Weekend Review: Symphony in the City, Narayanni's, & T&T

After my first week of gyne oncology (which has been awesome but has involved THE longest workdays) I'm super thankful for the long weekend! It's been cloudy and rainy so I've spent most of the weekend indoors, trying to get on top of reading, tidying, cooking, and all the usual stuff I put off during the week. Here are some things that I've appreciated in the past seven days:

1. Symphony in the City -- I spent Saturday evening in Churchill Square at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra's free Fantasia performance. I'd missed last year's Disney classics so was intent on going in spite of the drizzly weather. Conducted by Robert Bernhardt, the ESO accompanied segments of the classic 1940 Fantasia and more recent Fantasia 2000, which played on a large screen behind the musicians. Disney princesses, glowsticks, and a fireworks finale made for a fun atmosphere to go along with the fantastic performance!

   

   if I'd timed the photo better there'd have been fireworks over that pyramid (City Hall)

2. Narayanni's -- I'd been wanting to try Narayanni's South African Indian cuisine for a while and had the opportunity for a friend's birthday last weekend. While I'm not sure that I appreciated the South African influence, I did enjoy their buffet of delicious Indian dishes, particularly the lamb curry, and it was nice as always to catch up with friends who are on other rotations.

   

   and I totally neglected to take a photo -- here's one from their website.

3. PARA -- I did something a little outside of my comfort zone this year and ran for an elected assembly position on the provincial resident association, PARA. We had our first meeting this week which was really interesting because I had no idea about half the stuff PARA did -- from community outreach to salary and benefit negotiations to resident wellness to political advocacy, there's really so much to get involved in! It was great also to meet the other residents from around the province, whom I'll get to work with this year.

   

   and they fed us well :)

4. T&T -- I stopped to check out Edmonton's newest location of T&T Supermarket on my drive past this week. As Vancouver people know, T&T is a huge Asian grocery store and I think it's really great that Edmonton has the interest base and population to support three of these stores. I can never resist stopping by Indian or Asian grocery stores to seek out interesting and delicious things!

   

   like almond cookies

5. wildlife -- This little guy is always eating seed cones on the fence outside of my apartment. He basically just leaps between the tree to grab a new cone and the fence post to eat it. It's been pretty entertaining to watch.
   
6. packages -- So I've only started to realize how convenient online shopping is, but the most awesome thing in my opinion is getting packages in the mail! This box was literally the highlight of my week haha.

   

   my new backpack...in an unnecessarily large box!