Category: Canada

Niagara Falls

This morning, I woke up early after not sleeping well as I typically do when I have to ensure my waking up early. I made my way to the train station and got a muffin to bring on board with me for the little journey down to Niagara falls. Just 2 hours away, Niagara Falls seemed like a no brainer to add to my itinerary. Once we arrived at the Niagara station, we were let off literally in the middle of no where onto the grass. I laughed and asked the worker what are we supposed to do to get to the falls. He said, you can walk on the street about 45 minutes to get to them. It’s definitely not what I expected to see when disembarking the train at Niagara Falls.

So off I went and enjoyed a walk along the Niagara River until the kitchiness of Niagara started to unfold. The walk was nice and really didn’t take 45 minutes—maybe just a half hour, and I saw the falls in the distance. Coming up to the first one, it somehow wasn’t as big as I was expecting. I actually had envisioned a drop off that was even higher / deeper, and wondered if what I was seeing was everything. I then continued on to the bigger one, and as the mist cooled me from the hot sun, I found myself taking a few pictures and being content with what I’d seen. Someone had suggested going to Niagara on the Lake, a small community that had shops and restaurants, so I looked up the details of how to get there and there was a shuttle system that brought you over.

I got my tickets and was on my way out of Niagara to this little town. What I was told would take just about 20 minutes took 20 minutes plus a transfer for another 20 minutes plus another transfer for 10 minutes. It was definitely not as described in convenience so I had to calculate the time in which I would need to leave in order to catch my train that evening at 5:45PM.

My first mission was to find food, so I looked on yelp and found the highest ranked restaurant and headed there. Another farm to table type place, I got an amazing pasta dish with a beautiful raspberry refreshing lemonade with mint. The meal was perfect and I was completely fulfilled by the end. I then headed to walk the streets of all these little shops.

Unfortunately, it seems like all the shops were geared towards older women in their 50’s 60’s with clothing, jewelry, gardening knick knacks and the like. However, there were about 4 old timey candy stores that enjoyed a visit too J

After walking around a bit, I decided to head back to make sure I caught the hourly shuttle back to the transfer so I could get back to the train by 5:45. I left around 3:30 and got the 4PM shuttle back. By about 5PM I was on my walk back to the train station and when I got inside, I saw the screen say that the train had been delayed until 6:30. DRATS. I’d made so much effort to get back in time, and there’s literally nothing around—it’s like a ghost town around the station. Fortunately, a mother and daughter were there picking up her other daughters coming in from the US, and they were heading back to their hotel and offered me a ride to get food. She said it was just a couple of blocks away, so I agreed, and got in the car and headed off for the restaurants. What she said was 2 blocks, got farther and farther away and after about 7 minutes of driving, I said, I needed to be careful about how far I go so I can walk back. She said no problem that she would pick me back up since they had to go back anyway. I agreed since I wanted to eat so got into the city where I hadn’t been and checked out all their crazy stores and places. It was like a Gatlinburg with haunted houses, wax museums, guiness book of world records museum and such. I ended up getting a fast food hot dog just to make sure I could start heading back in case I couldn’t rely upon being picked up.

I checked the online schedule for the train and it was delayed again until 7:15PM so I relaxed a little and strolled around. The trashiness of it all wore me down quick and I was ready to head back to the station right when the woman texted me saying that her daughters texted saying it was arriving soon.

So I told her where I was and within 5 minutes, she picked me up and we all went to the station together. The hold up was customs as all the passengers have to get off the train, be cleared, to just get back on the train again. So, 7:15PM was our departure, and we headed back to Toronto after a long, adventurous and tiring day of great sightseeing.

My last day of Toronto was spent with Sean again as he picked me up when I needed to leave the apartment. Earlier that morning I got everything ready and headed to St Lawrence Market to find a bagel and walk around the beautiful marketplace. Once Sean picked me up, we headed to Queen West area for some lunch at a cute café. It was perfect!

Sean then drove me to the airport and we’ll look forward to seeing each other in Austin hopefully in a few weeks!

Toronto

Arriving in Toronto by train was very easy. As I came out of the Union Station terminal, it was night time, and everyone was looking up with their cell phones taking pictures. When I turned around, fireworks had just begun for the PanAmerican games closing ceremony from the CN Tower. It was a pretty cool thing to see as a welcome to the city.

Uber is very available and useful, so I Ubered to my Airbnb and despite a cumbersome instruction to get the keys and entrance, everything worked out with access fine. This was the first time (well second) that I had been a little disappointed from the Airbnb unit. There were several things that weren’t super confortable such as the noise from the hallway, the noise from the AC, the temperature regulation of the AC, the water pressure in the shower, the cheap towels that stayed wet after one use, and the instruction to take garbage out despite a $50 cleaning fee. There were long hairs in the shower and bathroom, and the place was just not as clean as I’d expect for it being a higher priced unit. Anyhow, it was doable, and I got to bed.

