Quebec City - photo update

Our time in Quebec city was just gorgeous, but we thought photos would do the city more justice than words.

The main street in Old Quebec City

A panoramic view of the St Lawrence river

Meet Sofia & Lorenzo, our Air bnb hosts little Italian greyhound puppies. They were beyond adorable.

The Fairmont Chateau - getting some renos done

The main entrance into Old Quebec city

The lower part of Old Quebec City

Cheeky squirrel

A typical store front in the old city

Feels like France

Halloween is coming

The oldest church in North America

The square where all the executions took place hundreds of years ago.

The oldest buildings in Quebec City

This is the super cute little electric bus that goes all around town. We giggled everytime it drove past us.

This is Kristian's "artsy" photo of me, with the Fairmont behind.

 In Quebec we found this gem of a restaurant called Mikes. We both had the best pizzas we have ever had! The pizza above was Kristian's which had bacon, chicken and mushrooms. And mine below was a carbonara pizza, with alfredo sauce and bacon. They were so deliciously life changing that we came back the next night.

Quebec city just gets prettier at night time.

Ready for our ghost tour around Old Quebec.

Our little ghosts, though Kristian thinks his looks more like toast.

The start of our ghost tour

Terrible photo, but this is the most haunted street in Quebec

The old Quebec Seminary

Inside the most haunted building in Quebec. And trust me it was actually super spooky!

The Fairmont Chateau

Walking along the city walls



The Fairmont is super pretty at night

Ending our trip to Quebec with a bowl of Hot Chocolate

Anyway we are now back in Montreal only for a couple of more days then on the 15th we will be on our way to Boston.
We will be sure to post photos of Montreal before we leave for Boston.

Hope everyone is well.

Lauren & Kristian :)

Bonjour Australie!

Welcome to France! Or so it seems. Quebec City, our next destination onwards after Montreal, is entirely French speaking. The signs are in French, the menus, booklets, everything, even McDonalds is called McDou's! Its a strange thing, considering we are still in Canada. While this is all good fun and looks nice, the problem is about 80% of most written French words are NOT accompanied by English translation! Naturally this makes such things as ordering, or just communicating quite difficult. Montreal however is bilingual, meaning we have had a much easier time communicating and just plain talking to people.

The last 4 days in Montreal have been very relaxing. After everything we did in Toronto, we seriously needed a rest. Because after all, this holiday is not a sprint but more of a marathon, so we have to make sure we pace ourselves. Having 2 blocks of 4 nights in Montreal separated by our stint in Quebec for 3 nights, the past 4 days we have been doing almost literally nothing. Its been nice. Sleeping in to 10am, cooking dinners and lunches instead of going out, watching Netflix and just taking it easy. Apart from eating some incredible poutine, the only noteable thing we did was go to the Montreal vs Philadelphia Hockey game Saturday night, which was absolutely awesome. Montreal is pretty much known as the birthplace of Hockey, most of its foundations exist there and as such the fans are mental. So in the spirit of hockey, we dressed up in jerseys and mohawk beanies and went along. And damn those fans were crazy, any player that made a slight move the crowd went mental. Luckily, Montreal won, to Laurens dismay as she hid her Philadelphia scarf that she was wearing, otherwise  it wouldn't suprise me if we had a riot on our hands, they have been known to do such a thing before.

So that brings us to Quebec City, and like I was explaining before, the language barrier is literally our biggest barrier. We have been choosing places with English translations on menus because that generally means someone, anyone speaks a tiny bit of english and we don't make fools out of ourselves trying to order in French and sounding like dills. But Quebec City was beautiful, its a heritage listed city with all its old buildings and ancient architecture. So far we've seen some old buildings, more old buildings and these other old buildings. But it doesn't sound that dull, because these are some very nice looking old buildings in which our photos will do a better job of describing.

