I managed to get everyone out the house on time and we met up with Mum and Cherry in the car park of Blaise Castle. The weather forecast had been light showers, but for us it rained, constantly, for the entire time we were there. We still managed to have a lovely walk, play in the park, ice-cream and a sit down chat with a cuppa.
On route back to ours we picked up a McDonalds and then the kids played for hours in the pool, on the trampoline and a bit of gaming. They all had so much fun that they didn't leave until after dinner at about 5:30pm! Mum did my ironing and we talked loads about different things and it turned out to be a nice day as obviously the sun came out when got back. Typical.
Rob was home quite late and I did him a mini roast and then cooked a banana loaf. I've already consumed half of it while it was still warm. Yum. 😋
Rob went to bed before all the boys and they all had a late night. Oscar watched the Emoji Movie, I wasted a couple of hours doing I don't know what, quickly did this blog, which is rushed as I'm sure you can tell but it's very late as usual and I want to get to bed.
It's our 16th Wedding Anniversary tomorrow and we actually have a date night! Really looking forward to it.😊
Where they to? 6th August Calgary - Toronto
After 2 nights, it was time to check out of the hostel in Calgary, today. We had a plane to catch to Toronto and wanted to get to the airport in plenty of time to go through our pre-flight rituals.
Calgary has a tram system which, I presume, was built for the olympics. It's free for trips up and down the mile-long main high street which is a useful arrangement for trying to get around town quickly. It's also very cheap to get anywhere else around the city which is a common theme across Canada's public transport. I think it must be because their fuel prices are about thrupenny halfpenny per gallon. Other than the Greyhound bus which takes you between the major cities, no journey, or combination of journeys, on the bus, subway and tram has cost us more than £1 so far. The systems are always properly integrated too so that if it doesn't get you all the way to where you want to go, you can transfer from, say, the subway to the bus using 1 ticket. It works so efficiently, surely public transport isn't supposed to work this way.
As you may have noticed from the photos, my barnet has come to resemble something of a wilderness since we left the country. In fact, I think I may have seen a moose hiding in there the other day. After some chinese-burns and a few ninja moves from Mush to force the issue, it was with some trepidation that I agreed to get it cut at a barbers at the airport. This was the first time I'd ever had my hair cut overseas so I was a little concerned that a "grade 2 on the back and sides and a little longer on the top" might mean a Kevin Keegan style mullet to the locals, although, that's apparently all the rage with youngsters at the moment anyway. As it turned out, "grade 2 on the back and sides and a little longer on the top" means exactly the same in Canada as it does in England; they must have lego over here too.
Lunch today was a combined total of £2.40. Not bad considering it used to cost us that much each day to feed our cat, Misty.
We went through our pre-flight rituals and then had a kip in the lounge before boarding the plane. The French influence is getting stronger as we move East across the country; the pilot had a French accent and the news on the plane was bi-lingual. We didn't understand much of the news as the newsreader didn't tell us how old they are, where they live, how many pets they have or ask us "ou se-trouve le bibliotheque?"
Our destination province, Ontario, has 4 of the 5 great lakes on its Southern fringes with the fifth less than 100km away so I was quite surprised when, 5 minutes after departure from Calgary, Mush announced that she could see one of the great lakes from the window of the plane. Looking out of the window, I saw the body of water that she was referring to. I explained to Mush that the smallest of the great lakes, Lake Erie, is big enough that you could fit the County of Somerset in it 6 times over and still have space to go for a paddle. She was a little disappointed but she cheered up when I told her that she'd actually seen one of the Great Duck Ponds.
We flew over the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan on our way to Ontario. Both provinces looked like vast patchwork quilts with neatly defined grids of fields, as flat as snooker tables, stretching out as far as the eye can see. I don't think that we missed much by cutting them out of our trip.
As we approached Toronto, the scale of it struck us. It has a population only double that of Bristol but it covers a much larger area. I suppose that when you are in the second biggest country, by area, in the world, it makes sense to use the available land. Baggage reclaim took an age and that, combined with the fact that we then had to find a shop to get some change (the buses only accept exact change), meant that we missed our bus to Downtown Toronto.
Time was getting on and we'd been told that we had to be at our hostel by midnight so we were getting a bit concerned that we'd end up without a bed for the night, however, another bus eventually arrived and dropped us at the subway station. The station we'd been dropped at is the terminus of the line. Despite this, our combined intellects couldn't figure out which train to get. I hope NASA don't have a shortage of rocket scientists at the moment.
We found the street that our hostel was on and it was accurately described by our guide book as being "close to the action". There were rooftop nightclubs with girls in the windows, dancing in cages, to lure the punters in and everything else from jazz bars to salsa dance halls.
Our hostel, it transpired, was on top of an outdoor bar playing some thumping beats. We arrived to find that one of our beds had been given to someone else meaning that we were offered alternative beds in different rooms. We'd been assured when we made the booking that we'd be in the same room; I've been careful to check this when I've been making bookings due to our being relative novices at the hostel way of life. They said that we could have a double bed in a private room but that we'd have to pay the full rate. I argued that, since it was their mistake that meant we had beds in separate dorms they should give us the private room at the dorm rate but they wouldn't have any of it. I argued my case for some time but they weren't going to budge so I just caved in and paid the extra $20 for the private room. I tried again in the morning to get them to refund the difference but they still refused to compromise at all leaving a very sour taste in the mouth. They admitted that it was an error on their part but weren't willing to take responsibility for their mistake and just passed on the cost to us. Suffice to say, if any of you reading this ever think of staying at Global Backpackers Hostels, we'd recommend you give them a wide berth and look for a hostel affiliated to the official Hostelling International Organisation.
To make matters worse, Mush had a temperature and was feeling pretty poorly so we went to get some food and drink to see if that would help settle her down. It didn't do much good so I put her to bed and left her alone for an hour so that my fidgeting didn't drive her to distraction.
When I went back down the stairs, closer inspection revealed how much of a filthy dive the hostel was. The stairs were sticky and covered in months of ground in grime. It would soon become apparent just what that grime was. I was using an internet terminal to see how the mighty Bristol City had fared on their first day of the new season when I heard a splashing behind me as though someone had just dropped a drink. I turned around to see a girl with shoulder-length long hair. Her hair was matted and her backless dress didn't look quite so elegant covered with a stomach-full of her friends projectile vomit all over it. The receptionist who refused to compromise on our rate received his divine retribution when he tried to mop up the mess. Just as he'd almost finished, someone else stumbled through the door straight into the bucket and sent it tumbling over his mocassin clad feet. I couldn't stifle my grin as I tip-toed past him back to our room.
Having crossed 2 time zones, we lost 2 hours so, by the time the club below stopped banging out music at 2:30, we were still fairly wide-awake but we had to force ourselves to sleep knowing we had to be out of the door by 10:30AM.
We didn't sleep well that night.
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