Lingua franca. Oh the irony.

So while my Spanish is good, and while I can decently understand Italian and muddle my way through the basics, and while I even managed to pick up some Hungarian and Serbo-Croatian in my travels in those regions, my French is limited to hello, thank you, and a couple of cuss words.

I did sit down and make the small effort to learn how to ask for things, as well as the first few numbers and some other phrases. And when it’s come to reading signs and stuff, my Spanish/Italian have helped me for the most part figure things out.

But the pronunciation in large part escapes me, and understanding spoken French is just kind of a lost cause. If I actually made a concerted effort and, say, took a couple of French classes, I know I’d be in better shape. But when it comes to pronunciation, reading only gets you so far, ya know?

So anyway. Where am I going with this? Yesterday we left Montreal on our way to Quebec City, and on the way, we stopped at a cheese factory where Ysabelle (one of the friends we stayed with in Toronto) had recommended we try the cheese curds.

They have a restaurant, so I ordered, or thought I did, fries with cheese curds.

I did NOT order poutine. That was a separate menu, and Ysabelle had recommended another poutine place that she said has the best poutine in Canada, so we figured we’d just try cheese curds at this place and actual poutine at the other place.

Now, for those of you who don’t know what poutine is (as I didn’t before this trip), it’s french fries with fresh cheese curds, gravy, and who knows what else on top of it. I’m not a gravy fan (never have been) but I like cheese, and I’m adventurous, so I figured I’d give it a try.

So yeah, I ordered fries with cheese curds.

We got this.

So I took it from the counter (it was a busy walk-up wind0w) and I was like, “Oh, huh. This looks like I thought poutine looked like. I didn’t order poutine.” [Checked the receipt] “Nope, it says “moyenne [medium] avec fromage. Ok then.” And the price was the same as a medium fries with cheese curds.

So I took my fork and started poking, digging for the fries.

Only there weren’t any.

That entire thing was a container of gravy with cheese curds.

The three of us tried to eat it. Well, we did eat some of it. We enjoyed the cheese, and the squeakiness of it.

But… it was just too much, and way too much gravy.

I KNOW I didn’t order the poutine. There was an entire separate menu for poutine, and the prices were different than what I’d paid.

Clearly we got the incorrect order somehow (even though our receipt was on our tray.) And I was too embarrassed (and the line was too long… but mostly I was too embarrassed) to go back and try to figure out how to explain that we got the wrong thing.

Obligatory mealtime shot.

So, after spending $7 and 15 minutes trying to eat the cheese and gravy, we gave up, got a scoop of ice cream, and left. We never did make it to the poutine place Yzzie recommended. We felt bad, but after the cheese curds and gravy, the last thing any of us wanted to look at was more cheese curds and gravy.

ANYWAY. That may go down as one of the more hilarious things that I think happened this trip.

Part of yesterday was spent with this as my view:

That would be the boys in the front seat and me in the back seat of our rented Nissan Altima. Which, for what it’s worth, has the turning radius of the average World War II aircraft carrier. I’m crossing it off of my list of cars to someday purchase.

I realize it’s a lousy picture, but I was in the back seat at the time. That would be a Confederate flag painted on the back of a pickup truck. In Quebec. AWESOME.

So it turns out, entirely by accident, we happened to show up the exact weekend of the last two days of the Festival d’été de Québec, an 11-day, 15-stage music festival that draws 1.5 million people. The festival is held in the historic area right outside the city wall. Guess where we were staying? Right INSIDE the city wall. Guess which day of the festival was the biggest? Yesterday.

We ended up parking over 2 kilometers from our hotel. That was the best we could do. It was THAT crazy. But, since I thrive on crazy, I found it pretty freaking awesome… even though we did end up walking to our hotel, walking back to the car, grabbing our stuff, and taking the bus back (which still entailed a fair amount of walking, since the bus stops outside the city wall.)

