MONTREAL TO NEW YORK

Again, please don't be hoping to read something interesting here.

Today was about travel.

After sleeping in and checking out of the hotel at noon.

Noon.

I would never normally say that. I would say 12 o'clock or even lunchtime.

But never noon.

That's how "international" I have become.

Not.

Anyhoo.

I walked to the station, bought a ticket for the shuttle to the airport. Waited for the bus and once I got to the airport (I was really early) sat around reading until it was time to go.

Not much else to do as the airport didn't have free wi-fi and I had packed my hard drive with the movies in my suitcase.

Once I landed at JFK I had to wait for the shuttle bus to take me to Grand Central Station and then luckily I got a taxi (sorry, a cab) pretty quickly - being Friday night, New York was one busy little town.

Well, not so little actually. But you know what I mean.

MONTREAL

Ok, so you thought yesterday was uneventful, with a really boring post?

Well you're in for a treat today.

Rob left early to catch the bus to Detroit.

I stayed in the hotel (I left once to get some food) and watched t.v., read my book, talked on facebook, searched the internet for flights and car rentals and watched Bones.

Seriously.

That's it.

MONTREAL

Ok, so we are back in Montreal.

We dropped the car off, the car people dropped us at the subway station, caught the subway to to the stop near the hotel, went via the bus station to check where we both needed to leave from (on different days), got to the hotel (same one we stayed at last time) and as it was raining we decided to watch a movie on my laptop (Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium - and something went wrong with the file and we missed the end which was a bummer) and then went for Thai Express for some lunch.

Geez, long sentence huh?

So apart from going out to get some dinner when it stopped raining (which consisted of a caramel frappacino from Starbucks and 3 cookies from Subway) we didn't do anything much except watch t.v. because the weather was so miserable.

So here's a few photos of the street where the hotel is - St Denis.

Actually I think there's a good chance I may have posted these photos when we were in Montreal the first time.

But hey, we did nothing today that warranted taking photos, so you get what you get.

OLD QUEBEC TO BECANCOUR

Tomorrow we have to have the car back by 11am (well actually they give you a 30 minute le-way so at the latest we have until 11.29) so we have found a place just outside of Trois-Rivieres to stay the night. It's halfway between Old Quebec and Montreal so we won't have a hugs drive in the morning to get the car back.

There didn't seem a lot to do in Trois-Rivieres but there was a tour of an old Jail with an ex prisoner as your tour guide that caught Rob's eye.

Something different.

Unfortunately as it was a quiet day there were no tours in English.

Bummer.

So not a lot to report other than that the place we were staying was lovely.

It was out of the way - in a place called Becancour - so I'm not sure why people go there.

But very nice, as you can see from the photos.

OLD QUEBEC

We spent today exploring Old Quebec City - it was lovely!

Old Quebec City is surrounded by a stone wall (built way back when by the Poms to keep out either the French or the Americans - or something like that) and you can walk the length of it (4.7km).

Which we did.

We also walked through the ruins (of which there isn't much left) of Chateau Sainte - Louis.

Plus went to chocolate shop that we read about in the Lonely Planet guide.

Disappointing. We thought there was a free tour and samples. There was info and things to look at about the history and making of chocolate but no tour.

And definitely no free samples

There was a tiny bit of shopping done but no actual purchasing.

But I did find a huuuuuge ugg boot from Australia.

FREDERICTON TO OLD QUEBEC

We had a fairly long drive today so we left before 8am. We drove to Riviere du Loup and caught the ferry across the St Lawrence River to St Simeon which broke the trip up. A lady from America asked where we were from and then pretty much talked the whole way.
Either she really liked us or we were one of the few English speaking people on the ferry. We were back in Quebec, remember. So French, French, French.
According to this lady (whose name I don’t actually know) the Quebecians want to be independent from Canada - their own little country. Don’t know how true this actually is.
When we got to Quebec the lady at the hotel said she didn’t have our room for us - that someone else had taken it but she had a dearer one. Nice! So Rob walked around to see about another hotel but they were all more expensive or didn’t have parking. He went back to the first one and she found she did have one for us. Apparently she always had it but is a doddery old lady and just got a bit missed up.
Had to schlep my bag up two flight of stairs, share a bathroom with the rest of the rooms on the floor, park the car 5 minutes away (but it’s free) and there is no internet (I don’t even think she knew what that was when Rob asked) but………….it’s in a gorgeous little street in Old Quebec - feels like France.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND - CHARLOTTETOWN

