A Guide to Hand Creams

Dry rough hands

Hand cream used to be an exclusively winter thing for me. I would buy the really strong and concentrated Neutrogena and put it on regularly throughout the winter to provide relief to my rough unhappy hands. Things changed (on the hand cream front, and of course in other ways too) once I met D. Along with many other things, he brought into my life a love of hand creams. Suddenly we had a collection of hand creams that all smelled really nice, and that I found myself using no matter the weather outside. Now, every night of the year - winter spring summer and fall - I put on hand cream before going to bed.  Occasionally I put it on in the morning too. We have so many to choose from that it's always fun to pick which one I will use. This winter my hands haven't been as bad (read: knuckles and skin regularly so dry and rough to the point of occasional bleeding) as other winters. And that is not because it is warmer where I am now as it has been an extremely cold winter here. I think my less dry/rough hands must be the result of using hand cream throughout the year as opposed to just in the cold months.

I like blogs and articles on the internet (or in newspapers) where the writer does product reviews. They are fun to read and look like they would be fun to write! So I decided to do a similar thing on my blog with hand creams. Below you will find pictures, descriptions and stories related to all the hand creams currently sitting on my dresser. Here goes, in no particular order:

Body Shop Honeymania Body Butter

I absolutely love the Body Shop's Honeymania scent/line, especially this body butter (which I really only use as hand cream) and its bubble bath (one of the best bubble baths I've ever used, and I've used a lot). The smell is wonderful - light and subtle, just perfect. It is slightly sweet and overall very pleasant. This is one of my favourite hand creams, mostly for the scent. It also goes on easily but I mostly love wearing it because having my hands smell like honey is lovely.

One of my favourites - Fruits & Passion Blueberry Hand Cream

D.  and I really like the store Fruits & Passion. Their candles are particularly nice. We used to go to the store on rue St Denis in Montreal a lot. In Toronto, they have a shop in the Eaton Centre but it's quite small and nowhere near as good as the one on St Denis. Anyway, at the one on St Denis they would always have really good sales and this hand cream was on sale once. It seemed good and I liked how the description said it contained 'Wild Canadian blueberries" so I bought it for D. I, however, pretty much took it over as I just really really liked it. I love the smell. It's a quite strong blueberry scent and just smells great. The hand cream also goes on smooth and does not leave your hands feeling sticky. I really recommend this hand cream!

Body Shop Blueberry Body Butter Special Edition

I feel like whenever I see 'Special Edition' on something, I need to buy it :) Hand cream wise, this product (like its sister Honeymania body butter) is easy to put on and very nice. In addition to the Special Edition factor, I mostly bought this body butter because I love the Fruits & Passion blueberry hand cream so much and so wanted to try out a different blueberry scent. While I do like this one, it is a bit more sour (but not strongly sour) than the F & P one. I prefer the F & P smell but this smell is good too - quite light -  and it definitely grew on me to the point that I use it fairly often.

Herbacin Hand Cream aka Green hand cream

I had to look at the bottle to find out the name of this hand cream. I just think of it as the green hand cream. I love the design and look of the bottle - the daisy on the green background looks very nice. R. gave me my first bottle of this for my 28th birthday and since then (so two years and approximately 2 months) I am still using it (although finished that original bottle so bought more) and still really liking it. Ever since R. gave it to me I feel like I always see it in drug stores. It has a very sweet and comforting smell. I really like this hand cream and feel certain it is one I will always use.

Unlike other Burt's Bees products, this hand cream did not blow me away

I love Burt's Bees products. I use Burt's Bees face wash every day, and I love their peppermint body wash. I bought this hand cream thinking it would be really good. However, it has been a disappointment. It is almost scentless, which I don't like. I like scents! And I just didn't feel it did a lot for my hands. It is labelled as the 'Ultimate Care Hand Cream' but other hand creams have been way better for me. I would not buy it again.

The gold standard in fixing extremely rough hands

 In terms of scent, the bottle makes clear that this hand cream is fragrance free and that is very true. The consistency is very thick and concentrated and only a little of this hand cream goes a long way. I stick with this hand cream because it has proven itself winter after winter and has done wonders on my at times very rough (to the point of bleeding) hands. As I wrote above, ever since I discovered other hand creams I definitely use this one less (and really only in the cold months) but it definitely is my go-to when my hands are at their worst.

