31 October 2009

Maine

Back in the USA. Welcomed in by more rainy weather (yay).

Drove to Bangor, Maine, home to Stephen King and probably other stuff. We did managed to find his house. It did not disappoint.


After that we went to the $3 movie theater in town and that also did not disappoint... it was dirty, dingy, and the undertrained projection staff made the experience complete.

Wardriving

"Wardriving is the act of searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks by a person in a moving vehicle, using a portable computer or PDA." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardriving)

This is one of the main ways we access the web while we are traveling. It's so easy to find unprotected wireless its a joke.

A parking space outside of a coffee shop? Pull the van up next to it. City Hall? Pull the van up next to it. An apartment complex? Pull the van up next to it. A large-national wide chain of hotels that doesn't protect it networks? Pull the van up next to it.

Here are some photos of us surfing the web from the van.

Kate always looks this happy when she is conducting illegal activities.

30 October 2009

Quebec City

Quebec City! Its very old and has a big castle in the old section of town, also a lot of narrow streets and small shops.

As you can see it snowed.

Bummer.

The next day we woke up to 3 more inches of snow and a grey rainy day. We took a drive around the Ile d'Orleans, just outside of Quebec City, it was a nice drive (other than the weather) but most of the shops and farms had closed for the season. Here is a nice cottage, looks more like December than October.

We had planned on going a bit further north and east into Quebec to hike and camp but because of the weather we decided that it was best to head south and go through Maine and New England instead.

Montreal to Quebec City

Left Montreal late and went to about an hour north to a cabin in rural Canada. The cabin is owned by our friend Christian's mother (she is also a friend!). It was very nice the she let us stay there, it was the perfect thing to do after a very busy festival. The cabin was also used in a number of films from the festival so it was nice to see the place in person.

From there we drove to Quebec City along the St. Lawrence River, lots of old small towns all of which had large old cathedrals. Here is one of them

A little way up the road we bumped into a tour bus of 35 Australians. They we in top form. It was 1pm, they were drinking, making fun of the French language and generally being very loud.... pretty much hitting all the stereotypes of aussie tourists. (sorry to the Australians reading this blog) We did have one of them take our picture, "Pierre" as his name tag stated. Luckily, he informed us that his real name was actually Peter, but he was trying to blend in. Thanks dude.

23 October 2009

Montreal: Movie Stars

While we were in town our friend Chris was in the midst of shooting his first feature, an adaptation of a hit Quebec tween novel. We visited the set a couple of times.
The first day was pretty spectacular, with a rain machine and about 30 screaming girls. It was also raining for real so we got completely soaked and toes frozen, but it was awesome to see Chris in his element and be on such a big, busy set.

The crew sizing things up before setting off the rain machine. Chris's wife Gen is the Director of Photography, in the green jacket and harness to hold the huge film camera.


Screaming highschoolers:


Le Directeur:


We visited again the day before we left Montreal as extras buying Christmas trees. Chris had a pretty sweet cameo as the tree seller:


big lights

Montreal: Catching Up

In true kino style a complete stranger put us up for the whole 2 weeks we were in Montreal. Thanks Andre, you were fantastic and your apartment was completely relaxing.

groovy front doors:


Tipou, who liked to lick Justin's head in the morning:


Chilling out on the balcony with Andre, Eva from Slovakia and Tona from Madison. The cushions are genius.


We caught up with loads of old friends in Montreal. Had a great time with Ben, Kim, Christian and many many others. Christian took us curling, a classic Kanuk sport. It was also a major workout.

Claude sizing up before pushing off the stone.


Gen and ladies sweeping hard.

Montreal: Kino Kabaret

We were very excited to make it to Montreal for the 10th anniversary of Kino. We spent a crazy 10 days making and screening short films with 60 directors from all over the world, plus at least that many actors and technicians. We each had 2 days to shoot, edit and then screen. We've done this before in a few different countries and it was great to see old friends and meet new ones and just be part of that kabaret buzz. We both made films that got good responses, an awesome feat considering the number of great directors and Justin, along with Dave from Australia, managed to make a 4 part series "Man Talk" that become the hit of the Kabaret. Mine included a bunch of childhood memories, including some of you. I'll send it out soon.

