Toronto & Upstate New York

After Niagara Falls we took a drive further north to Toronto in Canada. We got stuck in traffic (a theme for us) because Toronto had some Santa parade so the road to our hotel was actually closed but I think the hotel felt a bit sorry for us when we got there and upgraded our room to a fancy two bedroom suite. We took a walk through the city back to the dining in the dark restaurant O’Noir where Kim and I had eaten before and Bronte and Chris wanted to try out. It was even more fun this time because I got to stab my sister in the dark with a fork. We made buddies with the people at the next table and all compared notes of what we thought we were eating. I enjoyed my starter which I found out was mushrooms… which I hate… it took me 30 years to discover I don’t hate mushrooms.

After dinner we went to the top floor of our hotel that looked out over the city and got in the hot tub with some random Ukranian guys who offered us swigs of vodka from a water bottle… um… no… thanks. But they left and then we had the place to ourselves.

The next day we went to Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada.

They had a really cool walkway through a massive tank of sharks and turtles etc.

They had some scuba divers cleaning the tank which I thought were pretty funny as we traveled underneath them on a moving walkway.

Then we went through a load of jelly fish, wobbling about.

Then Bronte, Kimmy and I went crazy for the touch tank where we could pet the rays.

Then we mooched around a bit.

Bronte and Chris went to the CN Tower.

Kim and I found a fancy arcade/coffee shop and hung out before the long drive back to an Airbnb that Bronte had booked for us all in upstate New York.

It was pretty adorable.

It was all log cabin-y.

And decorated for Christmas.

The house was on a farm that had barn cats, one of them was especially friendly so we adopted him for the night. We called him Heathcliff and I was very temped to steal him but he seemed to enjoy frolicking about outside with his many brothers and sisters.

The farm also had some deer we visited.

But I was mainly sold on the trillions of kittens we kept spotting everywhere.

The house was in the middle of nowhere and there were some Mennonite neighbours who drove a horse and buggy.

When we got back to Connecticut the next day we were all worn out and had a gingerbread house building contest.

Heading Home

Ugh the long journey back home, it’s so depressing I keep not posting it. Kim is not allowed back into the UK until our marriage visa has been processed and so she had to head back to the USA to apply for the visa (because you can’t apply for it from within the UK). So joy of joys we had flights at different times. We drove to Calgary from Banff and got some tasty breakfast.

I think we forget how lucky we are in the UK with our airports because let me tell you that the shops in Calgary airport were few and far between. Kim’s flight was first and so we said goodbye and she went through security and then my flight was about 12 hours later. No I am not kidding. My god it was boring, I read several books on my kindle, I counted the amount of elderly people in cowboy hats (27). I had a crepe that had cheese cake inside it (did you know this was a thing?? A dessert stuffed inside another dessert??). I secretly charged my kindle and phone from wall points and used Calgary’s free wifi.

Then finally I got to go through security (you wouldn’t think this would be a highlight but it was!) an elderly man told me he liked my fluffy boots. I made a buddy at the departure gate called Ryan from Leeds who wanted to get married to his girlfriend who lived in Canada. I gave him some tips and we got talking to some other people travelling too so that was all rather friendly. Then finally it was time to board. I got sat directly behind a toddler who had shoes that squeaked like a dogs chew toy every time she stepped on them. The family made noise continually the entire way and in the end the steward gave me ear plugs. I reminded myself that murder was not legal even when over international waters. Other than that the flight was good.

I ate my nice plane meal of chicken caesar ricey thingy (I don’t really know what it was but it was nice) whilst watching Jurassic World which was surprisingly not that bad.

I thought breakfast was a bit meh though but better than nothing. Then it was a long  coach trip back to Norwich where I’d parked at my friend’s house, then into goldie (the car) and back home to Yarmouth – finally after 28 hours travelling time. The cats were so thrilled to have me back they’ve been very well behaved ever since, I think we should go away more often.

Mount Norquay

I’ve been busy at work so I’ve neglected finishing off our Canadian trip stories. These photos are from a trip to a Cajun restaurant Tooloulous. Now it was the day before Valentines Day and a few days before Alberta’s Family Day so we were lucky to get a table. Kim had grits… I tried the grits and it tasted like cous cous to me. And the cornbread is like victoria sponge without cream and jam… they say cajun… I say sponge and couscous. I had some delicious blackened chicken. This is unusual because Kimberly is a chicken addict, weekly grocery trips turn into her trying to convince me that we need to buy more chicken and that every meal could be a little better if we were only to add a dash of chicken.

The next day was Valentines Day and we stopped off for a quick breakfast.

 

And then it was time for some snow tubing. It was awesome, they had a little lift you stood on to take you up the mini slope and we really got our technique honed. We only planned to stay there a few hours but we spent most of the day there before going to Balkan, a greek restaurant in Banff for dinner. We both really love Greek food and it was so good.

The next day we took a wildlife tour around Banff and learnt some history of the area which was interesting and we got some cool photos. This is the Bow Falls.

