Faks Cafe Very nice to kick back and chill or do whatever..... Time in Quebec so far so nice

Spent Christmas Eve 2007 here and my children, husband, and I woke up Christmas 2007 to gifts from Santa and then a flight (I had to catch) at 10:00am. This hotel service my needs well ... not located within the city but minutes away from the Toronto Pearson Airport /// so in my case to save time, maximize my time with my family, and having a cafe opened to the public as you step out of the hotel ... made my transition very easy or easier The rugs I feel, should be replaced ... but perhaps I was in the most used room ... The location of this hotel (seconds away from the airport) is a positive aspect though negative for light sleepers who can hear the sound of each domestic and/or international flight leaving or arriving into Toronto ... Primarily, a business hotel ... I'm not sure if I would return, unless I needed a well priced, inexpersive room near the Toronto Airpot

The OPUS ... so central and so close to the pubs and restaurants! A definite plus for me (and hubby Dan) This was the place to stay in which we could park our car and have the freedom of walking to many places without the hassle of parking or the worry of a parking ticket. If you need wireless like me, you better be on the first or second floor then you can 'tap' into their wireless otherwise there is a $15.00 fee for your computer to be 'hooked up' ... thankfully, Dan was able to hook my laptop up late last night ... don't know if that's what he wanted me to do, but hey, one has to 'make contact' with all her TB Friends!! Breakfast is part of the deal ... it's continental, coffee is hot, fruit is fresh, and the staff are refilling your coffee etc., they keep a close watch and refill as required but at the same time don't visit your table every 2 seconds. We could have accessed the gym but I'm into exercising my fingers on the net LOL ... coffee in the louge is always available, wireless in the lounge is always available, and the valets are always outside to park your car ASAP, open the door, or bring your luggage, never waiting for an expected TIP (as I have experienced before) ... Check it out, it's a great place to stay, the night life within the OPUS can be a downfall if you're a light sleeper, as it is very loud though it doesn't bother me as I am sound sleeper ... but hey, if you're on TB till 3am or later, no worries then ... the music and crouds are gone by then!! We paid $200.00CAD for a kingsize room, prices do vary depending on the time you visit Montreal, Quebec, Canada!!

I packed up the tent in Quebec, and headed out. The GPS insisted on taking me the wrong way while I defied it until we agreed. We seem to be falling out a lot at the moment, maybe I should buy it an accessory as a peace offering, or maybe one of those snoopy air fresheners to keep it company on the dash board. Suggestions please.

Driving along the transcanadian highway I found myself singing in French along with the radio, an experience I’m not prepared to reenact. My singing in French is only slightly better than my singing in English, but only because the words are sexier. As we crossed the border into New Brunswick the signal died and I re-tuned to a English speaking station, phew!

Then I almost ran out of fuel! My good for nothing GPS had lead me to a corner store on the outskirts of a village. I entered cautiously, the screen door twanging back and violently shoving me forward into the darkness. From somewhere within a small girl appeared. I uttered my well practiced ‘Parlez vous Anglais?’ to which I gained a nondescript gesture and a grin revealing a beautiful set of train tracks. Mostly using puppets I communicated my story, and she responded with detailed instructions, I nodded intently and then left having understood nothing.

The car spluttered back into life on its few remaining drops of fuel, and I rolled off to the next gas station.

After a refueling I drove off and found a picnic site. The water I had brought from Quebec tasted weird. PoD thought so too, so we cracked open a can instead.

