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31.08.17 - 01.09.17 YYZ - BRU - MAN - LDS WOWZERS! What a long day of travel we have had to get home!! We left the apartment at around half 10 on Thursday morning after a very unhealthy breakfast of leftover cookie from Wednesday nights meal! We slowly headed in to the city centre with our 'much heavier than when we arrived' cases and backpacks on foot. On the way Owen ate fruit to ward off the scurvy he thinks he might have developed on Wednesday as he only ate ONE PIECE OF FRUIT 😱 We were heading for the Art Gallery of Toronto's park to go chill out with a Henry Moore sculpture until we had to make our way back to the airport. We called in at a vegan chain food place called Kufpert and Kim to grab some lunch. We sat in the park and wished that the clouds would all go away and let the sun shine down on us on our last day here but they stuck around and they seemed to bring a chilly breeze to the park with them too! We sat in front of the Henry Moore on a bench and watched the world go by before we tucked in to our lunch! Owen went to grab us 2 coffees to go with our final vegan sweet treats of chocolate zucchini muffins and they were delicious! Once we had had lunch for the last time we got our belongings together and headed for the train station. We made one final stop at the CN tower so I could go and press a nickel for the second time (the first time there was a really annoying kid there trying to tell me how to do it! Instead of telling him, I KNEW how to do it AND could prove it with a pretty impressive selection from centre parcs, I just let him fluster me until I chose the wrong design!) Anyway, so now I have the one that I wanted in the first place! We were in the station in no time and even with a quick loo stop we made an earlier train back to the airport that we had anticipated! We went straight through security and I was lucky enough to be selected for a 'spot check' body scan, they found no spots - hahah - joke, my forehead is literally full of them - I suppose that's what a diet of doughnuts and cookies will do to you. Don't let anyone kid you that all vegan food is healthy - it isn't! We chose a spot in the airport to sit at which was fairly near our departure gate, watched the world go by some more for a while, ate some avocado and carrot sushi and drank some coke! The flight boarded an hour before our departure time which meant that we actually departed on time! The flight was fine except a large amount of turbulence which I did not like one bit! The meal request for a vegan meal for the two of us had been processed correctly and I thought it was great but Owen wasn't so keen! We watched a couple of films each and listened to half of a podcast but no sleep was had. We landed in Brussels at 7am which means we have lost 5 hours and it is very confusing - long night flight, no sleep AND losing time means our bodies have no idea what is going on! We waited for our flight back to Manchester and groggily stumbled around the airport for something to do. The plane was one of those tiny planes that don't quite look capable of flying around 100 people thousands of feet in to the air for any distance but it was only a short flight of an hour and BOOM were back in the UK! We waited for ages at passport control to be herded towards the stupid electronic machines that don't even work. We both tried 3 times, hand on passport, standing on the feet marks on the floor and looking in to the screen, only to be sent to a real life person anyway! We walked really slowly, like so slow that we almost fell asleep standing up, towards the train station and luckily enough there was a train due to leave in the next 5 mins. We both fell asleep on the train and it was lucky that Owen woke up on time to hear the announcement for Leeds because I would have been in the land of nod for hours I think. So now we are home, 3 loads of washing have been completed with a 4th to be done in the morning, a quick dash to the coop and it feels like we have never been away. We have just looked through some of the photos from the edge walk around the CN Tower and we are going to choose which of our instax prints to display around the flat later! I'm sure a small selection will end up on Facebook at some point soon too. We loved Canada, we are really glad we chose this as a place to go for our maplemoon and we have made an awesome amount of funny and happy memories over the past two weeks. We are so lucky and thankful to everyone who helped make this possible for us! We would definitely recommend it to anyone and we might even end up there again one day. N & O X