While the language barrier has been difficult, I think the biggest issue we have been facing is my outfit, I appear to be very underdressed (even in my nicest clothes) at some of the nice eateries in town (mainly because the old town is very touristy and only nice places to eat exist). One example of this was last night, we decided to have pizza and pasta for dinner and found a nice Italian restaurant. As it turns out it was a little bit upmarket but reasonably priced, so we thought you beauty. Upon entering the restaurant, we were both looked up and down vigorously by the female waiter, as to say 'I'm sorry but you must have gotten the wrong place, McDou's is just down the road'. But keep in mind we both looked very respectable. You see I had my jeans and nice runners on with a purple and black stripped T-shirt, which from a distance looked fine, but it wasn't until we looked closely did I realize that I was not as presentable as we had previously thought. So start with, my hair was greasy because I hadn't had enough time to wash it in the morning due to us leaving early to catch our bus, I had not shaved in almost two weeks so I was rockin a pretty dirty beard and mo, I had managed to dribble a tiny bit of toothpaste down my nice purple and black top, I had a small hole in the front of my jeans (hopefully no one noticed that), and as I found out last night, I have a huge hole in the front of my new runners, which now I can understrand why my feet were getting wet. So I'm guessing that glare was justified.

So that brings us to today, we have been strolling around the city for a couple of hours looking at the boutique shops and some more old buildings, but it has been nice as we've had better weather than what we got in Montreal. Tonight we are off to do a ghost walk throughout some of the spookiest spots in Quebec city, so scaring Lauren on that should be very entertaining.

We are back in Montreal for 4 nights from Friday onwards so we will get a chance to upload some more photos of the beautiful Quebec City.

So until then, hope everyone's well and we will talk soon.
Kristian & Lauren.

Photos from Niagara and Ottawa

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the lateness with posting photos. We have spent our time in Montreal relaxing and taking it easy, but our hosts have let us borrow there laptop so now we can finally upload some photos from Niagara Falls and Ottawa.

The American side of Niagara Falls

The Canadian (real) side of the falls

A quick snap out of the window of the worlds smallest church/chapel

The local pub in the town of Niagara on the lake

Bus selfies

Getting excited to get sprayed

View of the American falls up close

View of the falls :)

Nice and wet

Just a little bit soaked

Drenched but completely worth it

View heading away from the falls

Trying to dry off

Pretty Rainbow by the falls

We have a million other incredible photos of the falls but we shall have to show you all of them when we get home.


OTTAWA

Our super lovely room in Ottawa

Fall has started :)

These drinks were crazy huge. Even these photos don't do them justice.

Hotdog and poutine time

Kristian enjoying his 'slawwwww'

Fall (Autumn) in Canada is just lovely

Little bit windy Krispy?

The Parliament buildings

In winter this whole river freezes and its used as a giant ice rink

Panorama view of Ottawa

Front of the Parliament building

So now we are roughly up to date.
Tomorrow we leave Montreal for Quebec City for 3 nights then come back to Montreal for a couple of days before heading to Boston.
Montreal has been great so far, but we swear we are in France. Luckily most people speak english, even though some pretend that they don't.We have finally had our first rainy days, but honestly we aren't complaining as it has given us a reason to just sit back and relax.

Anyway we will post again in a day or so from Quebec City.
Goodluck to mum, dad & Ryan with the handover of the shop, and we hope everyone else is well.

Lauren & Kristian
xx

Toronto's little quirk

As you all know, we love Toronto. You've probably read it over and over again and by now your probably sick of it. Well, today I'm about to tell you about something we DONT like about Toronto. Well I wouldn't describe it at as dislike, because it has provided us endless entertainment, I would describe it as more of a quirk, adding more to the character of the city.

Toronto has bad flatulence.
Or as Google describes it: a state of excessive gas in the alimentary canal.

Now I know I didn't want this blog to turn into stories about flatulence, as I've already discussed a rather humourous case in Calgary, but we felt this was important, very important.

Let me explain.
When you walk down the street you expect that lovely breath of fresh air as the wind blows in your face and through your hair. Its lovely. Its refreshing. It makes you feel good.
Well Toronto has the same lovely, refreshing and feel good gust of wind, like every city; but occasionally, or roughly 3-4 times a day, you will get straight up sewerage bursts that fill every hole and crevace on your face. Up your nose, in your mouth, under your eye lids then through one ear and out the other. Every sense is bombarded with faecal stench, its a sensory overload. And its not so lovely, nor refreshing and it certainly doesn't make you feel good.

But at times it was quite funny, we grew to expect the rush of faecal mist filling our face holes, and we termed it as simply, "damn, Toronto just farted". Im starting to think its Toronto's way of saying welcome, but I just wish they could have picked a nicer fragrance. Lavender maybe?