Quebec City is the oldest walled city in North America outside of Mexico, which is one of the reasons I wanted to come here — I figured it’d be a lot closer to what I saw in Europe, and I was right. It’s AMAZING. Anyway, this is one of the entrances to the city–it’s about a block and a half up the street from our hotel. :-)

View from our room. Sorry about the window screen. :-)

After quick showers, we headed out to wander the old city to see what there is to see. Even the guys thought it was amazing, and me… well, I was pretty darn enthralled with the whole place.

Toward the bottom of our street, looking up toward our hotel (actually a bed and breakfast.)

Down the hill a little farther, toward the boardwalk overlooking the waterfront. Old Quebec City is divided into two parts — Haute Ville (upper town, where we were staying — still within the city wall) and Basse Ville (lower town — the REALLY old part of the city. The boardwalk is the edge of Haute Ville.

St. Lawrence River, looking north. This is pretty much where the St. Lawrence River widens into an estuary and becomes tidal.

Parliament Building at night.

Saw this on a t-shirt, laughed. :-)

I really dig old collections like this — sometimes you find more interesting (and unexpected) things than you might at a larger museum.

The main gallery of the museum. It was larger than this, but not by much — all in all, it took us about 90 minutes to walk through.

From the US, a Carolina Parakeet, an extinct species that used to live in the southeastern US. According to the tag, the Redpath Museum acquired this specimen before they became extinct. The only other place I think I’ve seen one of these was in the Smithsonian Natural History museum… maybe in the London one? I can’t remember.

From California, my favorite rock!! I was really surprised they had this, actually, and also, while it’s a smaller sample than the Royal Ontario Museum, it’s (in my opinion) a more pretty sample.

From Egypt, a mummy…

And from Winnipeg, a smart alec (who left the circled comment in the museum’s guest book.)

Obligatory mealtime shot. I swear I’m having a good trip with these two — they’re really a ton of fun, mealtime pictures notwithstanding. :-)

Nice car!!

Obligatory breakfast shot in the main (downstairs) kitchen of our hostel.

I have to say, I am REALLY digging this hostel. Essentially, we’re sharing an apartment with one other couple (also late 20s/early 30s.) They have one bedroom, we have the other. So far we’ve more or less had the place to ourselves. It’s inexpensive, clean, quiet, and relaxing. And someone comes to clean the bathroom every day. What more can I ask for? Seriously, best hostel I’ve ever stayed in. Only thing that would make it better would be double beds instead of singles, but oh well. :-)

One random thing I saw fairly frequently in Europe but don’t ever remember seeing in the US (or at least in CA) was construction netting over the fronts of buildings that was painted to look like the building’s facade. I really like that!

I may have inadvertently run one of these. Not because I didn’t know what it said, though — I just didn’t see it. :-p

Matt sporting his homemade shirt next to its movie poster. :-)

We went to Notre Dame Basilica for the tour and to see what there was to see. It was incredible.

Mark Twain once said about Montreal, “This is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn’t throw a brick without breaking a church window.” Double-negative aside, I thought it was funny. :-)

Snack of waffles and handmade ice cream. OMG GOOD.

The Palais des congrès de Montréal, or Montreal Convention Center, has these amazing windows — I could have played with my camera for half a day there, just capturing the light and color and shadows of people walking. So beautiful.

Montreal has an underground network of tunnels and shops that connect many of its downtown buildings, called the RESO. We decided to check them out, and, most likely because it was a gorgeous summer day outside, they were pretty empty. Kind of spooky!! Although I can see how it’d be nice in the wintertime to not have to go outside. Anyway, the walls in one of the tunnels were very reflective, and I got this shot of the guys. Reflections = FUN. :-)

After wandering all day, we went back to the hostel and crashed, then I made dinner and we hung out and watched a movie. Low-key and fun. :-)

I managed to forget the obligatory breakfast shot, but I got one at dinner, so we’re good there.

