there for the conference, I still had a lot of down time in between meetings to see a bit of the city. We were staying at the Crowne Plaza Lord Beaverbrook Hotel, which is very close to the St. John River. Although I couldn't see it from the view out my window (I could see the playhouse instead), the river was only a 2 minute walk down Regent Street.

I got some good photos of downtown Fredericton, and a few of the river as well. Fredericton isn't a very big city, but it has a homey feel and makes you feel very welcome.

I perused the downtown streets with a few of the girls from the conference, and we shopped in the local stores. There are a lot of local artisans in the immediate area, and the pewter store (Aitkens Pewter) actually makes all their pewter items in the back room of the store. No wonder the Department of Canadian Heritage named Fredericton the Cultural Capital of Canada for 2009.

There were a lot of things I wish I could have seen (ie. UNB campus) and a lot of things I wish I could have bought (@Bejewel), but time and money are always the limiting factors. I did, however, spend a lot of time and money in this store:

86 Regent St. - me outside was is now one of my absolute favourite store.

All of us from Ontario were on the same flight back to Toronto, leaving Tuesday night. Most of us could be found scattered around the lobby and mezzanine area of the hotel the few hours prior to boarding the airport taxibus. It was a fun 3 day trip and I'm excited to see if these will be made biannually!

Halloween pt.2

Saturday, being Halloween, meant that I would be super busy doing Halloween stuff. As already mentioned previously, I didn't get to sleep until about 5am and woke up automatically (as usual) around 9am. I decided to get up and start my day, but I was very groggy and unimpressed at the time of day.

After lunch time, Ann and Wilson came to pick me up to go to the LCBO to get alcohol for tonight. We ended up with vodka, triple sec, and some other liquor that Wilson picked up. I got some ciders to drink. The plan was to make jello shots and cosmopolitans to drink that night, so we headed to the Zehr's to pick up olives, cranberry juice and jello powder. Since we were there, I did my grocery shopping and picked up some Halloween candy for the kiddies... Somehow I ended up with a $50 grocery bill. Interesting.

That afternoon I tried very hard to get through the paper for Monday's class but was clearly unsuccessful. I decided then, rather than trying to force myself through the article, I would just do what I wanted, which was get started on dinner and get into my costume. My dinner was delish, as I made salmon, orzo pasta and a lot lot of kale.

Jerlene came over after dinner, right after Jackie helped me line my eyes black so that it would stay on all night. She helped me get dressed and got the temporary tattoo on my arm. My roommate's friends were there getting dressed as well so there were a lot of people in the house running around with half their clothes on. Again. Interesting.

We went to pick Rob and Luis up from their homes and headed to Ann's. The jello shots, cosmos and the Maple Leafs hockey game were awaiting us, and we dug right in. Kendra was still getting ready so she walked over on her own about an hour later where more drinking ensued.

The game ended (Leafs lost in SO, unfortunately) and we decided it was time to go out and party it up downtown. We walked back to the downtown core and saw lines everywhere, so we ended up back at eBar.

eBar wasn't crazy busy so there wasn't a line and it was easy to get in. We hung our jackets up on the rack and headed straight to the bar. I didn't get anything right away as I was still digesting the rest of the cider that I chugged before leaving Ann's. Not to mention the EXTREMELY strong jello shots that were taken only the previous hour.

I guess I should mention everyone's costumes for that night:

• Me: schoolgirl
  
• Ann: schoolgirl
• Wilson: asian heat/pimp
  
• Kendra: asteroid belt
• Rob: 80s skiier in a fugly women's one-piece ski suit
• Luis: Zorro
  

We ran into many interesting characters inside the club, including but not limited to: a marionette, Alice in Wonderland white rabbit, H1 and N1.

At one point in the night, Rob told me that H1 and N1 asked him if they could dance with his friends because "they are hot". Stupidly believing Rob, I went to dance with them. They did for a while, but apparently I wasn't homosexual enough for them, and the began to dance with each other again. Awesome. I was just trying to be friendly and dance with other people! I guess it's a taste of my own medicine though, because I tend not to like it when guys come rubbin' themselves up against me on the dance floor. Which, I'd say, is a good enough reason to stick to dancing with Rob.

