This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Summer Break 2023, Part 1
Jul
19
2023
Our vacation plan this year was to go to Canada, as you may recall from my earlier post about things I learned in Canada. Now here’s a recap of what we did, rather than learned, in Canada.
Day 1:
This was a travel day, basically driving 9-6. I like to travel different ways to and from vacation destinations, so to get from Detroit to Montreal I went south of the Great Lakes. A full day’s drive got us to Syracuse, NY. Not much there, other than dinner and sleeping at the hotel.
For those who like seafood, I suggest visiting the Clam Bar in Syracuse. We went there, and it’s not what I’d call a classy place. It’s a classic bar, with a full menu. Some Wife chose it because they bring in fresh seafood daily. The food was good, and plentiful.
Oh, on the way to Syracuse we had to go through Cleveland. We ended up there around lunch time, so we stopped at a park to have a picnic. Some Wife also chose this stop, called Squire’s Castle.
It’s just for show. It used to be someone’s residence, but now it’s an empty shell. Still, it’s fun because it’s open for people to wander through. And the grounds are expansive, plenty of place to picnic and throw a Frisbee.
So lunch in Cleveland, then dinner and hotel in Syracuse. We didn’t get to see much of Syracuse. Gamma was hoping to see the downtown skyline, but we were actually in Liverpool – outside Syracuse – and our drive never involved going into Syracuse.
Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.
Day 2:
This was mostly a travel day. Breakfast at the hotel, then drive to Canada. We went over at the Thousand Islands crossing, and it was a fairly simple affair. We had passports for me and the wife, drivers licenses for Alpha and Beta, and birth certificates for Gamma and Delta. Just a couple questions from the Canadian border guard, and we were in.
Here’s a photo of the river at the Thousand Islands area, just before the border crossing.
We drove for a bit, then stopped by a Real Canadian Superstore, which was right next to a Walmart. In case the border guard was having a bad day, I didn’t want him to be able to nitpick on any food we had with us, so our plan was to go into Canada with a minimal amount of food, then stock up for the week before we arrived at the rental house. We did have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, plus chips and some grapes – that was our lunch we ate in the car just after the border.
Anyway, we got to the RCS and we had fun looking at various Canadian products, all sorts of brands we don’t get at home. Plus some we do have at home, they just look different.
This is also where we got the bag of milk. And when we got to the checkout line, with enough food to feed a family of 6 for four days, we realized that they do not provide bags for you at all. So we paid $1 for 3 re-usable bags to stuff most of the things in. They’re cheaply made, but we still have them and I’m trying to get my money’s worth out of them.
Another drive, for maybe 1.5 hours, and we got to the province of Quebec. It was easy to tell when that happened, because the road signs were French only, instead of English and French. But we had been observing the bilingual road signs for long enough at that point that we could handle no English.
Then another hour or so and we arrived at our rental house. Here is the street it was on, a nice neighborhood. This is looking out from the place.
We unpacked, setup the kitchen, relaxed for a little bit, then made dinner, and then headed out to our first tourist stop in Montreal – Mount Royal.
Mount Royal is a tall hill kind of in the middle of the island of Montreal. Fun fact – Montreal got its name from a pronunciation of “Mount Royal”.
Our destination was Mount Royal Park, specifically the chalet, as it has a plaza that overlooks the city.
And then, because we didn’t have any other plans for the evening and because I paid to park for 1.5 hours and we spent only 20 minutes so far, we went on a little hike. There are plenty of paths throughout the park, and there were plenty of other people walking, running (ambitious, since there’s a lot of elevation change there), and biking.
The hike was a good change from sitting in the van all day. After that, we went back to the rental house and I read a bit before bed.
Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.
Day 3:
This was the day to walk around downtown Montreal. We drove into the city, and the parking garage I had picked out was closed, so we had to go to plan B, which was to park at King Edward Quay.
The plan was to walk through the piers, then walk by the Notre Dame Basilica, then grab lunch at the Underground City. Then figure out what we wanted to do after that, maybe something downtown would be of interest once we came across it.
So we parked at the quay. Here’s the view from there looking north to the Vieux Port.
It was pretty hazy, due to the wildfires in our host country.
And if we looked east, we could see the biosphere, which we didn’t know what it was at the time, just that it was an impressively large object.
Downtown was a nice place to walk, it reminded me more of Europe than of North America.
Once you saw the Ferris wheel and the zip lines, there actually wasn’t much to the pier. There were plenty of people out and about, but maybe they were mostly shopping?
Then we headed up a couple blocks to the cathedral.
As it was a Sunday, and it’s a functioning church (services in French), we didn’t go in to see what it looked like.
Then it was over to the Underground City, and that is where things started to go bad. You see, I had seen the promotional literature and pictured it as a nice big place, like a giant mall. Here’s an excerpt from mtl.org:
Explore Montréal’s famed Underground City as you shop: this pedestrian network right under the heart of the city links metro stations to shopping plazas for over 33 kilometres (about 20.5 miles). It’s a lifesaver when you want to stroll, shop and eat away from the hot blazing sun or the freezing snow, but it’s also a go-to destination for the whole family anytime. It opens up a world of entertainment.
In reality, you just go to the places that are worth it aboveground. The “underground city” is really just a subway system but without the trains – you walk through tunnels, and the maps are confusing. We wandered around for a while, got lost, and thus our lunchtime got pushed back and back, making people unhappy. We gave up and walked on the normal not-underground sidewalks to the Eaton Centre and had lunch at the Time Out Market. That was a good place – it’s a giant food court with a dozen or so restaurants of all different styles.
Lunch really helped. Now everyone could manage the walk back to the van. We swung by a couple stores on our way out, including a Dollarama, but that was it for Montreal. No one wanted to do anything else, so we headed back mid afternoon and had some down time until dinner.
Then it came time for dinner. There were no solid dinner plans. The house was walking distance from some shops and restaurants, so we picked a restaurant that looked to have a decent variety of things (plus poutine) and we headed there. Foreshadowing – it was called a pub & grill. On our way there, we passed a Chinese place. Alpha decided he’d rather have dumplings than pub food, so he and Some Wife (because she had money) dropped off to eat there. I took the other 3 kids to the pub and grill, and as you may have already read, we got kicked out, so we headed back to the Chinese place and we all got dumplings. Except for Delta, who got basically chicken tenders.
Then we walked back to the house, and it was evening, then morning the next day.
To Be Continued…
And he purchased the hill Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; and he built on the hill, and named the city which he built Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill.
1 Kings 16:24
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 11:08 pm and has been carefully placed in the Travel category.
December 1st, 2023 at 1:39 pm
Couldn’t find the writing as to why you were kicked out? Why was that?
February 22nd, 2024 at 8:44 pm
Under age