The Royal, 2008
I promised mom that I'd make this a public entry, so here we go. :D
In the event that anybody wants to hear about the Royal, all I have to say is "wow" and "I'm so sore" and "I ate so much food".
What I ate on my trip:
Frittata for breakfast before the flight, made by my excessively skilled mother.
A snack on the plane: small roast beef sandwich, packet of crackers, a Babybel cheese and a truffle.
Lunch at Il Fornello: Chicken Asiago, which is chicken stuffed with asiago cheese and spinach in a honey mustard cream sauce over roasted potatoes, green beans and broccoli. Mom had the Atlantic salmon over sauteed vegetables in a lemon thyme vinaigrette.
We both had Yukon Gold french fries at the Royal, I had a wee container of chocolate milk to wash mine down.
Dinner at Shoeless Joe's: Butter Chicken and a cocktail called a Blueberry Ice Pick which was essentially Blueberry Smirnoff mixed with iced tea. Really tasty all around. Mom had their Spring Training Steak and two glasses of Pinot Grigio.
Breakfast buffet at the Admiral Radisson: I was pretty impressed by the selection they put out because you could essentially build whatever you wanted out of it. I had some slices of meat, a mini chocolate croissant, mixed melon, raspberries, some bacon and roasted potatoes along with some coffee and a glass of orange juice. Mom mostly had fruit, some potatoes and some tea.
Lunch at Biff's Bistro: I had a glass of fresh pomegranate raspberry juice, mussels Provencal with a side of matchstick fries with roasted red pepper mayonnaise to dip and finished off with a basket of A La Minute Baked Madeleines in a little napkin. Mom had their Caesar salad with lentils and another two cups of tea.
On the plane on the way home they gave us water and a small bag of Terra Chips. :3
We left Ottawa on our plane at around 11:30. Porter is awesome and those pilots don't mess around because we were heading up, straight for like.. a minute and then careening down again. I'm still not cool with plane landings, but I did alright. We picked up our luggage and headed to the ferry, then caught a cab to our hotel. Checked in, messed around with the sleep number bed settings (mom got a room with two Queen sized beds. booyah) then headed out for lunch. Originally I wanted to go to the Pier 4 Storehouse and have some seafood, but they were closed until 4 and it was maybe.. 1.
After lunch we caught the streetcar to the Ricoh Coliseum for the Royal Winter Fair. Shopped around a bit, saw some dressage classes, eventually bought a new saddle pad for Peppi. We walked through all the stables of cows and horses just to soak everything up before we went back to the center ring for the World Cup.
WOW, okay? Wow. Started with Hackneys, which I must admit to hating only because the fans are encouraged to make this bizarre whoop and whistling sound to keep them looking MENTAL but still. After that I think it was the six horse Belgian hitch class which was.. amazing. Can you imagine trying to keep the movements of six horses that matched from behind on a wagon? Seriously. After that I think there was another hackney class, then there was the Action Road Horse challenge. Somewhere in there was a stage coach class, which was amazing. Real stage coaches being pulled by teams of four with six people atop them in period dress. It was really quite something.
Lit dressage Quadrille, which is to say dressage done in the dark with the horses wearing a string of LED lights from nose to tail tip and around their ankles. It was.. amazing. These videos don't begin to do it justice, but they're the only ones I found so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzdkjuKm7B8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiiiwlnGW1I
And then the FEI World Cup was just.. incredible. It's amazing how everybody holds their breath in a crowd for the performance, but when a rail gets nudged or knocked we all react the exact same way. It's incredible to be a part of that. The broadcast is on Saturday, so just in case anyone doesn't want it spoiled I won't say who won. :3
Anyways, the trip back was a little more eventful than the trip out. There was some sort of problem with the plane landing ahead of us so we were in a holding pattern above Ottawa for about ten minutes. All those circles made me really sick. :P I'm still kind of dizzy when I think about it. Anyways, after that we just started shooting down and the landing gear dropped while were still in the clouds so I went into "where is the ground" panic mode, since the last time that happened it was foggy and the ground was-- no joke-- two feet below us. Jer can back me up on that.
Oh, last note.. Mom said pretty well every time you fly Porter you'll see someone 'famous' (she means politically famous) and she really wasn't kidding. The former mayor of Ottawa, Bob Chiarelli, was sitting two rows up from us and the cabinet minister of Osgoode was behind him. :P
All in all, amazing trip and I'm so thankful to mom for bringing me because I had a fantastic time. :D I ate so much food, I don't think I'll ever be hungry again. xD
In the event that anybody wants to hear about the Royal, all I have to say is "wow" and "I'm so sore" and "I ate so much food".