I like this one and am sad it's almost done

I bought this hand cream for D. in a little touristy shop in a small town on New Zealand's South Island which I visited in the first days of January 2013. While D. liked it right away, this hand cream grew on me. It has a unique, quite strong smell which I now actually like quite a lot. Its special ingredient is manuka honey; I am not sure how that is different from other honey but I think it's native to New Zealand. Our bottle is almost done and that'll be it so we use it pretty sparingly to stretch it out. Just after I typed that last sentence, however, I decided to google this hand cream and lo and behold (!) it's available on American Amazon. So I guess if we decide we really still want it, we can order it from there. That does make me feel better because I figured once it was done, that would be it and I was a bit annoyed with myself for not buying two bottles when I had the chance.

Hand cream from Lush

K. gave me this hand cream (along with some cool bath products) from Lush for my birthday this year. Its consistency is much more liquidey than the others. Its smell is quite chocolatey, which I was surprised to find that I liked. I usually thought I only liked chocolate smells in things I eat or drink but this hand cream has proven that thought incorrect. The label on this little pot of hand cream features different organizations that help animals. K. just told me that she recently visited a Lush store in Vancouver and inquired about getting the Save the wild Cheetah organization she is a part of on the label.

That's it for my hand creams. If you're reading this and feel like leaving me a comment telling me some of your favourite hand creams, please do! I always love getting recommendations and hearing about other people's favourite products. I wish you a pleasant spring with lovely smooth hands :)

Soft hands undoubtedly caused by hand cream

Bridge over Water

Bridges of Paris

As promised in my post about rivers, this post will be about bridges that go over them (and over other bodies of water too). I love bridges and wish I had one or some to walk over regularly on my way somewhere. London and Paris are the reasons I love walking over bridges. The Seine, as I said in my previous post, is my favourite river in the world. When I lived in Paris, I lived one on side of the river but often went over to the other side to meet friends, go to cafes, etc. Walking was one of my favourite things to do in Paris, and I would happily go for long walks to get to a place (and then walk home too). My favourite bridge in Paris is the Pont des Arts but I like all of the bridges. The Pont des Arts is a walking bridge only which is nice because you don't have to worry about cars. Indeed, the walk I enjoyed doing the most in Paris was from my apartment on rue des Batignolles to the Jardin des Tuileries; then through them all the way to Cour carrée (one of the most beautiful places in Paris in my opinion) of the Louvre and then out and across the Pont des Arts. Doing that walk never failed to put me in a good mood. Pont des Arts is classically very pretty and is even mentioned in this song, which I really like. You can also see the Eiffel Tower from it, which is always a treat. Back in 2007 when I lived there, I went for two picnics on the Pont des Arts. At the time, I remember rolling my eyes a bit at the idea of having picnics on a bridge in the middle of Paris but it was then (and probably still is) a very fun and popular thing to do. Both picnics I went to took place at night and it was lovely to eat and drink wine on top of the Seine with the lights of Paris all around us.

Pont des Arts in the rain

The Pont des Arts

The sublime Cour carre (one of my favourite spots in Paris)

London has so many wonderful bridges - each with its own personality. Although I know the names of a few bridges other than the Pont des Arts in Paris, and though I like walking over other ones as well, I don't feel like I know any bridge in Paris as well as I know the Pont des Arts. In London, on the other hand, during the 4 weeks I spent there in summer 2011 I walked over quite a few different bridges and so got to know many more. I stayed in the borough of Southwark which borders the Thames. I was taking a course that summer which was located on the other side of the river. For the first week, I always walked the same way and crossed over the Millennium Bridge. This is a great bridge. It's unique looking, it's for pedestrians only, and it leads right to the Tate Modern museum.

Here's the Millennium Bridge

By the second week I was bored of the same route everyday and so started switching it up. I walked across the Southwark Bridge once which is featured in the TV show Luther multiple times, including the final scene of the show when Alice tells Luther to meet her there and he does.

