Vacation Recap

So vacations #3 and #4 are officially over and I am slowly working my way through the photos. As per usual, my summer collection of photos has grown at a much faster rate than I can edit. As a result I will likely be dealing with a great deal of summer photos through the Fall and Winter seasons (well more like the Winter as I tend to take a lot of photos in the Fall as well).
Despite the fact that I don't really have any photos to show you, the trips to Toronto and Quebec City were great. I have realized that Quebec City is awesome and far superior to Montreal, in my opinion and I am sure Dave and I will be going back again.
As previously mentioned, both of these trips revolved around Cirque du Soleil shows. They were both good shows but Totem has definitely won the title of favourite Cirque show so far. We absolutely loved it! Not only were the performers great, but the clowns had actual acts and the stage was amazing (especially when you consider that this is a travelling show)! Totally worth the money and I highly recommend seeing this one if it comes even remotely close to you. I am sure I will post more about the trips but for now, hopefully that answers some questions about how they went.
As usual, the end of a vacation has made me start planning the next one - not entirely sure what it will be though Dave is interested in going camping at Bon Echo and we both still want to go to Vegas sometime soon. I will of course keep you all updated on what we do next.

Cirque Vacations

You may have noticed, that with the exception of our two weeklong vacation to Florida, Dave and I tend to take long weekend vacations rather than weeklong ones. I find this to be a more effective use of our vacation time and also allows for us to go to several different places, albeit for less time at each place.
We are currently planning Vacation 2010 #3 and #4, Toronto and Quebec City respectively and as a great deal of our trips do, these both started out because of Cirque du Soleil shows.
The Toronto trip will be mixed with a trip to see Dave’s parents and his mom’s side of the family. We will be spending July 2 at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and then seeing Cirque’s show Alegria at the Air Canada Centre. Then we will spend the 3rd in Peterborough and then head to Guelph for the family reunion on the 4th. We plan on taking the 5th off from work as well to drive home and relax from all the visiting. It should be a nice semi-vacation.
The Quebec City trip is based around Cirque’s newest show TOTEM. It is currently showing in Montreal and is then moving to Quebec City for a month (as all new Cirque touring shows do). I don’t really know what else we will do as I just thought of doing this and also just bought the Cirque tickets, but we still have plenty of time to get everything else set up.
We were also planning a Vegas trip (also based around Cirque shows) but due to all the other smaller trips, and the rest of the events we are doing in the Ottawa area, I think we will push this to further in the year. It would also be nicer to go to such a hot location when it is cold here at home.

Cirque du Soleil - Ovo

Though Dave and I had been planning on going to Montreal 'sometime' it was the purchase of our Cirque du Soleil tickets for Ovo that decided the actual date and made the trip a reality. The show was amazing, like I knew it would be, and I strongly recommend going if you are even the least bit able to. As previously mentioned, it is a show about insects and the world they live in. It was adorable and breathtaking to say the least. The acts were spectacular and at times, kept you on the edge of your seat. It was however, the show during which Dave and I learned that there are 'not good' seats. We sat in what turned out to be the wrong seats and were unable to see a small portion of the stage. When we moved we learned that the focus of the seating selection should not be getting as close to the stage as possible but rather to get in middle rows whenever possible. Unfortunately, there was a lighting post that blocked part of the back wall and took away from the trampoline act slightly.All the acts revolved around a different insect. One I was most looking forward to was the one dealing with ants (above image from here). They did amazing things with kiwi fruit and mini corncobs. The tossed each other around and were flawless throughout their entire performance. Their costumes were also the cutest as the rest of the female costumes were sexier than they were cute. I think this was likely my favourite act. Dave's favourite act, as I knew it would be, was the trampoline act. Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, this was the act that was partially blocked, but it was still really great.I took the above photograph after watching the fireworks at le Vieux Port. The last few minutes of the fireworks all I could think of was which buildings I was going to photograph since the lighting on the really old buildings down there was fantastic and I couldn't resist them. I am really happy with not only the shot, but the fact that I finally was able to photograph the big top. Every time Dave and I have gone to Cirque shows in the past I have left my camera at home, since you are not able to use them within the big top and I never wanted to risk losing it or getting it stolen. I am also glad I took this shot as the next day when we were walking around Vieux Port, the clouds were not friendly and would have provided a massively overexposed skyline.