What I ate on my trip:
Frittata for breakfast before the flight, made by my excessively skilled mother.
A snack on the plane: small roast beef sandwich, packet of crackers, a Babybel cheese and a truffle.
Lunch at Il Fornello: Chicken Asiago, which is chicken stuffed with asiago cheese and spinach in a honey mustard cream sauce over roasted potatoes, green beans and broccoli. Mom had the Atlantic salmon over sauteed vegetables in a lemon thyme vinaigrette.
We both had Yukon Gold french fries at the Royal, I had a wee container of chocolate milk to wash mine down.
Dinner at Shoeless Joe's: Butter Chicken and a cocktail called a Blueberry Ice Pick which was essentially Blueberry Smirnoff mixed with iced tea. Really tasty all around. Mom had their Spring Training Steak and two glasses of Pinot Grigio.
Breakfast buffet at the Admiral Radisson: I was pretty impressed by the selection they put out because you could essentially build whatever you wanted out of it. I had some slices of meat, a mini chocolate croissant, mixed melon, raspberries, some bacon and roasted potatoes along with some coffee and a glass of orange juice. Mom mostly had fruit, some potatoes and some tea.
Lunch at Biff's Bistro: I had a glass of fresh pomegranate raspberry juice, mussels Provencal with a side of matchstick fries with roasted red pepper mayonnaise to dip and finished off with a basket of A La Minute Baked Madeleines in a little napkin. Mom had their Caesar salad with lentils and another two cups of tea.
On the plane on the way home they gave us water and a small bag of Terra Chips. :3
We left Ottawa on our plane at around 11:30. Porter is awesome and those pilots don't mess around because we were heading up, straight for like.. a minute and then careening down again. I'm still not cool with plane landings, but I did alright. We picked up our luggage and headed to the ferry, then caught a cab to our hotel. Checked in, messed around with the sleep number bed settings (mom got a room with two Queen sized beds. booyah) then headed out for lunch. Originally I wanted to go to the Pier 4 Storehouse and have some seafood, but they were closed until 4 and it was maybe.. 1.
After lunch we caught the streetcar to the Ricoh Coliseum for the Royal Winter Fair. Shopped around a bit, saw some dressage classes, eventually bought a new saddle pad for Peppi. We walked through all the stables of cows and horses just to soak everything up before we went back to the center ring for the World Cup.
WOW, okay? Wow. Started with Hackneys, which I must admit to hating only because the fans are encouraged to make this bizarre whoop and whistling sound to keep them looking MENTAL but still. After that I think it was the six horse Belgian hitch class which was.. amazing. Can you imagine trying to keep the movements of six horses that matched from behind on a wagon? Seriously. After that I think there was another hackney class, then there was the Action Road Horse challenge. Somewhere in there was a stage coach class, which was amazing. Real stage coaches being pulled by teams of four with six people atop them in period dress. It was really quite something.
Lit dressage Quadrille, which is to say dressage done in the dark with the horses wearing a string of LED lights from nose to tail tip and around their ankles. It was.. amazing. These videos don't begin to do it justice, but they're the only ones I found so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzdkjuKm7B8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiiiwlnGW1I
And then the FEI World Cup was just.. incredible. It's amazing how everybody holds their breath in a crowd for the performance, but when a rail gets nudged or knocked we all react the exact same way. It's incredible to be a part of that. The broadcast is on Saturday, so just in case anyone doesn't want it spoiled I won't say who won. :3
Anyways, the trip back was a little more eventful than the trip out. There was some sort of problem with the plane landing ahead of us so we were in a holding pattern above Ottawa for about ten minutes. All those circles made me really sick. :P I'm still kind of dizzy when I think about it. Anyways, after that we just started shooting down and the landing gear dropped while were still in the clouds so I went into "where is the ground" panic mode, since the last time that happened it was foggy and the ground was-- no joke-- two feet below us. Jer can back me up on that.
Oh, last note.. Mom said pretty well every time you fly Porter you'll see someone 'famous' (she means politically famous) and she really wasn't kidding. The former mayor of Ottawa, Bob Chiarelli, was sitting two rows up from us and the cabinet minister of Osgoode was behind him. :P
All in all, amazing trip and I'm so thankful to mom for bringing me because I had a fantastic time. :D I ate so much food, I don't think I'll ever be hungry again. xD