Month in Review: October 2021

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Highlights

In surprising news, Colin and I are moving! We didn’t have plans to move but had been feeling more and more cramped in our small apartment. Browsing online, I saw a listing for a really large one bedroom with an even larger patio. Intrigued, Colin and I decided to check it out, with no real thought that we’d apply for it, let alone get it. But, of course, we ended up falling in love with the place.

So we applied, still thinking it was a slim chance we’d get the place, since the landlords were telling us how much interest they had received. But by some stroke of luck, we got the place. We’ll be moving in next month and I’m so excited to furnish, decorate and enjoy our new space!

Of course, our honeymoon to Montreal and the Maritimes is another huge highlight of the month. We spent three weeks travelling through Montreal, Halifax, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton Island. I’ll be sharing all about our trip in upcoming posts but some highlights include eating amazing meals, like lobster linguine and the best fish n’ chips in Canada, wandering around incredible museums, seeing beautiful sights from postcards, and cheering along the Halifax Mooseheads.

Lowlights

Two days before we left for our honeymoon, Colin noticed our bathroom sink wasn’t draining. And then a few hours later, I heard running water and walked in to find water pouring out of our bathroom cabinet! It was a really fun 48 hours of constantly checking the bathroom, bailing water out of the sink, sopping up puddles, explaining the situation to not one, not two, but three plumbers, and hoping we wouldn’t come back to an apartment underwater!

There was also the stress of packing, moving and getting ready for our honeymoon. For some reason, we like to do all the things at the same time so our first week of October was pretty stressful with trying to pack for our move, pack for our honeymoon, pack Ellie to go to my mom’s, sign all our paperwork with our new landlords, order furniture, and get all my work done before we flew to Montreal.

Best listen

With all the driving we’ve been doing on our honeymoon, Colin and I have gotten to listen to a lot of music and podcasts together. And even though I complain that he keeps the volume too loud and the speed too slow, it’s been fun to geek out over our favourite shows and musicals together!

Best watch

I started listening to the Drama Queens podcast last month, which inspired me to start rewatching One Tree Hill. I’ve rewatched the series a few times and it’s always fun to come back to one of my beloved teen shows, even if it doesn’t age so well.

Colin and I finished New Girl just as our honeymoon started. Both of us had watched episodes here and there when it aired, but never the whole thing. So we’ve been watching on Netflix over the last little while and finished it up this month. Solid series! We’re both big Schmidt fans.

And we started (and finished!) Ted Lasso! I can’t believe we waited so long to watch Ted Lasso but it was amazing. It was so funny and heartwarming. We devoured both seasons in less than two weeks and can’t wait for season three!

What’s cooking?

October was a real good month for eating! Highlights include:

• Thai food with my mom in Vancouver featuring some delicious curries and fried rice.
• Thanksgiving with Colin’s mom, aunt and uncle. Can’t go wrong with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce!
• Great meals in Montreal at Cadet, Foiegwa and the TimeOut Market.
• Fresh mango slush drinks from Presotea – our new addiction!
• Delicious chocolate from Peace by Chocolate, a Nova Scotian chocolate shop that was started by a Syrian refugee family.
• Scallops and lobster linguine at The Bicycle Thief in Halifax.
• The crobster (crab + lobster) roll from The Canteen in Dartmouth.
• Scallop linguine in Lunenburg and pork belly and scallops, plus a full lobster, in Charlottetown.
• Cows ice cream, cheese and chips in PEI!

Posts from this month

This month on Teaspoon of Adventure I published:

• Traveller of the Month: Cosette from KarsTravels
• 12 Personal Finance Tips (From a Completely Unqualified Source!)
• How to Plan a Trip to Somewhere You’ve Already Been

Check out any of the posts you’ve missed!

For my throwback post of the month, I’m going back to October 2019: 3 Days in Prague – An Expat’s Itinerary. I was really proud of this itinerary I put together that combined tourist must-sees and some local spots, based on having lived in Prague for about five months at that point. I can’t wait until we revisit Prague someday in the future!

Reads

This month, I finished reading:

We Came, We Saw, We Left by Charles Wheelan
This non-fiction book tells the story of the Wheelan family’s gap year travelling the world with their three teenage children. This book gave me a ton of wanderlust and happy memories from our own year abroad. I loved hearing how the Wheelans came to their decision to take time off and travel, and enjoyed how the book was about travel but also their family dynamics. I started reading this as an ebook and transitioned to audio, which I enjoyed better.

How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy by Lynette Rice
If you’re a Grey’s fan, you’ll probably want to pick up this book: an oral history of Grey’s Anatomy with voices from the cast and crew. I enjoyed learning more about Grey’s Anatomy, even though I stopped watching a few seasons ago. It was interesting to hear how the show first got started and where all the behind the scenes drama seems to come from. The book did feel a bit surface level and some of the lines seemed to be edited together without the right context. The formatting in the ebook also made it very hard to read. But overall, easy and enjoyable!

PS: And if you’re looking for some spine-chilling reads for Halloween coming up, check out 10 True Crime Books for a Truly Spine-Chilling Booktober.

Travels

I’m so excited to finally have some travel to talk about this month! This October I visited:

• Montreal, Quebec
• Halifax, Nova Scotia
• Moncton, New Brunswick
• Charlottetown, PEI
• Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

Where I have travelled in Octobers past:

• October 2020: A year ago this month we went on a long weekend trip to Penticton, BC where we got engaged. I really loved Penticton and would definitely want to go back.
• October 2019: While we were living in Europe, we visited Nuremberg, Munich (for Oktoberfest!), Bratislava and Budapest in October 2019.
• October 2018: I started October 2018 visiting London and Iceland with Colin and then went back a few weeks later to visit Amsterdam and Paris with my dad.
• October 2016: I spent three weeks travelling through Vietnam with my good friend, Emilie!

Clearly, I love travelling in October!

Gratitude

I am so grateful that we got to travel again! I was a little hesitant about our honeymoon plans and staying domestic. But it ended up being such an amazing trip! I loved exploring more of my own country and getting back into the groove of creating an itinerary, checking out cool sights, taking tons of photos, and eating all the best local food.

Coming up next

November is our big move! We’ll be moving into our new apartment in the first week of November and spending the rest of the month unpacking, setting up, furnishing, decorating, and learning all the ins and outs of our new neighbourhood. I’m super excited for this move and our new space!

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How was October for you?