The next morning, my friend Sean came to pick me up and he drove me to another condo unit he and his fiancé own which gives great views of the city from the top of the roof pool. We then went back to their condo and got bikes and he took me around downtown on bikes and over to the terminal to take a ferry to Centre Island. This place was amazing! Just off the coast of Toronto is a beautiful nature park with residential areas and no cars. Cute, quaint homes lined wooded streets with pathways for walking and bikes. Beaches with actual sand to Lake Ontario made for beautiful sun bathing and playing in cool water and after a great work up for appetite, we stopped at a restaurant which amazingly had great food and normal pricing.

After a good exercise of this, we continued biking around downtown and we went by a cool distillery area with shops and restaurants. We biked all the way back to their condo and put the bikes up and got our bathing suits to go back up to the pool on the roof top and enjoy a nice refreshing reward of our day excursion.

When we finished our swim, Sean brought me back to my place and we got ready to go to dinner and I met him back downtown for a sushi dinner at a place called Japango. We did a chef Omakase and enjoyed so much sushi that we couldn’t even finish part of the last dish that was brought out. He then took me to the Times Square of Toronto with great city lights and people watching. We walked around and we got some ice cream to continue our walk around.

We finally ended our fun filled day with a good experience of Toronto and fun conversation. I headed back home and went to bed so I could get up for another full day tomorrow.

The next day, I got up and headed back downtown to go to the CN Tower to take a look out. These places are such rip offs. It’s really too bad, but $40 to ride an elevator up a tower and look out was really not worth it at all. I guess it’s a once in a lifetime thing to do, but none the less, it was annoying that it’s so grossly overcharged. After the CN Tower, I headed to walk all around the city towards Kensington Markets, and then over to a sandwich shop to have lunch. It was so hot, the walking with a backpack and camera was getting annoying with feeling sweaty, so I tried to stay in the shade as much as possible. After miles of walking around the city, I made my way back home for a quick recharge, and decided to go to a restaurant nearby for dinner after. I walked to this Farm to Table Italian restaurant that was highly ranked in Yelp, and was pleasantly surprised by a fantastic meal.

Hand made chicken dumplings with olive, Fig with goat cheese, and Arancini balls with Bolognese sauce created an amazingly cohesive meal of appetizers that worked perfectly together. I was very happy with my meal, relaxing and enjoying watching people walk by the restaurant. That evening I relaxed and got ready for bed for my day trip to Niagara Falls the next day.

 

Montreal, the city of Mont Royal.

After my delayed flight leaving Chicago, I had an easy trip to Montreal. Arriving, it was very straight forward and despite most signs being in French, I was able to get around just fine. I got a taxi to the address of my Airbnb, and perfectly, I opened the lid of the mailbox and the keys were inside just as promised. I got inside, and it was perfect. Nothing special, but exactly what I wanted. It had a hallway that opened to the bedroom on the left, then a living area kitchen and bathroom. Everything was laid out for me including toiletries, towels, and even maps of Montreal. I was excited for the next morning when I’d be able to explore around everywhere.

 The next morning, I got up and headed for what I thought was going to be a cute little café called Café Depot. Unfortunately, this was a chain like Starbucks but it did the job of getting me a good egg sandwich to start the day. I then met up with Pascal, a Montrealer, and we toured the entire city by foot. We walked through the neighborhoods and made our way to Vieux Montreal passing by the Hotel de Ville. We walked along the cobble streets looking at all the buildings and shops including the Marche Bonsecoure. We then stopped to have lunch at a nice restaurant nearby and enjoyed a couple of salads, one of which was a little odd. Pork with tzatziki, watermelon, feta, which had been recommended by the waitress named Pascale too, and she sported a completely non accented English which was impressive. Along with her, everyone else I’ve met in shops switches between perfect French and near perfect English like a light switch. It’s truly a bilingual city for sure–so much so I’d feel just silly trying to even say anything in French.

We then headed for the Montreal clock tower where we were able to climb up the stairs to the top of the tower to get a great view of Old Montreal. We also saw the 1967 blocks building where now wealthy Montrealers live. It’s an interesting series of blocks that look like they’re stacked upon one another which have been turned into really nice apartments.

