On Saturday, Brad and I had our first official roommate date. We have had other unoffical roommate dates before, where one of us says to the other, "Do you want to come with me to the grocery store/Subway/for a walk?" but this was our first planned date. Brad and I decided a couple of weeks ago that the next weekend that he had off, he and I were going to explore some garage sales. That ended up being this weekend. Of course, Brad didn't exactly have it off as he picked up some overtime shifts at work, so he got home at 9am Saturday morning, just in time for us to get out before we missed all the good stuff.
Brad is a bad influence on me. He encouraged me to buy books and CDs that I didn't need, although we found some really good prices. We bought a stack of board games for $9 (Scotland Yard, Fun City, Pit and Lexicon) from a delightful British fellow. All of the games look like they're from the '60s or '70s, which just adds extra coolness. I also bought (at another garage sale) 2 Norton Anthologies for 25 cents each (you English majors will know what a treat this was). At that place, I had a chat with a lady about the goodness of Nortons and literature in general. She is reading Ulysses right now. I got 2 Margaret Atwood novels there too.
Most strange of all, though, was this one place that I went too whose box of books was an expression of me to a frightening degree (rhyming unintentional). In the first box I looked in, I found a Jane Austen book, a Beatles biography (I subsequently found another one in a different box), an Agatha Christie novel and an astrology book. I told the lady there to get out of my head. I think I frightened her a little. I ended up buying the Jane Austen and the Agatha Christie, even though I've read both before and have the Jane Austen one at home. I also picked up
The Life of Pi and
Tuesdays with Morrie.
On Saturday I also bought my first cup of lemonade from a lemonade stand. The little boy was so adorable. Brad and I couldn't resist.
All this shopping and exploring worked up our appetites (especially since I didn't have time for breakfast before we left, and Brad came off a night shift), so we decided to grab some lunch. Brad had heard some good things about the Duck Inn in Anzac, and I had heard of it too, so we decided to drive down and try it out. It was like something out of a movie. It was exactly what a small town bar/café/liquor store should be. It was dark on the inside, and shabby, though clean, with duck decor everywhere. Classic country was playing on the stereo, and by 12:30 in the afternoon the place was hopping with locals out to get their drink on. I had 2 gin and tonics and some nachos for breakfast. Brad had the more conservative rum and coke and eggs and toast. It was quite the experience, all told.
We drove home after lunch, and neither one of us could keep our eyes open. We lugged our many purchases upstairs, and we both went to bed around 3pm, happy with a morning well spent.
Here is kind of a back view of my part of town. Our apartment building is in the upper centre part of this picture, to the left of the towers. 
This is just a view that I drive by everyday off the side of the bridge. It's a nice photo of it. 
This is an overhead photo of the bridge that connects the downtown area with the northern residential neighbourhoods. I drive over this bridge to get to work. Our building is in this picture too. 
This is a view of Gregoire Lake, which is just south of town. Brad and I drove past it on our roommate date, and it was beautiful. It actually looked almost exactly the same then as it does in this picture, even though this picture is from someone else. 
This is another view of the bridge from the other side. This picture seems to be from winter, or perhaps river break in the spring.
