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Showing posts from September, 2013

Back to Normal - A Canadian Wonderland: Day 5

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Monday, September 2nd We could have gone back to the park this morning.  We could have stopped at roadside attractions on the drive home.  We didn't do either.  My main goal was to get home earlier than the rest of the lunatics that spent their Labor Day Weekend in Michigan and Indiana.  But a cozy(ish) hotel bed was much more interesting than heading out at the crack of dawn.  I know we could have left Vaughan earlier, but screw it.  We were tired and had no real plan. My only request was that our first stop needed to be Tim Hortons .  You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a Tim Hortons in Canada.  I'd heard of Tim Hortons, but wanted to try it out.  I knew they made donuts and coffee.  I like donuts.  I...don't like coffee, but could find another hot liquid to consume.  We had seen a Tim Hortons near our hotel yesterday as we drove to Wonderland.  But of course when you're really looking for something, it can't be found. I swear to god, Tim Horto

Antiques and Amusements - A Canadian Wonderland: Day 4

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Sunday, September 1st It should always be a rule that Sunday is a day of sleeping in.  Even on a trip.  Though this is a rule that will hardly, if ever happen.  Except for today.  Thank god it happened today.  Not that we have been going full-on or anything.  But road trips tend to need (deserve, maybe??) a bit more rest in-between days.  Especially if you stay up late eating Foie Gras and Strawberries. So we were really leisurely this morning.  The biggest goal was to check out at 11a or so.  We knew we were off to the amusement park in the afternoon.  But the morning...it was up to us. I'd mentioned before that the hotel was fine enough, but it was insanely busy in the lobby area.  And getting an elevator.  We were on one of the lower floors within our elevator bank.  Which meant every elevator going down was packed to the gills with people from the floors above us.  And we were trying to get out of the hotel very close to checkout.  So... we were not getting very far.  Ad

How We Eat - A Canadian Wonderland: Day 3.5

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Saturday, August 31st (again)   I'm obviously writing this well after our journey to Canada.  For whatever reason, I couldn't get behind a trip report on the road.  It happens.  I've made peace with it.  So someone asked me the other day, "Do you consider yourself a Foodie??"  I paused for a second.  Does "Foodie" have a negative connotation??  I hope not.  My response was yes, I figure I could call myself one.  "Well, so and so is a Foodie, but he also stops at Jack in the Box when we go to California."   And that's the thing.  I am going to walk through our meal in Toronto.  A pretty epic meal.  And while I rarely make a McDonald's or Chick-Fil-A run (not cause of the one reason for Chick-Fil-A, but because of a mold issue and the lack of remorse from the location in which the mold issue occurred, but I digress...), I think there is totally a place for fast food joints.  I may eat pork belly occasionally, but I'm not abov

Scenes from Toronto - A Canadian Wonderland: Day 3

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Saturday, August 31st (Part 1) It seems this Canada trip should be broken up into two posts for each and every day.  It didn't mean to be.  So if you're still keeping up with this whole trip, Bravo!!  Cause at this point, I barely can... Our hotel did not provide a free breakfast (Boo!!  This is becoming more and more common for my hotel choices and I'm not entirely happy about this), so Adele and I did what any American travelers would do.  Stop at Starbucks. We headed South on Yonge Street to find a Starbucks.  We were headed in that direction anyway and as we drove up the street last night, we found many different Starbucks on the street.  Until we actually went looking for them.  It took several blocks before we found a Starbucks and our Chai, Glorious Chai.  My guess is Canadian Starbucks has a different soy milk than the US Starbucks, cause it tasted just a bit different but it got the job done.  And it gave us a bit of a view of the city. The walk a

Unexpected Wine Country - A Canadian Wonderland: Day 2.5

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Friday, August 30th.  Still. Today was enough of a day to warrant two posts for one reason.  Who the hell knew there was a massive wine region in Canada??  Not us.  Well...not until a few days ago.  And we didn't really comprehend how much of a region we were driving through.  Not until we were on the road.  And then the magnitude of the region hit us.  Thank god it did.  This was seriously the best day. We decided to completely go with the recommendations of April, our Sommelier from last night.  With one added stop to try to find the wine we had for dinner last night.  Let's do this. Hello, Grapes!! Stop #1 - Upper Canadian Cheese Company It isn't quite fitting that the first stop on our journey was a cheese place.  But really, what goes better with wine than cheese??  As we walked in, it was like a small town convenience store.  Three aisles of foodstuff.  Jams and jellies and chutneys.  Cheese knives of many styles (I do kind of regret not getting a knife

Niagara Falls - A Canadian Wonderland: Day 2

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Friday, August 30th (Part 1) After a day of driving and a bottle of fabulous wine, I was not surprised to have had an excellent sleep last night.  We figured out a game plan for the morning before we fell asleep last night, so we knew we needed to get up a little on the early side.  Neither of us were happy about an early rise, but still...when on vacation... Before we got very far in the morning, we ambled downstairs to the lobby where Starbucks lived.  I set out to the front desk to request a later check-out since I decided not to shower this morning.  Yeah, I own up to this fact.  Shut up!!  Cause really, why bother showering when we know we're going to be out in the elements and basically under a waterfall??  But I digress.  I went to request the later check-out and Adele went to the concierge for a map so we could plot out the wineries we were going to seek out later in the afternoon.  She was given a massive booklet and we came up with a game plan as we consumed our