Wien Bernie

The friends are happy to travel once more, woohoo! We're catching up for lost time. We have a number of trips planned for the latter half of this year. Bernie recently returned from Vienna (or Wien in German) and Amsterdam. Unfortunately, our flight was delayed six hours so our first day in Vienna was fairly brief.

After we checked into Hotel Henriette (which we highly recommend), we walked through Inner Stadt (Vienna's central first district) and had the famous Sacher torte (as well as appel strudel) at Hotel Sacher. The torte was so-so. We didn't think it lived up to the hype. The best dessert we had in Vienna was black forest cake from Aida, a popular cafe chain.

We then saw VON DER LIEBE Tod at the Vienna Opera House. We arrived at the venue a bit early to tour the building.

This is the main staircase...

...and this is inside. The tablets beside Bernie are for subtitles. We definitely used them when we watched the opera.

The next day, Bernie and I went to Belvedere Palace. There was some nice artwork there...

...including the famous The Kiss painting by Gustav Klimt. The frescos on the ceilings were also stunning. I can see why this palace is a "must see" attraction.

The day after we walked the grounds of Schonbrunn Palace.

This is the view of the back of the palace from the top of a hill. We had great weather which made our palace exploration very enjoyable.

Bernie made sure to test different schnitzels. He had veal schnitzel from Lugeck.

He also had pork schnitzel from a mom and pop place close to our hotel. Out of the two restaurants, his favourite was the mom and pop spot. This was the small portion (which we didn't finish) and only a third of the price of the one we had at Lugeck.

Overall, we had a pleasant time in Vienna. It was very doable to experience over a few days.

Bon Appétit

Buddy ate his way through Montreal a few weeks ago. He had poutine at the Time Out Market...

...dinner and natural wine at Boxermans...

...a big salad at Mandy's...

...and brunch pizza at Cafe Parvis.

Not pictured: a three-course lunch at Marcus, pastries at Mamie Clafoutis, dinner at Gia Vin & Grill, bagels from Fairmont, and coffee at La Finca. Yum!

Clem went to Montreal last year so she helped Buddy pick some spots to try. Thanks, Clem!

Quintessential Ontario

Tim and Trev joined my family and I on a cottage trip. It was nice to escape the city for a week.

Our cottage was rustic yet well equipped. It had lots of places for the two friends to play hide and seek.

There was plenty of time for afternoon naps on this big comfy couch...

...and in this hammock chair.

Tim and Trev also enjoyed the sauna on a daily basis. It had a great view of the lake.

We hope everyone is having a terrific summer so far!

The Peg

It's Colin reporting back from the Peg. He went with B and I since we were there for a wedding. The city was pretty sleepy, much more than we expected, but we did check out some cool spots. We had great sandwiches at King + Bannatyne.

We also checked out the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

We spent a lot of time in this area, going through each exhibit. We learned a lot.

The museum had these neat ramps that took you all the way to the top of the Tower of Hope. There were lots of people at the top so we opted to enjoy the view, sans photo.

Everyone told us to visit the Forks, so we did. This was the most happening place in the city while we were in town. The coffee at Harrisons was pretty good.

And for a sweet treat, we went to Oh Doughnuts. Colin was happy he had his hoodie since the weather was a bit chilly. If you have been to the Peg, let us know!

Tacos, Tacos, Tacos

We had two fancy meals in CDMX. At Pujol, we did a taco tasting menu. This is Maggie with the snacks.

The tacos were very unique. This is Maggie with a pea and peanut taco, which she thought was the best of the bunch.

And this is Maggie with the mole. The old (dark) mole is +2,100 days old.

We had desserts outside. This ice cream was light yet flavourful. The meal was a nice experience overall. Maggie told us, YOLO!

We grabbed tacos are several different places. These are chicharron tacos from Orinoco Taqueria.

For an afternoon snack, we had delicious churros from Churros El Moro. Four long ones were 36 pesos.

After all the eating, sightseeing, and walking, Maggie loved resting on our hotel's rooftop. It was a great place to relax and recharge.

We had a great time exploring CDMX and would definitely return!

Maggie x CDMX

Maggie recently returned from a fab getaway in CDMX. We stayed at Casa Octavia. It was a chique refuge in the beautiful neighbourhood of Condesa.

We mainly went to CDMX to eat. For our first night, after grabbing a bunch of street food in the afternoon, we had dinner at Xel-Ha Bar, a local cantina that specializes in Yucutan cuisine. The lime soup was Maggie's fav.

The next day, we had a huge breakfast at El Cardenal. We started off with hot chocolate and a pastry...

...followed by flautas. Yum!

We checked out two museums during our stay - Museo Jumex and Museo Soumaya. Both are very close to one another and both are excellent. Museo Jumex had a Urs Fischer exhibit. Maggie liked this croissant with a butterfly on it. The croissant reminded Maggie of a crescent moon.

Maggie didn't quite get this rhino but it was big and shiny.

The building of Museo Soumaya was very impressive.

Equally impressive was the art collection, which is the private collection of a wealthy businessman, Carlos Slim. This is a Diego Rivera...

...and this is a Rodin. The museum has the largest collection of Rodin outside of France.

Feel the Rhythm

We had plans to travel internationally but given the COVID situation leading up to our trip, we decided to do something within Canada. We ended up going to Whistler last weekend. The Mins was excited to return to Van. He met up with New Colin, who officially moved to the west coast awhile back. It was nice for the two to reconnect over brunch at Medina.

We had a great time skiing on Blackcomb. We didn't have much time so we'll return to ski Whistler another time. Whistler Village had lots of places to eat and shop. Some good photo ops too, including the Olympic rings.

While the Mins didn't ski with us (he opted to watch the Olympics from our big comfy hotel bed), he did go bobsledding (yes, you read that right) at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

The Sliding Centre has the fastest bobsledding track in the world. You can even try skeleton there. The Mins said safety first!

We didn't do the full track since one of the turns early on drops four storeys. We ended up with the second fastest time out of all the passenger bobsleds that week. The Mins was happy with our silver medal!

Dumbo the Foodie

The friends, including Dumbo, are foodies. B and I went to NYC for a wedding. Dumbo went for some serious eats. We heard a lot about Levain so had to try a chocolate chip cookie for ourselves. While it was quite good but Le Gourmand in Toronto continues to be our favourite chocolate chip cookie spot.

We noshed at Kopitiam, a Malaysian restaurant, for some mid-afternoon snacks.

Dumbo really liked the lychee bandung. We walked a lot and it was quite warm out so the bandung was cool and refreshing.

We couldn't get a reservation at Contra so opted for its sister restaurant, Wildair. Everything was delicious. We tried some new wines and the server gave us free dessert. We were glad to eat el fresco since the weather in Toronto is getting colder.

We hope everyone is safe and taking good care!