Today we drove to Charlottetown which is the capital of Prince Edward Island. It ‘s so easy to drive around P.E.I. as there are no complicated intersections or overpasses but mostly because everything is sign posted so clearly.
We were going to go to the Shellfish Festival but you had to pay to go in as well as then paying for everything once you were in there. We just weren’t that fussed as much as we both like seafood.
So we just walked around Charlottetown which was sooooo quiet. I know it was a Sunday and summer (which is their busy season) is over. But it’s the capital for crying out loud! It was quieter than Maryborough is on a Sunday. We did find the Anne of Green Gables chocolate shop where we bought some yummy brown sugar fudge (alright, that wasn’t the only thing) and then looked in a few other shops before wandering down to the waterfront where there was a bit more action.
We grabbed a huuuuuge icecream each (I had chocolate chip cookie dough and some other really yummy one with peanut butter) and then looked in all the shops (much to Rob’s joy).
We left Charlottetown to go to check out Brackley Beach and found some really huge shoe prints in the sand. In the photo the mystery foorprint is in the middle, Rob's in on the left and mine is obviously the little one on the right. Then we took the long scenic route back to the bridge to leave the island.
Oh yeah, we did stop at a few more shops.
Or maybe that was yesterday.
I think Rob will be glad to leave me later in the week just so he doesn’t have to go into another shop.
He has a few days and many shops before his freedom though.
We stayed in Fredericton again but this time at the youth hostel (my first time in the whole trip - Sarah will be pleased as she bought me a membership for the year) where we wanted to stay the other night but couldn’t get in.
P.S. There were a lots of t-shirts and magnets with funny sayings in Charlottetown - this one really caught my fancy.
“It’s better to have loved and lost, than to spend the rest of your life with the physco”.
Hmmmmmm…………………..

FREDERICTON TO PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

Today we left for Prince Edward Island. The home of Anne of Green Gables.

I am sooooo excited (for those of you who don't think I appear to get that excited about stuff - this is the thing to prove you wrong).

I am a huge Anne fan and have wanted to visit Prince Edward Island for years. If you are an Anne fan you will know what I am talking about (Rach is about the only person I know who loves it the way I do so she will understand). If not, it's a great place to visit as it is a beautiful part of the world. I watched it on t.v. when I was younger (as well as reading the books) and it's the sort of thing I can watch over and over (just like Bones). For some reason it has a cathartic affect on me. I had a few really bad Christmases and lying on the couch for several days in my p.j.'s, while watching all the Anne series non-stop, helped me a lot.

Of course it could have just been escaping reality while watching t.v. but I can't imagine anything else that would have helped as much.

Right then.......................that just got a bit too serious, didn't it?

So we got to the hotel about midday and after checking in (we are staying in a place called Summerside) drove to Cavendish. This is where Lucy Maud Montgomery grew up and was raised by her grandparents after her mother died (she was only 21 months old) and is where the Anne books are set. We went to where her home used to be and on the historical walk that shows all the places she used as inspiration for her books. There is a Green Gables house - not the one she grew up in, which is no longer there, or the one from the mini-series) and we went through that and the other buildings they have as part of the "Green Gables" experience.

Poor Rob got dragged around all of this although he didn't complain. Although I did tell him it was only fair as I wouldn't have chosen to go to the Jack Daniels factory in Tennessee that he really wanted to go to.

But despite the Anne stuff (and the arts and crafts shop we went to after that) he is very impressed with the countryside. How could you not be? It is beautiful here.

Although like Vermont (and a lot of America it seems), no-one seems to have fences or landscaping. It's like they have just plonked houses here there and everywhere.

Very odd.

But pretty as there are no fences to obscure the views.

SAINT JEAN PORT JOLI TO FREDERICTON

Sooooooooo............