Like the title says, it´s not luxury but it´s cheap. And that was only reason why I stayed there two nights. It wasn´t the worst place where I have ever stayed but I don´t recommend it if you have couple dollars to spare for a better place. It was like 5 block away from the Falls and it was nice but the amenities were bad and our table was ready to break down, our toiletteries were from other hotels and etc. But it is near and it is cheap, only good points that I can think of. :D

We got up before 4am and walked to metrostop and make our way to Boston Busstation. We had booked our tickets to Niagara Falls from Greyhound and it cost us $65 per person! Not bad.. Our bus leaved 07:10am and we our route was Boston-Albany-Syracuse-Buffalo-Niagara Falls! Luckyly we had to change bus only once. Nothing major happened in during the ride, it went actually pretty fast because I had a good book and it kept me occupied whole journey! We didn´t have any problems at the boarder and soon after that we were at Niagara Falls busstation. From there we took Falls shuttle bus and went straight to the Falls. We walked to our motel which was a interesting experience. It´s called Red Carpet Inn Suites and it´s pretty close the Falls and probably cheapest one. We had a big bed, shower and a tv.  But our table was about to break down and our toiletteries were from other hotels  and motels:D But I have stayed way worst places in my life so no major complains. It was near the American Falls so we walked there and enjoyed the views. We had planned to walk to Canadian Falls but mother nature had other plans. I have never saw clouds moving so fast, it was crazy! And after a minute this huge storm was above us, it was raining and huge lightnings!! It was awesome, I like storms:D So we went back to our motel and there was Celtics-LA Lakers final game on so we watched that and after Celtics lost we went to bed because the storm was just getting stronger and stronger..

Distance: 43 miles
Sights:
Royal Ontario Museum
CN Tower
Toronto City Hall

Distance: 1 mile

I knew Vancouver is one of the places where if you are a Sushi lover, you have the chance of being wowed by it! I've tried other very good Japanese restaurants in Vancouver but this one, discovered by chance after rollerblading in Stanley Park, was an absolute delight! It was back in 2004 and my friends and I are fondly remembering (watering our mouth to be more exact:)) the place...Everything was outstanding: service, food, ambient... Everything we've ordered mostly raw fish: sashimi and chirashi was exceptionally good, melting in your mouth.Also,by far the best grilled squid I've ever had!!! Highly recommend this place for Japanese Cuisine lovers!

go to the website to hear more. everyone's been talking about CiRCA for a long, long time. You should go there on Fridays, as it's the best night =D

This week end me and nancy wsa organised a meet up in montreal for the pleasure of my friend of tb!!!!!!!!!!!!

this week end beggin on the friday afternoon i have a big chance to finish to work very early and going down town montreal to meet some of my sweet friend in montreal!!!!!!!!!!So at 3h we fixe a meet point for debras and her friend madeline i call eric and he was in montreal too so we ask to him to join us on st-denis street and a another chance we met gloria on st-denis after 2 minutes of walk ahahahaah so now we are a little group for a simple walk on the old port of montreal!!!!!!!!!i call lalie and she was on the office close to her and after she work she come join the party!!!!!!!!!!!!I receive a call of nancy and she was join us with matt and ruthie only for the dinner on st -laurent street near 8 oclock!!!!!!!

Well we choose to go to see some beautifull place of the old port but we keep some good place for tommorrow morning so after the old port ,we choose to go to the jazz festival so nice me and eric make some fun there we debras and and madeline ,gloria and val,good show of jazz music and much pleasure on the spot!!!!!!!!!!Now it time to meet matt and ruthie and nancy at the restaurant (the time caffe on st-laurent ) the foos was nice and time pass with good friend too !!!!!!!!!after 9 hours together people was a little bit tired so debras,madeline,eric and gloria left to going to sleep me,nancy ,matt and ruthie going to the hotel of matt to continue a little bit the party after one hours me and lalie left the group to going to sleep tommorrow was another day ahahahahaha