Alice and Luther on the Southwark Bridge in Season 1

Alice and Luther on the Southwark Bridge in Season 2

But then I started walking over Blackfriars Bridge and decided I liked that route best. The bridge itself was quite nice - wide sidewalk for pedestrians but also space for cars, has bright red trim, and great views of the Thames and London.

Blackfriars Bridge - I love the red trim.

Other things I love about the bridges of both Paris and London are: 1. how many bridges there are in both cities! It's so cool to have a long river running right through the centre of the city which requires lots of bridges. It's also very cool to see all of the other bridges from the bridge you're on. Especially on the Pont des Arts I loved leaning over the railing and looking at other bridges, and what was going on on either side of the river too. 2. How you can look over the sides and watch all the boats - the tourist boats, pleasure boats, cargo boats, police boats - go by. 3. There's something cool and exciting about standing on a bridge and knowing there's water beneath you and that you're safe above it.

Three bridges in Paris all in a row

The two main bridges of the Bay Area  - the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge - are very different from the bridges of Paris and London but I love them too. When I went to Berkeley, one of my favourite places on campus was the bottom of the Campanile from where, on a clear date, you could see the Golden Gate Bridge. If I wasn't in a hurry, and sometimes on days when I was near there and could purposefully walk to that spot, I loved standing there and looking out at the bridge. Even on days I was hurrying past, I would never walk by that spot without trying to see the Golden Gate. S. and I used to sometimes walk up to the Big C (literally this big concrete C (for California, and painted yellow which is one of the school's colours) in the hills above campus) an hour before it got dark and then watch the sun set and the lights come up all over the whole Bay Area from way out in the peninsula to San Francisco. We got amazing views of the two bridges from there.

If you look carefully you can see the yellow C up near the top of the picture.

View from the Big C

The Golden Gate Bridge gets so much of the attention but I love the Bay Bridge too. It's double decker and looks so pretty at night all lit up. I've also always associated it with excitement because whenever I went on it I was going either into San Francisco (which was usually for a fun reason) or to the airport and thus home, also exciting. I have to admit though that I was always a bit scared going across it in case there was an earthquake. But at least that never prevented me from going on it. When I first moved to Austin I had coffee with M., a grad student who taught my Portuguese class my last semester at Berkeley, who was originally from Texas and had moved back to Austin to write her dissertation. She told me that when she lived in Berkeley she drove all the way up the east bay out to the Golden Gate Bridge at least once a week. Ignoring the fact that I didn't have a car in Berkeley and probably wouldn't have made that drive once a week regardless, I totally wished I had done something like that while living in Berkeley. I think my admiration of the Golden Gate from the bottom of the Campanile, however, was my equivalent.

The view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Campanile

The Bay Bridge with San Francisco behind it

To sum up, I love bridges and miss the days they were a more regular part of my life. Even though I don't see and/or walk over any bridges on a regular basis now, that just serves to make it all the more special when I do go somewhere where I can do so.

Bridges of London

Playing the lottery

Canada's Biggest Lottery

My first real introduction to lotteries was in the Babysitters' Club (BSC) Super Special #5 California Girls! which I read as a kid. The babysitters win the lottery in the amount of $10,000 (I think... I don't have the book in front of me to check (it's in my house in Toronto but I do own a copy :) ) and decide to go on a trip with Dawn, my favourite babysitter who is originally from California, to California. I don't remember much more about the book - winning the lottery was only the premise for them going on the trip and wasn't a part of the rest of the book -  but when I was thinking about this blog post one of the first things that popped into my head was when the BSC won the lottery.

I go through phases with lottery buying. M.'s partner N. says that he only buys lottery tickets when he's really happy or really sad. His rationale is that when he's happy, it's a good time to play because he's in a good mood, feels optimistic and maybe he'll actually win. When he's really down, playing seems like a good idea because maybe he'll win and then feel way better and if he loses, well everything else is going badly so why would he win the lottery? The reasons I purchase lotto tickets changes. I know my dad occasionally buys a ticket, especially when there's a big jackpot, so that's how I originally got in to buying them too. I also started buying tickets more regularly once I met D. as he liked to buy them. For a while there in the winter of 2012 I think we were buying Lotto Max tickets almost every week just because the jackpot was so high. After weeks of losing - or occasionally winning a free ticket but nothing more, no jackpot for us - we stopped playing. This past fall, however, our lottery buying came back with a vengeance. It was sparked by Lotto Max having a huge jackpot that started at about $40 million and just kept growing until it was $50 million. Unfortunately, again, aside from two free tickets, we haven't won the jackpot. 