Speaking of mist, on our last day in Toronto we headed down to the world famous Niagara falls. Just a short 1 and a half hour drive, it was nice to rest our feet after 6 days of walking 6km+ everyday around the city. Once we arrived, we found out the lifts down to the maid of the mist were currently out of order, and it didn't look like we'd be able to experience the incredible boat journey to the falls. So instead we decided to do the second half of the tour, a wine tasting, tower visit, and walking around Niagara-on-the-lake, a pretty little tourist town that was famous for something which I can't remember. If you would like to know, I suggest googling it. After some more general sightseeing, we ventured back to the falls with everyone on the bus unanimously agreeing to walk down to the boat, but as it turns out they had fixed the lifts on our arrival which saved us the unnecessary exercise.

The maid of the mist journey to the falls was spectacular, and damn do you get wet. More like soaked if you ask me! The spray off the giant monumental waterfall was like getting shot in the face with the pressure cleaner on medium setting, so if you would like to experience what we experienced on the boat, I would suggest trying that as it's quite a rush, just don't forget to close your eyes. In all seriousness, the falls were spectacular, the roar could be heard even before it was in sight and the mist was the same. It was a much more pleasant sensory overload. Its another one of those things that is better described through photos, so more will come tomorrow when we find a computer to use.

The same can be said for Ottawa, the capital of Canada (to many peoples suprise). Its a small city with not much to do but admire its old heritage parliament buildings, which were actually quite spectacular. We arrived just the day after our trip to the falls, and it was a nice break to just walk aroiund and admire, taking it easy, and boy did we need it. But like I said, photos provide a better snapshot of their beauty. Apart from admiring old buildings and taking lots of photos of them, we spent majority of our time watching hockey. The season officially kicked off October first so most nights were spent in the bars watching the games and drinking beer, can it get any better than that, honestly?

While our brief time in Ottawa was occupied by walking around old buildings and watching the hockey, an interesting and surprising development has come forth. Canadians tend to struggle understanding Lauren! Can you believe it? I thought I was going to be the one having the problem! So she's taken a stand, and now refuses to order anything at any type of establishment (food courts, shops, restaurants, Starbucks, everything), fearing that she will get that blank stare when you think someone is talking gibberish to you. So now I'm tasked with all those responsibilities, and therefore have to improve the clarity of my English to avoid such situation myself.

So that brings us to now, currently we are sitting on a bus on our way to Montreal, and thank god its only 2 and a half hours. Thats because as it turns out we decided to get on the bus that was transporting a crazy European freak show. A big group of very strange, loud and just plain weird Europeans. But I guess it's providing entertainment.

Again I apologize for such a long post, posts from here on in will be smaller more manageable chunks of our activities.

So until then, we hope everyone's well!
Kristian & Lauren.

Mass Photo Update

We have to make this quick because we are in an internet cafe, but basically these are the best bits from a few days in Toronto. We will post the photos of Niagara Falls in the next day or two.

Chilling with Philly :) 

Kristian attempting to be a goalie

And this is what happens when Kristian doesn't catch a puck

He is a much better shooter though, getting 5 out of 6 shots

Brunch in Kensington Market AKA Hipsterville

Incredible bacon sandwhich at St Lawrence Market

Walking around Toronto we found a pet type of museum/hall of fame place. They had a memory wall where you could write something and pin it to a wall. I was to upset at the time so Kristian wrote a special note for Holly <3

Relaxing by the water :)

The CN Tower

View of the amazing Toronto from the top of the CN Tower

The amazing view of the back of Kristian's head from the top of the CN Tower

Top of the CN Tower

This was the glass floor at the top of the CN Tower.

View of Toronto City on our walk home.

Take me out to a ball game.......

Andie, Krispy & I with our cool free beanies at the Blue Jays game.

Panorama shot of the Rogers Centre

The old distillery district turned hipster hub.

This is the amazing little Audrey that we wrote about yesterday. She was the biggest sweetheart and we super miss her already.

Hope you are all well. Check again tomorrow as we will fill you all in on Niagara Falls and Ottawa.

Lauren & Kristian
xx

Toronto, the gift that keeps on giving.

We do apologize for the delay in posting, we've had a pretty jam packed last couple of days in Toronto. So I'll give you the rundown since we last spoke:

As soon as we arrived in Toronto we decided we needed a little bit more hipster in our lives, so naturally we decided to head down to Kensington market. Funnily enough its actually not a market, but a suburb in itself. But think of it more as an aggregation of little funky shops that line the various streets. Its unapologetically hip; through its arty-ness, laid back sort of dirty hippie/hipster feel. Most shops sell some kind of organic produce or want to dress you in a kind of 80's look that is somehow 'cool'. I beg to differ but each to their own.