July 5 the meet up day!!!!!!!!!i wake up at 9h30 in the morning take a little breakfast and send a sms to debra to know what tshe make she tell me im ready for fun so i take the bus and subway and join us at the same place of yesterday afternoon and walk directly on the old port for a long way visit of this famous place of montreal !!!!!!!!!i show her the court house,the old clock place ,jacques cartier bridge ,notre-dame basilic,jacqwues cartier place with the entertainer on this spotand wwe walk on the old street to show her the first wheel of montreal and the foundation spot of the city!!!!!!!!!!!it was very nice to spend all the day with this sympatic person in afternoon after lucnh nancy ,matt and ruthie join us and walk all together on the old port!!!!!!!!!after that all the people return at the hotel to change them clths and goingt o the meet point on the restaurant (st - hubert bbq)at this palce we met row-zzzz,danr,kelly woo,sharonburger,so the group was a little bit more !!!!!!we talk we good buddy all the dinner and fter direction the club !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the spot(st-sulpice) the name of the bar we choose a table and beggin to drink we good story ,joke and pleasure at this palce other tb buddy join us and no tb buddy to !!!!!!!!!!!!!so at the bar mini marie coming ,caissef too and my friend of vietnam marie -eve so all the night we drink and have fun with all the tb buddy there !!!!!!!!!!!the st-sulpice is a big bar with a big teraase(1500 persons on it) so the ambiance was great and the beer so nice!!!!!!!!!!well at the mid night the half of peeps leave us for sleeping and we continue the party until 2h30 in the morning i really appreciate the group and all the peeps who coming thank for all !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 THANK U TOO

1-LALIE

2-NANCY

3-DEBRAS

4-MADELINE

5-ERIC

6-ROW-ZZZZZ

7-DANCR

8-MATT

9-RUTTHIE

10-KELLY-WOO

11-CAISSEF

12-MINIMARIE

13-SHARONBURGER

14-GLORIA

15-AND MARIE-RUEL

 THANKS FOR EVERYONE TO MAKE THIS PARTY VERY NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hooray!  We've made it to Calgary and miracle-of-miracles, got a 2-night RV spot (the last site) at the Mountainview Campground http://www.calgarycamping.com/home1.html during the famous Calgary Stampede, which is celebrating its 125th year!  http://calgarystampede.com/  The Visitor's Center ladies were very kind and called the campground for us this morning.  We are very lucky!

Customs this morning went great- we got a nice Customs guy and we chatted after I'd handed over the passports, my driver's license, proof of insurance in Canada, and my vehicle registration before he could request it all.  It turns out that in B.C. and Alberta they do NOT confiscate all your fruit - we had no need to eat all those bananas this morning!

The campground has a shuttle ($10 each) to take us to the Stampede tomorrow at 11:15 am and we'll return at either 5:30 pm or Midnight.  Hmmm....

Upon crossing the border, we switched our GPS to metric and took off going 110!  Km/hour that is. 

We crossed 5,000 miles on our trip today!  Although it is effort to catch up on the blog by each evening's bedtime, we feel our travel and activity pace have been sustainable and we've really gotten to experience the best of the best in many places.  Or course, that is categorized as national parks and natural wonders.  I would love to have all the time in the world to appreciate everything in our path, but we do prioritize our time and have been pleased with our choices.

We were told that roaming charges on cell phones were horrible and not to use ours, so we bought a few groceries at the IGA and got a $10 phone card.  We also used the debit card cash back to obtain $200 in colorful Canadian money.  We called Ned on a pay phone, which took multiple attempts, but finally we finally got through (but missed him).  

I have no idea what our Verizon Air Card rates are for Canada, so we paid $6 for the campground wifi. 

Gas is $1.38 here... per liter.  There's 3.8 liters to the gallon.  Yes, it's pricey.

This is like International Powder-Puff Travel.  Everyone still speaks English and the exchange rate 1:1 is easy.  However, there are enough changes to wake us up a bit and challenge us.

Although people have been helpful when asked, they are more, let's say "reserved" when we talk to them.  I haven't gotten many warm fuzzies.  I'm not sure if it is the U.S., the Texas license plate, me, or them, but I always love to take a "people-pulse" to see what the climate is like.  I'm betting things are different world-wide with the attitude toward Americans than it has been in previous decades.

