WE HAVE MOVED!

The big day has finally come and the excitement is overwhelming. Neither Heather or I could get more than 4-5 hours of solid sleep. It's a good thing we both had a day off work. At 8 in the morning I took Heather's car to a local garage for an emission test which is required for older cars at the time of renewing stickers. The inspection took about 15 minutes and the Grand Am passed the tests with flying colours.

Back at home, Heather was finishing out our passport applications. My passport expires at the end of December and Heather decided to get a new one with an updated name. We didn't encounter any lines at the passport office in Kitchener and were out of there in less than 15 minutes. Then we drove straight to Waterloo to the office of Ministry of Transportation to take care of some business. That business included: updating driver's licence to the new address (x2), purchasing plate stickers for our vehicles (x4 - Elantra, Grand Am and two Boulevards), new vehicle registration papers with new address (x4) and changing address on the health cards (x2 - we will not receive new cards as those don't include the address info). All of that took so long that the line behind us grew from zero to about 6-7 people as we were leaving.

Back in Breslau once again we had lunch and then Heather went upstairs to catch up on some sleep while I waited. The call finally came at 2pm. I woke Heather up and 25 minutes later we had the key to our very first house!

We have the key!

We went back to Breslau to quickly pick up some loose ends and then drove both cars to Woodstock. I had planned to ride a motorcycle but it rained constantly throughout the day so I decided that the motorcycles will have to be moved at a later date. We took both cars because beginning tonight overnight parking on city streets is not permitted in Breslau. The key worked and we were in our house for the first time as owners just before 4pm.

A little present from the builder.

I moved the Grand Am into the garage and then we went on a drive around Woodstock which included stops at a post office, Canadian Tire (making copies of keys), Public Storage to pick up some things that could fit into a car, and Subway for some much needed supper. Since the bulk of the move will not happen until Friday, we did a few little things and I was able to at least start furnishing one of the 'rooms' in the house. We left Woodstock at 7pm with three more days to go before we actually start living there.

The garage is filling up.

The Final Walk-through

With eight days to go before taking possession of our new house, we had a final inspection at 3pm. Aside from some minor touch-ups and a couple of missing small items, the house looked ready to move in. All the phone calls to utilities have been made and now we just wait.

Our new kitchen.

Concert Trip to Northampton, MA

A couple of weeks I suggested to Heather that we take an out-of-province trip to a concert. Now, because of all that's been going on in our lives we haven't been to a gig in nearly a year and Heather brought up the idea getting back into concert going. So with that in mind I browsed my Last.fm account and found that Matt & Kim are on tour. I discovered the band just over a year ago when their single "Daylight" was featured as a free single of the week on iTunes. As luck would have it the band was playing in Toronto last Friday but, as per previous posts, that day was reserved for our anniversary weekend. I checked the rest of their tour dates and found that they were playing in Northampton, MA today and I picked that day to give us time to get to and from the concert without missing work.

We left in the morning and made a quick stop in Cambridge see Heather's family including parents who were leaving for Sudbury after a week-long stint in town. I borrowed $50 from Mike, said our goodbyes and with Jim's advice, headed towards Lewiston at 9am. But as we arrived at the Lewiston/Queenston border crossing, Jim called to warn us of a line-up close to an hour long. It was too late to turn around at that point and we ended up crawling for over an hour. We hit the booth at noon and were bombarded with questions. And of course I got orders to shut off the car and open the trunk. We assumed it was because two people going to a concert surely must have some pot with them. We didn't.

Even though we encountered a delay, we were still ahead of the schedule I had planned. That schedule included stops in a couple of breweries where I could pick up some product and souvenir glasses for my new collection. Our first stop was Rohrbach Brewing in Rochester, NY. The brewery is located in the heart of the city between a train yard and what resembles a farmers market. Needless to say it was very difficult to find a parking spot. Once we did, we went to the brewery but this location only had tours and sold beer but not souvenir glasses. Instead we were told to go to their restaurant location just outside of town. At the restaurant, we each had a pulled pork quesadilla but unlike last weekend this one was more of a bar-food variety. There was so much pork we had difficulty finishing our portions. Before leaving I also picked up a growler (0.5 gallon or 64 oz.) of Vanilla Porter and Highlander Lager.

Rohrbach Brewing Restaurant.

We left at 2:30 and made our next stop in Syracuse, NY at the Middle Ages Brewing. I walked in to a large crowd during their sampling hour. I got another growler of Pale Ale, a couple of bottles and glass and got out. From there it was on to Northampton with a stop for gas on the NY Thruway. We were at the stop at the same time as a bus full of BC students. Once in the state of MA we stopped in Lee and checked in to America's Best Value Inn. As the name says it wasn't anything upscale but rather a place with a bed to spend the night in. At check in I asked the owner about breakfast options and he recommended that we save money and help ourselves to a donut tray in the morning. True to its name the light didn't work and the vending machine ate Heather's change without spitting anything out. Regardless of that, we dropped our stuff and moved on to Northampton. All the while we were using MA roads, the toll booth attendants were nice enough not to charge us any money unlike NY where we spent nearly $40 on tolls during both Saturday and Sunday.

We made it to Northampton around 8pm and, after finding a spot on the 4th floor in a parking garage, we walked down to the Pearl Street Nightclub. To our surprise the line to the club stretched for the whole block and then around the corner. Some of the people in line commented that it was one of the biggest crowds trying to get into the club with few hundred people in the line. I tried taking a peek at the front of the line because I thought there'd be a different line for people who had purchased tickets in advance and were picking them up at the will call. Unlucky for us, that seemed to be standard pratice at the club. The size of the line could have been due to the fact that there were concerts in two parts of the club but again that wasn't the first time it's happened. An hour after the doors opened at 9pm, we made it inside just in time to see the second opening act wrap-up their set. Matt & Kim's set started at 10:30pm and lasted until midnight. And it was worth every penny.

Matt & Kim.

SATURDAY'S ROUTE


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