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30/08/17

We woke up laaaate today b/c of all the excitement yday, and spent most of the morning packing up our things :((((( We did take a break mid morning to cycle back to BLOOMERS to have more donuts and coffee tho - this time we had a cinnamon sugar donut and a chocolate dipped one, both of which were excellent and WHERE THE HECK are we going to get vegan donuts when we're back in the uk? We've been so spoilt with vegan food over here that it's going to be verrrry difficult going back to regular food. Back at home we finished packing our bags and then nat smashed the lid of a jar in the kitchen 😬 we swept up *almost* all the glass, except for a tiny bit that nat stepped on 5 minutes later, giving her a small cut on the ball of her foot. Nat didn't enjoy this so much, and christened herself DISASTER NAT for the day. After I put plasters on disaster nat's foot, we sauntered down the road and got a veeg hot dog from a lil street cart and it was the best dog all holiday -the crispy onions were 👌. We had a quick look in a paper supplies store, then cycled into downtown toronto to buy a couple of things, mostly clothes from uniqlo & roots (a canadian store). Unfortunately, disaster nat was BACK, b/c she left her cardigan ~somewhere~ and didn't realise until muuuch later. We retraced our steps and even asked in uniqlo but there was no sign of it. So farewell, cardigan! You were difficult to iron, but nat loved you! We hope you're bringing someone joy, or keeping them warm, or being used as a nest by pigeons! YOU WILL BE REMEMBERED! We cycled back to the apartment thru rush hour traffic and it was pretty hairy in places, especially when cars were TOO CLOSE to the side of the road and there wasn't enough room for us. Most car drivers were v considerate tho. We had a quick rest at home before heading out for our final dinner of the holiday, at DOOMIE'S, another vegan diner-type place. We had battered avocado to start (surprisingly delicious!), then Nat had mac and cheese and I had a bbq burger which was THE BEST burger I've maybe ever had. We were super full but still managed to order dessert - nat tried and failed to eat a massive hot cookie and I had deep-fried oreos (also surprisingly delicious). Then, too full to walk, we asked the staff to roll us out into the street and give us a push in the right direction. See you tomorrow for one last day of fun, toronto! x

