84 Back to Canada

Canada
Québec & New Brunswick
Nova Scotia & Newfoundland
Québec & Ontario
Manitoba to the Pacific

60 Ferry to Québec
61 Back in Québec
62 Drive to Tadoussac
63 Tadoussac
64 On to Québec
65 Québec
66 Québec
67 On to Ottawa
68 Ottawa
69 Ottawa
70 Ottawa
71 On to Niagara
72 The falls
73 Canadian wine
74 Behind the falls
75 Morty goes home
76 On to Toronto
77 CN Tower
78 ROM
79 Stocks, tower and dance
80 Toronto Saturday
81 Off to Florida
82 Coping with Wilma
83 SeaWorld
84 Back to Canada
85 Casa Loma and shoes
86 Killarney
87 To Sault Ste. Marie
88 Goulais River
89 To Thunder Bay
90 Thunder Bay

Canada: Ontario

Wednesday 26 October 2005

Today our short detour to Florida comes to an end and we are heading back up to Canada. It has been great to see familiar faces and to have some warm weather as it is getting a little chilly now in Canada. The family who own the villa had lent Caz and Andy a GPS system to help them find the house and to get around in Orlando. Stef went to set it up and it was then the source of amusement as we were dropped off at the airport.

At pretty much the first junction Andy ignored the GPS and went the way that he knew was the shortest route. After a while though the GPS instructions were followed which ended up being a bad idea. We missed one of the junctions and ended up going a very long way round to the airport. When we got there we had ninety minutes before our flight left which we thought was loads of time. What we had not bargained on was Air Canada only having one desk open to check people in and no fast self serve check in machines. Boredom at waiting in the queue started to give way to frustration and concern that we would miss the flight.

One we were checked in we were told that boarding would start in fifteen minutes. For some reason Stef got a mental block on this and, despite me correcting him several times, decided that the flight was leaving in fifteen minutes. The Sarney’s accompanied us to the security check gate and there was a tearful farewell as we went on our way. Its daft really because when we are at home we probably would not see each other for a couple of months but somehow the distance adds an extra edge.

Farewell from Florida

Stef managed to get us fast tracked through to the security check which was just as well as we would probably have missed our flight otherwise. US airport staff here were as slow as they were when we hubbed through Miami coming up from Ecuador. We got to our gate to find that boarding had not yet started. In the end our flight was half an hour late leaving so we did have loads of time after all. With good tail winds we made up time and landed on schedule back in cold Canada.

We headed back to Morty who forgave us for deserting him for a few days and made our way back through the Toronto rush hour to Joanne’s bed and breakfast. We had a very warm welcome, I think she had missed us, but we were surprised to find that she only had one of her dogs, Harry, with her. Pippy has gone to stay with her sister for a week.

We are starting now in earnest to look at options for selling Mortimer in Vancouver. We have been in touch with a couple of dealers, one of whom is prepared to give us half of what he is worth – no good. Andy suggested trying to sell on ebay.com (did you know this was founded by a man who was looking for a way to sell his wife’s collection of Pez sweet dispensers!) so we headed out to start to look.

Rather than going into central Toronto we stayed locally within the Greek town area of Danforth Street. The section from the 300’s to 500’s is just one restaurant or café after another most of which have standard bistro sounding menu’s but just with a Greek twist. We found a Starbucks and started to look around for information. Behind us was a very hairy Greek lady and her husband who were simply sitting and watching the world go by. They kept interrupting and asking questions, not in a making conversation sort of way but more out of nosy curiosity.

We tried one of the Greek restaurants, Pan, for dinner. It came highly recommended by Joanne and the restaurant itself and the staff were very friendly. We shared a plate of taramasalata, hummous and tzatziki with pitas to start and I regretted it because I was full before my main course, moussaka, arrived. The moussaka portion was huge but it could have done with a bit more seasoning as it was a bit on the bland side. Full and tired we headed back to Joanne’s and the luxury of her big bed and warm duvet.

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