Lotto Max and Lotto 649 are the two big lotteries in Canada. Lotto Max's draw is every Friday night and 649's draws are Wednesday and Saturday nights. I always go for the quick pick and just let the machine choose my numbers. D. usually does too but one time he picked his numbers and used a combination of our birthdays, and my niece E.'s birthdays. Sadly we didn't win with that either, so now he's back to letting the machine give us numbers. Until a few weeks ago, my lottery buying was limited to Lotto Max and occasionally Lotto 649. Then a client I saw at work told me he had won $75,000 (the top prize) on a $3 Lucky Horseshoe scratch ticket. A few days later, I found myself buying a scratch ticket for the first time. I figured since there was a relatively recent winner of the top prize in Lucky Horseshoe I should try something else and so I picked Cash for Life. You can buy Cash for Life scratch tickets for $1, $2, $4 and $10. The best prize out of these tickets is, respectively, either $100, $200 $400, or $1000 a week for life. I am embarrassed to say that over the past two weeks I've probably bought about 6 tickets - a few $2 ones, a few $1, a few $4 ones and D. bought me one $10 ticket on my birthday. For all that scratching, all I've won is $3. I got $1 from a one dollar ticket and $2 on a two dollar ticket. D. says I look like I'm having so much fun when I scratch tickets and I do enjoy it but I am annoyed I haven't won more. These tickets always make you think you're so close to winning - you have to get three of the same thing in a game to win it; I've gotten two LIFE symbols so many times but the elusive third one is probably only on 1 in a million tickets or some other really bad odds - and then you lose. Twice I've thought I won $1000 (which I'd gladly take) only to realize that I momentarily mistook $100 for $1000 and I didn't win. I was worried buying lotto tickets has gotten out of hand so I've told myself I can now only buy tickets once a month. Writing this paragraph has made me want to go out and buy a scratch ticket so badly but I am going to resist :)

So addictive!!

I've long fantasized about what I would do if I won the lottery, even at times when I wasn't buying lotto tickets. Back in August 2009 when I had just come back from a trip to South Africa, I decided that if I won the lottery I would take all my friends and family to the exact same amazing lodge in South Africa I had just been to for a safari. I'd rent out the whole lodge so that everyone staying there would be my favourite people in the world. We would go out on the jeeps in the morning and the evening to see the animals, eat long leisurely meals at night, and the rest of the time just relax. I even went so far as to make a list of who I would bring :) 

We'd go out and look at the animals

And stay here!

While I would still consider doing this if the jackpot were big enough, now I am much more practical (and perhaps boring or realistic) about what I'd do if I won. I honestly can't even fathom what I'd do with a jackpot like $50 million. (I read an article recently about a lawyer in Saskatchewan who won $14 million in the lottery. He said he's going to keep working and just carry on with his life. I'd definitely keep working too but it'd be so amazing to know you would never need to worry about money ever again.) I'd be thrilled to win $10,000. I've thought more about what I would do with that amount of money just because it seems more reasonable and is easier to manage. D. thinks people in small towns have a better chance of winning Lotto Max - he bases this on that Lotto Max winners are often from small towns or suburbs as opposed to being from Toronto, Montreal, etc. - so he wants us to keep buying our tickets where we live now and in other small towns in Ontario.  All I can do is keep hoping that one month we will win.

D. and I would kiss like this for the camera if we won... not :)

Like a river in Toronto

The Marne river by Cezanne

I realized after I had already put up my last post that I should have included rivers as I have lots to say about them too. So this post will be about them.  I most love rivers in cities but rivers in the countryside are very nice too. Beaupreau - the little town in France where I went on exchange back in the winter/spring of 1999 - had a little river which ran through it and sometimes I'd go to the grounds of the castle (Beaupreau had this very nice castle with lovely grounds anyone could go to. I never went inside the castle, however, and I'm not sure anyone could) and sit on the banks watching the river. During this time I was listening to Natalie Merchant a lot, particularly her song Where I go which talks about sitting and watching the river flow by. I liked knowing I did that too.