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29.08.17 A 6:45am wake up call was seemingly a breeze bearing in mind we were both awake before the alarm even sounded. We got up, ate breakfast, drank juice and coffee, made sure our sweet treats that we bought from Bunners yesterday were safely packed and headed to the city bike dock down the road. I don't know if we have already talked about the city bikes over here or not, but let me just say, they are awesome. It's super cheap at around 9 quid for three days worth of use. The hire includes as many 30 minute journeys as you want across the time you have hired them for, there are docks on nearly every block so you could literally cycle on them all day and just keep docking and taking a new one if you so wished. You wouldn't need to do this though as you can get in to and around the city so quickly. The roads and drivers over here are super cycle friendly and the bikes are well equipped with a basket and lights. ANYWAY... so we got on our bikes and set off for the station! I was surprised to see how many people were heading to work at 7:20 in a morning and also slightly embarrassed that I had chosen to wear a slightly shorter dress than was maybe totally appropriate for a bike ride after reasoning with myself that there would be no one around at that time in the morning! Not to worry though as I had a trusty scarf with me that came to the rescue to alter my outfit slightly! Once in Union Station we headed to our train gate and got in line to have our tickets and our photo ID checked as the train we were on goes across the American / Canadian border. The train journey was pleasant, the conductor was v. likeable - he seemed like a guy who just liked to get stuff done while being polite and jolly, and I like that in a person! I have just tweeted the rail company to pass on my like too. We listened to a podcast, ate our snacks and drank some more coffee (we like ☕) The train we were travelling on was an AMTRAK service in partnership with the Canadian rail service VIA. 10 minutes before the train arrived at Niagara the conductor went through each carriage to explain that the train would stop twice, once for the American operators to take over the journey and secondly for us leaving the train at the Canadian side of the falls to get off. Weird huh? Once off the train we decided to walk for around 40 mins along the elevated river path to the actual waterfalls. The river is the most intense blue/green/turquoise colour you can imagine and moves so so fast. We could hear the waterfalls before we could see them which just added to the excitement of actually being there. It wasn't long before we could see them too and they were AMAZING! Straight away you can tell that the Canadian side of the falls (and view) is much much MUCH more impressive than that on the American side. We went straight to buy our tickets for the boat ride in to the falls and quickly walked through the maze of ropes and walkways down to the jetty. We picked up our bright red ponchos on the way and made sure we took loads of photos looking like complete dorks and then got on the boat. I instantly felt sick and was genuinely regretting getting on board but then the excitement took over and I kinda forgot about it until the end of the trip. WE GOT SO WET ON THE BOAT! I mean, we were expecting to get wet, they give you ponchos for gods sake but they don't cover your whole body. Our shoes were soaked through and so were Owens jeans and shirt sleeves! It turned out that even though the dress wasn't a good choice for cycling it was perfect for chasing waterfalls! The boat trip lasted around 30 minutes and we motored past the American falls and in to the horseshoe (because of the shape of it) falls on the Canadian side. There was a brief audio description in which it let us know that Canada is very proud of its superior water feature and informed us that it is predicted that the American falls won't actually be there much longer and they would instead become a series of rapids due to the force of the water eroding the cliff edge. The boat went what felt like so far in to the mist of the horseshoe falls and it was exhilarating to see and hear all the water whooshing over the edge and down in to the river. We motored back to the dock and disembarked, our legs feeling a bit wobbly, we decided to sit down for a bit, have another snack (crisps) dry off a little bit and calm down from all the fun. Then we began to make our way down to the waterfall on foot to get a view of it from above. We were glad that we kept our ponchos as the mist from the fall was blowing up so high it genuinely felt like it was raining and every now and again when the wind died down it would stop! From here you can see down in to the river and we watched the boats moving around down there. It became quite obvious from this angle that we hadn't gone very far in to the waterfall at all! As we were soaked again we decided to grab some lunch and ate it outside. We listened to some people who were on a trip with 'Diamond Tours' that seemed very friendly with each other, I assume that happens as you get older, there would be no way on earth that I would be inviting some strangers to sit and talk to me. We moved on to a sun spot to dry out and eat some fruit. We thought for a while about doing another Niagara Falls attraction 'journey behind the falls' where you go down nearer the base of the waterfall and get soaked in a yellow poncho or to go up the Skylon tower to get a view from a higher perspective. We decided on neither and opted to sit in the sun and enjoy the view from where we were. We had a couple of hours to spare until the train home and we decided to walk across a bridge until we got to the border controlled section, little did we know that we had to show our passports before even entering the bridge so we decided not to just in case they wouldn't let us back in. There is literally no reason why this would have happened but we decided that the faff wasn't worth walking half way over a bridge. In the end this actually worked out for the best as we got to witness a kid cycling around a park fall off his bike about 5 times. He wasn't hurt, he was fully protected from these falls (helmet, knee and elbow pads) and he always got straight back on, only to topple off it 30 seconds later! I know you shouldn't laugh at things like this but, nah, of course you should, laugh the kind of laughter that makes tears roll down your face, laughter that makes you unable to breath... or maybe Owen and I are just cruel? We then walked up the Niagara Strip which is genuinely terrifying. I guess Niagara is a bit like a mix between Scarborough and Las Vegas in the sense of it's literally got everything, casinos, water parks, waxwork museums, fun houses, dungeons, tat shops etc etc etc. We did not like this and began to slowly walk back to the station for our 17:45 train back to Toronto. The conductor had warned us in the morning that the train is usually delayed leaving the station on an evening, this is because the train station effectively becomes the border between Canada and America. Therefore anyone who boarded the train in America needed to go through customs! This has to be done before anyone can board the train! The delay was only 15 minutes and we were on our way home with another podcast to listen to, seats reclined and footrests up! Once back in Toronto we headed to a supermarket to grab some food and drink for tea, headed to the bikes and cycled home, stopping on a bridge on the way to get a photo of the CN Tower lit up against the night sky! Back in the apartment we had a quick tea, drank some beer and cider, washed the day off us and collapsed in a heap in bed! N x