Justin's shoot in the appartment we stayed at, with Olivier on camera:


The kino lab, nerve center and heart of the kabaret. This is where we brainstormed, edited, ate, napped and created:


Justin, day 10:

And yes that is a photo of Michael Jackson, some sort of "Michael Money" coupon to get into a show or something.

The Wisconsin Crew. Kino threw it's annual VIP fundraiser while we were in town and Linda won the auction for some French Champagne. Thanks for sharing Linda! We followed it up with smoked meat sandwiches the size of your head.

22 October 2009

MLPS to Montreal

Left the twin cities early in the morning and headed through northern Wisconsin and the UP. It was nice to be on some familiar ground again. It was grey and rainy pretty much the entire way to montreal, but the fall colors were at their peak so it was a beautiful drive.

Stopped at some places in the UP before heading through Canada to en route to Montreal.

This is Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore where we also found the most daring chipmunk ever... he jumped INTO my hands

Here are the Tahquamenon Falls:

and the Soo Locks

19 October 2009

Yellowstone to MLPS

From Yellowstone we headed up to Montana where we happened upon the town of Forsyth. This town bears a family name of Kates (of Scottish origin) and also happened to have a homecoming parade!


Does anyone know what buffball is?

Got into North Dakota and tried to go to "Pitchfork Fondue" which involves putting a steak onto a pitchfork and deep-frying it in a vat of oil. Sadly, the restaurant was already closed for the season.

The impressive Soviet style North Dakota State Capitol

We spent two days in Minneapolis with Jeb and Meghan and realized that we didn't use our camera at all expect for one picture of a bar that looked like a ship. I did a little doctoring up to remedy the lack of photos...

Jeb and I also managed to play Big Buck Hunter for almost an hour, for only a dollar. We are killing machines.

Yellowstone

It snowed in Yellowstone!

We spent two days here and it was gorgeous... however, the snow also makes it cold... even got some ice on the puma.


The geysers are unlike anything I've ever seen. It was so cold there was lots of steam coming up from them and it made it a bit hard to see some of them, but they were still really cool.

04 October 2009

Portland

The trip has officially reached the point at which I don't know what day of the week anything is any more. My lofty goal of keeping a daily diary has also, as usual, fallen by the wayside so I really couldn't tell you quite which day each of these things happened, but here they are in order. Portland fun:

Fun at Lindsay's house:


Justin got us all excited to do science experiments, here is the result of mixing bicarb soda and vinegar. A local hobo wandering by planted himself on the porch, shared a lot of opinions about how we could do our experiments better and also informed us that he is the king of blues. He offered to demonstrate but luckily no one had a guitar on hand.


After the science the best 6 person dance party ever.


For the whole month of September little birds called swifts migrate through Portland and nest in a chimney at a local primary school. Locals gather on a nearby hill to watch thousands of them gather in the evening and then, just as the sun sets, they start to spiral into the chimney in a black cloud. Myself, Justin and Josh took a picnic and watched, but forgot the camera. It was amazing to see them just keep spiraling in until they were getting pushed out and a hundred of them had to fly off to some other location.

We spent a day biking around and went to visit Josh at the University on top of a very steep hill. We took a wrong turn on the way to the cable car station and ended up carrying our bikes up a long-forgotten trail and popping out at the hospital entrance.
A view from one of Portland's bridges:


As a reward, after several visits to Portland we finally made it to Voodoo Donuts, famous for their crappy decor, crazy donuts and performing wedding ceremonies in the store.

Mine had cocoa puffs on it, sugar overload:

Mel and Lindsay came over to 'our house' and got to experience the joys of Astro's interior lighting one night: