I'd best start by saying sorry to those who jumped slightly to conclusions. We just couldn't pass up an opportunity to have a joke.
Anyway, we were leaving Quebec City and heading on a pretty long trip to London, Ontario, in order to spend some time catching up with family who live there. We were slightly worried about our train rides, as the tickets only came with a 40lb weight limit, which we reckoned would be well under our actual luggage weight. For some reason, the hostel decided to check a couple of people into our room at about 4:30 in the morning which woke us up, so we weren't particularly pleased. We were up at 6 though and walking through the cold rain to the train station. As is typical when we worry, we needn't have bothered one jot. Charlottes bag was under 40 and mine was just over and the lady who checked us in didn't bat an eyelid. After a short wait, we boarded the train and were on our way. Our trip was taking place in 3 different parts. Our first leg was Quebec City to Ottawa, which took us around 5 hours. It was a pleasant ride on a fairly quiet carriage through some pretty boring countryside. Once we arrived at Ottawa, we hopped off the train, headed up into the main concourse of the station and immediately queued up for our next leg, which was leaving from the same platform we'd just arrived at. The next leg was Ottawa to Toronto, which was slightly shorter than the first leg. It felt about 10 hours longer though, as for the entire trip we had a crying baby behind us. For some reason, just having got the baby quiet, the mum thought it would be a good idea to cut the baby’s nail with some scissors, which set it off at its highest volume for the remainder of the trip. It was a huge relief to finally arrive at Toronto and when we hopped off the train, we were immediately collared by a lady who pointed us in the direction of our next train, which was the final leg of the journey and short in comparison, only 2 and a half hours from Toronto to London. It was a short trip but still dragged on and we arrived at our final destination about half an hour late, around 22:15. My uncle Stewart was waiting in the station to pick us up and we were whisked off to his house where Auntie Lyn and cousin Georgina were there to greet us, even at such a late hour. Once the greetings were done and dusted, Stewart offered to take our bags down to our room in the basement and we followed with some of our things. I'd like to say it was a surprise to see my brother, Rob and his girlfriend, Hannah sitting in the basement but through various conversations with certain people, we'd made some educated guesses and were pretty sure there were plans afoot. Once our bags were stored, we headed upstairs to the dining table and spent a good amount of time catching up with everybody. The next time we looked at our watches, it was 2am and definitely time for bed after what had been a long day.
The following day was a pretty special one. It was my birthday but more importantly, it was our second cousin Kyleigh’s too. We had a light brekkie before heading round to our cousins house where we were attending a slap up BBQ in honour of 4 birthdays that would be taking place over the coming week. We were greeted by our cousin Angie, her husband Matt, their daughter Kyleigh and Matt’s mum and dad, Deb and Chan, as well as the family dog, Chewy. We spent our time before food catching up with all the family over a few beers and Skyped home to allow mum and dad Hosie to say hello to everyone. After the short call, it was time for the feast to begin and we tucked in to steak, prawns, chicken, veggie kebabs, rice and plenty of salad. All the meat was cooked by Matt and was perfection and everything else was prepared by Angie and was also top notch. We all sat down to eat in their newly converted basement and had a right feast. With our dinner compartments nice and full, it was lucky we'd left room in our dessert compartments for what would be Kyleigh’s highlight of the day, an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. It was iced with a happy birthday message to Kyleigh and myself for the 7th, Lyn for the 9th and Angie for the 10th. After our food, we all struggled to move for a considerable amount of time, apart from to get up to grab a beer. As the day went on, it was time to leave Angie, Matt and Kyleigh and return to Stewart's to get over our huge feast.
