August 2004

Driving to Canada

Let’s go to Canada, eh! This month I went to visit my family for the first time in about a decade!

For years I’ve been threatening to visit my great big Italian family in Montreal, Canada. Well, this month I finally did it! Sharon and I traveled from Ohio through New York and a good bit of Canada to get there. There were 9 kids in my mom’s family so you can imagine the size of the family by now.

Since I’m bogged down with 'Palooza projects and advertising and our Member’s-Only web guy is nagging me to get him some new material - Hi Andy!  [Hi Jef - I can't believe you drove within an hour or two of my place in Toronto and didn't stop by to say 'Hello'. Bastard.] ...I’ve decided to do a little travelogue of pictures. So, kick back, put your feet up and let’s watch slides of my most recent trip! Oh joy!

First, we cut through New York to get to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. The American side is a small town and although picturesque, it’s rather boring. Whereas the Canadian side is like Disney world, full of casinos and bright lights! Our kind of place! We got a room at this beautiful hotel with a room on the top floor overlooking the falls. The room was amazing! It had a huge Jacuzzi tub and a view of the falls second to none. We literally looked straight down into the falls.

 

Pointing to our top floor room

Jacuzzi fun

Room with a view

We only had one night to spend so we decided to fit as much as possible into it. Dinner, Gambling, Sightseeing, Etc. We went to dinner at The Keg - a nice steak place in the hotel next to ours. Afterwards, we headed to the Fallsview Casino for a little gambling. It was fun, but we were really there for the view so we wandered back outside to look at the falls in the evening light.

 

View from our window

Sharon and the falls

Oh look - a casino

After our walk, we went back to our room and indulged in a nice Jacuzzi bath. We glanced outside to find that there were fireworks over the falls for the Canadian civic holiday. It was a really nice ending to a wonderful trip. After the fireworks outside, we made a few of our own before going to bed. 🙂

 

Studly Jef at dinner

Sexy Sharon at dinner

Video of the Falls: - Windows Media - 1.85MB - RealMedia player - 158KB Fireworks Video: - Windows Media - 1.34MB - RealMedia player - 8KB

The next morning we left for our next stop, Montreal. We headed through Toronto towards Quebec. Along the way we got to stop at some fast food restaurants that I hadn’t been to since childhood. Swiss Chalet was one of them. They serve this great roasted chicken with an amazing dipping sauce. Along the way we passed a Kentucky Fried Chicken but since we were now in Quebec - which is mostly French speaking - it was called PFK - Poulet Fried Kentucky. We found it very funny. We also stopped by the Cirque du Soleil Headquarters - since we’re such fans.

 

Bronze Clown Shoe at Cirque Du Soleil

PFK - Poulet Fried Kentucky

My cousin Andrea wanted to get everyone together for my visit so she contacted my cousin Lori and she put together a family cookout at Lori’s. It was great having the family together. I really haven’t visited much since my mother died. I got to have lots of my favorite - yet fattening - foods.

 

Cousins Andrea and Frank

Cousins Lori and Darren

Lori and the kids

The next day we had a family dinner at 'The House'. It’s where Nellie, Joe, and Maria live. It’s also the house where most of the family grew up. Not everyone was able to make it to the cookout so we planned on getting the rest of the family there that night. The smell of all the food cooking really brought back lots of wonderful memories.

The best part was that I got some of our family recipes out of Aunty Mary. She has a recipe for Lasagna soup that is just to die for. She also gave me an amazing cookbook like the one my mom gave me but in much better condition. I definitely inherited my family’s love of cooking and food.

 

Family Dinner

Home-cooked meal

Jef with Nellie and Maria (of the 'secret family recipes')

I promised everyone that I’d visit more often in the future. It won’t be for a lack of desire. It was nice to connect with them after so long. As a matter of fact, my cousin - my best friend as a teenager - is a graphic artist and is designing our next DVD cover.

I really love my family and miss getting to spend time with them. It’s just hard with our touring schedule and constant project development. But, I guess that’s the price of success.