 We then went back through the main center of town that was filled of food trucks and stalls serving great foods. I tried a wonderful pink lemonade sweetened with pure maple syrup. I then got my sweet fix (as if that wasn’t enough) from trying a cream filled donut. It was great. For dinner, we made our way to dinner for a great Steak Trite dinner. I had a St. Philip 10oz with bottomless fries! It was great! And well deserved after a long day touring throughout what felt like the entire city. We ended the night with plans for the next day to meet up with his friends.

 The next day I headed back to the Old part of the city to go to the Notre Dame church where Céline Dion got married :) I went to check the lines and decided to get lunch first and stopped at this nice little café run by Greeks. I had a great prosciutto sandwich with a fresh tomato and cucumber salad. After lunch I went back to the Norte Dame St Basilica church for an hour tour. It was interesting to learn about the church, but maybe I’ve been to many beautiful churches now where the tours don’t really show anything too unique much anymore. But we went through to both chapels as well as the back room where priests get ready and dressed. One interesting tidy bit was the white stones out front on the street are there to show the original footprint of the church in the plaza.

 After my tour, I went to meet up with Pascal and his friend Dominic. We walked around an area of town called Mile End for a while. We then went to meet Pascal and Dominic’s friends at a bar called Alexanderplatz. Here it was an outdoor industrial setting with a great atmosphere. All of Pascal’s friends were great and friendly, and we sat for a couple hours enjoying the sun going down and the perfect weather. A few of us ordered some tacos from the stand there, and it was surprisingly good. The sausages were a little dry, but the black bean one was delicious. Moist and a hint of curry, it was a great flavor and a nice homage to Austin :) After our hang out, we all took Bixi bikes to a restaurant that specialized in meatballs! It was so good! We ordered a smorgasbord of various types ranging from a chicken curry meatball, lamb tzatziki, cornbeef (smoked meat), risotto with fish. It was amazingly interesting and rich. We need a meatball restaurant in Austin! We ended our meal with a great cookie sandwich that had ice cream in between. I opted for the maple ice cream sandwiched by two warm chocolate chip cookies. I was absolutely stuffed! We then bike rided back through the city back to Dominic’s and hung out for a bit before I headed home.

The next morning, Pascal invited me to breakfast with his friends and had a great brunch. After a fun brunch full of laughing, we all went to Parco Lorienne after seeing Pascal’s cute apartment loft. We had blankets and games and played while enjoying the beautiful weather. We also watched as these guys tried earnestly to get their little grill lit.

 After a few hours of relaxing in the park, I left and went to look at some shops to see if I found anything specific I wanted from Montreal. I love their Bixi biking system. $5 and you can use the bikes all around the city for 24 hours. It’s perfect for exploring easily and the bike lanes make it very easy and safe to wander around and simply find a station to park the bike when you’re done. After exploring around the city so much, I usually would feel very confident in directions and at least which cardinal direction I was heading but I literally felt so directionally challenged I couldn’t ever tell which direction I was going toward, despite coming across the same streets over and over.

 That night, there was a fire works show of USA’s presentation. Over the summer there’s a big competition of fireworks displays and every Wednesday and Saturday a different country represents.. and Saturday was the USA. So I met up with Pascal and his friends again to view the USA entry–which was timed to music ranging from Vivaldi to Johnny Cash. It was an impressive display!

After the fireworks show, we headed back to Cacao 70, a dessert shop with various chocolate creations. I got an Iced chocolate as they were so slammed full after the show that there wasn’t much that you could really easily get as takeaway. It was good and a great way to end the night.

The next morning, I got my apartment ready to check out and put my luggage over at the owner’s apartment. I then got a bixi bike and ventured all around the town again until finding a place for lunch.. a great place called Burger Royal. It was a delicious farm to table type restaurant with delicious meat and house made cheddar cheese! I then wandered around until late afternoon and went back to pick up my luggage and chatted with the owner who was interestingly entrepreneurial so we had a nice chat about his business. I then Ubered to the train station and boarded the train with ease and got settled in for my journey to Toronto!

Stop in Vancouver

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Our next stop on my vessel tour was Vancouver, British Columbia. It was so beautiful pulling into port there. The skies were clear and blue, the air was fresh, the city situated on the water was so nice looking. There is a huge white, canvas-type looking, area that is the dock for the cruise ships. It also was an IMAX theater, but gave a very nice shape to the architecture of the skyline. Getting off the vessel and walking into town, you pass a very shady area. However, just a few blocks past it is the quaint area of Gas Town. Here, there is an old steam clock that runs only by the power of steam. The walkways were cobblestone and the roads were small and narrow. It was really european looking. After shopping and hanging around the area taking pictures, I made my way to the more center of town where there was a tall building with a viewing area above. It was cool to see how large Vancouver actually was. It seems like a very livable city.