Anyway, Montreal. It was about a 6ish hour drive from Toronto, and we all took turns.

It occurred to John and me that for all of our traveling, we’ve never actually driven in a foreign country before this trip.

Courtesy of our awesome Toronto hosts Yzzie and Craig, we were well-stocked with six different flavors of potato chips (the other two were in the trunk.) From left to right, we had Ketchup, Smoking Stampede, Jamaican Jerk Chicken, and Sweet Chili Thai. We also had leftover Turkish food and Indian roti to finish off. Nom. :-)

We also had chocolate, and Matt’s stash of real sugar Dr Pepper.

The funniest part of the drive was the guys flipping out that KFC in Quebec is PFK – Poulet Frit Kentucky. I’ll have to take a picture of the sign next time I see it. I mean, I get that we’re in a French-speaking area, but everywhere else John and I have been in the world, they tend to keep KFC as KFC. At least that’s how I remember it. Heh.

I ended up driving once we got to where our hostel is, because it’s in downtown Montreal, and the driving and parking situation is batshit insane. But I have no complaints because our hostel is super freaking cool. We have a two-bedroom apartment — we’re in one of the rooms, and there is another couple in the other room (each room locks individually.) We share a bathroom, kitchen, and common area. Given the fact that it’s a large hostel in a busy area, the room itself is surprisingly peaceful.

Our digs for the next three nights.

Bathroom, or as they call it in Canada, washroom, or as they call it in Quebec, toilettes.

Deck outside our room.

After we got in, we all crashed out for a bit.

Eventually we got up and went wandering down Rue Sainte-Catharine, a street a couple of blocks from the hostel that’s apparently a big shopping area.

John and Matt had both downloaded a real-time translation app for their phones called Word Lens — you point your phone at text and tell it the language, and not only will it translate it for you, but it will replicate the font and color and everything. HOLY FUTURISTIC STUFF, BATMAN!!

It’s not perfect, but it’s really freaking amazing. Here’s a link to the app’s website, and here are some videos of Word Lens in action.

After geeking out over that for a bit, we went in search of that grocery store and instead found this:

Five Guys Hamburgers et Frites. (Not cinq gars, though… Five Guys.) We didn’t eat there, but we got a kick out of it anyway.

After wandering a bit more, we found the grocery store, got food, and headed back. I made dinner while John tracked down towels and the wifi password, and Matt played Minecraft.

Obligatory mealtime shot. :-)

After dinner, the following conversation ensued:

Me: So. I made dinner and John went and got towels and the wifi password. Guess who’s doing dishes. [pointed look at Matt]

Matt: [eyes widen innocently] But Ysabelle is all the way back in Toronto!!

Me: …I’m SO telling her you said that.

Anyway, the evening ended with us hanging out and reading and relaxing, listening to another hostel guest play his violin on the deck outside our room, and watching twilight descend on the Montreal skyline.

I love my life, y’all. ♥ ♥ ♥

But yesterday (I’m writing this the morning of Day 4 since I fell asleep early last night) we went to the Royal Ontario Museum, so it was more of an organized, officially-sanctioned nerding out. :-)

Side note: I’m stupid, and looked at my camera yesterday morning when we were getting ready to leave, and went, “I’m just going to a museum — why would I need to bring that?”

You may now shoot me. So all of these were taken with my cameraphone… oh well. :-)

Obligatory breakfast shot.

The museum’s normal admission is $15, but admission including their special dinosaur exhibit was $25, a price steep enough to have John thinking twice about it. He loves dinosaurs, but he was wondering if would be worth it… The short answer? Yes.

The outside of the Royal Ontario Museum. John’s assessment: “It looks like the fortress of solitude.”

The first thing we did when we got there was head down to the basement exhibition hall to see the dinosaurs, and they had some crazy awesome stuff. Now, I’m totally not into dinosaurs as much as John and Matt both are, but it was still really interesting.