The following day, after a large breakfast at a nearby diner, we headed to an Enterprise car rental shop to hire a car in order for the 4 of us to get around without having to inconvenience Stewart. Initially, the chap behind the counter claimed they had no suitable cars available, but when we said we'd happily go elsewhere, a decent sized Hyundai Alantra quickly appeared and we plumped for that. With the car wrapped up, we returned to Stewart's place, where we picked up some belongings for an overnight stop and headed off. It was the first time Rob had driven on the right side of the road but after a short while, he started to get used to it. Our destination was the city of Toronto, which was a relatively easy jaunt down the highway. It got slightly complicated when we actually reached downtown Toronto but we eventually found the hotel Rob and Hannah had booked for our night stay. After some confusion over rooms and reservations, we dropped our things in the room and headed out. We'd booked to see a baseball game that evening but were very early for the start, so to pass the time, Rob and Hannah ventured up the CNTower, whilst Charlotte and I, as we'd both done the CN tower before, wandered round the base and nosed in a couple of shops. Once Charlotte and I had had our fill, we walked back to the gift shop at the bottom of the tower in order to pick up a pin badge and just happened to bump in to Rob and Hannah, who were doing a spot of souvenir shopping themselves. We thought it best to stick together then from then on and after a quick bite of pizza for dinner, we headed towards the Rogers Centre and hunted down our seats for the game. Charlotte and I had been to a baseball game in Boston and had been pretty disappointed with the view from our seats, so when we eventually found where ours were located this time, it was a huge improvement. We were pretty high up in right field but had a fantastic view of all the play. After all the build up of national anthems, opening pitches and sponsor nonsense the game finally got underway, with Charlotte sporting her new Toronto Blue Jays shirt and me my new cap. Toronto played a pretty good game and eventually triumphed 4-2, which helped Rob and Hannah enjoy the game a bit more. Unfortunately, as with football, half the crowd was gone before the game ended but it probably made for a swifter exit. From the stadium, it was a 25 minute walk back to our hotel, through a slightly dodgy neighbourhood. We made it back safely though and we all went to one room to have a few beers and play a game of cards Rob and Hannah had brought with them.
The next morning we were up bright and early in order to beat the crowds to Toronto’s shiny new aquarium at the base of the CN tower. We picked up a Tim Horton’s brekkie on the walk in we had it polished off by the time we reached the aquarium. The aquarium had come highly recommended by our cousin Angie, so we thought it a good thing to spend our morning doing. Fortunately, due to the early hour, there were no crowds, which made our passage through the turnstiles and the first area pretty easy, however, we did eventually get caught up be endless screaming children when we reached the escalator that carried us through a transparent tube where we could look up at gigantic saw fish and sharks. From there we had to wade our way through herds of incredibly rude children but we still managed to really enjoy the aquarium. We made it round in around 2 hours and once out, toyed with the idea of doing other things in Toronto. We ruled it out though, seeing as we didn't want to be getting back to London too late and only had a limited amount of parking remaining at the hotel. So we walked back to the car and headed out of town, with Charlotte in the hot seat instead of Rob. Charlotte had a small amount of experience driving on the wrong side of the road, so was slightly more confident than Rob had been. Charlotte’s first contribution was to almost go the wrong way down a one way road but in her defence, the map we were using was to blame for that. We managed to direct ourselves on to the highway and headed to the town of Elora, which is about an hour west of Toronto. It was a pretty straight forward drive and after pulling up in the quaint little town, we grabbed a seat in the Elora brewing company where we had a beer and a bite to eat. Elora is a bit of a tourist town, so we popped in and out of a few of the antique and trinket shops before heading in the direction of Elora gorge. We'd tried previously to get into the conservation area but had flatly refused to pay the rather extortionate entrance fee. After a short stroll out of town, we managed to find a small park that had a pathway down to a small lookout over the gorge. From mine and Rob’s vague memories we were attempting to find a place called the tooth of time but it was proving elusive. The tooth of time is a rock that had the rough waters of the river rushing past either side of it and appears to defy erosion by remaining to stand. When we found the right place, we were disappointed, as it was surrounded by road works and construction on either side, so we had no chance of having a look. We decided then that it was time to start heading back to London but made a quick pit stop at the liquor store to pick up a couple of bottles of wine for Aunty Lyn’s birthday. Just as we arrived home, Stewart and Lyn were just stepping out of the car having arrived home from taking one of their Jack Russell dogs, Maggie, to the vet to have a look at her eye. We found out she was in for an op the following Monday, so would be keeping our fingers crossed everything worked out okay. Lyn rustled us up an incredibly simple but utterly appreciated dinner of beans on toast, something that you just can't beat when it comes to a meal.