And Surprise Corner in Banff which gave a really good view of the Hotel we had our wedding afternoon tea at.

And we saw some deer.

And big horned sheep.

Afterwards Kim and I stopped back at the frozen lake we got married on Lake Minnewanka and left our padlock. We have a bit of a padlock tradition, there’s one in Wembley in London, Paris near Notre Dame, New York near the airport (funny story about this – ask Kim). Now we did feel a bit bad about this as Banff is in a national park but as it’s on a branch it could be easily broken off couldn’t it?

Then we went back to the hotel for a little time in the spa pool and to sample our maple delicacies. The maple sugar candies are just pure maple sugar, they were so so sweet, even just looking at them I feel diabetes creeping upon me. When I was younger visiting my grandparents they would grow their own fruit and my lovely nanny would always insist on putting about a ton of sugar on very sweet fruit like strawberries etc… even she would have found these maple sugar candies too sweet.

             In the evening we walked down the street from our hotel for another fondue. Oh melted cheese, best thing ever.

Only this time we left room for dessert!

The Whyte Museum & Indian Trading Post

One of our days in Banff we spent taking a look around the Whyte Museum which was a small interesting museum about Banff and its residents lives, relationships with the Indians in the area (which they call first nation people). They had a lot of interesting artifacts as well as some interesting old climbing gear.

Then we went to visit an old shop called the Indian Trading Post where they sell things that Indians have made (amongst other stuff), there’s beads everywhere. I think they should really rename it the kill hut because there were dead animals everywhere too.

Don’t get me wrong, they sold a lot of cool stuff but they also sold things that made me think – god is this shop really allowed to sell these? Including a lot of real fur. Fox furs hanging up, tails of different animals, lucky rabbit feet… ew.

  

They also had a weird mermaid boy which legend has it came out of Lake Minnewanka, the mermaid has it’s own twitter.

After that we stopped to get a beaver tail – a pastry with toppings shaped like a beaver tail.

And we did a little shopping, we got matching Canadian leggings, look how cool.

Contain your jealousy.

Lake Louise & Philharmonic Orchestra

This is what greets you at Lake Louise… Comforting. Canadians are a little lax on outdoor safety compared to the UK, one of our marriage commissioners suggested we go on the ice at one point during our ceremony, when I asked how you know it’s safe and won’t cave through he said oh you just try it out….. After you…?

But the frozen Lake Louise was very beautiful, plus it was fun to think we were walking on top of water, except when you could see ice/water, then it was scary.

Part of the lake had been smoothed of snow and turned into an ice rink and ice castle.

And Kim and I went and checked out all the ice sculptures left over from some kind of contest.

They make me feel very untalented.

There was even an ice bar, although it was a little early to be open.

There was a big hotel at Lake Louise which is a sister to the one we went to afternoon tea in only it didn’t look quite so nice from the outside.

Oh also, we collected our masterpieces from the kiln. That’s Kims pimp cup on the right… I’ve got to have that thing in my kitchen cupboard until I “accidentally” break it… Ugh.

We went to Eddie Burger for dinner, wow it was popular in there. We got shakes.

And you could build your own burgers, mine was a work of art. I’m talking brioche bun, fried egg, pineapple, oh it was tasty.

The next day we had a chill out duvet day (and watched the Lego movie on Netflix which was awesome) before dressing up to go to the philharmonic orchestra in Calgary. We had intended to spend the day in Calgary only… We literally could not find anything remotely interesting to do. I think Calgary may be the first city I have gone to with just zilch for tourists. Also when we got there it wasn’t that nice looking, Kim was still tired I think because when we saw a pedestrian sign she thought it was for cross country skiers.

The orchestra was really good, the musicians were getting really into it, especially the pianists who were leaping all over their chairs which was amusing to watch. And then it was super foggy on the way back, we got in about midnight (which is past both our bed times!).

Two Horse Open Sleigh

A day into married life and things were going good starting with wedding cake and coffee for breakfast. Kimmy girl and I got miniature wedding cakes, we figured two brides, two cakes! I got a mini carrot cake, oh gawwwd it was so tasty, the cream cheese… Oh I loved it.

And Kim had a little lemon cake with lemon buttercream, it was very light and delicate.

Then we headed down to the ranch and had some spiced apple to wake us up a bit more.

We were waiting to go on our sleigh ride! Whilst we waited I smelt the hay and petted the buffalo hide, danced to the country cowboy music and generally embarrassed my poor new wife who was now saddled with me (cow boy pun intended, lolz).

And we were off, now people it was a bumpy ride because it was icy out but our sleigh driver had a cowboy hat on so I assumed that meant he knew what he was doing.

It looked nice out (as it always does around here) and I got to embarrass Kim further by wearing my woolly hat, she is so lucky.

These are the horsies, they were massive but so was the sleigh.

After that we went to try out a vegetarian bistro, we aren’t vegetarian but it’s a change and Nourish Bistro had high ratings on trip advisor (who I live and die by).