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28/08/17

We started out today on a high -- A DONUT HIGH -- nat had found a vegan bakery/café called BLOOMERS up on bloor st, so we cycled up there nice & early and YEAH, GOT DONUTS. Well, I got a donut, a blueberry one that was, I kid ye not, the best donut I've ever eaten. Nat got a lemon & poppyseed muffin but honestly mine was way nicer. We also had coffee and juice, and made plans to go back again another morning. We rode that donut high (ha ha jk we rode our bikes) all the way back home, packed some bags, then headed out to walk down queen st west, where we had seen some cool shops on previous days. We ducked in and out of stationery shops, gift shops, jewelery shops, & shops selling plants (and book shops of courrrrrrse) and ended up back at trinity bellwoods park. We walked into and then out of the dogbowl (part of the park where dogs can run free (nat also ran free) and where they have film nights, apparently), then finally settled down for a picnic of leftover vegan philly cheesesteak, crisps, & fruit. Some wasps came to hang out with us for a bit, and we all got our books out and read in the sun. After laying around for a while we decided to head over to TYPE, the bookshop in the neighbourhood, which was v good. I only bought one book there! After this we got coffee from a place that had no name? but it did have a giant squirrel picture as a logo, so we're calling it SQUIRREL. We strolled back to the apartment with our coffees and had only a momentary rest before heading back out on bikes to go get muffins from BUNNERS, in kensington market. We're saving them for the train journey to niagara falls tomorrow, which OH YEA we're going to niagara falls! And we're so excited!! As well as getting baked goods, we also grabbed some stuff for dinner from a supermarket and I went back to THE BEGUILING, the comic store, to get a comic and some badges 👍👍 I spent a while choosing between 2 different types of lion pin badge - one with a kind of spirographed mane and one that looked more 'illustrated', and was gold rather than yellow. I went for the gold one in the end, and I advise you to do the same : ALWAYS CHOOSE THE GOLD LION. We cycled back to ossington avenue with all our stuff, then went to bellwood brewery, just round the corner from our apartment, for a drink. Nat had WOLF WIZARD, an ipa, and I had JELLY KING b/c I am lord and ruler of all jellies. It was a sour beer and it was delicious! The outside drinking/eating area at the brewery was 👌 and we enjoyed it a lot. We also decided we liked that most places are table service in canada, rather than having everyone stumbling back and forth to the bar all the time and getting in each others way. After our drinks we headed home, made some pasta, and listened to some podcasts before turning in early. TURNING IN TO WHAT??? Turning in to sleeping versions of ourselves, obviously, b/c we have to be up early to go to niagara falls tomorrow! Wo0o0oo.