Nonetheless, there was some pretty cool stuff there. Some of the best op shops you've ever seen with actually trendy clothing which come with complimentary bugs, which I thought was a nice throw in. After a small purchase and plenty of second hand illegal smoke inhalation, we left Kensington market for a more civilized place. The Toronto Eaton Centre.

Its basically a massive shopping centre, or mall, with a fantastic food court, one in which we ate at the day before and had the best butter chicken poutine. They also have very cheap clothing as we found out later that day. Take a top Lauren purchased; it started at $10, it was marked down to $7, then $5, $3 and the finally $2. However once we arrived at the register, turns out this particular item had 30% off which brought the purchase down to $1.37. Lunacy. Shopping centres get boring very quickly though so we decided to move on to St Lawrence Market.

Now this IS actually a market, and its a damn good one at that (voted the best market in Canada for good reason). Some of the produce was sensational, full racks of ribs for $11, multitudes of sausages and every other form of meat you could possibly think of. But it wasn't the raw meat we were interested in, in fact it was the cooked variety that sparked our interest. Succulent pulled pork, tangy BBQ sauce and coleslaw all wrapped up in a nice bun, pure perfection. It was one of the best things I had ever eaten, photos are to follow showcasing this delicacy. Laurens lunch was equally as good, if not better, inch thick pieces of baked and/or smoked side bacon that had so much flavor it could literally blow your face off, in a good way. As I write this Lauren is literally salivating when recounting the bacon back to me, it was that good.

After the food had settled, we decided to upset it by shooting up the CN tower, basically the city's observatory tower. 58 seconds was all it took, no not to spew, but to get up the 80 or 90 odd stories of the tower in an elevator that had a glass floor. Naturally Lauren was ecstatic, in between mild heart attacks from the sheer height, her panic quickly subsided after a quick glance over Toronto. It was stunning, full 180 degree view over the city and surrounding suburbs, but pictures will give a better description than my mere words so I'll leave it there.

We were also lucky enough to catch the last regular season baseball game for the Toronto blue jays during our visit. At $9 a ticket, the value proposition was amazing, not to mention the free beanie we all received for being one of the first 20,000 fans to enter the stadium on what happened to be fan appreciation weekend (however we did get to the game 2 and a half hours early just to secure one). The initial stages of the game itself though was not looking so outstanding. The blue jays had beaten the rays 7-2 just the day before, so we were thinking we were in for a good game. Within 15 minutes of the games start, the rays were up 6-0 even before the blue jays had lined up to bat. But that didn't matter, as the crowd found better, more amusing things to do, such as the Mexican wave, over and over again, basically until the blue jays picked up their game. And so they did, just not enough, as the finally tally read rays 7 blue jays 6. Not that it mattered though, we were just enjoying the atmosphere and throwing our arms up to get a cool swoosh of breeze to counteract the harsh heat from the sun. All in all though a very good day.

So as you can probably already tell, Toronto is an amazing place. So much so we are already planning on hopefully coming back sometime after Pittsburgh. There is so much to do and see, the food is just so damn good, the extra 2 kilos on my gut is testament to that, and I haven't even gotten to the people yet. The people we've met are just a whole new ballgame. We were welcomed into Toronto by Laurens friend Andy who she had been pen pals with for over 10 years (but had never met), hanging out in the 'burbs and eating frozen yogurt and Milo (yes Lauren brought some with her). It was a really good thing.

Then you move onto our Air BnB hosts. Firstly they accepted our reservation with very little notice, which was a lifesaver as we pretty much had nowhere to stay. But Qevin and Asha were some of the friendliest and most accommodating people I have ever met. From the moment we arrived, to the night we left, we felt immediately comfortable, and their little dog Audrey made the whole experience feel a little more like home. From some of the later night chats, to burning my face off with some deliciously hot chili sauces (but thankfully following that up with a beer); we had an absolute ball, so much so we didn't want to leave, like ever.

By now I'd imagine you've probably lost most motivation to continue reading so I'll leave it for now and post about our visit to Niagara falls tomorrow, along with some much needed photos.

So I'll sign off this considerably longer post today by saying:

We love you Toronto, and we will see you shortly.
But off to Ottawa first!

Kristian & Lauren.