John looking strangely unconcerned that he’s about to be eaten by a T Rex. Hey Cas, you wanted a picture of him in one of his homemade bleach shirts… :-)

Matt and a Really-Big-O-Saurus.

The three intrepid travelers. Clearly my eyes are closed because I’m terrified of the dinosaur behind me.

These are the front legs/hands of an ouranosaurus. I think this was the last time I actually talked with the guys for several hours, after we got into a debate over whether they were front legs or hands. I maintain that they look a lot like hands (complete with opposable thumbs) and therefore they would have had a decent amount of dexterity in them. The guys, on the other hand, disagreed with me. I still maintain that I could POSSIBLY be correct.

Stegosaurus!!! Ok, I have to admit, they had a really incredible collection of dinosaurs. Even if the guys did drag me through them for THREE HOURS.

They had an actual dinosaur nest with eggs, and they opened one of the eggs and had the baby dinosaur skeleton on display. HOLY COW COOL.

After the dinos, we had lunch in the cafeteria in the museum’s basement. I wish I’d taken a picture, because HOLY COW PEOPLE THOSE WERE THE BEST HAMBURGERS ANY OF US HAD EVER HAD. And that’s not hyperbole. The patty was at least 3/4″ thick (I’m not exaggerating, I swear) and WOW IT WAS AMAZINGLY GOOD. OMG OMG OMG OMG. But in any case, since I didn’t get a photo of the burger, I took one of the condiment dispensers, since the labeling amused me. Sadly, there wasn’t one on the mayo, but ketchup = hot lava, mustard = jungle paste, and relish = algae. AWESOME. :-D

After lunch, we moved on to our collective next favorite thing–ancient civilizations. I was aware that the ancient Egyptians mummified animals like cats and alligators and falcons… but a MONGOOSE?? Awesome.

A common classical depiction of the Gorgons of Greek mythology (Medusa was a gorgon) was this face. I’ve always loved it. Maybe because I see a resemblance to myself. :-p

Then it was off to the biology exhibit, where John explained to Matt just how big the rainbow boa he got to hold last year was. I’m pretty sure John flipped me off right after I took this picture. :-D

The dodo, aka John’s favorite bird. Too bad they’re extinct, but he’s always happy just to get to see a skeleton. :-)

The kakapo — a small, flightless bird that lives on islands off the coast of New Zealand. Douglas Adams wrote about him in his book “Last Chance to See”, which is about nearly endangered species.

Why did I post the picture of the kakapo? Because that bird is responsible for two of the absolutely most HILARIOUS minutes I’ve EVER seen on television. Here’s a link to the clip I’m referring to — it’s from the BBC miniseries based on Douglas Adams’ book, which is hosted by Stephen Fry. I cried the first time I saw it, I laughed so hard. You have to watch it.

For our last stop, I dragged the guys to MY favorite section of any natural history museum — the geology exhibit. I think it’s because the rocks in my head are at home with the rocks outside my head. :-) Anyway, this was an amethyst that had gigantic crystals — SOOOO gorgeous!!!

They really had an AMAZING collection — huge and very well-displayed. If it’s not the best geology exhibit I’ve seen, it’s close. (Maybe not the most comprehensive — I think that would have to be the natural history museum in London, but the most beautiful samples and the most well-displayed layout.)

Bacon!!! What’s awesome is that the specimens in this case weren’t dyed — they’re naturally that color. SWEET.

This opal looked like something out of a sci-fi movie — it practically glowed from within. SO incredible.

This quartz was flipping me off. I don’t know what I ever did to it…

I’m weird, I know, but I tend to judge geology exhibits in museums by whether they contain a specimen of California’s state gemstone (benitoite) and how nice of a sample they have. Believe it or not, the museum in PRAGUE had a nicer specimen of benitoite than this museum did… but everything else was so well-displayed that I guess I really can’t judge them for that. I should write them a strongly-worded letter, though. Maybe they just don’t know that they have a lousy specimen? …ok, I’ll shut up now.