They had lavender lemonade!

Kim got fajitas which looked questionable when they arrived but tasted awesome.

And I got a burrito, I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever had food presented so beautifully and it tasted great.

Getting Married

So Kimberly and I eloped, we went up into the mountains by a big frozen lake with two marriage commissioners who are married to each other (one came to be our witness) and our photographer, and we said our I dos. It was unseasonably warm for Banff in February so we were really lucky for our outdoor ceremony.

Saying marriage vows feels intense! These are my flowers, we picked them up after we had our hair and make up done.

And these are Kim’s.

After the ceremony we went to the Fairmont in Banff which looks like a castle and had afternoon tea which was really special, all in our dresses.

Everything was really tasty.

And the view was beautiful (although every view is beautiful here!).

And after our waiter brought us over chocolate cake to celebrate as a gift… I don’t need to tell you we were already so full!!!

We had time to rifle through our little marriage pack with all the vows etc in them so that was nice.

And in the evening we drove to Lake Louise and went to a super fancy restaurant for fondue, as I switched on the radio it started to play White Wedding by Billy Idol (on mountain fm), which has to be a sign! Fondue was so good.

Also we met a bison. So that was our super chilled out wedding day, no stress, no drama, just a lovely day.

Out And Aboot In Banff

This is Norquay Lookout, it was impossible to get a decent photo of this and still focus, I don’t think my iPhone could take all the natural beauty.

We enjoyed having a tiptoe/slide about getting to the lookout. And as we didn’t have much planned we visited crockadoodle and I made a masterpiece, I know I know it’s so beautiful, I am Da Vinci incarnate. Kim made… Well I daren’t take a photo of it… It’s a bit like a pimp cup, I’ll show you when they’re out of the kiln. But it was fun anyway and we were the only ones there so we chatted to Chelsea who worked there, she told us Banff was so popular there’s a housing crisis as its in a national park (and harder to build in), her and her boyfriend pay $1000 CAD to rent one room! Which is just mad.

Then we mooched around town and discovered a Christmas store, it was intense.

It was so Christmassy, I selected a nice Canadian bear for our tree next year.

Then we visited Le Chocolatier in Canmore and went for a private chocolate tasting which was really interesting and the  owner turned out to be from England.

Bear Lattes

Our hotel does breakfast and it’s not cheap but it’s super tasty. Did you know omelettes come with a side of pancakes…?

So we were pretty full starting off day two in Banff, we went to the Whitebark Cafe to get beat lattes, how cool are they?? They tasted really good but I did feel a bit guilty as the girl behind the counter worked so hard making them beautiful then I stirred mine to put sugar and ruined it.

Then we browsed shops and I was delighted to find out there are still Safeways in Canada. They’re much nicer than our grocery stores though, Kim wasn’t at all excited about my Safeway discovery and just thought I was weird.

Anyways we browsed about a million gift shops, they all seem to be run by Chinese people, all the waiters seem to be Australian.

We also found a giant snow man which I thought was fun. Because it’s still fairly cold out here he’s survived a while.

Then we went to go browse some local beauty spots (more on that later), here’s Bow Falls, all snowed under.

And this is frozen Lake Minnewanka which was super beautiful.

After we went to discover Tim Hortons which Canada is obsessed with, I think it’s meant to be a bit like McDonalds but it wasn’t. When it was our turn to be served the guy behind the counter asked for the next guest to come forward and told us to have a great day instead of asking whether we wanted to supersize and grunting.

The meal deal had a doughnut in it… This pleased me greatly.

After our gallivanting we went back to the spa tub at our hotel.

I didn’t mention, our hotel has a nice fireplace and the whole building smells like campfires, it’s so good.

For dinner a good friend of Kim’s kindly sent us a voucher which we used to go get some Mexican food, then Jurassic Park was on TV. I am obsessed with Jurassic Park so I call this a good night!

Upper Hot Springs

The first day in Canada I was awake so early at about 3am because my stomach knew in the UK it was lunch time! We drove up the road from Banff to Canmore to take our money out from ScotiaBank which is a bank in the global alliance so it worked out cheaper than exchanging it back home and bringing it over.

Canmore had had some ice sculpture festival and there were lots left over that had lasted really well. The bear was my favourite.

So we had a look around those after getting cash out.

Then we drove Fester (the rental car) back to Banff to visit the Upper Hot Springs that have been open since 1886 when Banff started as a popular spa resort.

The hot springs were outside, I didn’t dare take my phone closer than this but they were so nice and warm and surprisingly cheap to get in.

Then we browsed some shops, this candy store sold some English things like Marmite and cadburys chocolate. One Freddo was about $2 but all said 25p on the labels.

For lunch we went to a camping themed restaurant called Park.

I do not know what was in the dipping sauce but I think it could had replaced my love of ketchup.

And that was our first day, we went back to the hotel for a quick nap but slept right through til the next morning when jet lag came calling!