Beaupreau's castle and the little river

My friend F. who I met when she was in an English class I taught in Paris lives with her husband (and now twin daughters) in a little town outside Paris called Le Perreux-sur-Marne. It is easily accessible by RER train from Paris and I've gone to her apartment several times since I first met her in 2007. Their place is a fairly short walk from the Marne river, which is a tributary of the Seine and a lovely river in its own right. After we'd eat a big and delicious lunch, F., her husband S., our other friend G. and I would all take a long walk along the Marne river. In the summer (the only time I've ever seen the river) it is a really pretty greeny colour. The whole setting was very peaceful and idyllic and it really instilled in me a new love of country rivers.  

The Marne

My favourite river in the world is the Seine, mostly because it goes through Paris. I like rivers going through the middle of cities because I mentally map out the city and consider its various neighbourhoods based on which side of the river they are on. The Seine is a lovely river to walk beside; and while it is usually a brown or grey colour I still think it's perfect. The Thames river in London is really cool too. I also think it's good for walking beside and I like it's location.  One river I wish I knew better is the Danube. When I was 16 I went to Budapest with my parents and the Danube river flowing through the city dividing Buda and Pest was pretty, and reminded me of Paris in the sense of the river demarcating the city. I hope to go back one day and walk along its banks.

The Danube & Budapest

Toronto has two rivers - the Humber and the Don - but truth be told I often forget about them. I think it's because the Humber is in the west part of the city and the Don is in the east and I guess I spend most of my time in the middle. E.'s parents used to live near the Humber river and so I think we went there a few times back when we were 13 but I haven't been there since. A few years ago I saw some pictures of hers she had taken by the Humber river on New Year's day and they were really pretty and cool. There was lots of snow and the river looked really nice. Just before leaving Austin in June 2009, I went to see the Scottish band Camera Obscura. During one song they played which was off their new album and which I had never heard before I was pretty sure the singer was saying something about a river in Toronto and I both thought that was cool and kind of odd. Mostly just because in terms of bodies of water, Toronto is associated with the lake, not its two rivers. But alas, when I got home that night I did some googling and sure enough, the line from their song Forests and Sands was: "If the blood pumping through my veins could freeze like a river in Toronto then I'd be pleased." While odd, I do think it's cool they wrote that line; although true be told I am not sure the rivers actually do freeze the whole winter or even some of the winter. In any event, maybe given that I do like rivers, I should try to walk along the banks of the Don and Humber sometime.

The Humber River in Toronto - it looks so pretty!

To sum up my thoughts on rivers, I do prefer the vastness of lakes and oceans. I like how with oceans lakes, all one can see out to the horizon is water and I love how the water colour reflects the sky. It's nice to be able to easily see across to the other sides of rivers though, and they can be very pretty. They are also great for going for walks along. Plus, as I will talk about in my next post, I love bridges that go over rivers and I love cities with rivers, Paris most of all.  

So idyllic. 

Lakes & Oceans

This is an ORK poster which I really want. I love it. 

Having grown up on Lake Ontario (although truth be told I didn't see the lake all that often - which is part of the reason I'd love to live near the lake or in a condo with a view of the lake when I move back to Toronto but I digress...), my loyalties have to lie with that lake. Of the Great Lakes it is my favourite. But Lake Huron is a very close second. I first loved Lake Huron when I went to this camp on the Bruce Peninsula during the summer of 1996. The camp would take us swimming in Lake Huron and I also got to go out sailing on the lake once and it was a really exhilarating experience. One of the counsellors who was an experienced sailor took us out on a windy day. The water was quite choppy but it was so much fun. I've only seen Lake Michigan briefly and while I have seen Lake Erie at least a few times, it never made much of an impression on me. I am sure it would though if I were to spend more time near it or see it from a high up vista and be reminded how big it is. It is Lake Superior that I most want to see. It is the largest and deepest of the Great Lakes and I really want to stand in front of it and hopefully swim in it one day.