Overall, the ROM is an INCREDIBLE museum for dinosaurs and rocks, which played well to all of our interests, and was a day (and money) very well-spent. So so so fun. :-D

We closed down the museum at 5:30, wandered the gift shop for a while, and then headed back home, where we encountered this busker at a subway station. What I thought was interesting was the sign in her violin case — it says “Subway Musician: Licensed Musician #[license number]), Subway Musicians Programme.”

I did some googling when we got home, and found that the Toronto Transit Commission has a Subway Musicians Programme, where musicians can audition and be accepted as a licensed subway musician to perform in Toronto subways!! How freaking awesome is that!?!?

When we got back to Yzzie and Craig’s house, we went with them to their favorite roti place for dinner, and then hung out and talked until we all crashed. Now today we’re off for an eight-hour car ride to Montreal, for the next leg of our journey. Onward!! :-D

ANYWAY, I made this the title of my post because today at one point the three of us intrepid adventurers were hanging out and relaxing, and I started talking about the trip I want to take next summer. I’d tell y’all about it, but I’ve been forbidden from discussing the next trip until at least the conclusion of this one. So you’ll just have to remain in suspense for now.

Today started off with something rather uncharacteristic for me — my alarm went off, and I turned it off and went back to sleep. Since I’m the morning person and the inveterate traveler, I’m the one who’s responsible for getting the three of us out of bed. If it were up to them, the guys would sleep in past noon, and COME ON GUYS, THERE’S A WHOLE CITY TO EXPLORE. AND COFFEE. DID I MENTION COFFEE?!?!

So oversleeping (by about 45 minutes) was kind of annoying, to say the least. But I managed to kick the boys out of bed and get them out the door in record time, and we soon found ourselves consuming that most traditional of Canadian breakfasts.

Tim Horton’s donuts and coffee. Only thing is, I don’t like donuts *or* coffee. I had a bite of a donut for posterity, and then I had oatmeal. I’m SO BORING OMG.

I’ve decided that I’m going to make this a daily photo.

After breakfast, we took a bus to the subway, and the subway downtown. Also, I want this font.

For navigational purposes, rather than worrying about silly things like maps, we just headed toward the tallest freestanding structure in the western hemisphere. No seriously, it is.

Weird stuff seen wandering downtown. The signs say “Bill Gates for Mayor,” and their shirts have sayings like, “I never start-up in Safe Mode,” and “I wish last night had an ‘Undo’ button.”

Pretty sure I saw this in either a nightmare or a Kafka novel.

Ysabelle had suggested we take a ferry to Toronto Island for a relaxing day and to see the city skyline. None of it disappointed. What a GORGEOUS DAY!!!

Toronto Island is an island in Lake Ontario that’s basically a giant city park. There’s a beach, a kids’ amusement park, petting zoo, and some other odds and ends (and even a tiny residential area.) We didn’t fully explore it, but we made it to the beach on the other side, went wading for a bit, then found a nice spot in the shade to people-watch and read for an hour. Such perfect weather for that. :-)

Matt: “Oh look, it’s written in both English and Canadian. ‘Keep Out’ and ‘Please Keep Out.’”

After we left the island, we headed to the Distillery District to take a brewery tour. Actually, it was less of a brewery tour and more of a “brewery stand-and-point,” but size of the facility aside, it was actually really really fascinating.

We got to taste the raw, unfiltered beer — cool!!

They even had Sherlock Holmes’ favorite beer!!* (Scroll to the end of this post if you need the rather bad joke explained… the guys were not amused. But I was!!)

They had an entire wall of bottlecaps. It really was pretty cool.

After the non-tour tour, the boys each tried a beer, and I tried their home-brewed root beer. SO GOOD.