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27.08.17 After all the excitement of yesterday, a 7am alarm was a tad heartbreaking! I pretended not to have heard it while Owen made breakfast (he's a keeper❤) and then we made a speedy exit from the apartment for the train station. We were leaving Montreal to head back to Toronto. We decided to do this on bikes to allow us (me) a slightly longer amount of time in bed, so off we cycled with our heavy heavy backpacks. It was unsurprisingly (we had a practice around the block last night-we are no rookies) hard even though it was mostly downhill but we are pro cyclists and just got the hell on with it! We made it to the station with time to grab a coffee, and 10 days later after hoping for them in Manchester airport, hash browns (yes, we had already had breakfast, your point is...?) The train journey took around 5 hours to get us back to the city of .......! Come to think of it, I'm not sure what Toronto is the city of - you can choose! I choose it to be the city of hotdogs because there are hotdog vendors everywhere! The journey was smooth and we had the pleasure of sitting opposite a woman and her extremely bratty little girl! I even scowled at her once or twice (I know this is very '👵🏼' of me but she was hitting and kicking her mum and demanding crisps and I felt really sorry for the mum) When we weren't being interrupted by the aforementioned little madam we listened to The Butterfly Effect and This American Life while eating homemade falafel, hummus and cucumber pittas, which if we are honest, we spilt most of down ourselves and on to the floor of the train 🤦🏻‍♀🤦🏻‍♂ Once off the train we stepped out in to the city and it was so much warmer than it had been in Montreal the entire time we were there. We walked to our new apartment and Owen employed a tactic which you might use with small children to get me to keep walking by saying 'it's just after this park' and 'it's just a bit further down this road' which was all lies, lies I tell you and we had to walllllllllk forrrrrrrrr millllllllllles! But we made it to our new Toronto lodgings and it's really nice. Very tastefully decorated in white with wooden floors and an eclectic mix of vintage wooden furniture. Although there is a taxidermied moose on the wall which we are less than keen on but we have just thrown a towel over it to cover it up so that we can't see it* The owners had left us 2 bottles of beer on the table from the local brewery with a 'congratulations' note. It feels weird for people to still be congratulating us on getting married bearing in mind it was pretty much a year ago. I might save it and regift it to Owen in a few weeks 'Congratulations, you made it a year with your crazy wife' The bathroom is SO light and airy which is such a contrast to the 'wet room' situation we had in Montreal and what we are used to in our underground bunker. There is a dried plant hanging in the bathroom that smells AMAZING - it's like that musky smell that you can sniff in a florists! I'll pop a photo of it on here today and if anyone knows what it is just holla! We unpacked, drank some coffee, drank some water, I ate some crisp crumbs with a spoon, hand washed some clothes, Owen dried a pair of socks and pants on the oven - not even joking - showered and changed ready to go out for tea - we looked on the Happy Cow website for places to go around this new area and chose The Hogtown Vegan which is about a 30 minute walk away. Before going out we opened up one of the beers and played a game of cards while listening to some music then I put on some lippy, Owen shoved his fingers in to the plug sockets to do his hair and we set off. OHMHGOODNESSME! The Hogtown Vegan is the bees knees of vegan comfort food! I wish I'd taken a picture of the menu cos it blew us away to the point of ordering waaaaaaay too much food! We were able to have vegan poutine tonight avec cheese and nommers it was good! Then Owen had 'no chicken and waffles' like, sweet waffles, with maple syrup, accompanied by greens and sweet potato which he smothered in hot sauce. I had a Philly cheesesteak (seitan) with a side of fries. We also ordered an extra side of mac n cheese which I'm gonna hold my hands up and admit that I ate all of, Owen didn't actually want any, so I wasn't being mean - just really really greedy. This meant that I literally ate a third of my sandwich and had to have it wrapped up to take home. This eatery had a great selection of music going on too - Marvin Gaye, Al Green, The Stylisics, Hues Corporation etc which just made the whole experience that bit more *puts fingers together in a pincer grip, moves them to lips, makes a kissing noise as moving hand away from mouth in an outward manner* We walked home fairly quickly as it was chilly outside, caught a glance of the CN Tower lit up all fancy, looked at the moon and chatted about nothing much until we were back in the apartment. We (I) will probably need to loosen the belt a notch or two tomorrow due to the evenings gluttony but you only get to honeymoon with your honey once so we don't care! Night y'all N x *WE HAVEN'T REALLY COVERED THE MOOSE WITH A TOWEL. WE JUST CLOSE OUR EYES AS WE WALK PAST IT!