Sometimes I stop to think about how Toronto is on a Great Lake and it makes me really happy. Every time I see a map of North America I am always reminded and amazed at how big the Great Lakes truly are. I love how all of the Great Lakes (well mostly I am thinking of Ontario and Huron but I am sure it applies to the others too) look like the ocean. My dad belongs to a golf club in the east end of Toronto located on these cliffs overlooking Lake Ontario. I love going there because the view is so lovely and because Lake Ontario looks exactly like an ocean. Back in March 2010, C. came to visit me in Toronto and we went to the Beaches and sat on a bench along the boardwalk and looked out at Lake Ontario. C. is a born and bred Californian (I feel like this fact is an important one because C. has lived next to the Pacific almost all of her life and so knows what oceans look like) and she remarked that the lake looked exactly like the ocean. Perhaps the best part about living in Owen Sound right now is its proximity to the Lake Huron coast. Even more so than with Lake Ontario, I think Lake Huron looks like an ocean. With Lake Ontario, depending on the day/weather, you can sometimes see across to New York state on the other side. With the part of Lake Huron I've been to, even on the clearest of days, you can't see Michigan. Throughout September and part of this month too, D. and I have been going to Sauble Beach on Lake Huron (the second longest fresh water beach in the world after Wasaga Beach which is on Georgian Bay) on a fairly regular basis, and I have seen the lake be much like the ocean in that it has different moods. A few times we were there it was very choppy and the waves were really big; other times it was calm. All times it was only the lack of the scent of salt in the air that convinced me I wasn't standing on the shores of an ocean.

Another thing I like about lakes is that you can refer to a specific lake as "the lake" in the same way we say "the city." Except for in this post, I never call Lake Ontario anything other than "the lake." That's just what it is, and I'm sure that's the same for anyone who lives on lakes. K., who grew up in Penticton, BC which is on two lakes, told me once that she likes lakes more than the ocean and I was shocked. How could anything compare to the ocean? But now, I kind of get it. Although that's mostly because Lake Huron reminds me of the ocean. I'd still take the ocean over a lake though, and most definitely I prefer oceans to small lakes.

Instead of Lake Huron, this looks like it could be somewhere in the Caribbean! 

I like the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans equally. Back when I lived in California I probably would have said I prefer the Pacific but I have been to so many cool places on the Atlantic ocean that I like it just as much. I love the way the ocean's colour depends on the sky, I love how it is sometimes calm and sometimes choppy (I could sit and stare at the ocean and its waves for days), and I love sea breezes and the smell of salt. Some of the things I just listed apply to the Great Lakes too but the big thing oceans have over lakes, even the Great Lakes, is their size. Sometimes the size of the ocean, especially the Pacific, can be intimidating but I mostly think it's the size that makes oceans so wonderful. I love how you can't ever see the other side of the ocean. In March during my first year at Berkeley, so back in 2003, I spent the night at N.'s house in the Sunset district of San Francisco before going home for spring break the next day. N., her brother S. and I went out to Ocean Beach at night. It was dark so we couldn't see well but I still loved just smelling the salt air. I remember we talked about how if we just kept going west from there, all the way across the Pacific, we'd hit Japan. That distance is both exciting and slightly terrifying in its vastness.

The vastness of the ocean...

The last way I want to compare lakes and oceans is in terms of swimming in them. One of my favourite  (although I find parts of it so frustrating) books is Ann Patchett's Patron Saint of Liars and I remember the main character lived in LA for a time and loved to go swimming way out in the ocean at night. (Interesting side note: I was happy to discover when I read Ann Patchett's memoir Truth & Beauty that she swims lengths regularly). I'm scared to swim in the ocean at night (the possibility of a shark attack and also how the infiniteness of the ocean seems magnified in the dark) but I love swimming in it during the day. I love floating on the surface and being carried by gentle waves, and I like smelling the salt (and I like the curls that form in my hair when I've been in the ocean and let it air dry) and I like wearing goggles and diving beneath the surface and sometimes seeing little fish. Swimming in lakes is fun too and can feel refreshing but, oddly enough since you'd think salt might leave some sort of salty residue on my skin, I more feel the desire to take a shower coming out of a lake than out of the ocean. My favourite part about swimming in the ocean or a lake is the feeling that you're in something natural and timeless (this sounds so crunchy but it's true) and that's a feeling you just can't get in a pool.

