Next exotic destination

At the end of October I was called to Canada to help out a friend in a time of need. Francis Laframboise, or Laffy, as I have always called him, was (is) going through some hard times. His common law partner had fled the province with their daughter Alyshia. That's as much as I'll go into that except for saying good luck in court tomorrow buddy.

I got to Halifax after a wonderful travel agent named Julia was able to find me a way of getting there cheaply via two trains to Frankfurt International, then another train and a bus to Frankfurt Hahn (another airport), where I spent the night, and then a flight to London Stansted, a bus from there to London Gatwick (three hours away), and then a flight from there to Halifax. Not the most straightforward route, but the return trip was much more direct, and the total cost, including all trains, buses, and planes, was under $700 Canadian return. Not bad, for booking it the day before I left.

Laffy picked me up at the airport after a slight delay at customs. Apparently they had to inspect my chocolate because it was a dairy product. I think that the customs agent was just jealous. After a nice quebecois spaghetti meal from Laffy's mom (his parents were also there) we got to some of the Legal stuff. I then collapsed in bed after my 30 hour journey.

But the next night we went out to Tom's little Havana.
Here's Laffy backing away from Colette who's jumping in the picture just behind the back of Rishad's head and in front of Marie who is sitting across from Veronica who has to her left the back of Lynn's head. Nick, seen below, also joined us there and Meagan, also seen below, joined us once we had gone over to the Economy Shoe Shop.
Here we can see Laffy waking up to a whole new bar and Lynn drinking pop.
Glamour shot!


That weekend Neil and Holly had a pretty awesome Halloween party complete with first, second and third prizes for best costume, dance competition and a drunk competition. The latter came much later in the night.

Holly as a Caesar, which for the non-Canadians is a vodka drink with Tomato and Clam juice (or Clamato) garnished with a stick of celery and a celery salt rim. Holly was also the Queen of Hearts earlier and later that night,

Veronica as a Charlie's Angel,
Marie as the Paperbag Princess with flight attendant,
later on literally falling out of her dress,
Colette in full form,
Laffy as "The Butcher" and me as a large man with very small fairy wings,
Trailer trash girl and last but certainly not least: Lynn as the best Phylis Diller ever, complete with voice and jokes.

Resemblance uncanny.

After a stay in the Marie Suite chez Holly and Neil's that night, I headed to NB to see the familly. Grammy came over for supper and we had some deer steaks from the little buck my dad shot earlier that month.
My dad (above) and my mom (below),
The next day I babysat my goddaughter Taryn and her sister Olivia. We played all sorts of games and had lots of fun.
Me and Taryn,
and Taryn and Olivia.

Big thanks to Rishad for the use of his car.

After that I was back to Halifax to help out Laffy some more. My flight home wasn't nearly as interesting as I had a direct flight from Halifax to Frankfurt and then a short three hour train ride. It was good to see everyone.