We had one final adventure ahead of us with the car, which was a trip down to Niagara Falls. Stewart came down with us for the first part of the day, so Rob and Hannah drove with him, while Charlotte and I travelled in the rented car. We arrived in Niagara around half past 10 and parked up, before walking down to the Falls themselves. Despite Rob, Charlotte and myself having visited the falls before, we still couldn't help but be impressed by the huge volumes of water cascading across the 2 waterfalls. For Hannah, it was all new and, I'm sure, pretty impressive. We spent our time appreciating the falls and taking as many combinations of photos as we could. Stewart, Charlotte and myself spent a considerable amount of time chatting away and watching the mesmerising water, whilst Rob and Hannah had a look around one the large gift shops within the Niagara Falls visitor centre. After we'd seen enough of the falls, we walked up Clifton Hill, which is the main drag of the town and packed out with tourists shops, fast food joints and haunted houses. We made a few stops but not for long, as the area was far too tacky to enjoy. From Clifton Hill, we walked back to the car park and went our separate ways. Stewart returned to London to run a few errands and the 4 of us headed up to the lakeside town of Niagara-on-the-Lake for the afternoon. After parking up, we spent some time wandering around the town, which wasn't that different from the town of Elora we'd stopped at the day before. The major difference was the location right in Lake Ontario, which we visited after having a beer in the Olde Angel Inn pub. As it was such a clear day, we could easily make out the distant skyline of Toronto across the other side of the lake, with the CN Tower clearly visible, towering above all. Once upon a time when it was built, the CN Tower was the tallest freestanding building in the world but has since been overtaking by a number of taller towers, although that's not to say it isn't an impressive sight. We'd agreed to get back to London by 7 o'clock, in time for a roast lamb dinner cooked for us by Aunty Lyn. Despite leaving with plenty of time to spare, the traffic through the town of Hamilton was pretty solid, which put us back a bit and then after a wrong turn, we were sure we were going to be back late. We phoned ahead to let everyone know but by the time we arrived back in London, we were only 15 minutes later than planned, which wasn't too bad. The roast lamb was delicious and came with all the trimmings like stuffing, mint sauce and plenty of vegetables. We could hardly move once we were finished but had plenty of room for beer and some whiskey afterwards.
The final 2 full days of Rob and Hannah being in London were spent with Stewart exploring some more local areas of Ontario. Our first trip out was to the town of Stratford, which was about an hours drive from London. Like its namesake, Stratford is known for its theatres, has a few statues of William Shakespeare and also boasts a river called the Trent. Stewart was expecting there to be flocks of swans floating on the Trent river but as we walked along the banks, the only animal we saw was a couple of geese from a great distance. After our enjoyable walk along the river and around the town, we hunted down a pub where we could have a couple of beers before heading back to London. After our trip to Stratford, we went for the first of 2 consecutive meals out at the Mandarin restaurant. Rob and I had memories of visiting a restaurant called the Harmony as children and had always remembered coming out packed out from huge buffet. Stewart had told us that the Harmony had now closed down but the Mandarin was a worthy alternative, so we decided to check it out. It turned out to be more than a worthy heir to the Harmony, with hundred of dishes to choose from with all sorts of cuisines covered.
The next day was spent taking a thoroughly enjoyable walk around a place called Springbank Park, which unlike Stratford, was packed full of wildlife ready to photographed. We saw Canadian Geese, Farm Geese, carps in the rivers, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Black Squirrels, Grey Squirrels and even a lone woodpecker right at the end. It was a lovely walk and thankfully, the weather had finally brightened up a wee bit. After our jaunt around the park, we headed in to downtown London for a look around in Covent Garden. The market was bustling with people selling all sorts of food, confectionary, fresh fruit and veg, jewellery and wood carvings. We didn't end up buying anything but enjoyed the time spent browsing the market. After the market, we walked up to a bar called the Poachers Arms, where we each got a drink and where Rob and I played a couple of games of pool. Our second meal out was to a place called Kelsey’s, which served up impressive racks of ribs, burger and a couple of good salads. It was yet another night where we ended up so full we could hardly walk but we'd thoroughly enjoyed our week spent with Stewart, Lyn, Georgie, as well as meeting up with Matt, Angie and Kyleigh.
Saturday was Rob and Hannah’s final day and after a quick visit to a farmers market where we picked up some tasty beef jerky, we spent the afternoon eating and drinking in the back garden, making the most of the pleasantly warm weather. At 3, We said our goodbyes and Stewart whisked Rob and Hannah to Toronto airport, in order for them to catch their flight home. While Stewart was away and after a nap, we cooked up a chilli dinner for Stewart, Lyn and Georgie in order to say thank you for having and tolerating us all for the week.
Our last day was spent relaxing and saying our goodbyes to everyone before a final walk round London and then a quick beer in a pub. Lyn cooked us up a lovely roast chicken dinner before we said yet more goodbyes and Stewart dropped us off at a destination that may have to remain a secret until people have had a chance to guess the clue at the end of this post.
"Bet your bottom dollar you'll lose the blues..."
James and Charlotte
Chicago, Frank Sinatra
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