Sun Peaks 2013/14

As Dylan’s post says, Ice Wine is picked in December / January and requires a few days of the temperature being below negative 8 degrees Celsius.

Cheers all for reading, it means a ton to me . Rider, I had a blast at the Bruins game, devo they lost but we still got time to come back. Would have been nice to see a goal scored but you can’t always get what you want lol.

BACK TO THE USA - FIRST STOP BOSTON

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I planned to visit America on my way home from the snow in BC Canada. First stop on the Trip was Toronto as you may have read in my last post. First American stop is Boston. Currently in my last day here and getting ready to move on to Chicago tomorrow.

The original reason for Boston being on my list of places to visit was to see the Bruins play but I accomplished a few extra things while I’ve been here and made some great friends at the hostel. Travelling alone sure is an experience and as long as your not quiet and shy, you’ll have a great time!

First day in Boston was taking a trip on the Freedom Trail. This involved following red bricks / lines on the road up through the middle of Boston visiting sites like the Old City Hall, Old State House, Boston Massacre Site, Paul Revere’s House, USS Constitution boat / museum and the Beacon Hill Monument.

John Hancock’s Clothing in the Old State House

Boston Massacre Site

Colonel William Prescott in front of the Beacon Hill Monument

2nd day in Boston was spent at the Museum of Science. I enjoy hands on museums so this was fun. Not really worth the $23 I paid but still pretty cool. That night I grabbed a ticket to the last Celtics game of the season. They had Rondo and a few other key players out so they didn’t do too well with Washington beating them by like 20 points… Good time but not super exciting. Bulls next Tuesday should be better. (Again against Washington.)

The next morning I met a few people who had arrived and were staying at the hostel with me. 3 of us decided to go on a tour of the famous Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. It was pretty cool hearing the history of the park, the reason behind the big green monster and why there is a random red seat in the sea of green.

Ended the day with a beer at the pub with the guys for dinner and went to bed. Friday was started with a trip to Harvard University. Where we saw ex-prime minister Kevin Rudd and took a bit of a tour around the grounds. The buildings are pretty impressive but it was just like pretty much any other university otherwise. After a few hours touring around that area of town, we went back to the city and I got ready for the Bruins game. We went into the game and the crowd was wild for the first 57 minutes when some bad defending and a good shot by Datsyuk and a missed save by Tukka Rask cost us the game and the crowd went quiet. Got out pretty quick after to get back to the hostel’s local train stations and got a ride in the shuttle before they stopped running (20min walk otherwise.).

Today, being my last full day in Boston with nothing planned, I went for a walk down to the local shopping complex and had a look around. I feel like I went to the majority of places in the Boston area that I wanted to see. Getting out to Springfield for the NBA Hall of Fame is the only thing I missed but it was going to cost an extra $100+ which I’d prefer to save for the rest of my trip. Off to Chicago tomorrow early in the morning so I’m writing this up quickly and I’ll have to pack before bed tonight. As per last time, check out my facebook page if you’d like to see more photos from Boston: https://www.facebook.com/Tristan.Brown297/

The Windy City - Chicago

Official website: http://bwcanada.weebly.com/tjs-experience.html

Hey all, another city done and another step closer to home. I stayed in Chicago for the last 6 days. Hostel was just across the road from Wrigley Field (one of the most historic baseball grounds in the USA and home of the Chicago Cubs).

I arrived on Sunday around lunch time after a pretty un-eventful flight and checked in. I then went down to the Cubs game and grabbed a ticket. It was a decent seat and it was warm out so it was a great day to go. They ended up losing 8-2 but then won the next 2 games I didn’t go to… I’m cursed lol.

On Monday I went and explored the town. I went to State street and Grant Park, checked out the Buckingham fountain (top picture) and then went back to the hostel. At night a few people from the hostel were heading down to uni town to a bar called the Irish Eyes to watch the Blackhawks game. Ended up getting $1 beers and having a great night!

Tuesday I organised a walking tour around town. It was really informative and showed us places I hadn’t been and told me what to look for and the history of each place. Did you know why Chicago is called the windy city? It’s because back in the day they liked to toot their own horn that Chicago was the best city etc. A New York reporter named Charles Dana said they were fully of warm air and wrote that they should be called the windy city in the paper and it stuck!

Tuesday night I went to see the Bulls play in the NBA finals (first round) and it was electric. I was in row 7 down on the corner of the side and base lines and the crowd was mental. I was seeing red! We lost in overtime but there was a slew of bad calls and mistakes. They could have won it at the end but Kirk Hinrich missed an open layup (got tapped on his off arm) and then missed both free throws and we lost by 2.

Wednesday started off pretty lazy. I went out for breakfast at around 11am to a place called the Pick Me Up cafe. They did an awesome breakfast and the owner and wait staff were super chill. I asked them about Chicago and what I should be planning to do and they told me to go out to the suburbs and see a Baha’i Temple and to skip Pizzaria Uno cause it was a tourist trap and go to Pequod’s Pizza instead. So I went to the temple and while I was on my way there I saw a golf course. I figured I had time left so I went and snuck in a quick 9 (cough 13 cough) holes with a buggy. I got +21 on the opening 9 and then stopped scoring lol. That included 1 par and a few really good shots! and really bad putts.

By Thursday I didn’t really have anything left to do in Chicago. By all means it’s an awesome city but easily seen in a few days. I still had to get deep dish pizza so I went for lunch at Pequod’s. After lunch I still had a few hours left until the hostel’s pub crawl so I went and watched Draft Day at the movies. Surprisingly good for an NFL draft movie hahaha.

Got back to the hostel and we put the Bruins / Red wings game on. We went down 0-2 early on but clawed it back to 2-2 at the end of the game for an overtime. When we scored to win the game, queue me running around the common room like a crazy man. The pub crawl had already left so I just headed to bed that night so I could be ready for the next day.

Friday was C2E2 day. Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo. Cause it was the Friday and only the first day of a 3 day expo, I wasn’t expecting much (even thinking I could bargain down the entry fee). Turns out I was wrong and there was thousands there. Decided it was worth the price and went in. Totally worth it! Saw people dressed up in crazy costumes, free stand up comedy and a ton of cool stands with comics and halloween costumes and everything under the sun. It was crazy that you got your bags checked for weapons at the start but you could buy swords inside.

As I was leaving, I saw a family area and there was some internet web comic artists who were taking suggestions and then drawing them. Things like Batman Godzilla and Superman fighting Tony the Tiger (frostie flakes) came up!

Went back to the hostel for a quiet night before my flight in the morning but got asked if I wanted to go out for pizza. Since it was so good before, I couldn’t say no. Went back to Pequod’s again and between 3 of us we got 1 large pizza. It was way too much!

That’s it for now, next stop New York!