Well we are now back in Toronto. And what a trip we had. We headed east of Toronto for 10 days, although it seemed like so much longer because we fit so much into such a short time.
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Monday morning 15th March we caught a bus to Montreal, and upon arrival we were almost immediately blown away by how different it was to Toronto. Montreal for those that aren’t aware is part of the province Québec, which is French speaking Canada, and there is a noticeable European influence on the city. We checked into our hostel which seemed to be a small town house that someone had converted into a hostel – we later discovered that although this was the case, it definitely wasn’t small; a total of 5 floors of rooms made it quite a busy place. The first night we met up with a friend of mine Erik (whom I knew through Philli) who had recently relocated to Montreal, and his friend Seb. We headed out to a bar on a cool strip of pubs and clubs called the Crescent, and afterwards Seb drove us back to our hostel – detouring via Mount Royal, which is a mountain that sits in the middle of Montreal, and is a great vantage point to see the city. If you view the photos you may see the “nursery” (Wikianswers.com, 2010) of racoons; it was completely bizarre to see so many, and they were not shy of people at all –not that we touched them, as they are essentially large rats.
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Tuesday was spent wandering about Old Montreal perusing the buildings, lapping up the warmer weather (14 degrees) and introducing Alison to Québec’s customary dish ‘Poutine’ – which consists of fries, cheese curd and gravy. It looks awful, tastes average and will kill you if eaten frequently. That evening, we headed out with a few guys from the hostel to a bar that also offered Shisha’s, so to try something different we gave it a go.
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Wednesday we headed into town and investigated some of Montreal’s underground city, which is a series of tunnels connecting underground shops and subways – a total of 32km of underground tunnel. Wednesday night being St Pat’s day, we met up with Eric for a few drinks and yet another Shisha at his apartment, we then headed out to an Irish pub to have the standard Guinness or two.
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Thursday was a little slow to start, but we eventually got up and moving and wandered around the area of the hostel, which was in a super cool part of Montreal. We definitely loved Montreal, people were dressed better, looked better and it just seemed cooler in many ways than Toronto. Not that Toronto isn’t cool – just a different kind of cool. Toronto has more of a North American cool, and Montreal a more European cool. In the afternoon we headed to Québec city. We investigated buses and trains and both seemed overpriced – so we trialled a system called Allostop, which is a ridesharing website in which people driving somewhere register online and people can hitch a ride for a nominal fee. It worked great and we got there for a quarter the price of a bus.
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Québec City was magnificent. We arrived Thursday night and trekked with our bags to our hostel. Québec city is the capital of Québec and is the only remaining ‘walled’ North American city, and the buildings in Old Québec date back to the 1600’s. So heading to the hostel which was in central Old Québec we were more than impressed. We didn’t have to walk far to the hostel, but we had to walk up possibly the steepest hill I’ve encountered, luckily we only had to walk to number 30 or so, and it was a real kick in the pants when we noticed that many of the buildings were number with fractions – you may see the photo of 17½. We made it though. We headed out that night to see some of the city. We had been informed by Erik that there was an event on across the weekend called Redbull Crashed Ice, whereby a steep ice track is set-up through the middle of old Québec containing obstacles, ramps, turns, bumps etc; people wearing hockey gear then race down this track. It was completely insane, the photos may give u a better idea, but it’s hard to grasp how bizarre this event really was. Maybe the greatest thing I’ve seen. We headed back to the hostel for an early night so we could make the most of Friday. Only we hadn’t counted on the worlds loudest snorer to be sleeping next to us. Murder was almost committed a number of times during that night, however common sense prevailed and hence I’m not yet in jail.
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After 45 min of sleep, we headed out on the Friday and toured Old Québec city, it was brilliant, such a beautiful city, and I loved trialling my French which (just ask Alison) is actually quite extensive when it needed to be. We took in the sites, and then headed back to our hostel to “use” the lounge – in other words sleep on the lounge. However at 7pm the bar opened, and as they say ‘when in Rome’. So we had a few drinks and headed out to the Crashed Ice - which by the way was only a 2 min walk; with a few of our famous ‘flasks’ to conceal our public drinking. Friday night was the time trials, so people individually skated –some great stacks, it was awesome. Check some of the photos, and if you have Facebook access I’ll try and load some videos also. Erik from Montreal mentioned that he was heading up to Québec for this event and offered for us to stay with him at his Aunt’s place which was right next to the track. So we stayed with Erik and his friends Charles and Simon. Friday night we had a few drinks and headed to bed.
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Al and I slept till about 1pm to catch up from the previous night, whilst the guys were off Skiing/Snowboarding. They guys returned and we had dinner and watched some of the Crashed Ice as well as the hockey Montreal (Charles, Simon and Alison) vs. Toronto (Erik and I). Toronto took it out in overtime for another pointless win, which meant bragging rights for the rest of the night. After drinks we headed to a nearby bar and continued. Afterwards, Erik, Charles and I headed to another bar that reminded me of somewhere in the cross, just full of French speakers. Walking home after the ugly lights had come on, we detoured via the ice track, which was heavily guarded, except in one spot. So me being me, jumped the fence and proceeded to ‘skate’ with my shoes down the track, we didn’t make it far before the security kicked us out with a stern warning.
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Sunday we farewelled the boys and headed to a cheap hotel – which was cheaper than a hostel and we made arrangements for the following day’s travels to Ottawa. Nothing to exciting, other than the fact that I told Alison the story of the dead woman that was found under a bed a month later, after the room had been rented out a handful of times. Full story here if your interested
http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-sony-millbrook,0,5452067.story
but all that to say Alison had very little sleep that night.
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Monday we caught the 6am train to Ottawa, and arrived about midday. Ottawa is the nation’s capital, chosen in a similar fashion to Canberra in that it was on the border of Ontario and Quebec and was more or less equidistant from Toronto and Quebec. Monday we strolled the streets checking some of the sights. Simon and Charles (from Québec City, brothers I might add) live in Ottawa so we stayed in contact with them. On the Monday night Simon – a chef, invited us to his restaurant for a cheap meal. We were treated like royalty, and had the most amazing 5 course meal ever! It was a bit of change from the super cheap meals we’ve been having. After dinner Charles met up with us and we had a couple drinks at a bar nearby.
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Tuesday, the weather was somewhat dreary, but we headed over to the National Museum, and looked around, and we also saw some of the sights such as the Rideau Canal locks, and looked around the Byward Market. But we called it a day and headed back to the hostel.
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Wednesday we had originally planned on heading back to Toronto, however Simon offered to let us stay at his (and his gf Alison’s) apartment, and we decided to stay one extra day. The weather was much nicer, so we were much happier to see the sights. We headed to Parliament Hill and did a tour, which ended at the top of the clock tower, which enabled us to see the entire city which was pretty cool. So we toured around, Ottawa downtown and walked a bit of the Rideau Canal – which only 2 weeks earlier we could have skated, it becomes the world’s largest skating rink in winter stretching 7kms and is lined with cafe’s and bars along the way, ‘twas a shame we missed it, but we know for next time to get there earlier. Wednesday afternoon we headed out to a bar with Charles for a few drinks (before he played ice hockey that night), and then headed to Simon and Alison’s apartment, together we all headed out again and continued our debauchery. We stayed the night and awoke early (10am) to hop on a bus Toronto bound.
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We are now back in Toronto and glad to unpack for a short time. We are home till good Friday, at which point we will head West to Vancouver to meet up with Helen amongst others. Lots to do and people to see in the upcoming days in Toronto, as we now only have 9 or so days left here!
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