The Vacation Rundown.

We love Canada.  We love it.  I would live there.  That, essentially, sums up the awesome that was our vacation.  We spent almost as much time in transit as we did vacationing, but I supposed that’s okay.  We got to see a lot.

Our first stop was Montreal, where we did a significant amount of shopping.  THERE WAS A TRI-LEVEL GAP STORE.  THAT WAS SELLING BRAS FOR $8 EACH.  That alone was worth the whole vacation.  I was in heaven.  We went into three different Roots stores about five times over the course of the vacation just because I knew I needed some Roots-y goodness, I just couldn’t throw down $70 on a hoodie.  I relented when the price fell to $45.  Still a little guilty about it, though.  Anyway, this is us on Mont Royal:

After a few days in Montreal, we headed to Quebec City.  Quebec City was beautiful.  It was a big city that has small town charm.  There is a large section of QC “inside the wall,” a former military fort.  Everything in that area has a lovely old European feel to it.  The food was pretty good and Matt got his second taste of his new favorite desert, sugar pie.  On our walk around town, I took this picture especially for Annie:

Because you should not use Comic Sans if you expect anyone to take you seriously.

We had planned on two full days in QC before heading to Boston to see Evan, but the nor’easter had other plans.  So, we left Quebec City after a day around 1630 (when it was pitch black) and got to Evan’s place about 0100.  And then Evan passed out the Zimas we really started having fun.  Oh, Evan.

If you don’t remember Evan, he was practically Matt’s live-in boyfriend during the World Cup last summer.  He’s also pretty lucky because there are two, maybe three of Matt’s friends that I like enough that I would interrupt our vacation to spend a few days with.

Since most of Boston was snowed in that first day, we pretty much had the city to ourselves.  We tromped around in the snow, learning Boston facts and trying not to lose feeling in our extremities.  After a lovely progressive dinner of clam chowder (omg, the waiter said “chow-dah”) and oysters (and a shrimp burger for me), we tra-la-la’d off to TD Garden to watch the Celtics beat the Kings.  I think it was the Kings.  Is there a Kings in the NBA?

Our second day in Boston was awesome because Evan gave us a sweet tour of his alma mater, Harvard University.  He even kindly endured my questions, such as “So, did they sort you into houses (dorms) by random, or did they have a sorting hat?” and “Would Professor Snape put a spell on you if you didn’t finish your homework?”  But seriously, look at these pictures – Harvard is the closest thing the U.S. has to Hogwarts.

Finally, we returned to Montreal for some hardcore shopping and the Biodome.  All in all, a spectacular vacation.  Matt says his favorite thus far, although my vote still falls with Buenos Aires.

Ubuntu.

As I have said before, I am not a Mac person.  I prefer the unpretentious easy usability of my PC.  I do not judge you for using a Mac, unless, of course, you start preaching at me from the Church of Steve Jobs.  I love my PC - my beautiful, sexy, amazing Dell.  She's hard not to love. --->

Before fate and AAFES Online brought us together, I spent the previous five years using Anna, my hard charging Toshiba laptop.  After two years of college and three years of being my family's home computer (including six months of TBS!), Anna was tired.  Really, really tired.  She was no longer quick with anything.  Even with an external hard drive to store all our TV shows and music, Anna was lagging.

So when Matt returned, and I had hooked up our wireless internet, Anna got shelved in favor of Matt's desert laptop (another Toshiba, of course).  No big deal, right?

Then, as Military members are wont to do, Matt had to leave the island for a while, taking his laptop with him.  And I realized I am not a one computer kind of girl.  I have my desktop upstairs, but what about when I am watching TV and I want to get a little more info on something?  I could not be expected to go all the way upstairs just to check it out.  What was I to DO??

Then, I remembered reading this article, about how to revive an old laptop with Ubuntu.  It's a completely free Linux based (don't ask me what that means) operating system.  All I had to do was burn it onto a CD (I used my desktop for this) and pop the CD in my laptop to try it out.  Ubuntu allows you to try the OS before fully loading it onto your computer.  It was in the trial mode that I found the new gaming love of my life - gbrainy.

Now, I haven't used my Ubuntu machine for much more than some web surfing and a little gbrainy playing, but I am really happy with it.   So basically, what I am saying is give it a try and if you're looking to speed up an old computer, it's worth a shot.