Another slow news day (sorry about these).

But in anticipation of no exciting photos (because today was about driving again) I have a photo of myself with the car.

Woo hoo!!!!

But I will say that breakfast at the B & B was wonderful. We had tea, juice, fruit, yogurt, bacon, tomato, scrambled eggs and toast with cheese and a pate kind of thing.

Very exciting - it has kept us going for the majority of the day.

I guess the other thing that happened today was that when we got to the hostel we were hoping to stay at, they were full. So we are now at a motel.

Exciting stuff huh?

TORONTO TO SAINT JEAN PORT JOLI

And then there were two. :(

Today we dropped Holly off at the bus to go back to New York and then fly home to New Zealand. Our little travel group of 4 is now down to 2.

Did I mention Toby stayed in New York, before going home to England, after we finished our east coast U.S. road trip.

No????

Well he did.

So now it's just Rob and I and we drove most of the day to get to the B & B we were staying the night in at Saint Jean Port Joli. We are now back in the French part of Canada and unlike Montreal, where signs etc. are in both French and English, here it's just in French. It actually feels like we are in France.

But we are managing.

Unfortunately our google directions for the B & B took us to the wrong place. We stopped and asked for directions and luckily it was someone that spoke a bit of English. Anyway the B & B was just lovely (very French, obviously) and a really nice change from a motel room.

How lovely is this place???

CANADA - TORONTO

Today we had a full day in Toronto. Our first stop was the CN Tower which is kind of like going to the Eureka Tower in Melbourne. They have a glass floor but you don't go out in a cube like Eureka - so I think ours is better.

We also went on one of those bus tours where you travel around, someone talks about the highlights and you can get on and off all day. As it is the Toronto International Film Festival there were lots of famous people in town so we decided to do a bit of celebrity spotting.

It didn't take us long. We saw Lisa Kudrow getting into a car at the Four Seasons Hotel (obviously the place to stay) and Rob managed to get a photo.

It's the blurry one of the blond chick!
We did a bit of walking up to a castle called Casa Loma but decided not to go in when we saw the price. So we jumped back on the bus and went to the Air Canada centre. We had decided that since we were in Canada and the Canadians love ice hockey (although interestingly their national sport is actually lacrosse), we thought we would try and get free tickets to a game. It was sponsored by Coke Zero and although we didn't end up with tickets (we had to fill in a form to win them and had to wait around for ages, so we left) we got about 8 free cans of Coke Zero.

So we decided to then go on the boat tour which was included in the price of the bus ticket. It was really nice - as boat trips go.

So we had a great day with lots of freebies. As well as the Coke zero we also got free casadeas (have no idea how you spell that but I think it's Mexican food. Wherever they are from, they are tasty) and free avocados from Mexico were being given away.

No idea when we are going to eat them, or what with. But hey, they were free.

We finished the night off going to the laundromat which is a first for me - hence the photo.

And then just to top the day off - I watched Episode 1 of Season 5 of BONES!!!!!!!!

OTTAWA TO NIAGRA FALLS

It was a big day of driving today to get from Ottawa to Niagra Falls.

But we made it.

Rob had already seen it from the American side with some of the girls from B.C. straight after camp. But he came with us on a thing called "Journey Behind The Falls" where you kind of go in these tunnels under the falls and can look out these open portals to the water pouring down. Kind of good but we thought it would be better. After the Holly and I went on a boat called "The Maid of The Mist" (Rob had already done this before) which used to be an old steamboat. They give you thin plastic ponchos and take you out on the water right up close to the falls. It's really, really loud and you get a bit wet but the view is great.

Much better than the first thing we went into. Incidentally they gave you ponchos at that one too - they were bright yellow. On the boat they are blue but Holly and I decided to wear the yellow once so we stood out in the sea of blue and Rob would be able to see us from up the top where he was taking photos for us.

It was kind of tricky getting to our hotel after driving to Toronto - but we made it.

And here I am writing another exciting blog entry.

MONTREAL TO OTTAWA

This morning Rob and I could the subway (and walked) to get our rental car for Canada. It's a little Suzuki Swift and the very good looking William at Enterprise told us it was 2 sizes up from the one we ordered - I'd hate to see how small the original would have been. Anyway we fit in it and when Holly leaves us in a few days we will have plenty of space.