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26/08/17

Today was our last day in montreal! We had a couple of things to get done before anything else: go get some more books from librarie drawn & quarterly and get some FRUIT from the supermarket. We got 2 books about a cute lil bear by a japanese author, the graphic novel BOUNDLESS which I'm excited to read, and also a book called FOUND AUDIO, which looks great and is published by two dollar radio, one of my fave indie publishers & whose books you can't generally get in the UK. We completed these tasks in record time b/c we hired bikes, so then we stopped at the green panther again to get some pitas for lunch, then packed everything up and cycled out to the olympic park, left over from the olympics montreal hosted in the 70s. You can see the stadium for miiiiles, so we had that in our sights the whole way, which was weird b/c it looked very close but was not at all - it took us maybe 20-25mins to get there, so we parked up and ate our lunch just outside the botanical gardens (the whole olympic park has been repurposed - some is now the botanical gardens, another part nr the stadium is the biosphere, with lots of different habitats recreated & with animals in too (but we didn't fancy this b/c animals shouldn't be kept in cages duhhhh)). Then we got sone tix and went thru into the greenhouses of the botanical gardens, on the way seeing a lady with a cardigan emblazoned with the words I LOVE CATS on the back. I guess she had made it herself? To show her love of cats? Just like people wearing football shirts really, except she doesn't support a team, just felines in general. The greenhouses were good - not the biggest we've been in, but well laid out. Some of the cacti looked a bit sad ☹️. Then outside the greenhouses we wandered thru a rose garden, a japanese garden that was v pretty and calm, and then a first nations garden. The whole experience was v pleasant, as botanical gardens tend to be. We'd already sussed out an ice cream store that was en route to the city centre, so we stopped off and had, frankly, far too much soy ice cream from HOCHE GLACE. Nat had some soft serve chocolate, & I had a massive tub of oreo, chocolate and raspberry. It was delicious. we cycled back into old montreal, to the pier, where we decided there was nothing better to do with a belly full of ice cream than climb up a massive tower of scaffolding that creaked and rattled like the skeleton of some frail old giant, and then from the top we ziplined across the water to the opposite tower, screaming most of the way. Nat *loved* this, and even went so far as to do what they were calling a 'quick jump' before the zipline. This was a little like a mini-bungee jump, and nat got attached to a bungee cord and then led out onto a platform that stuck out the edge of the tower. When someone pulled a comically big lever, the platform swung away and nat plummeted, grinning like the maniac I have only recently come to realise she is. **nat had also said she'd now like to do a proper bungee jump, and also learn how to skim stones** It was getting late in the afternoon by this point, so we grabbed some more bikes and cycled off to find a henry moore sculpture outside one of the art galleries, taking a look at some of the other public art as we went. Fiiiinally, after a long walk back around the side of mont royal, we got home and ate hot dogs whilst packing up our things ready for the train journey back to toronto tomorrow. zzzz

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25.08.17 This morning we arose from our restless slumbers (we both took it in turns to be wide awake for a vast proportion of last night 🤷🏻‍♀🤷🏻‍♂) and walked down the road to a place called La Cagibi. We ordered scrambled tofu and coffee. On the way to a table in the window I stumbled over a very VERY large radiator and made my leg bleed - we were off to a winning start! Our coffees were served in pleasing cups and our breakfast reminded us of a dish you can order at Bundobust called Egg Bhurji. I'm not quite sure what the crack is with vegan breakfasts as they always seem to come with a side salad - like, why would anyone except Owen want to eat a salad at that time in the morning? We scoffed it down regardless and it was tasty and good to know that we were off to a good start on our daily 5 portions of fruit and veg bearing in mind we had each already had some OJ (not Simpson) and a banana! As we sat in the cafe we glanced out on to the street and began watching a couple sing and dance along to something in their car. When they saw us watching they loved it, they bloody loved it and kept eye contact while still singing and dancing - people are so much happier and less inhibited here, although that could do with the amount if weed that everyone seems to consume - we can smell it literally everywhere we go! We went back to the apartment to gather our things and then set out on foot to go downtown, where all the lights are bright, so we could forget all our troubles and cares! One of the first things that we saw was a blackboard outside a church that had the statement 'Before I die........' which people could write on with chalk, we both stood there for a while and other than 'change the world' and other sentiments along those lines which had already been written, we couldn't think of anything! Our life is pretty great! We walked around a few shops that we don't have in the UK but nothing really caught our eyes enough to part with any dollars! After this we wandered down towards Old Montreal, on the way we passed a council building that had plaque about the Olympics that have been held in Canada. In 1976 Montreal held the summer games and Calgary (1988) and Vancouver (2010) have held the winter games. The plaque bragged that over these 3 events, Canada had won a total of 47 medals, which I don't think is that big of a brag to be honest! We carried on walking to our lunch venue where we marvelled at the decor, ate vegan poutine (chips, gravy and vegan cheese, except we didn't have the cheese because nuts) and a toasted sandwich and a burger. After lunch we walked around the really really French part of the city for a while before walking down to the port. We saw a gigantic Ferris wheel and became excited at the prospect of getting to go on it, when we got closer though we realised that IT WASN'T WORKING 🙎🏻it's kind of okay though as we also saw a zip wire that we might pay to go on tomorrow! We were down at the port to head over the river to Habitat 67 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67) which is a set of apartments that are all stacked up on each other in various ways. This was a long walk but very much worth it! After this we walked home to rest our weary bodies! We had 'cheese' on toast for dinner and some snickerdoodle cookies while watching The IT Crowd until it was time for some much needed sleep! N x

