The last leg of our trip. We are sitting at Pearson Arport in Toronto awaiting our flight to Los Angeles and the journey that will take us 26 hours to fly back home. Canada has been just the same as always. Friendly service in restaurants and shops and at times, dreadful coffee. Although we are still in Canada we took some time to get through the American immigration section of the airport. We are only transiting through the States but we still have to be photographed and fingerprinted and also fill out the mandatory visa waiver because we will only be in Los Angeles airport for an hour. There is a lot of waiting in queues and intense questioning. Paul was even asked to wipe his finger on his forehead to assist his fingerprinting. The immigration officer requested he do this and then said with a small smile that he couldn't believe that Paul had actually done it! The other draw back is that Tim Horton's the Canadian donut chain is on one side of the glass and the American, and distributor of less healthier food, Starbucks, is on the other. This is to the chagrin of many Canadians when they find that their last chance of what they think is a decent coffee is out of reach.
If I go back a week we were in Heathrow airport at a similar time awaiting our flight to Montreal. We arrived in Montreal in the middle of the Jazz festival. Stevie Wonder had just performed the evening before at a live concert in the city to an audience of 100,000 people. There was lots of live music in bars and in the streets.
We had been to Montreal about 10 years ago so as we only had a day we decided to explore some of the areas that we had not been to. Montreal is in the heart of the French speaking area of Canada so it gave us an opportunity to relive our linguistic abilities. However, the French language in Montreal is spoken with an accent that can make it difficult to follow at times. We ate in a restaurant called 'The Entrecote' where steak cooked French style is a speciality and the restaurant was like a French brasserie. Earlier in the day we explored the Old Centre of Montreal and then took a boat cruise on the St Lawerance River. The guide was excellent and we were able to see the sites on the Ile St Helene in the middle of the river. This had been the old site for the World Exhibition in 1967. There is a famous architectural structure that looks like a giant snowball that is now used as a Biodome. There is also a fun park on the island and many of the rides have been designed by Australians. Paul believes that the guide on the tour did not draw breath for the entire hour and a half of the trip because he conducted the tour in both English and French.
We also went up to an area called Mont Royale Plateau. Mont Royale is the highest point of Montreal. We stayed in Mont Royale on our previous visit to Montreal 10 years ago. However, our experience in the bed and breakfast we stayed in was so unusual that Kathryn cannot remember very much of her visit last time. Thankfully the bed and breakfast that we stayed in 10 years ago seems to exist no longer and the hotel we stayed in this time was very central and comfortable. However, Paul says that he thinks he has had the worst croissant of the entire trip. He thought that being in a French speaking city that bases its culture on everything French would know how to serve decent croissants. Our walk around the plateau was in one of the prettiest areas in Montreal and there were many older houses with spiral staircases leading to second storeys and they had turrets. It is quite an artistic area and there were many small stores selling artworks and designer goods.
We were successful with our accommodation in Montreal but not so with the train trip from Montreal to Toronto. Paul was looking forward to his train trip in Canada. It was the Fourth of July weekend in America and the train did not take bookings. We were herded into perhaps the only carriage that contained an amazing amount of raucous babies and toddlers. When one started crying, the rest attempted to outdo each other. In consolation we tried to eat our way through the snack trolley that came through at regular intervals. Even that was unsuccessful as they only served limited healthy foods and an oversupply of bad coffee and, as the North Americans call it, 'Pop'. The train stopped at every station possible between the two cities. So at one point even the local suburban trains in Toronto seemed to be going faster.
Last time we were in Toronto there was a SARS epidemic. This time it is Swine Flu and the Toronto Metropolitan garbage strike. The latter is more of a concern to the locals and there are many alerts for people attempting to illegally dump their 'trash'. Basically the city garbage collectors are on strike and most of the cleaning up is conducted by private contractors. So if you want to start a waste collection business, now is the time. The other concern that was thankfully abated was the Provincial Wine Distribution strike. In Toronto all alcoholic beverages are sold through a government bottle shop. (LCBO – Liquor Control Board of Ontario). This is the only place you can buy any wine or spirits. Therefore the mention of a strike occurring where these stores would not stock their wine for the Summer sent the residents of the city into a frenzy. These stores are huge warehouses and apparently the day before the strike was averted the shelves were emptying quickly. They must have known that we were arriving and we were able to drink plenty of good wine at the homes of our hosts.
