It was slightly warmer this morning when we woke up ,that is
to say according to the thermometer it was warmer, it was still cold enough for
a small frost. We left the hotel slightly earlier than yesterday with a hope to
find some flatter water. The weather gods appear to have smiled upon us because
the lake was about as flat as an ice rink. I decided to use an ‘ice rink’
analogy for the state of the water instead of the typical ‘Mill Pond’ or ‘glass
flat’ descriptors in part as a Canadian stereotype thing and in another part to
emphasise the differences between here and lake Fanshawe – like I was
discussing yesterday. All in all, we had
a good and hard 2x4km workout (rate 24-26) which helped really well with the
development of blisters on our hands. It may have also been good for our
fitness a bit too.
After lunch my car (Jill, Beth, Kristen and myself) decided
to do a food, etc. run. This meant we got to go to the ultimate American
hallmark. You guessed it, WalMart. The people you see in a WalMart down here in
the south can be described in one way, they make the ‘people of WalMart’
website look tame. That being said we successfully acquired all the food (or in
my case beer) we wanted. Yes, I bought beer, more specifically, delicious Fat
Tire Beer, which is unavailable in Canada.
There’s a funny story/quote associated with me being ID’d to
buy the beer. The checkout lady was a kindly, semi-elderly woman. When I handed her my ID, she asked
where it was from, so I replied, Ontario, Canada. After a pause of about a
minute, she looks up and says “I’m just trying to figure out if Canada is in
the United States”. It took me a fair bit of control to keep a straight face
and just answer with ‘No it isn’t’. Reminded me of the Rick Mercer show
‘talking to Americans’. And makes me thankful that I know Canada is its own
country and that I am from Canada.
Other grocery store trips have taken place which I was not
on. However, I was given some information about these trips. From two different
trips Katherine has now taken to the grocery store, on both trips she has
gotten really excited because of potential sightings of Honey Boo Boo – you may
remember that she is on an epic quest for a sighting while here. Apparently, both times she was rescued by
Maria, and by rescued I mean prevented from doing something too foolish like
say running up to them or stalking them of loudly saying ‘Honey Boo Boo’. Anyway,
that was something worth noting.
We went out for a nice long row up the river/lake (it’s a
lake, but winds like a river) for the second row. It was nice and sunny and
warm until the sun went down or almost went down and then it was, rather unsurprisingly,
not sunny; this resulted in it cooling down.
We had a bagged lunch catered by the University cafeteria
staff at the boathouse today. It was good, but slightly smaller than expected
or hoped for. The result of this was
people literally sprinting into the cafeteria for dinner. Literally sprinting.
The food is quite good though, so I shouldn’t criticize; tonight they had some
nicely cooked pizza, the usual salad bar, pork, all sorts of stuff like that. Also,
the ice cream machine was working today, which also made us happy.
It was a good day again, though I feel like people are quite
tired this evening – I know I am.
On a different note, have you ever been in the same room as
someone skyping and clearly having their own conversation? It’s kind of odd.
Odder still as it is currently happening, except in Polish. Random, but I felt
like talking about it. A long post today. Unfortunately no video today.
Finally, the blog post title does not refer to training, it refers to eating at the dining hall, just fyi.
