Hey, all.

This update is going up on the Monday, instead of Friday, because circumstances dictated that I be without Wi-Fi for two of those nights, and in a situation where my computer was without juice the other night. Fortunately, the main information I would have imparted in said blogs is "Today I drove" but I'll attempt to at least give a little colour, since I've taken so long to update.

So on Friday morning, I woke up, said my hurried thank yous and goodbyes, and went to have the chip in my windshield repaired. The gentleman quoted me $60 the previous day, and, after a consultation with my insurance, I decided to pay outright for it, instead of trying to collect. I had a quick breakfast at A&W, and returned to my repaired, but still 100% visible cracked windshield. It turns out that the type of crack I had is LEAST able to be visibly removed, but also least damaging to the structure of the windshield. So at the moment, what I have is a 100% structurally sound, yet 50% more distracting windshield that has a small spiderweb of cracks going throughout its' surface. The guy assured me it's as strong as ever, and is warrantied for the lifetime of the car, in any case.

I got on the road at around 9, and proceeded to have one of the more disappointing drives of my life, in that the prairies were not as flat as I had imagined they'd be. The flattest part of my drive was the very beginning, and after that it was probably MORE boring, in that the occasional rolling hillock or stand of trees broks up what would otherwise be an amazing sight of a completely flat piece of land. I hear this is not a very common complaint, but I would have liked it were the prairies a little flatter, at least for the two days I was driving through them.

I arrived in Winnipeg later than I thought I would, I don't know why, and I had about an hour to go before I was to meet Jon, an old friend from Ottawa, who was having a pre-match (not the sports kind, although that was technically true as well) meeting with the director of a hospital in Winnipeg the same day. We had decided as recently as two days prior that our plans were to meet up, acquire tickets for the Blue Bombers-Ticats game, and have a good time watching football together like we did as recently as last year, but more frequently in our respective youths.

Fortunately for us, Jon was also searching around to find a place we could stay in Winnipeg, and he happened to ask Adam, a friend he made at camp back in his summers prior to highschool, and asked him at the same time whether he wanted to join us to watch some football. Adam suggested that his girlfriend Dana already actually had tickets, and offered them to us, as well as getting in touch with his twin, Seth, for a place for us to stay that evening.

I picked up Jon at his grandparents' place, and was quite graciously invited inside to have some dessert to the supper they were eating at 4:30. It was some sort of apple pastry and icecream, and we made very pleasant conversation about Israeli hockey players, various failures of modern phones to be able to pull up highlights of said players, and the general outline of my trip. It was very nice to meet Jon's grandparents, as they're really nice people, and they managed to extract a promise of another visit as we walked out the door.

We met at Adam's place, and were met by Dana, Adam, and Dana's sister, whose name I am extremely ashamed to have forgotten, since it was actually she who acquired the tickets. If you're reading this, sister of Dana, I apologize, and hope there are no hard feelings. I'll get you Jets tickets next time I'm in town to apologize.

The tickets were amazing. Row 14, at about the 35-40 yard line of the home side, with access to the Pinnacle Club, which is sort of an area for running up a tab, instead of paying for your alcohol individually, and with separate bathrooms, to reduce the wait. It also had a buffet, but to participate, it was a prix fixe of $55 on top of the ticket, so none of us did that.

The game brought back a ton of memories of seeing old Rough Riders and Renegades games in my youth, and we had a great time talking to yet another relative of Jon's who was also in attendance, and who seemed far more knowledgeable about the CFL as it was today than either of us.

The game complete, with a late Bombers' comeback being quashed in the last two minutes, we left, headed back to Adam's apartment and just passed the time talking and looking out over their amazing balcony city view until around 1, when Seth returned from his music festival visit that day, and we headed back to his place to sleep.

In the next entry, I head to Minneapolis, see the mall of America briefly, and have my car searched by border agents.