Warning! Zombies Headed to a Town Near You
Thanks to our buddy Keith in Seattle for finding this very hilarious, but fairly upsetting, article. Read on before they eat your brains.
Torontontario
Our last morning in Montreal was spent eating a wonderful breakfast (eggs, tomatoes, french toast and fruit) and saying goodbye to our new friend, Maude. We left Montreal in the early afternoon with full bellies and two parking tickets under our belts (which we aren’t going to pay at the expense of never driving back into Quebec again).
We drove to Toronto in a fury to check into our hostel, Planet Traveler’s, by 10 pm…only to find that they had lost our reservations. Luckily, it was a weeknight and they had two bunks available for us. The hostel was in a neighborhood that resembled Chinatown, NYC, and seemed pretty rough. Upon further inspection, it was more like Williamsburg, Brooklyn in Chinatown’s clothing.
Our first night was spent grabbing some grub at a local bar/mexican food place called Sneaky Dees. Overpriced fries and chips filled our craving for grease and we went back to the hostel full of food. It was this night that we met two fun fellow travelers, Lukas and Aggie, who were sitting with us in the kitchen surfing the net for stuff to see and do (who also have a blog).
The following day, we managed to catch a couple slices of free toast with high fructose filled jams and peanut butter and then booked it out of there to explore the city. Toronto is a pretty walkable city and we enjoyed being out and about to explore. What we didn’t enjoy was our over preparation for the notion of rain (rain coats, rain boots, hiking boots) when the day turned out to be 85, sunny and humid. First stop, Le Commensal for a veggie buffet lunch…good, but incredibly overpriced. Next, ice cream for the little piglet near city hall which looks like a couple high rise apt buildings cradling a spaceship. Then onto Toronto Islands Park via ferry boat where we played with geese, swung on swings, waded in the lake and high-fived a few times.
After much needed showers, we hit up the Bata Shoe Museum (free this night for a few hours). Here, we saw the first shoe ever discovered, a giant clog roller skate, David Bowie’s sneakers and some crazy ass platforms. Next stop to fulfill our hankering for veggie Chinese food.
We walked into a small and sterile little restaurant, ordered an appetizer and two main dishes and almost cried when we saw what came out. It wasn’t dead baby goats, but insanely sized dishes of food. Each main course was served in a glass pie baking container; we barely made a dent. Seriously surreal portion sizes here…but we brought it back to the hostel and gave it away to some hungry hippies.
Last stop, the Panorama Bar to enjoy a drink and look out over the city with our new friends. It was about a 2 mile hike to get there and then a battle through construction before we got to the right floor to find it closed for a private function. Bummer. But we still enjoyed the night with some cheap beer and good conversation and went to bed way too late.
Goodnight, Toronto. Next stop to see my fam in Grand Rapids, MI.
Couchsurfing and causing trouble
Well, first off, a big SHOUT OUT to our homegirl Maude. We met her through the website Couchsurfing.com, and our trip to Montreal would honestly not have been half as awesome without her. She went above and beyond, cooking us a tasty welcome dinner and an elaborate parting breakfast (complete with french toast, of course), and giving up her own bed for us (the first real bed we’ve slept on in a month). We definitely suggest anyone looking for free accommodations while traveling check out Couchsurfing, our first experience was awesome, and we plan to use it a bunch during this trip.
Our tour of Montreal started in Old Montreal, again a big tourist trap just like Old Quebec. But we were smart this time and left quickly to walk around on Rue St. Denis, one of the many never-ending streets in Montreal, filled with great shops and restaurants. That evening we spent resting, eating, and chatting with Maude about Canada, the US, politics, and Celine Dion.
The next day, we decided to take a trip out of Montreal to Vermont, mainly because we felt we couldn’t possibly skip out on a trip to the Ben & Jerry’s factory. Face it…we all scream for ice cream. First stop in Vermont was Burlington, home of beautiful Lake Champlain and many many hippies. We strolled through the cute main drag on Church Street (cute until we saw the huge Macy’s there), hunting for something good to eat. We landed at Zabby and Elf’s Stone Soup, a veggie oasis amidst regular bar grill type places. We loaded up a plate of salad bar servings like mexican bean casserole, coconut black bean stew and African peanut stir fry…and we ordered a vegan seitan ruben. Best veggie ruben we’ve ever had! And Emily HAD to have two desserts: a jungle cookie complete with tasty coconut, choco chips, oats, etc. and a ginger pecan bar. Then, on to Ben and Jerry’s for more dessert. First stopping at Burlington’s food co-op for some yogurt, snacks and yet another unnecessary dessert.
Rolling up to Ben and Jerry’s, we both started to salivate. We signed up for the next tour and walked around taking some photos first. The factory tour was short and lacked the original Ben and Jerry’s “flavor” as they were recently bought out by Unilever (who also recently purchased Slimfast). We managed to enjoy the Banana on the Rum sample despite the stiff Unilever “bigger is better, corporations are where it’s at” mantra. The highlight of the trip was the Flavor Graveyard where all the old unpopular flavors go to die. Check out some tombstones.
