Sunday morning and we're in the middle of nowhere. Today we're due to finish up in Montreal which is about three hours away.
We had free breakfast where there was a waffle making machine. We both had a go on this and despite the staff looking on nervously they both came out ok. We drowned them in maple syrup just to be sure. A wasp landed in Marks OJ so he trapped in in there with a napkin and went and got another. This trap was explained to Martin who didn't believe it, so Mark emptied out the OJ and the wasp had indeed escaped using some Houdini magic.
We hit the road and again programmed the satnav to avoid freeways, this took us over an impressive bridge and we were so busy looking at the views we didn't realise we were heading for the US border crossing. Not wanting to return to the US just yet we turned the car around just before the border which in no way ever would arouse suspicion.
Back over the other side of the bridge we realised that we now had to face Canadian customs, ven though we'd not come from the US. This would take some explaining. We stopped just short of the guard post so that Martin could get his passport out of his suitcase but as he got out the the car we heard shouts like "sir, get back in your car" as the armed security lady hastily headed towards us with her hand nearing her gun. Mark was tempted to lock the doors at this stage but thought it best to let Martin back in.
We were then summoned to the guard post and interrogated and they found the whole thing quite amusing, I'm sure when we left they had a good chuckle about us stupid Limeys. The satnav wasn't having it though and for the next 10 minutes it kept telling us to turn around and go back over the border, stupid thing!
We had a quick food stop at a subway to refuel and then gunned it to Montreal. We couldn't check in until later in the day so we found an indoor karting track to while away some hours. In the car park was a Ferrari Scuderia, a GT40 and an F-Type convertible, so we were in for some competition.
After a short wait, we were let onto the track, again with no safety briefing. The guy running the circuit looked a bit like Valentini Rossi so we gave him some stick. The first session was traffic heavy with kids on track at the same time, so getting clean laps was tough. Martin got the overall best time and made Mark post the pic below as evidence.
The second session was adults only and was much faster with us both improving our times a lot. This was until Rossi joined us on track in his own kart and destroyed us by about 2 secs per lap. Well played that man. His overtake on Martin was particularly impressive as he slid his kart sideways through the hairpin knocking Martin out of the way before disappearing into to horizon.
We found the hotel quite easily via a giant ridiculously busy park. We checked in with the Chinese family who run it and then had to take the car around back to park it. Instead of letting us take our luggage in through the front, we had to somehow carry it up the tire escape at the back. In fact it turns out they don't like us using the front door at all and keep pushing us out of the fire escape from the second floor. Weirdest hotel ever. Oh and ou bathroom stinks a lot and this is before we've even had a go in it!
Following our lack of success in Toronto of finding the right bar areas we'd done our research about Montreal. It was about a fifteen minute walk before we found life in a vibrant Chinatown area. We passed on this and tried to find somewhere to eat but our research had lied to us, although we did find the porn district which had sex shops, lap dancing clubs and even a topless theatre. We moved on.
Eventually we found a place and sat down to eat while watching the hockey game, the food was good and the free wifi told us of another bar area about a 30 min walk away. So after the food we went there. It turns out that bar areas in North America consist of 2 bars that have people in them and another 2 empty bars.
One of these bars was heaving with trendy 22 year olds dressed up to the nines, while walking past the word 'like' was heard 57 times. I was like really like annoying like. So we like headed to like at other bar that like had some people in like like.
It was an Irish bar, joy! We had a few drinks anyway whilst sat on the most uncomfortable bar stools ever that had been polished so much that NASA must have been involved in the designs. It got better though when the live acoustic guitarist came on and sang some Bryan Adams classics.
Today is International Drink Beer day though, so we successfully achieved that.
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