Toronto was also prepared for our onslaught of shopping. As we have been to the city a few times before we have seen most of the sites. For Paul, Toronto is the only location Paul feels he can successfully fulfill his wardrobe requirements. Therefore he proceeded to buy an entire wardrobe for 2 years in one afternoon. Unfortunately, 'Gap', which is the clothing company Paul prefers to buy from has moved on and he sadly has not. However, 'The Banana' as it is known 'Banana Republic' caters for a more mature client and the sales assistants were only too happy to oblige. We were also accompanied by Paul's friend Bev, who lives in Toronto. Bev is now prepared to leave her nursing career and start a business as an advisor and personal shopper due to the success she had with Paul and his particular requirements. We have got him out of the colour blue and moved him into orange. However, he still will not adopt the slim fitting shirt. We will leave that for the next expedition in two years time. Meanwhile I am happy to write that Paul actually outdid Kathryn in the amount of clothes he purchased.
In amongst the shopping we were able to get down to St Catharines, an hour south of Toronto to visit the long term friend of Paul, Ruth Vincent-Nowe. Ruth is 90 and still enjoys the company of her family and many grand children and great grandchildren. Perhaps the highlight of the trip for Kathryn was a visit to an establishment called 'The Mandarin'. 'The Mandarin' is a North American version of the Sizzler restaurants. Paul's father would have been in his element. As the name suggests the restaurant has a large range of Asian food to choose from but also caters for those who cannot eat out without missing their pizza, fried chicken and North American food. There was even a singing lobster on the buffet which did attract Kathryn's interest.
In Toronto we took the opportunity to visit the new Royal Ontario Museum as well as the Art Gallery of Ontario which both have been refurbished by contemporary architects. The styles of the buildings are similar and provide an unusual aspect to the buildings. The Museum has what is called a 'crystal' installed on the outside which provides extra floor space and a profile that appears exactly as it suggests. We were interested to hear that they have had to install special heating pads on the interior of the glass panels to stop ice forming on the glass in Winter. The ice can slide off in sheets and do considerable damage to people passing by. The Ontario Museum of Art has an exterior designed by the same architect who designed the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Frank Gehry. Once again you can see the influence of Gehry's childhood growing up in New Brunswick as the exterior looks like a giant fish covered in silver scales. The museum had an exhibition of The Dead Sea Scrolls which was fascinating.
So we have come full circle. By ending in Canada it feels as though we are slowly returning to our lives back home in Australia. After reading through the entries I have made over the last 12 weeks, what started as a short cut to keep all our family and friends informed, has become a regular manner of recording my thoughts on our experiences. If you asked me what was my favourite location or experience I could not pin point any one situation. Twelve weeks of travel is a long time to be away from home and now that I am sitting at my desk finalising this last entry it feels as though I have never been away. Often there are circumstances that Paul and I have been in where a statement or the action of another has prompted our memories of our trip. It has been very fulfilling where there has not been a time when we have not enjoyed the experience. Though very tired and jetlagged from a 31 hour trip home, we are busily planning our next trip to France and finding new places to visit.
I felt I was really home when we stood on the train platform at Brisbane airport waiting for a train to transfer us to the domestic terminal. The sun was coming up and the colours of the landscape were truly Australian; the olives and pinks that are familiar to many of us. The air was crisp and the silence was broken by that inevitable and identifiable Australian accent announcing the next train. We joked with the taxi driver in Melbourne on the way home that his Global Positioning System spoke English but used the same accent used by all GPS systems around the world. Maybe we are all linked by one large GPS, you would never have to travel anywhere. Just sit at your computer and the voice will direct you anywhere you desire.
