Just to shake things up...

I just wasn't feeling comfortable with the blog...I needed to shake things up. And by 'shake things up' the Lutheran in me means 'go back to what I know' - the original template. Having a blog can be very time consuming, but I'm proud of the technological steps I have taken (such as adding links). I'm a super blogger!

We have been in Windsor for about 2 weeks now, and we're pretty comfortable with the city, the apartment, and the church. The sky is never really blue here - it's always a little hazy...maybe on account of the humidity, maybe on account of the smog. And some days, when the wind is blowing just right, you can smell the Hiram Walker distillery.

There are some really pretty homes and gardens here. There seems to be more war memorial-type stuff here than there is in Alberta, and there is a whole section of town with streets named "Vimy" and "Dieppe" and "Somme." We are only a few blocks from "Dieppe Park" which runs along the Detroit River and has some beautifully maintained flowers and topiary bushes.

On Monday, Murray had the day off so we decided to do some exploring. We first thought that we would check out Pelee Island (the southernmost point in Canada), but when we saw in our handy-dandy tourguide book that the ferry only sails twice a day on Mondays, we realized we had missed the boat. Ha ha. No, really.
Instead, we headed downtown for a slice of Pizza Pizza (highly declicious, for the information of all you Westerners...) and some tourist-style sightseeing. I think Windsor has more shops that sell Cuban cigars than anywhere I have ever seen. I guess it's because the Americans can't buy them on their side of the border. Anyway, cigar shops aside, there are plenty of restaurants here, including some that let you smoke a hookah pipe on their sidewalk patios. Interesting. We went to a really great restaurant for dinner called Chinoso's - all kinds of Asian food, from create-your-own stirfry to curries and sushi. delish.

We walked along the riverside path which takes you from Dieppe Park to the Ambassador Bridge, then we hopped in the car and drove down Riverside Drive to Tecumseh. Lots of big homes that back onto the river, and some gigantic ocean-liners and ships bound for the (other) Great Lakes pass by on a regular schedule.
We stopped by a beach on Lake St Clair (a not-so-great-lake...essentially just a really wide part of the river, which is really just a narrow part of Lake Erie). Anyway, the water looked pretty scuzzy (note the comment about gigantic ships above) and the beach was pretty gross too. We've heard that Ontario has some beautiful lakes and beaches, but I'm not sure that this is one of them.

The people here have been so awesome! We have been invited to dinner by a number of congregation members. We've been busy little social butterflies, but it gets to be a little draining. I'm certainly not complaining - we've had some amazing dinners and chances to get to know some wonderful people. And I haven't had to cook much in the tiny, tiny kitchen.

The other day when I was minding my own business watching Martha Stewart, a little mouse came scurrying out of the storage room. I tried to stay dignified and not freak out, but visions of Hanta-virus were running through my head. The little mouse turned around and darted back into the storage room, so I did what any self-respecting vicar's wife would do -I threw a 'pounce' treat into the storage room and left it to the cat. Then we called the secretary who informed us that the "mouse guy" would be there in 15 minutes to set some traps. We haven't seen any mice since then (either scurrying about or stuck in the traps, thank goodness!)

So that's about all the interesting stuff I can think of for now.