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24/08/17

Our apartment is at the foot of MOUNT ROYAL, the big extinct volcano for which montreal is named, and today we walked the heck out of it. We started out by climbing steeply thru a bunch of trees, passing runners and other hikers, and the sights & sounds of the city were quickly hidden. It was v peaceful, until we came upon the first look-out spot, which was busy with sightseers like ourselves. We took in views of the area we are staying in, as well as some of the downtown area, then plunged back into the woods, hoping to see some raccoons that signs kept warning us NOT TO FEED. We only have a rough idea of what a raccoon even looks like, and I guessed they were roughly cat-sized, so we kept our eyes peeled for roughly cat-sized things but NOTHING DOING. They were probably off eating garbage somewhere (raccoons eat garbage?). Next we came to a giant, ~30metre high cross covered in lightbulbs, which has been up since the 1920s. A family nearby, the kids in particular, *loved* the cross, one kid shouting to the other DO YOU SEE IT? DO YOU SEE IT? And the other kid, a short distance away but running as fast as they could shouting WAIT FOR ME I WANT TO SEE IT! WAIT! It was so nice to see children excited and enthusiastic about something other than video games and the youtube, so I'm proposing every child be given a 30metre high light-up cross. We kept on walking and finally reached the best and most impressive view of montreal, greeted by the -to be honest- pretty odd sounds of a guy playing a piano over a backing track. I couldn't tell you what he was playing, but a few people were clapping along and I guess it sounded a bit like 80s pop of some kind? Then he transitioned into some german folk-pop and we just tried to concentrate on the view, which was beautiful. We made our way through more wooded and grassed areas, still not seeing any raccoons, until we found a spot for lunch overlooking a lake. It was also overlooking another couple who were being terrorised by a single squirrel. At first one of them shooed it away with a hand, but when it came back, desperate to nibble on some courgette no doubt (squirrels LOVE courgette - we saw one struggling with a whole one in the park later in the day), they stood up and motioned like they were about to KICK IT!! We tensed and got ready to stage an intervention, but the person changed their mind and picked up a stick instead!!! We tensed again but then the person just sat down and had obviously seen the error of their ways, b/c they started feeding the lil' furry guy some snacks straight out of their hand. Truly, a love story for all time. We finished our lunch, got a coffee, and walked back down the side of mount royal through a couple of cemeteries, which were nice and peaceful and v well maintained. After a brief stop at the apartment to rest up, we headed back out into the neighbourhood for another nose around. We ended up wandering down avenue du mont-royal for a loooong way b/c the whole street was pedestrianised & there was a festival thing going on, which was cool. We browsed some books at some street stalls, soaked up the atmosphere, then watched some A-MAZING breakdancers. For real, they were so good that nat WHOOPed a couple of times. Idk any of the names of the moves but lmty their were limbs spinning and waving all over, and at various speeds. After this we turned back towards mile end, looked at some cool houses, and finally stopped off for a much needed coffee at le cagibi, which we think we're going to go to for breakfast tomorrow. We walked home via a few places to get stuff for dinner, and just ate falafel, pita and salad which was delicious! Seeeee you tomorrow MTL! x

[onstates-blog]