One final shot (courtesy of D.) of Lake Huron from Sauble Beach.

The wonders of wine

My parents have always drunk wine and so while I would have the odd sip growing up, it actually wasn't until I studied abroad in Chile in 2005 that I really began liking wine. Chile has especially good red wine and I started buying it - and drinking it - regularly. When I came back to Berkeley for my last year of undergrad, I enjoyed buying wines from Chile or Argentina if I were having people over. When I lived in Paris in the winter and spring of 2007, I discovered the wonders of rosé. I absolutely adore rosé wine (especially from France, but most will do) but I love red and white wine too. During the dark, cold months I crave and drink red wine. I drink more white and rosé in the warmer, lighter months; however, this summer I found myself drinking quite a bit of red so who knows? It's really impossible for me to say which I prefer. I think I like them all equally, even if I do drink red more than the others. Here are some of my favourite kinds of wine. For white, I love sauvignon blanc both from France and from New Zealand. I also love Vouvray (from France) and Sancerre (from France again). I also like Italian pinot grigio and I always like pinot gris whenever I have it. For red, my favourites are Malbec (from Argentina), red wine from Sicily (I don't know if red wines from there have a name but they are very good) pinot noir (from anywhere but especially French ones) and cotes du rhone (France.) I am happy to try and drink many others though. I am not at all a wine expert nor do I know a lot about wines beyond the main wine regions of the world, their famous varieties, etc. I can definitely not identify different ingredients (like when people say "this tastes like it has a hint of strawberry, etc."); although I do like reading descriptions of wines when they say things like that. I mostly just enjoy drinking wine and visiting vineyards.

A selection of roses for you to try :)

On Labour Day weekend this year, to celebrate D.'s birthday, we went on a wine tour in Niagara-on-the-Lake which is an area near Niagara Falls and the main wine growing region in Ontario. We had a great time and the wine tour was so fun! The tour consisted of a van, and a nice driver who drove us to four different wineries over the course of an afternoon. We had a long and big tour of how they make the wine, etc. at the first place and then just wine tastings at all of the subsequent wineries. I had never been a big fan of Niagara wines before but I think that's just because we weren't tasking the right ones. Our favourite wines from that day were the rosé from Ravine Vineyard and the riesling from Between the Lines Winery. I never liked riesling in the past because the ones I had were all from Germany and all were just too sickly sweet. The owners of Between the Lines Winery are German and the man giving us the wine tastings explained that the LCBO (liquor stores in Ontario) only carries sweet rieslings but that they don't have to be that way. The riesling I had there was truly delicious. Wine tasting is such a fun activity. Vineyards are beautiful places - they always seem green and warm and inviting. And since I love wine, it's a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon. I've been fortunate enough to visit some vineyards around the world and I have always had a wonderful time.

When L. and I studied abroad in Santiago, Chile we took a bus over the Andes en route to Mendoza, Argentina (literally crossing the border in the middle of the night - the Argentine border control officer stamped my passport with the day before's date because it was around 2 am and I guess he hadn't updated his stamp yet) which is the most famous wine region in Argentina. It was the first weekend of March - so the equivalent to Labour Day weekend here - and the weather was perfect. Mendoza is a lovely city and the surrounding countrysides and vineyards are gorgeous. L. and I went on a wine tour which was lots of fun. Ever since that trip I have been into  Argentine red wine - Malbec is the type of wine grown near Mendoza - and I hope to one day go back there.

Early last January, my parents and I visited Marlborough the famous wine growing region near the top of New Zealand's south island. Wine regions are just gorgeous everywhere! Marlborough was sunny, green, and just all around mesmerizing. I loved it there and wished we could have stayed longer. We went for lunch at this lovely vineyard which had a great restaurant. I love the distinct taste of Marlborough's Sauvignon blancs (I love French sauvignon blancs too but I find NZ's very interesting) and it was super cool to actually be in the region where they are grown. So yes wine tasting is a very pleasant way to spend a few hours. I'd love to go wine tasting in Italy and France too and hopefully one day I will.

