soundscapes

today i

purchased:
1. midlake's new cd (the trials of van ocupanther)
2. the life aquatic studio sessions featuring seu jorge (the dude who sings david bowie songs in portuguese in the life aquatic with steve zissou) and
3. the new final fantasy album (which has the inspired title 'he poos clouds' and recently won the inaugural polaris music prize)
all from soundscapes: the best store in toronto.

ate:
at kalendar, 546 college street
had a 'scroll' (sort of a crunchy wrap) with thinly-sliced roast beef, horseradish mayo and idon'tknowwhatelse but it was GOOD. it came with a delightful salad whose leaves were a little bigger than my mouth could handle (as evidenced by the fact that a leaf slapped me in the face with each forkful) and a lovely sweet house dressing. washed this down with an amsterdam dutch amber ale (brewed in toronto, go figure). jo and i ordered a double chocolate ganache cake with chocolate crust garnished with a creamy hazelnut chocolate sauce to share which i sent back due to not enough chocolateyness.

experienced:
the steamwhistle brewery tour.


we arrived around 3:15 and were basically kicked out at 6:15. unlimited steamwhistle pilsner and a v. informative tour with a snappy lakefield college grad who jo says was probably 21 (too bad). the brewery is in the old roundhouse (where steam engines were serviced from circa 1920 to circa 1989 - or exactly 1989, but i like the word circa). they subscribe to the same bavarian beer brewing code of 1516 (or some such) as the propeller brewery in halifax, which allows them to use only malt (roasted barley), hops, yeast and water as their ingredients. i learned lots of fun facts like that they can reuse their green beer bottles up to 10 times, while brown bottles are good for about 4 reuses only. oh, and that jo has a smaller bladder than me.

also offloaded my work permit worries onto my phd supervisor and my grant budget worries on someone with some influence. woo! t'was a good day.