Oh!  We went to the very good World Heritage Site, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.  The excellent movie (that Jazy refused to watch) explained how important the buffalo were to the First People, who used every part of the buffalos they killed.  The name technically does not come from the way the buffalo died, but rather a legend of a young brave who was in a tragic accident during one of the buffalo jumps.  The Buffalo Jumps were so much work that when the Indians got guns and ponies from Europeans in the mid-1800's, they stopped organizing the labor-intensive jumps.  We hiked both the upper and lower cliff paths and enjoyed the strong winds that are native to that area.

Alberta is beautiful!  Fields and acres of flowers and grass- so much grass!  I'll try to upload some pictures later.  We're off to explore for now the campground with a petting zoo, horseshoes, playground, etc.!

We enjoyed the Stampede today! 

Be careful if you put your kids in charge of the budget!  They can get picky.  They convinced me last night to skip the shuttle and we were kindly refunded our $40. 

Early this morning we drove our big rig throughout a major city, down small streets, with construction barriers, and 3km runners.  Fortunately, Calgary was reduced traffic this Sunday morning.  By 7:15 am. we'd paid $20 total for 2 parking spots in city parking and walked the few blocks to the Stampede. (See picture)

Because it was Family Day, admission ($41 for the 4 of us) was free before 9am.  Also, they provided free Pancake Breakfast tickets, but the line was several people thick from the entrance alll the way to the Grandstand at the far end of the park.  I would estimate the line at half a mile!  Of course we did not wait and enjoyed the rest of the park and some muffins.  We did attempt to go at the end of the breakfast, but just missed it. 

We made ourselves feel better with pizza-on-a-stick (like a calzone on an oversized popsicle stick) and popcorn.  The kids figured we came out $50 ahead because we drove ourselves.

The weather was perfect and we really enjoyed the dog-herding competition where the border collie gets the sheep to circle the barrels, circle the trainer, run through a chute along the fence, and then pens them in under 4 minutes, directed by the trainer's different whistles.  We were so impressed with the dogs!  Some of the sheep were mean and head-butted the dogs!

The animals were a real treat and we got to pet pigs, piglets, cows, and huge draft horses. 

They had a carnival there with rides ($5-$6 each), lots of food, cowboy hats for sale, etc.  It was VERY similar to the Houston rodeo, but with a population that was much more diverse (many Asian and Indian families, which we enjoyed) and without the festive spirit, which is probably due to the early rise of the visitors and the fact that Calgary is a major city.  We did meet some very nice, helpful people.

We were all caught up on our rodeo-quotient and ready to return to the RV by 12:30 pm - we were glad that our driving plan worked.  Sallie, our GPS, got us back to the campground and we hooked up just before a major hailstorm blew through.  I'm betting hail cleared out the Stampede's straggling parents who needed a nap!  Ha!

We've been working on schoolwork- Lia reached her subtraction goal on Level 9 on the Flashmaster today!  We also reached our internet upload limit and had to buy more time.  We are so grateful to have it though.

Then the kids got ice cream and ran off to the playground.  Ahhh.

Hopefully we'll get on an earlier schedule now and plan to be through Calgary early again tomorrow.  The Canada 1 Highway goes right through the middle of town, complete with construction and stoplights.  I can only imagine how much fun it is with real traffic!  We've seen much of Calgary on our drives and it is a big, vibrant city.  We'll head for Banff and then Jasper, enjoying natural beauty again.

Downtown Toronto is just like NYC.  We stayed in a Courtyard by Marriott which was very nice.  We stayed on Yongue Street which is the longest street in Downtown Toronto.  They had electric trolley cars that ran from west to east but we couldn't find any that ran from north to south.  Paige found many clothing stores that she loved shopping in.  The Harbor was absolutely beautiful.  We enjoyed dinner and cocktails outside at the Boathouse Bar & Grille.  There were many kayakers/canoers.  There was a free, outdoor jazz concert sponsored by Sirius.  Very nice city!  :) 

The White Water Walk at Niagra Falls is rated #6 rapids which are the most dangerous in the world.  It is also the site of the collapse of the Great Gorge Railway.  We're hoping that our rafting trip in Yellowstone is not rated #6!!!