happy anniversary to us

Three years ago today, I married the best guy ever. And do you know what song came to my mind in honour of our day? "You ain't seen nothin' yet / B-B-B-Baby, you just ain't seen n-n-n-nothin' yet!" I don't even like the Bachman Turner Overdrive that much, but there you have it. My life as a musical.

And to further that musical, now I'm singing "Rain rain on my face / hasn't stopped raining for days / my world is a flood / and slowly I become / one with the mud" (Flood by Jars of Clay). It's raining as I type, in case you haven't figured that out yet.

Anyway, here's the official 'word' on our weekend away. We stayed at the River Gate Inn on West Gate (near the Misrecordia Hospital for those of you who live in or know Winnipeg). It was a great Bed and Breakfast. Vergil and I both agreed that it was like staying at someone else's house, but not being obligated to hang out with them (the B&B takes up the basement and the first two floors - the family basically does all their living on the third).

This three-floor (four including the basement) house was built in 1919 and, as a lover of old houses, this place is a beaut. It has been immaculately maintained and improved. It still feels very Victorian, but is in no way stuffy or uninviting. Our room was gigantic - complete with a king-sized, lavishly linened bed, full bathroom with a rain-fall shower head and jetted tub, a beautiful view of the yard a massive closet. They've got a great finished basement equipped with everything you could possibly want to entertain yourself - like a gigantic TV with DVD and VCR, a snooker-sized pool table, board games, and even a pinball machine.

And let me tell you about the breakfasts. 'Wow' about sums it up. Karen, one of the ladies who works there, prepared eggs Florentine for our Sunday morning breakfast (complete with spinach, mushrooms and red and orange peppers) and Belgian waffles with Saskatoon berry compote and Canadian back bacon for our Monday morning breakfast. I can give you an idea of how good the waffles were by saying that she refused to tell us how much butter was in the recipe. Man, the thought of them still makes my mouth water. If you stay at this place for no other reason - stay for the breakfasts!

We had a fantastic time. It was really neat to feel like a guest in your own city for a few days. The only disappointment was our dinner on Sunday night. We decided to try The Currant restaurant at the Inn at the Forks. The food was really good, but we didn't get served. Almost literally. We waited for about 20 minutes before a server (who wasn't supposed to be our server) kind of stumbled up to us, full of apologies and hastily took our order, then bopped back and forth asking if we wanted a starter or wine (which by then we were far from interested in). We got our food in a decent amount of time, but no one came by to ask how it was, the bus-girl ended up refilling our water on occasion and at the end, the same stumbling server came back confessing that this was probably the worst service we'd ever had and it's not usually like that and he didn't know what it was and was this our first time to this restaurant? Oh, sheepishness, sheepishness, can I get you the bill? The guy who was 'supposed' to be our server was obviously too embarrassed at that point to even try to take things over, I guess, but I couldn't help but think that the guy who'd taken over could have very easily handled the situation a whole lot differently.

If I had been in his position, I would have apologized to us for the wait, explained that the person who was supposed to be serving us was swamped and that I would be taking over. Then I'd do my waiter-y schpeal about specials, recommended a starter and a wine and gone off to let us figure out what we wanted to order. I'd come back, take our order, bring us our food, check in on us (while our mouths were full, of course), refilled our water / wine on occasion, offered us dessert when we were done and politely brought us our bill. Simple as that - as though nothing were amiss. But no, this poor kid essentially blamed the other guy for the foul-up and pretty much did nothing to remedy the situation, causing embarrassment both for himself and his colleague.

We probably won't go back there - not until we're older and richer, I think.

But enough ranting! Time for some raving! (In a good way, of course!)

Here's my official recommendation if you're interested in 'getting away' in Winnipeg (or if you're visiting and need a place to stay) without going very far - stay at the River Gate Inn! Do it! It's well worth it. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to meet Michelle, one half of the couple who runs the place, but we did get to meet her husband Keith - a very tall, very pleasant guy who spent the entire weekend working on his backyard - hauling gravel and arranging huge limestones for their backyard patio (a project he told us he'd been working on since last year). Keith was very self-effacing, claiming at least a dozen times that Michelle usually does the tour thing and is far more thorough and sorry he missed so much stuff, but we thought he was great. And next time, we'll get his recommendations for restaurants!

And that's that! Happy anniversary to us and we wish that everyone could have had as nice a weekend as we did!