Ontario Trip

This will be quick because I've been putting it off:

Day 1: Pick up rental car; drive 6 or 7 hours to Niagara Falls with a stop in Trenton for food. Arrive in Niagara Falls, check in at hotel, go see the falls (still as beautiful as I remembered them when I was 12), have dinner (we had a really funny waitress: she was nice and seemed like one of those people who have always and will always be a waitress), lost money at the casino to slot machines.

Day 2: Continental breakfast at the hotel with a very old lady supervising the breakfast room. She was snooty and kicked people out for wearing pajamas and told me twice that I should 'just sit down now' (I was taking too long, apparently). Walk over to see the falls again. Walk to the 'strip': Niagara has turned into the Vegas of Canada. We went to the Guinness World Records Museum (highlight was playing the first Mario Bros game), to a 'fun' house (it was not fun, it was for kids), to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum (better than the Guinness one if you have a choice... highlight was ... mmm I wont tell you otherwise I'd ruin the surprise), to an outdoor maze (fun, but we completed it in 15 minutes), and to a moving theatre (I got a little dizzy). Then we hit the casino again but won at the roulette table. We ordered in and shared a bottle of wine that night while watching TV - the World Junior's Hockey championship among other things (that night Canada beat the USA- yay!). 

Day 3: Went to an outlet mall to try to buy our wedding china which we still haven't gotten around to doing (I blogged about it a while ago), but the store didn't exist anymore! Then we drove to Toronto, checked in and went straight to the Hockey Hall of Fame. We had lunch at marché (a market-style) restaurant, which was really cool. You get a card when you walk in and then you pick what you want to eat and then you pay on your way out. It was very busy and packed full of businessmen, so Paul and I shared a table with three men. We clearly eavesdropped on everything they had to say about one of their colleagues who was buying an expensive house in the Richmond area and who also was dating the wrong girl (or maybe she was dating the wrong guy?). Anyway, it was an entertaining and very filling lunch! We took our time touring the Hockey Hall of Fame, the highlights being at the end of the tour where there are interactive games! Paul tried being a virtual goalie, and I tried being a commentator. It was hilarious, I was screaming ‘Et c’est le BUUUUUUUUT!’ really loudly, not realizing there were people behind me watching. I walked out of the little booth super red and embarrassed. We then went to the Eaton Center (I prefer the one in Montreal, but hey, shopping is shopping). We didn’t buy anything but there were amazing sales on! We then went to the movies to see Black Swan. What a trippy movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend you do. Natalie Portman is excellent. When we got back to our hotel, we finally got hungry (remember our lunch was huge) so we ordered in some chicken and watched TV, which was the night Canada lost to the Russians if I remember correctly.

Day 4: We went to the CN Tower first thing to make reservations at the 360^o restaurant, which was really simple. We made an early reservation for 5pm because the sun set was scheduled for 4:30pm and we wanted to be able to see some of the city in the daylight and they let you go up half an hour before your dinnertime to walk on the glass floor. Then we walked towards a park because I thought it looked nice on the map. It wasn’t that nice in real life; if you go to Toronto during the wintertime, don’t bother. The skating rink at Nathan Philip’s Square was nice though. We kept walking and Paul had found a sports store near us so we walked towards that and when we got to it, it was an army surplus. Now I have to tell you, I did not have appropriate footwear on this day. I had looked out the window in the morning and thought, ‘oh, there isn’t any snow on the ground, I’ll be fine with shoes’. So I wore shoes. I also should mention that my boots (a copycat version of Uggs) got wet very easily, despite dousing them in waterproof spray. And it had started snowing. I found cute Sorel boots at the army surplus store, so I bought them. They were also very cheap because of a great sale they were having. We walked back towards the Eaton Center and stopped to look at books, soaps and outdoorsy things (Paul and I have odd shopping tastes, I know). We stopped by the hotel to change (and to drop off my shoes, now that I had my boots on) and then we continued on to the CN Tower. We walked on the glass floor and saw parts of the city (it was snowing, so we unfortunately did not get to see much). We had an amazing dinner at the 360^o restaurant. Paul had a massive steak and I had salmon. Our starters and desert were awesome too. We both considered this to be the celebration of four years of dating (January 11^th) but we later realized it was January 6^th, one day after our 6 month wedding anniversary. I think we didn’t realize it because we were thinking years, not months.

Day 5: Drove to Belleville and hit some crazy traffic on the highway. It was stop and go for about an hour. We didn’t see any accidents, but we think the snowplows might have been slowing everything down. We arrived in Belleville and got to catch up with Sherrie and meet Lily. Adam got home after work and we continued catching up, chatting and having a great time. We discovered the joys of PVR and watched some TV shows. Adam and Paul also played the NHL 2011 PS3 hockey game.

Day 6: Drove home to Montreal after enjoying more chats and a long breakfast and more cuddle time with Lily.

All in all it was a great trip!