We then drove back to the hotel, picked up Holly and our luggage and drove too Ottawa where we were staying the night with Holly's cousin Byron and his girlfriend Maria and room mate Stephan.

Byron was still at work when we got there so we parked in the city and went to visit Parliament Hill and the Houses of Parliament. We walked all around the buildings (which are amazing and very detailed) and also went inside and up the Peace Tower which houses a huge bell.

There is a little cat sanctuary up near Parliament which is run by funds and feeds and houses stray cats - kind of odd really but also kind of nice.

We then drove to Byron's place, which was really close, and he and Maria made us a lovely dinner and we spent a great night with them, eating, drinking and talking.

CANADA - MONTREAL

So we had a big day today in Montreal. Firstly we went on a walking tour of Old Montreal - lots of luffly old buildings with cobbled streets and we went past the church where Celine Dion got married. Then we walked up Parc du Mont-Royal (very big hill) where you got a great view of the city and where Chalet du mont Royal is. We went there looking for a bunch of people who often hang out there on Sunday's with a kind of market and a lot of smoking ummmm....... stuff ......... and tam tam playing and eventually found it on the way down (see the attached video of the drums and dancing). After that we decided to go to the Biodome which is a zoo, aquarium and botanical garden all in one. We decided to walk (my feet were already killing me from all the walking we had already done) an after about an hour (yes, a whole @#$#@# hour) we realised that our directions were wrong. So after some grumbling and tense moments (I am happy to say I wasn't navigating but not happy about more walking) we found our way there but it took another 45 minutes.

This is what we like to call a Toby moment (that's obviously an in joke which Holly and Rob - and maybe some other camp people - will get).

The Biodome was interesting although the spaces for the animals don't seem that large and it's actually in a building so they don't get to be outside.

V sad really.

I have attached a video of this really funny penguin that kept swimming against the water jets, under the water and then would pop back up and do it all over again.

And again, and again...........................

We went out for dinner and a few hours later Holly and I went to this chocolate place and I had crepes with peanut butter, chocolate and bananas. V nice but felt slightly ill after as ate way too much. Both the waitress at dinner and dessert didn't really speak English. I know Montreal is the French part of Canada but we just presumed everyone (especially those in the hospitality industry) would be bi-lingual.

NEW YORK TO CANADA - MONTREAL

Like yesterday afternoon, today was all about travel.

So.........

Got up and ready, caught the shuttle bus from Grand Central Station to JFK, caught a plane (very small - only 3 seat wide) to Montreal, got the shuttle bus to downtown Montreal and then walked to the hotel.

That's about it apart from grabbing something to eat and spending the night on the computer looking up hire cars, sending emails, chatting on msn, that kind of thing.

And because I feel compelled to not only blog each day but also to put in photos - here are two taken from the window of our room. We are staying in the Latin Quarter in a street bustling with cafe's, theatres and nightlife.

Could be a noisy nights sleep.

PENNSYLVANIA TO NEW YORK

After the excitement of pretending to be Rocky the rest of the day was all about travelling.

It went something like this.

Back to the hotel to check out.

Drive from Philadelphia to Ruthie's house in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Pick up the stuff Holly and I had left there.

Drop the car back at the rental place. We did about 4800 miles in the car. Pretty impressive huh?

The car rental place dropped us at the bus stop. We had just over an hour to wait (in the rain with all of our bags and a really small bus shelter) but an earlier bus came and there were 5 spare seats and we were allowed to get on that one. Thank goodness.

Got to New York, said goodbye to the guys (only until tomorrow for Holly and Rob) and caught a cab to Fiona and Bob's place.

Booked shuttle on-line, went out for dinner, went to a shelter to look at a kitten for Kiki to adopt, back to the apartment, booked Montreal accommodation on-line and watched a movie with Kiki.

Pretty exciting huh?

And to go with this exciting post are two exciting photos. One of the outside of the car and the other of Toby, Rob and Holly squashed into the back when we were dropped off at the bus stop.