Christmas recital

I am playing in the recital next week. Usually I'm just watching everyone else. I have one Christmassy song to play and I need to know it well enough that the playing for an audience thing doesn't make me forget all the notes. It's funny the way that works. Despite being a full grown adult who has day through many lessons and been audience for lots of my kids recitals. Then it's me who has to play and it's right at square one that I am standing.

Sunday practice

I'm videoing myself using my iPhone. I have played all four songs that I know from the Suzuki book 1. I'm watching for bow angle, bow am elbow movement and stiffness of my bow hand and how the sound changes in relation to those things. Also looking at how the bow skates sideways on the strings sometimes.

New practising

I'm learning the violin. I have had three or four lessons now. Sometimes, like tonight, the practising goes haltingly. All my skills of three weeks are gone and I can't even play a single string without crossing over the next one beside it.
In my lesson I am compelled to play everything extremely carefully. Which is boring to listen to. And then I get playing-for-the-teacher anxiety which makes the bow jump along the strings due tension in my arm or shoulder or whatever.

Grocery prices, June 8

A note on grocery prices.  We had only one shopping trip in Germany so far, and paid $120 for what I would estimate as $180 worth of groceries back home.  In Denmark, this would have cost $250.  You can really notice these things when you go straight from an expensive country to a reasonable one.

The last time we came to Germany (1995) everything seemed rather expensive, but the currency changes have definitely worked in our favour here.  I'm hoping that will also carry through to France because now they have the same currency (Euro).

The most remarkable item was generic brand corn flakes.  A 500g box cost E1.05, or about $1.40.  This would be $4 at home easily, and it's not even on sale here.  Lise also bought a big 650g jar of red cabbage for E0.45, or about $0.60. 

That reminds me, our cell phone Sim card in Denmark (Lyca) was on pay as you go, and cost between 1/10 and 1/30 as much as our similar pay as you go companies in Canada, depending on which portion of the service you look at.  Clearly there's room for a little cheaper Canadian service.  We used data every day, and called people overseas on the cell phone for several calls, probably four calls of half an hour each.  The total cost for over 2 weeks of that:  $8.  This would have cost $100 to $150 if we had done it from Canada. 

It's strange because most things in Denmark cost much more than at home.  An analysis I saw from an American who had lived in both Germany and Denmark said that taxis cost twice as much in Denmark as in either of the other two countries.  Of course, Danish taxis are almost exclusively late-model Mercedes station wagons.  He pointed out that at least you get a really nice ride.

JBH

Trip Summary where we went

This is to summarize where we went in plain text.(need to add final US crossing)

Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York
Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia
(back through New Brunswick)
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont
(back through Quebec)
New York (this brings us up to May 4-11 on the ship)
UK
Netherlands
Germany
Denmark
(back through Germany)
Belgium
France
(back through UK, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois)
...rest of train journey across north

Sat apr 21 Sydney

Changed our minds about Cabot trail, Tobin would not be happy covering that distance after the long drive yesterday. Louisburg fortress is closed, too early in the year, but we picked the nearby coastal trail and it worked out well.

Halifax Apr 15-20

Stayed with Lorna for these dates in Halifax. On 16th, visited John and lorraine wheelock in Chester with Lorna.

Sun Apr 22 left CBI

Driving towards Maine. We'll see how far we get. As of 640pm we are close to Amherst NS.

Update: 730pm and it's starting to get dark, still raining, and 1 degree outside. Not so safe to drive in the dark with that. Planning to stop 2 nights at Moncton delta hotel which apparently has a big water slide.

Fri apr 20

Tonight and tomorrow night at days inn in Sydney NS. Planning to check out Cabot trail tomorrow.

Sunday April 8

In the best western in Seattle. Two taxis from the clipper to here. Jeff's one cost 6.75. Mine was 8.50 for the same trip. Very slightly different route. Its only a five minute trip. At the lobby counter for this hotel they said they are only legally allowed to have four people per room but they said ok to us once Jeff asked if there were other hotels nearby that could take 5 in a room.

1966 blast from the past - Imgur

Link to our new two-photo album at Imgur:
1966 blast from the past - Imgur

Posts like minecraft

Julias points out that these pillars look like stacks of brick blocks from Minecraft.

Eating with Batman at the Rock Cod Cafe

We had lunch at cowichan bay.

Piñata bashing at park

Two views from birthday party

Our boys at piñata

Julias at playground

Jeff at playground

Holding camera at arms length

Tobin at playground

Winter sun

I love the light that happens sometimes in winter.
With a black sky background and a brilliant sun foreground that picks out all the colors of the trees and bushes.

Sat night

House. Is. So. Noisy. Right. Now.
Rambunctious children. I'm thinking they didn't get enough exercise today despite their coughs.

Electric car

I saw a Nissan Leaf today. I was at a four way stop on the way to the oak bay library and it was in front of me. I opened my window to try to hear it when it started going again but I couldn't hear anything. I know they were putting a fake sound on it for when it goes at slow speeds so it won't just be silent and perhaps hazardous to pedestrians.
www.nissan.ca

Wind and skating

We got all our swim stuff together to go to the big pool for a couple hours with the kids friends but the power was out at the rec centre so change of plans. Now Tobin and I will be going skating with my brother instead. Hope the powers on there Still so much wind! The trees are blowing around like mad.

Sunny Saturday

So there was a lone chicken in the yard this morning before the rest of the birds got let out. It was an Ameraucana and seems to have been hiding somewhere for the past two days since the evening I thought the raccoon got a hen. So we still have 9 chickens. Yay.
We went out to a toy store today after I got the boys to agree to give up the conflict-causing nerf guns. I said I would buy them something.
Now we're all back home chilling.

It is 4 in the morning

Created this on my iPhone in the middle of the night. It's so windy out there. I actually went out about half an hour ago to shut whatever gate it was I could hear banging. It was actually the bike locker door. So I put a bigger rock in front of it to hold it shut.
I'm wishing that this app had landscape view. It's a bit slow to input in portrait mode.