23.08.17 Bonjour from Montreal! I am very confused, I keep having to remind myself that I'm not actually in France. We tested out our conversational French on each other this morning after breakfast and let's just say our high school French teachers would be tres disappointed in us! We decided to stay local today so we set off around 11am to wander around the Mile End area of the city. It was full of cool and quirky shops that we obviously wanted to buy a lot of stuff in but we resisted. It was very quiet around this area which was a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of Toronto! We found a cool stationers, where EVERYTHING that was their brand was made in their tiny little shop and we could see all the paper and the machines that they used to do this! Cool huh? We walked further until we got to a REALLY COOL bookshop called Librarie Drawn and Quartetly. Like, usually I can give or take bookshops, but even I could have bought tonnes of stuff in here so how Owen limited himself to two books I'll never know. It was set out in a really cool and interesting way and seemed to have loads of books that I've never even seen or heard of before, and believe me, I have been in nearly every bookshop going! Anyway, my understanding of this bookshop is that it is a Montreal based publishers who publish cool stuff like graphic novels and comics that have their own shop to distribute said cool stuff but also an apparent awesome selection of other literature and stuff you can read. Cool! Cool cool cool! I hope we can go back as there were 2 children's books about a little bear that I want to buy. 🐻 Afterwards we walked across the street to a cafe with an open front and a kind of shabby bohemian decor thing going on. We ordered our standard black coffees that were served in tall glasses while we watched and listened to a trio play some acoustic french music which was very relaxing! This place served grilled cheese sandwiches that smelt amazing and we decided we should probably make our way to a suitable lunch venue! La Panthère Vert is an all vegan eatery that is a 20 min walk from where we are staying and serves amazing pittas with a wide range of choices of filling! We even treated ourselves to sweet snacks of caramel shortbread and chocolate brownies here as they were all dairy free! Winner! After this we walked further in to the old town area of Montreal and passed some very beautiful houses on the way! We found a game shop that had the most board games that we had ever seen. The architecture around this area is significantly different from anywhere else that we have seen and I guess it looks more typically French! We walked back to the apartment to rest before going out in the evening for drinks and dinner. Our first stop was a bar called 'Darling' and it was rather darling to be fair! We both had a gin cocktail and discussed how strange we found table service in bars over here. The gin had suddenly awoken our hunger and we set off to a vegan restaurant called 'Invitation' for a 3 course feast accompanied by some rather nice wine. A highlight of this meal was the broccoli and coconut milk soup we had to start with. DEEEEEEELICIOUS! We decided that this was probably the most elaborate / fancy meal we had ever treated each other to, which is ok because it's our maplemoon and also pretty funny as it wasn't even that fancy! We are simple folk! Went home to bed to sleep for many hours to regain energy for the next day! X

[onstates-blog]

[onstates-blog]

22/08/17

Goooooodbye toronto! We woke up early, had a quick breakfast & walked through the already considerable heat to union station, where we caught a train to montreal. The journey took about 5 hrs, and was fairly pleasant - the views of lake ontario were nice, and there was a lot of greenery to see. And you can get a lot done in 5 hrs! I napped. Also read a comic, and we listened to the first few episodes of 'the butterfly effect' by jon ronson, which is v good! Also the pizza gods were kind to us and gifted us 2 slices each of pepperphony and it was as delicious as it was 2 days ago! Pizza pizza pizza. We arrived in downtown montreal to grey skies, and started the walk to our apartment, which is in le plateau-mont-royal. Half way there, thunder rolled and lightning.. also rolled. And then the clouds burst and an incredible amount of rain fell. We dived under a doorway nr the university and thought about waiting it out, but it showed no sign of stopping, so we braved it, and were soaked to the skin in seconds. After walking for 20 minutes thru the rain we got to the apartment and put out our clothes to dry and rested our tired, mosquito-bitten limbs. Once the rain had stopped we went out to get some stuff for breakfast and some chickn burgers for dinner, which we ate about an hr ago whilst watching the IT crowd. Soooo we're just going to finish drying our clothes & go to bed, ready to explore montreal tomorrow! gnight!