CoD V.1.6.9- Catching up!

Dan! (you may be thinking) It's been almost a month since your last post! What's wrong with you?! Also, what have you been up to?! Also, you're such a ruggedly handsome, ravishingly charming, and oh-so-modest guy! (that last one wasn't a question, but I'm sure I'd be thinking that if I weren't me).
Well, I thought I'd answer these and other related questions with this post.

In fact, I've been up to a lot! Here are some of the highlights of the last month- the last week of March, the week after my last post, happened to also be my last week at work! In preparation for my departure on May 9th, I quit work so I'd have the month of April off.
In my last week of work I and several friends decided we'd attend the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO), where we heard the pops play 'Hollywood: The Epics', the themes from Epic Hollywood films including Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia (one of my favourite scores ever!) Star Wars, and an encore that included Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, among other things. We had an amazing time preceded by dinner and followed by dessert, and even got to meet Darth Vader, Bobba Fett, R2D2 and some stormtroopers who all came out to support their anthem. T E Lawrence, Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara were no-shows. There were also (alas) no hobbits, elves or dwarves to be seen...
Behold some pictures:

My friends Abby and Ben at dinner before the Symphony.

My friend Emily and I at dinner before the Symphony. That is a polka-dot flamnco dress she's wearing.

Dinner- Emily's food was a tad delayed.

Darth Vader choking me. Apparently he finds my lack of faith... disturbing (ok, only Star Wars geeks will get this, but it's a line from one of the movies, Vader chokes a guy who doesn't have any faith in the force... but he does it using the force, not his hands- unfortunately the force was not with him that night)

Three of us with R2 and stormtroopers. I'd never actually met any fictional characters who were not from Disney cartoons before, so this was quite... interesting.

Well, that was certainly the highlight of my last week of work. It was followed by a busy weekend, and the very next week I went to the Big Apple to visit the Big Banana (I went to New York to visit my sister Suzana... banana). In New York we were joined by an old highschool friend of mine- Viraj, who's working near Chicago. Here are some pictures in New York:

Sue and I at the Museum of Natural History's Hall of Primates

A Silverback Mountain Gorilla and I posturing for primate primacy.

Being swallowed head-first by some bipedal, carnivorous, predatory dinossaur- possibly a velociraptor?

T-Rex! Dude really was big.

Later that day, Sue and I at Central Park.

Sue at Tiffany's trying on a $65,000 necklace, and $10,000 earrings.

Viraj viciously attacking me in our hotel room for no apparent reason...

Here I am desecrating Columbia University's statue of her Alma Mater.

Viraj and I enjoying a brief moment of Sunshine at Columbia.

St Paul's Chapel (?) at Columbia- Pro Ecclesia Dei- 'For the Church (the called ones) of God'

Tom's Restaurant- the front for Seinfeld's Diner.

Lunch at a traditional Brazillian Churrascaria (BBQ place), where waiters come in with spitted, roasted meat, and you show them how much a real man can eat...

Sue attempting to eat with the men...

Dinner with some old High School classmates- (L-R) Sujosh, who's doing a PhD in Bio-something, Viraj, with his Master's in Engineering, Dan, and Raunak, who's doing an MBA.

New York Style plain cheesecake- I'm in love with it- We (Cheesecake and I) are getting married in the summer. I'm ditching Seaweed Salad for Cheesecake. I'm sorry Seaweed Salad... it just wasn't meant to be...

Dinner at Brasserie Les Halles, the restaurant whose Executive Chef is Anthony Bourdain- the author of such quotable quotes as: ""Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself."

The Foie Gras appetizer with roasted apples and walnuts in a Calvados sauce... ooooh.

My dinner- cotes d'agneau grillees au romarin.

Sue's confit de canard et salade frisee.

Viraj's demi-canard roti a l'orange

Valley of dry bones- all that was left of the poor lamb.

The desolation left in Sue's wake. This meal certainly had to do with the food.

The belly-dancer at a middle-eastern lounge we went to.

The traditional French-Canadian Easter lunch with Sue's friends- the geniuses of all nations- (L-R): Imre the Hungarian physicist, Michael the German Historian, Sue the who-knows-what educator (?), Marianne the Quebecois opera singer (I think she was mezzo-soprano), Leanne the Californian opera singer (I think she was soprano), Kinneret the UN intern, and Viraj the engineering master. Everything had lots of maple syrup, and it was good!

So that then, is what I did through the first half of April. More on the second half and some important updates on my departure in the next post...