Here is a picture I took of a vineyard in Marlborough. A perfect day.

When D. and I lived in Montreal, we would usually buy fairly cheap red wine (close to $10 or just over) from Chile. There was also this good Italian red from Sicily that was amazingly under $10. I would spend more on rosés and whites but I still tended to look for the cheaper wines. Maybe it's because I am now getting paid or because we are used to the excellent (and more expensive) French and Italian wines my dad usually buys (and kindly often gives us a bottle of), but since the end of June and showing no signs of stopping we've been drinking almost exclusively French or Italian. As exemplified above, I know and love wines from all over the world. But I do have to admit that France and Italy probably make the best wine in the world. So while during the long winter months (that are creeping ever closer) I will likely still end up buying some wine from Chile and Argentina, for now I am enjoying this French and Italian kick. 

How I love France & its wines

One more of Marlborough... 

The City

Note to readers: For most of the past (almost) five (a long time!) years, I have written on this blog at least twice per month. I really appreciate you reading it! This month, however, was very busy (this whole summer has been good, but has gone by quickly and has had a lot of adjustments: new job, new daily schedule, new place to live, etc.) and writing this two blog posts was unfortunately not possible this month, and perhaps won't be happening in the fall. I still love writing, and I want to keep this blog. I am just unsure right now whether I will be writing once or twice per month from now on. I will at least be writing once per month.

Now, moving on to my topic this week - "the City." I have wanted to write about this for a long time. I remember once when I was a young teenager (13 or 14) I was outside of Toronto in some small town in Ontario on a school trip and I said to a friend "I just want to go back to the city." I have always been a city girl, but the older I got the more I realized that the meaning of 'the city' is relative. I imagine that to the surrounding areas/suburbs/further out more rural towns of bigger metropolitan areas or cities, that main city is "the city."

I guess it was probably the show Sex and the City which first made me realize that just because I referred to Toronto as "the city" it wasn't the only "the city" around. Even though I am from Toronto and prefer it to New York, I still have to say that New York (Manhattan) seems like the quintessential and ultimate "the city". The skyline, the density, its fame around the world, its distinctiveness from Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx - for all these reasons  I just feel like the term "the city" really matches New York.

The boundaries of "the city" can also be hard to tell. A few weeks ago I was speaking with a client who told me he had a lawyer from "the city". Given that we were speaking in a courthouse approximately 2 hours 15 minutes northwest of Toronto, I wasn't positive Toronto was the city he meant. So I said "you have a lawyer from...?" and he said "Toronto" in the tone of voice that slightly implied I was an idiot for not knowing that "the city" = Toronto. I always thought it was only people who actually lived in Toronto or in the close suburbs (close is not 2 - 2.5 hours away) who referred it as "the city" but I guess I stand corrected, at least in the case of this one man.

In June 2006, my last month in Berkeley, S., K. and maybe L. had all read or were about to read John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley about his road trip across and around the United States with his dog Charley. I thought it sounded good then but I always have a long long list of books (and literal piles of books) to read and that one hasn't yet made it to the top of my list. S. told us that John Steinbeck wrote something about how when people say "the city" they really mean San Francisco. It's true that most people in the Bay Area think of and refer to San Francisco as "the city."(Although what about Oakland? It's on the Bay too and it's also a city!) But I never liked calling it that, mostly because I think that in each person's vocabulary there should only be one "the city" and for me it was Toronto. I also don't think there is just one "the city" in the world, despite what I wrote above about Manhattan. I do think that was probably the original but I think it's great our world has so many amazing cities that are all worthy of being known only as "the city."

I love full (or almost full) moon shots

The phrase "the city" conjures up excitement, tall buildings, lots of people, many different neighbourhoods - all things I don't find (and consequently miss a lot) in small towns. I have now lived in a small town for 2 months and it's pleasant and nice in a lot of ways but do I miss "the city".