By this point it was getting toward dinnertime, so we headed back to Ysabelle’s and Craig’s house and had a lovely, silly dinner with them.  Craig grilled, the three of us did dishes, and John walked one of their cats on a leash. So, just another normal evening. Such a fun day. :-D

*Bad joke explained: It’s a lemon tea, my dear Watson…

But I’m on the road again, and it’s important to me to write my travels down, so I’m blogging this trip. For the next two weeks, I’m traveling with John and Matt (a friend of ours) through eastern Canada and (on the last couple of days anyway) New England. I mentioned this trip briefly a couple of blog posts ago (which would have been in, oh, March or so) and I’ve been looking forward to it since then. Because we’re all silly nerds, and because part of the reason for this road trip is to visit a variety of internet friends, this trip can only be epic. And so far, it’s been pretty freaking awesome.

Yesterday afternoon, John and I flew from Sacramento into Chicago O’Hare to meet up with Matt, where the plan was to continue on to Buffalo, and stay there for the night.

O’Hare was, in two words, absolute chaos.

We actually got there about 30 minutes  early, and Matt’s flight actually got there 40 minutes early, and we actually landed at the same time. However, he beat us to the gate–we sat on the tarmac for 50 minutes waiting for our gate to open up. And when we got off the plane, we walked into an absolutely insane terminal. Crazy. Wall-to-wall people, and most of them looked miserable. It was like flying in a blizzard at Christmas or something.

I’m not sure if it was normal O’Hare chaos (I’ve been through there a few times and don’t ever remember it being like that) or if it had something to do with the plane we saw sitting on the runway when we landed, surrounded by a bunch of emergency vehicles. In any case, we made it through the insanity to our connecting gate, and got on our shuttle to Buffalo.

Lemme tell ya something. You know you’ll be there for a while when you’re sitting at the gate on the plane, and the pilot comes on the PA system to tell you to feel free to use your electronic devices such as cell phones, because AIN’T NO ONE GOING NOWHERE ANYTIME SOON.

Apparently there were some international transfers on board from another flight, and they had to pull ALL of their luggage and send it all back through security screening before reloading it.

We were supposed to get into Buffalo a bit before midnight. I think we finally got in around 1. So, not a huge delay, but at that point, we just wanted to get there.

We picked up our rental car and pulled out Google Maps to find the hotel I’d booked for the night. I was dozing in the back seat, Matt was driving, and John was riding shotgun. I woke fully up when the car slowed down, and either Matt or John loudly enquired why I’d booked us a hotel in the ghetto.

Our rental car is a Nissan Altima. It doesn’t have an ignition key, just this button. Ummm, WEIRD.

Don’t blame me, blame Priceline. But seriously. I’m not picky about where I stay, for the most part–as long as it’s clean and doesn’t have bedbugs, I’m cool.

Have you seen the movie No Country For Old Men? Do you remember the motel room scene where he has the money hidden in the air duct? Yeah, it looked almost like that hotel room. Complete with ice bucket from a Days Inn (hint–this was not a Days Inn.) It’s 2012–if a motel advertises on their sign outside that they offer HBO, that should be a sign that it’s maybe not a great place to stay.

So yeah, I’m normally not picky, but it was grimy, dated, had a scary bathtub, and was in a lousy neighborhood. But hey, it was a place to sleep, so we crashed around 2.

This morning we got up and dragged our butts to a Starbucks, and were so focused on grabbing something quickly and getting on the road that we didn’t notice a Tim Horton’s right next door. Whoops. I’ve never actually BEEN to a Tim Horton’s, but we’re planning on going tomorrow because it’s one of those regional things, ya know? They have a reputation.

Most of our mornings will probably start like this. I swear we don’t spend ALL of our time on our phones…

After a quick breakfast, we headed up to Niagara Falls. I’ve wanted to see this ever since I was a kid, so I practically dragged the guys out of the car.

John got a kick out of the “to Canada” part of this sign. Actually, we all did.

