Canada Vacation '18: Montreal

It was a gamble - a roll of the dice. We had no idea what the temperature in Canada would be in July. We assumed it would be colder than in Iowa, but when we got to Montreal we discovered we were wrong. The highs were 89 and 91, and it was humid.

The apartment I booked had two bedrooms, a full kitchen, and a washer and dryer. Located in a quiet neighborhood, the apartment was a five-minute walk to the subway, so in a way, it was close to everything. For $80 dollars a night, it was a steal. It also didn't have air conditioning.

There was a ceiling fan in the living room, and the owner had provided two oscillating fans, but oh, man... I was miserable. It rained around midnight on our second night, and that cooled things off for about 30 minutes. When the rain stopped, the humidity kicked in with a vengeance. I doubt I slept two hours that night.

Now please note, Daphne toughed it out and didn't complain. I was one the who said I was miserable, but Charlotte wasn't. She was so excited that she had her own room, she didn't care about the heat at all. She also quickly figured out how to work the TV, and she was in heaven watching YouTube videos on the big screen.

This doesn't mean we didn't enjoy Montreal. I just didn't enjoy our time at "home". 

There were more bikes to admire. For example, this is such a cool bike for a parent. Look how your kid can have their own seat, foot rest, and set of handlebars - all while they are protected between your legs. Genius! This makes me want to have another baby so I'll have a reason to buy a bike like this!

Another city, another market, I like this trend.

Char liked the mango, even if she had to bite through the skin.

We bought some beignes here. I took this bland picture because I wanted to remember something I heard here.

The man making the beignes was taking to Daphne about learning English as a second language. Charlotte told him that she couldn't ever learn to speak French. 

He replied, "Of course you can! All you need to do is practice. That's all there is. If you want to learn something, you only have to practice that thing over and over to learn it. With practice, everything in the world can be yours!"

That's really, really, good advice.

Montreal is known for its smoked meat, so Daphne and shared a smoked meat sandwich for lunch.

Playing finger hockey in Old Montreal.

If you are curious, PFK stands for Poulet Frit Kentucky.

One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to find a unique souvenir at a thrift store. Montreal was the only city that had a thrift store within walking distance of our rental. I had high hopes for this Salvation Army store. Oops, I mean, Aemee Du Salut store.

I had expected to find a cool t-shirt, but that didn't happen. After 30 minutes of shopping I ended up buying this tacky bottle opener for 70 cents. At least I knew it would fit in my backpack. (I think it's from a hotel in New Jersey.)

Ummm, "Ice Rink Ahead"?

After the thrift store we stopped by a brewery that Daphne had read about. I want to note that we weren't in a trendy or touristy neighborhood. We were just in a neighborhood. The brewery was filled with local people who were nice to us and went on their own way. Daphne just sat there smiling and looking so relaxed. 

After awhile, we hit the restaurant across the street. Mexican food in Canada? Heck yes!

Char picked out a Weird, but True at the thrift store to buy, and she was perfectly happy to sit and read by herself while we ordered dinner. Can you spot her?

Dinner was great, by the way. Mexican food - it's great anywhere you go. 

While we were walking "home" Daphne squeezed my hand, pulled me towards her and said, "I loved that!" 

Despite the heat, Montreal was a good time.

Canada Vacation '18: Kingston

We had some time before our train left Toronto, so we went out to get breakfast. On the way I spotted this A&W sign. Canada A&W isn't the same as America A&W, and this sandwich isn't available here. Had I known that, I might have stopped in to try a Beyond Meat Burger just for fun.

When I was kid I would always ask my mom if I could take the bags she had filled at the mall out to the car. On the way to the parking lot, I'd swing her car keys around my index finger trying to show the world that I was indeed old enough to drive a car.

Char's version of this display of false maturity is to have milk poured into a coffee cup. She'll sip from the cup and swoon to whoever is within earshot, "Ummm. This is goood coffee!"

It was time to head to the train station. I was struck to see how much it looked like a cathedral. I used to teach the story "By the Waters of Babylon", and its narrator thought that Grand Central Terminal was a place of worship. I get that now.

I'm going to try to not gush, but I discovered that I loved traveling by train. " l'avenir esta bord" translates into "The future is on board." I have to agree. Train travel is definitely in my future.

I thought that trains would just rattle along, and I would be bored out of my skull. Instead, the trains were quite fast and so relaxing that I took more than one nap. I've never been comfortable enough to sleep on a plane, so although planes might be speedier, the time spent on the train went by faster - if that make any sense.

You must pose by a street sign that features your cat's name.

I'm not sure if Kingston is on many people's radar when visiting Canada, but it should be. 

The downtown area is beautiful, and there are blocks and blocks of fun shops to visit.

They had a farmers' market that we had to visit, and the next day this was transformed into a flea market. We didn't have time to visit the flea market, though. So sad. I love flea markets. The uptick is that we didn't have room in our luggage for me to buy much anyway.



The real draw for us to visit Kingston was their prison tour. We all really enjoyed visiting Alcatraz when we were in San Francisco, and this looked like a similar experience.

At Alcatraz you take an audio tour via headphones. The actual tour guides there know all the facts about the prison, but they were too young to have experienced it. 

Kingston Penitentiary closed in 2013, and until then it was a working facility. The tour guides worked at the Kingston Pen as guards, and when they talked about Kingston you can sense the pride they have in their facility, and a real a sense of loss that it isn't in operation any more. 

These are the housing units that prisoners (with no record of domestic abuse) could rent so their entire family could visit for a weekend. Prisoners could earn up to $6 a day, and their savings would provide the rent and the food for the visit. Unused food items were donated because they couldn't enter the prison facility.

These are the solitary confinement cells. These were used as way to keep a prisoner safely away from the rest of population if they had made a mistake (like welshing on a bet) until the problem could be sorted out. They had been removed before we got there, but each prisoner in solitary confinement was given a TV to watch.

Prisoners were allowed to decorate their cells, too.

The stairs to the school and work area were impressive. If a prisoner hadn't earned a high school diploma, then they had to go to school before they could get a job. The school was an entity on its own. It had a principal, teaching staff, and a government-approved curriculum. 

According to one of the tour guides,  the city of Kingston would like to tear down the prison to commercially develop its lakefront location. So, I don't know how long these walls will be here.

Kingston is known for its 19th-century buildings. Stunning houses like these were not out of the ordinary.

Kingston is also doing a lot of construction down by the lake.

Random, this looks like Europe, photo.

We have Dollar Tree stores in Des Moines, but every thing costs a buck there. Must be the exchange rate...

Last year when we visited Victoria, Canada, I called it the B and B city. There were bakeries and book stores on every street. That wasn't true for the cities we visited this summer. We found a few book stores in Kingston, though. I took this picture in one of them because I thought my sister-in-law would like it.

Here's the house we stayed in. It was built in the mid 1800's.

Honestly, this was the location that we were most excited about staying in, and it was our least favorite. When we arrived an elderly couple told us that their son and daughter-in-law had just purchased the house, and they were going to covert it back into a single family home. The woman gave me a "you're lucky you even get to stay here" vibe that I didn't appreciate.

The owners sure weren't trying hard. Imagine giving your guests a threadbare beach towel to use in the bathroom. That embarrasses me, and I was the guest.

How many bulbs aren't working? Yes, you're not trying very hard.

The small apartment had a kitchen that looked like it was updated in the 1950's. It reminded me of a our house in Inwood, Iowa. For me, this was the best room in the place.

Montreal was up next, but we had to first stop by this bakery to get breakfast before we left town.

I'll write a short food post at the end of these Canada stories...