Valleys, wine, and people who need more patience / tact
Note: LJ first quiz / LJ From First to Last / my LJ life as a black metal song / LJ SOS-Dan blogquizzes. (by Justice, Kaylanna, and Joel)
This morning after my weird sleep, we had breakfast with some of our crew. The East Indian lady accidentally spilled orange juice on me and apologized: hey, I understand it was an accident... at least it wasn't hot coffee, so it was fine! (speaking of East Indians, I should call Nina one of these days... maybe later!) We left shortly after 9, and I'm positively sure THAT pissed off the bossy lady! After driving for a short distance, we stopped to look out over the valley and lake. There were relatively cheap houses there compared to Vancouver, but even a big property will cost you a million dollars around Kamloops. Still, it's better than the same thing costing you $17 million over here! The view was pretty beautiful, and we took a bunch of pictures.
After that, we stopped at a farm market which seemed to operate on the honor system according to a notice posted out front. There were lots of boxes with various fruits in them: prune plums (NOT a typo!), spaghetti / butternut squashes, some apple varieties, pears, and more. A Halloween display of pumpkins was featured, too. Bossy Lady tried to get a discount on the already-cheap fruit... dude, you're just worsening the "cheap Asians" stereotype! If I see an opportunity for a deal on something I want, then I'll go for it... but I won't haggle on the stated price unless it's clearly defective or something! She also wanted to visit the orchards and do a U-Pick thing: the owner had to tell her that he couldn't do that with a group, which I'm sure left her less than impressed!
Then it was off to the winery: I'm sure Bossy Lady loved the organic chocolate bars and the organic grape soap that you could buy from there since she was also going on about the virtues of organic stuff! The gift shop was cool, but also expensive! Interesting bottle openers, though... especially for the ice wine! We had a free wine-tasting lesson, in which she REALLY shone. The wine person was trying to tell us about the differences between regular and ice wine, how to smell the wine and test it first before drinking. Bossy Lady wanted to drink the wine samples right after he poured some for everyone! This happened with the white wine, and the red and white ice wines... he had to tell her three times to BE PATIENT! (sure, she already said she hates waiting for people - she made an exception for her husband since she liked him... but seriously!)
The ice wine bottles are very skinny and also very expensive... the white costs $68, and the red costs $108. Since the red grapes are more noticeable even when frozen in winter, the animals can eat them more readily. So while it might take four pounds of grapes to make your average bottle of wine, it might take 30-50 pounds of grapes to make the (red) ice wine! After that demonstration, we stayed for a while longer. There was a statue of some wine being poured into a glass, so I wanted a picture with it. I hope it doesn't look like the bottle's coming out of my head, as it did for the picture I took of my mom! (I warned her about it, but she didn't care)
We went to Kelowna and had lunch: I saw a nun at the KFC in the strip mall where we ate! Then I bought small purchases at the dollar store there... a blank card for Corey so I could explain all this stuff from the trip, three postcards (one for Corey since I seriously doubt that Jeremy needs one of his hometown), and two bubble wrap envelopes. When we passed a church in Kelowna, I wondered whether Jeremy's parents were in there at that exact moment! Speaking of such, Bossy Lady seemed surprised at all the cars going up the hill towards town, and offered her opinions on that. We told her that it was most likely caused by people going to and from church... like, DUH?!
At some point, we went on a floating bridge. The conversation turned to Islam, terrorism, and (funnily enough) Princess Margaret. Bossy Lady is very opinionated, and figured that the reason Margaret's marriage broke up was because of her bad habits of smoking and drinking a LOT! While I'm sure that sometimes that can be a factor, I hardly think it was the only cause! Then someone brought up rumors that her ex-husband and Prince Philip were both gay... of course, she wasn't surprised to hear this. She said that Rock Hudson died of AIDS, which was a waste because he was so good-looking! "Then again, gay men are always very good-looking... but why did he get married and have kids?!" Uh, people do that to cover up the truth or because they're in denial! This was also where she brought up her theory that gay men were like that because they had "too much woman hormone"... o_O
After that, we headed for home. The tour guide showed us a photo of his son with a friend: he looked like a younger version of Sean, haha! At one of the rest stops (a Tim Horton's), Bossy Lady got restless and wanted to see what was taking so long with people lined up for the washroom. So she wandered back into the place, and asked us about it. Er, it's not our fault that the Tim Ho's only has a single washroom per gender! (plus a handicapped one which we were loath to go into) Speaking of washrooms, the one at the Chinese restaurant last night was the typical bad Chinese restaurant bathroom: one stall was out of order, one stall kinda-sorta worked (Bossy Lady's sister used that one), and the one working stall had water ALL OVER the floor! A drop here or there? Water from stuff being clearly mopped up? Well, okay... but this was a PUDDLE of water which of course ended up being tracked all over the washroom! Gross stuff!
People were dropped off at their houses or at Skytrain stations: when the East Indian lady was dropped off and the tour guide was helping her carry the boxes of wine and fruit into her place, Bossy Lady made a remark about how it wasn't traditional for someone from that culture to live away from the parents. (in this "she shouldn't be doing that!" tone... I wonder what she would have said if I told her that I did the exact same thing!) Then she tried inviting us to dinner with her: FREAKY RAINY WEATHER AND A LONG DAY?! NO! Mom and I met Dad and Steph for dinner at a Richmond Chinese restaurant the tour guide recommended... the trip was okay, but I didn't really have much in common with the people. Eh well... another one for the books, heh. Wonder how long it'll take me to catch up with everything.... (I heard Jon thought that I might be coming tonight anyhow: I sent him an email saying I wouldn't because I'd be tired from the trip and stuff! Weirdo!)