In a severe carb coma, we headed back to Montreal and did some more walking around and popping into cute shops. Next stop, Le Spirite Lounge, for a vegan dinner. We had been to this restaurant on our last trip to Montreal (about 3 years ago) and were highly impressed by the food and quirky philosophy…you get to choose the size of the portion that you want and if you don’t finish each course, you can’t have the next course. If you don’t finish your dessert, you can’t come back. It’s really all about not wasting food. We arrived to find that the place had expanded and were greeted by a tall, lanky, and quite snotty French-Canadian man who was likely the main chef, as well as our waiter for the night. He urged us to take the small portion, so we did. The first course was a pureed soup…very tasty. Then, things went drastically wrong. The portion size of the main course was HUGE; think Shaq, think larger than life. This was indeed the “small” portion size. To make matters worse, the main course was a lumpy mush chunk covered in sloppy gravy. But we really wanted dessert; so we decided to get sneaky. We were terrified about what this man would do if we didn’t finish our helpings (since the restaurant is all about finishing your entire meal)...so we grabbed a plastic bag we had brought the wine in and decided we would stealthily slide the slop chunk in the bag when no one was looking. Nick did the dirty work after Emily promised to buy him a beer. So with a slightly audible “plop”, we had “finished” our meal. It was hilarious. Even funnier…the dessert was pretty bad. Em snuck the bag of glop out in her purse and we both left feeling incredibly bloated and slightly guilty. Then, back to Maude’s to sleep the food away.
Next stop, Toronto, Ontario.
Cana-Duh
So, our adventures in Quebec began on Monday with a long (read: boring) drive into this province from New Brunswick. The highlight of the drive was our stop at the Quebec tourism center after we crossed the border. Once inside, we were summoned to the help desk by a man who resembled Herman Munster. He proceeded to shove (in a very helpful way) about 50 different brochures and maps at us while rattling off in a robotic voice the routes to get from here to there. We left with a bag full of Quebec maps and goodies and a suggestion on a cheese shop to visit about 20 miles down the road.
The fromagerie, Le Detour (funny, huh?), had yummy cheeses and even yummier beers, all details listed in French so we had to go purely on instinct (and the pretty labels). The cheese we bought was the saltiest thing since spam and gave me a stomach ache. But it was worth it.
We arrived in Quebec City only to find that construction had closed the street we needed to drive on to get to our hostel. We spent the next half an hour trying to get to our hostel via a maze of one way streets all seeming to go in the direction we didn’t want (oh, New York grid pattern, how we love thy ways). Finally, we arrived at our hostel, Auberge de la Paix, to be greeted by a stern French man who again rattled off a billion things in a very thick accent. First we sat outside in the courtyard at the hostel and enjoyed a beer, then threw our stuff down on our plasticized bunks and headed out for some grub.
The old town, where we stayed in Quebec City, was beautiful but proved to be a very tacky tourist trap. We hunted for a place to eat and ran across menu after menu of large print overpriced Italian dinners listed in English…but we also stumbled across a Lamborghini which made Nick say, “I wish that was a Ferrari.” Finally, we ended up on a line for a crepe place that was written up in every tour guide for the area (that should have been a warning sign, but we were too hungry). Casse-Crepe Breton was anything but fabulous, with microwaved asparagus and missing eggs, but filled our craving for salty stuff inside a thin pancake.
Okay, so we tried to learn French on the way up here, but neither of us could visualize what we were saying and the only thing I can remember is “Je me pele Emily” and “n’ est pa?” Those phrases didn’t get us very far.
Other things to note about Quebec City were the beautiful views, gorgeous old stone buildings, a parking deck that locked us in, and only French speaking people staying at the hostel. After feeling a little guilty for our overbearing American presence in this quaint little French town, we headed on to Montreal.
Watchin' The Tide Roll Away...
Our hunt for the wild Internet beast has finally come to its end as we sit outside a random hotel with WiFi in Quebec City. More on Quebec later. First, let’s talk New Brunswick (not the one in NJ).
It took a million and a half hours (about 10) to travel from Portland all the way up to Hopewell Cape, New Brunwick, Canada via scenic Route 1. Boy, was it scenic. Nick exclaimed, “Ohhhhhhhhh, look at that” many times.
Our route took us from Portland, ME, (two hours late of course) up the coast through some quaint towns, out to a few lookout points and into another time zone…did anyone actually realize that there was another time zone in North America? Needless to say, once we found this out, we frantically called the campground to tell them we were going to be even more late and Nick zoomed into the night.
The maine (haha, had to do this once) highlight along the way was the field of creepy dolls that you can see here. Thanks to Matt Reading for his awesome recommendations on what to see/eat along Rt 1 all the way up to Canada.
Finally, after bumping down a two lane little road for 2 hours, we arrived at our campground and set up our tent (thanks mom). It took about 10 minutes to set up the tent and another 30 to figure out what the hell the rain flap was all about. Good thing we did though, because it rained all day the next day.
Camping near the Bay of Fundy was beautiful…really hard to describe in words. Some that come to mind are: rolling hills, endless green, brisk, salty, and lobster.
We woke up to a damp morning on Saturday, dressed for wet weather, and hopped over to Hopewell Rocks in the Bay of Fundy. We came for low tide and were speechless upon seeing how much of the bay floor was exposed…it was very prehistoric looking. I think I saw a velociraptor eat a small tourist child. We took some stairs down to the floor of the bay and examined the rocks, barnacles, see kelp, and thick brown mud. For anyone who hasn’t been to the Bay of Fundy, learn more here, then come up and see it. Remarkable.
After we explored for a while, we ventured to the nearest little town, Alma, for some seafood. Signs for Butland’s Lobster littered the highway, so we stopped only to find out that it was a seafood store and not a restaurant. So we ate at another local hotel/restaurant. Seafood chowder, a lobster roll and lots of coffee helped us thaw out a bit.
Then, back to the Bay to check out high tide. First stopping to sample some local blueberry wine at a little winery. Yum. High tide came in to cover the area we had just walked on a few hours ago. Apparently a few tourists get stuck on a sandbar every year; the locals leave them there for the whales to munch on.
Our second night of camping was ridiculous. Wind gusts brought the temperature down to about 40 degrees. When I woke up, I had to dig Nick out of his layered cacoon of blankets and sleeping bags. We dressed inside our sleeping bags, jumped up and had the tent in the car in about 5 minutes. Then, on to Quebec City, old town style.
