She says: Departure in t-minus 3 days. Matt and I were given the INCREDIBLE gifts of Mini-Round the World Business Class tickets by my brother, Dr. Gold. We'll be heading out on Wednesday morning (see full itenirary on the site).

I spent two weeks in PEI with the fam and flew into Montreal yesterday at noon. After waiting for approximately 40 000 Tim Hortons Kids Camp bags to come off the carousel, mine did not appear. I filled out the necessary info for lost baggage and then the carousel re-started and my lonely bag appeared. Another great reminder of why we are traveling only with backpacks.

Matt met me at the airport and we looked around in some cool art galleries. I especially liked Gallerie d'Este as they had some fantastic photography and surrealistic pieces. We are still shopping for our third anniversary piece, but didn't find anything in our price range. I'm sure we'll find something on the trip!

After wandering around a crazy sidewalk sale/street fair where people were inexplicably wearing L'Oreal paper sailor's caps, we took a snooze in the hotel and at 9 p.m., headed off for our comedy show. The destination was 1.8 km away and we hopped in a cab. The traffic was insane, due to the earlier street excitement, and we barely made it to the show on time.
The Nasty Show at the Just for Laughs festival was really funny. It was hosted by "Roastmaster General" Jeffrey Ross and several rude and outrageous comedians took the stage throughout the night. I finally watched Anthony Jeselnick (that's probably spelled atrociously incorrectly) and found his delivery to be hilarious.

The show was only about 2 hours and one of the highlights was when 10 exceptionally drunk audience members went on to the stage as volunteers for a "mini roast". One short man was a hot mess and ended up kicking chairs on stage and nearly getting into a fistfight with the four strippers who were (obviously) part of the comedy show. Nothing but class.

After the show, we followed a glamourous lady (who was rocking some MAJOR side boob) and her douche bag boyfriend down the stairs, I was amazed by her ability to walk down a steep flight of metal grated stairs in 5 inch stilettos. I could barely make it down in my new $6 flip flops and she didn't even fall into one hole. She had mad skills.

When we got outside, we were pleasantly surprised to see all the comedians milling about and chatting with fans.

Matt asked Jeffrey Ross and Big Jay something-or-rather for a photo. They agreed, and the photo is hilarious. Ross was a total diva and didn't make eye contact at all or smile while Big Jay is not looking at the camera. Immediately after the photo, 2 scantily clad girls came up and Ross did not hesitate to do the most obvious up and down look of one of the girls I've ever seen. He was obviously satisfied, as he immediately began smiling and chatting with her amicably.

Matt is a huge fan of Jeselnick and we rescued him from a long, tedious conversation with some fans who thought they were his new best friends. He thanked us and Matt got a photo with him. He seemed a little un-fazed by his newfound (marginali) fame and told us that he is in talks to start a comedy show on Comedy Network.

We walked home along a busy pedestrian street and, although it was nearly midnight, saw lots of kids out with their parents and still more of those mysterious sailor hats. We walked past an open-air party on the steps of the contemporary art museum where a DJ was playing African beats.

We also found tons of glitter on the ground. I think we just missed a Ke$ha suicide bombing.

This morning, we went to Beauty's for breakfast, which was tasty, but super expensive. We also got some banana bread to take home. It's all gone now. It was really good.

We were supposed to hit up Bluesfest to see some of my former students playing, but we texted them to wish them luck and took our time getting home in the 35 degree heat instead. We were then thinking of seeing Death Cab for Cutie and Galactic later in the evening, but those plans were cancelled by the crazy storm that blew down the Bluesfest main stage moments after Cheap Trick was ushered off. We've been following the updates on twitter and were super glad we weren't there. Matt's dad was, and called us to let us know he's safe.

Trixie is happy we're home, but has no idea she'll be without us for nearly a month. We're trying to get in lots of snuggles before we leave her. Matt took her to the vet when I was away because of her periodic puking. She's on a new diet and seems happy. Matt wanted me to cut her nails today, but I am waiting because she always hates me for a while after I do and I want to make sure I get some good cat-mom/cat-daughter time in before she starts shunning me.

Matt heads to work for the next two days and I'll be doing errands, picking up last minute supplies and doing laundry. We both need to pack. Matt packs really light. He brought NOTHING to Montreal for the night. On the way home, he checked his pockets for his wallet and said he needed to make sure he had all his luggage. I, on the other hand, am a terrible over-packer and have been drafting a comprehensive list of what to pack for weeks. I keep cutting things off of it and need to start trying to fit it all into my glorious eBags MotherLode TLS Weekender. That's my main mission for the next to days. Life is rough.

This will likely be one of my longer blog posts as, once we get going, I'll be typing on my teeny iPhone and posting when we find free wireless. Matt's settling down to a healthy dinner of a bag of chips on the couch and we're going over our itinerary and getting ready for the premiere of the new season of Breaking Bad.

Nighty-night.

-Shauna