I was ridiculously happy here. OMG IT WAS AWESOME YOU GUYS. OMG OMG OMG OMG.

So, you’d think that since I’ve wanted to come here for, oh, AGES, that I would have remembered to charge my camera battery… NOPE. My camera crapped out halfway through our day. DARN IT. At least I got a few pics, and at least I had my cell phone camera (which is what all of these are from.) Lol. I’m a dork.

We had to do the Maid of the Mist tour–it’s a boat that takes you right to the base of the falls. They actually issue you a poncho so you don’t get soaked. It’s pretty freaking AWESOME.

Base of Horseshoe Falls as seen from the Maid of the Mist. Guys, it was every bit as amazing as I’d thought it would be. :-D

Sitting at the base of the falls after the tour. John nursed that coffee most of the day. Good grief. :-)

We climbed up the side of American Falls and asked someone to take a picture of us… and she for some reason zoomed all the way in so that you can’t see the falls. DOHT!!! Oh well. :-)

View from the observation deck. AMAZING.

After we had wandered around the falls enough, we got back in the car and headed over the border.

First, of all of the international borders I’ve ever crossed, that was by far the most I’d ever gotten grilled by a border guard. Then he wanted us to explain how we knew our internet friends we are staying with… yeah, that was kind of weird. But we had a good laugh. :-)

Then we drove up to Toronto and caught up with our first set of internet friends, Craig and Ysabelle. We’ve actually all met them before once (the guys) or twice (me), so it was fun to sit and talk and catch up. Dinner was a Turkish restaurant that was fantastic. I’m definitely planning on taking advantage of the wide variety of international food while I’m up here!!

Dinner!! :-)

Last but not least, I have to say that both John and Matt are freaking hilarious, and I’m making an effort to record some of our more amusing conversations that we’ve had so far. Here are a couple thus far:

[Sitting between John and Matt on the plane]

Me: I’m in the middle. I’m the demilitarized zone.

John: So am I North or South Korea?

Matt: Well, I think you’d have to be South, since you’re taller. I’m the malnourished North.

Me: [dies laughing]

[Getting ready to leave this morning]

Me: Well, my comb isn’t in my bag, so I hope it’s either in my purse or my backpack.

Matt: [who was a math major in college] Well, you’ve now gone from a 33% chance of finding it to a 50% chance.

Me: It’s WAY too early to ponder the Monty Hall problem.

John: [sticking his head out of the bathroom] Why the heck are you talking about the Monty Hall problem this early in the morning?!?!?

Ok, maybe it’s just funny to me… but it’s funny to me. I’m having a fantastic trip, and it’s only the first day!! :-)

Bring it, summer — I’m ready.

Friday evening slice of paradise at the barn.

Every year since I was in college, March has always been a restless month for me. It’s when I start to think about summer, and about going somewhere awesome, or heck, just going somewhere in general! As much as I love living in Sacramento, I love to wander, and I love the process of planning and the anticipation that comes with building up to a trip.

This summer’s trip plans evolved somewhat randomly. I’m not entirely sure how this happened, but John, me, and an Indianapolis-based good friend of ours (Matt) randomly decided  we should take a road trip through eastern Canada for two weeks in July.

Ok, I know how it happened. I was my usual “Let’s go somewhere!” self, and I decided to drag them with me. Really, I was jonesing to go back to Europe, but I looked at plane fare and went “Ummm, NOPE!” So I started to think about where else in North America might be a reasonable facsimile of a European city. QUEBEC!! OF COURSE!! Thus The Great Canada Road Trip[tm] was born.

In any case, the current plan is to fly into Buffalo, hit up Niagara Falls, then drive over the border into Toronto and stay with friends there, go up to Montreal and Quebec City, then head over to New Brunswick and stay with friends there and get eaten alive by mosquitoes go camping and kayaking. Then we’ll drive back to Buffalo via New England, leave the car there, and fly home.