Also, I managed to get certain feelings out elsewhere. That's always a good thing! :D
This morning after my weird sleep, we had breakfast with some of our crew. The East Indian lady accidentally spilled orange juice on me and apologized: hey, I understand it was an accident... at least it wasn't hot coffee, so it was fine! (speaking of East Indians, I should call Nina one of these days... maybe later!) We left shortly after 9, and I'm positively sure THAT pissed off the bossy lady! After driving for a short distance, we stopped to look out over the valley and lake. There were relatively cheap houses there compared to Vancouver, but even a big property will cost you a million dollars around Kamloops. Still, it's better than the same thing costing you $17 million over here! The view was pretty beautiful, and we took a bunch of pictures.
After that, we stopped at a farm market which seemed to operate on the honor system according to a notice posted out front. There were lots of boxes with various fruits in them: prune plums (NOT a typo!), spaghetti / butternut squashes, some apple varieties, pears, and more. A Halloween display of pumpkins was featured, too. Bossy Lady tried to get a discount on the already-cheap fruit... dude, you're just worsening the "cheap Asians" stereotype! If I see an opportunity for a deal on something I want, then I'll go for it... but I won't haggle on the stated price unless it's clearly defective or something! She also wanted to visit the orchards and do a U-Pick thing: the owner had to tell her that he couldn't do that with a group, which I'm sure left her less than impressed!
Then it was off to the winery: I'm sure Bossy Lady loved the organic chocolate bars and the organic grape soap that you could buy from there since she was also going on about the virtues of organic stuff! The gift shop was cool, but also expensive! Interesting bottle openers, though... especially for the ice wine! We had a free wine-tasting lesson, in which she REALLY shone. The wine person was trying to tell us about the differences between regular and ice wine, how to smell the wine and test it first before drinking. Bossy Lady wanted to drink the wine samples right after he poured some for everyone! This happened with the white wine, and the red and white ice wines... he had to tell her three times to BE PATIENT! (sure, she already said she hates waiting for people - she made an exception for her husband since she liked him... but seriously!)
The ice wine bottles are very skinny and also very expensive... the white costs $68, and the red costs $108. Since the red grapes are more noticeable even when frozen in winter, the animals can eat them more readily. So while it might take four pounds of grapes to make your average bottle of wine, it might take 30-50 pounds of grapes to make the (red) ice wine! After that demonstration, we stayed for a while longer. There was a statue of some wine being poured into a glass, so I wanted a picture with it. I hope it doesn't look like the bottle's coming out of my head, as it did for the picture I took of my mom! (I warned her about it, but she didn't care)
We went to Kelowna and had lunch: I saw a nun at the KFC in the strip mall where we ate! Then I bought small purchases at the dollar store there... a blank card for Corey so I could explain all this stuff from the trip, three postcards (one for Corey since I seriously doubt that Jeremy needs one of his hometown), and two bubble wrap envelopes. When we passed a church in Kelowna, I wondered whether Jeremy's parents were in there at that exact moment! Speaking of such, Bossy Lady seemed surprised at all the cars going up the hill towards town, and offered her opinions on that. We told her that it was most likely caused by people going to and from church... like, DUH?!
At some point, we went on a floating bridge. The conversation turned to Islam, terrorism, and (funnily enough) Princess Margaret. Bossy Lady is very opinionated, and figured that the reason Margaret's marriage broke up was because of her bad habits of smoking and drinking a LOT! While I'm sure that sometimes that can be a factor, I hardly think it was the only cause! Then someone brought up rumors that her ex-husband and Prince Philip were both gay... of course, she wasn't surprised to hear this. She said that Rock Hudson died of AIDS, which was a waste because he was so good-looking! "Then again, gay men are always very good-looking... but why did he get married and have kids?!" Uh, people do that to cover up the truth or because they're in denial! This was also where she brought up her theory that gay men were like that because they had "too much woman hormone"... o_O
After that, we headed for home. The tour guide showed us a photo of his son with a friend: he looked like a younger version of Sean, haha! At one of the rest stops (a Tim Horton's), Bossy Lady got restless and wanted to see what was taking so long with people lined up for the washroom. So she wandered back into the place, and asked us about it. Er, it's not our fault that the Tim Ho's only has a single washroom per gender! (plus a handicapped one which we were loath to go into) Speaking of washrooms, the one at the Chinese restaurant last night was the typical bad Chinese restaurant bathroom: one stall was out of order, one stall kinda-sorta worked (Bossy Lady's sister used that one), and the one working stall had water ALL OVER the floor! A drop here or there? Water from stuff being clearly mopped up? Well, okay... but this was a PUDDLE of water which of course ended up being tracked all over the washroom! Gross stuff!
People were dropped off at their houses or at Skytrain stations: when the East Indian lady was dropped off and the tour guide was helping her carry the boxes of wine and fruit into her place, Bossy Lady made a remark about how it wasn't traditional for someone from that culture to live away from the parents. (in this "she shouldn't be doing that!" tone... I wonder what she would have said if I told her that I did the exact same thing!) Then she tried inviting us to dinner with her: FREAKY RAINY WEATHER AND A LONG DAY?! NO! Mom and I met Dad and Steph for dinner at a Richmond Chinese restaurant the tour guide recommended... the trip was okay, but I didn't really have much in common with the people. Eh well... another one for the books, heh. Wonder how long it'll take me to catch up with everything.... (I heard Jon thought that I might be coming tonight anyhow: I sent him an email saying I wouldn't because I'd be tired from the trip and stuff! Weirdo!)
Also, I managed to get certain feelings out elsewhere. That's always a good thing! :D
Labels: alcoholic drinks, blogquiz, breakfast, coffee, corey, dan, gay, halloween, india, jeremy, katie, margaret, maxed-out tags limit, nina, phil, phone calls, postcards, songs, tim, water
posted by Flami at 11:25:00 PM
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