We didn't stay until closing, but I'd say we stayed long enough. Wilson, Ann, Luis, Rob and I all left at the same time. We left Kendra at the bar because she wanted to stay a while more with the white rabbit. I made sure to get her to text me when she does get home, and we were on our way.

I realize I put a lot of photos of Rob and me up, but they're good ones!

With all the cab lines busy and the late night buses packed full, we ended up walking all the way back home again. Far. Very very far. It was quite windy out and it was biting cold. I had a pair of pants in my bag but I wasn't going to put them on while standing on the street, so I walked back with Rob and Luis in my fishnets and skirt. Since we left the club, I noticed just how tired my feet were and began complaining about then on the way home.

Just like last week, I got home at 320am. Except with Daylight Savings in effect, it was actually 220am, which was frustrating to wrap my head around at that time of the night. I came home to a massive mess in the kitchen that I was too incapacitated to bother cleaning up. Turns out when my roommate got home, the sugar/salt tray had fallen over the kitchen cart and broke. No wonder there were granules all over my feet when I walked around the kitchen!

Highlights of the night:

• Kendra with the Alice in Wonderland white rabbit (recall: rabbit with a big clock around his chest?)
• Finding out the white rabbit is doing his PhD in environmental biology, and his office is on the floor below Kendra and mine
• Dancing like crazy
  
• Overly strong jello shots
  

Lowlights of the night:

• Lack of Phil, Chase, MacDuff, Joe, Chris and Kelli to party with
  
• Walking home in the cold
• Overly strong jello shots
  

Halloween pt.1

Halloween started at school on Friday when there was the halloween party in the Crop Science office foyer. I arrived at school early, because I wanted to do some work on the computers beforehand, but I got there to find they had taken down all the computer stations to set up the candy station. Drat! But at least I got some candy.

Angie finally showed up a bit after 10 and got the costume contest line up in order. Unfortunately, because I was "in costume", I was forced to be in the line up. Obviously I didn't win (if you take a look at my costume), but it was a fun little party. Ann, Rob, Luis and I had to leave for class right away after that so we ducked out and headed to Thornbrough.

Class, of course, was boring. Rob and Ann also left at 1120 because they had a meeting with the dean of stats or something to that effect, so that left he 4 of us to discuss the rest of the paper with Ray.

After class I was in the lab again all afternoon finishing up the rest of my samples. I had 11 more to do to finish up the Simcoe plot site, so it was an easy task to do. This time I spent the time to wait around for the samples to cool, and even put them outside for a bit to get them down a little colder before putting them into the freezer. Joe came back from Elora about the time I was putting my samples away as well, so I talked to him for a bit about the upcoming weeks of work for him before we both went home.

That night was the house party at Bamsey's. I went to Ildiko's place beforehand to get ready, where her, Sarah, Ange and Amy got ready as the power rangers. We got to Bamsey's place (down College) by about 1030 and some individuals were already well on their way to extreme intoxication.

Aaron (the dolphin in the photo) was by far the funniest character that night, although Rob was a blind referee and made for some hilarious moments as well.

We were there until some time after midnight when everyone decided it was time to go to Vinyl. I didn't feel like heading out there because I already told my roommate I wouldn't be going and I didn't want to show up there afterall, plus the fact that she had probably left the bar by that point, since she told me she would be home early. Either way, the girls had to head back to Ildiko's to pick up IDs so I was dropped off at home. I needed to get some rest so that I could function Saturday and get all my work done, but as usual, that's not how my night goes. I ended up not sleeping until about 5am and getting up around 9am again...

Highlights of the night:

• Luke
• Luke asking me if I could drive stick shift
  
• Luke asking me if I could drive his car
• Luke asking me if I could drive him downtown, take his car home and return it in the morning

Oh. The silly things boys say when drinking.

New Brunswick

I know my blog has been feeling a little lonely and empty lately, but it will have to last a few more days still.

I'll be leaving for the airport in a couple hours to go to Fredericton, New Brunswick for a conference. I will try to get my Halloween posts done up sporadically throughout the next few days, hopefully being able to get it up before the end of the week.

New Brunswick, here I come!