This has a slight chance of not happening, unfortunately–we have no idea what may happen with the internship John needs to get for his master’s program. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed!!

As part of this process, two of the three of us had to get/renew their passports.

Not me. I’m Have Passport, Will Travel. John needs to renew his (NAG NAG HONEY) and Matt needed to get one.

I dragged mine out to kiss it gently and remind it that it’ll only be a few short months before I need it again, and I decided to take pictures of it, just for kicks.

I love my passport. Don’t get me wrong — I love my photos and other trip souvenirs. But there’s just something about my passport. It’s the one thing I carry with me at all times on all of my foreign jaunts. It’s the memory of standing there in the immigration control line, eagerly waiting for it to get stamped so that I can get on with my adventure, time and time and time again.

It’s flying into Rome the first time, and the excitement of my first European country and the knowledge of the trip we had ahead of us.

It’s a ferry ride to Canada.

It’s sitting in a car at the Hungarian-Romanian border and watching the border people completely strip down the car ahead of us and praying they wouldn’t do the same thing to us (they didn’t.)

It’s getting into London, and seeing my friend Holly for the first time since college, and John getting to go to his first “foreign” country (we also went to the Netherlands while we were there.)

It’s flying into Rome with John two years later and seeing the city through his eyes that time.

It’s leaving Costa Rica, sick as a dog with fever and chills and a headache, and getting back into Miami and just wanting to curl into a ball and bawl.

It’s sitting on a bus on the Croatian-Montenegrin border for over an hour just waiting for something, ANYTHING to happen.

It’s being woken up on a night train between Sarajevo and Zagreb four different times in an hour’s timespan, and finally giving up any pretense of trying to sleep altogether, and thus getting to watch the sun rise over the Croatian countryside out the train window.

It’s the absolute misery I felt when we flew out of Brussels on our way back to the US after our epic trip in 2010, knowing that no trip I ever would take from that moment on would be as amazing as the previous 56 days had been.

It’s returning to Singapore 15 years after I’d first been there, wondering if I’d find it as amazing the second time (it was better!)

It’s getting off of a refrigerated bus and standing in a long, unairconditioned immigration line in Malaysia, and trying to take a picture of Flat Zoe without dropping my other stuff.

It’s leaving Singapore, exhausted and saddened with the knowledge that our cat had been hit by a car and killed shortly before I left.

I wish I had the time and the money to fill up all of its pages with stamps in the next five years before it expires. So, so many places I want to visit… someday. Someday I’ll get to them all.

But this summer, Canada it is. I can’t wait. :-)

For what it's worth, you're not supposed to smile in your passport pic. Americans are apparently the only country with this tendency.

Page 8, clockwise: leaving Rome (2007), entering Hungary by train (2010), leaving Hungary by plane (2007), and entering Romania by car (2007). Page 9: Leaving Romania by car (2007), entering Hungary by car (2007), leaving Hungary by plane (2007), and leaving Belgium by plane (2010.)

Page 10: Entering Costa Rica (2010), leaving Croatia by train (2010). Look at the train stamp--it's an old-school steam train. SWEET. :-) Page 11: Leaving Croatia by car (bus) (2010), entering Croatia by plane (2010), entering Netherlands by plane (2009), entering Singapore (2011).

All stamps from Malaysia (2011). I like the QR code on the visa sticker.

Page 14: Entering Italy (2007), entering England (2009). Page 15: entering England (2009), leaving Netherlands (2007), entering Netherlands (2007), leaving Netherlands (2009).

Page 16: Returning to the US from Italy (2009). Page 17: Entering Canada (2007), Entering Ireland (2010).

Blue: entering the US (2010). Black: entering Montenegro (2010.)

Leaving Hungary (2007).

Last but not least--entering Bosnia (2010).

Yeah, this TOTALLY isn’t helping my travel bug AT ALL. Is it July yet???