Didn't leave Dave's until afternoon. We eventually left and headed for Toni and Prentice's in Toronto. We found their house first time and made ourselves at home. They cooked ribs for dinner which was absolute heaven and we stayed up late and watched tv.
Monday 24th November
Our day in Toronto. We went out to try and start the van but the battery was dead so we just left it and walked down to the station to get the subway downtown. We wandered around, though it was bitterly cold. I went up the CN tower and we went to the CBC radio studios. We also saw the skydive and went to the loo at the Royal York and of course the Eaton centre. We got back just before Toni and basically vegged. Claire wanted us to go ice-skating but I was really knackered. We tried to jump start Calvin with Prentice's jeep but it didn't work. He said he would try again later after hockey.
Tuesday 25th November
Today we had to call out a garage to jump start our van. It took all of 30 secs and cost us $20. We had also received a parking ticket even though we had a sign saying "sorry battery dead". We were on our way....stopping at the parking fine office, which only had underground parking! We got off it though. We drove to Peterborough, looked at Trent University where Claire could have gone, and couldn't get out of the city. Then the indicators failed. We were only a few mile out of Ottawa so we stopped at a gas station to ask directions to Canadian Tire, yet again. When we started again the engine wouldn't turn. Absolute zero. So we asked a man to help us jump start the van again. We did this successfully and proceeded a couple of minutes down the road to Canadian Tire with no indicators. We settled down for the night and were asked what we were doing by security, they let us stay. Kanata.
Wednesday 26th November
Slept in late due to lack of motivation. Claire eventually got up and found the fuse for the indicator on the floor by the drivers seat - problem solved. All the furious stamping for the full beam lights made the fuse fall out. We went into Canadian Tire anyway and bought some jump leads, just in case. We made our way into the city and parked in a car park right downtown. We could also stay there all night. We somehow, unexpectedly, found ourselves on a tour of parliament, in their "really old" buildings. We then went to the top of the tower and then downtown to the Tourist Info for our passports and around the shops. We went back to Parliament for Question Time and saw the wheels of democracy in Canada working. There is a cat refuge behind parliament which was nice After Question Time we went for our "beavers-tails" in the pouring rain, it really could have been Tofino We went back to the van for a drink after walking around for ages getting soaked trying to find it. Later on we went to "Chapters" book store for what seemed like hours. We found a really cool book about a couple who drove across Canada and back, we found so many similarities it was hilarious! Especially went the navigator is reading the travel guides and says "Oh look there's a gannet colony...oh shit we missed it!". Very apt!
Once we'd finished reading we looked outside and everything was white. It was still snowing hard when we trudged over to the Irish pub and had 2 pints of Strongbow - $11! There was live music from a Newfie which was kind of cool.
<these are extracts from my diaries written whilst travelling and working in Canada and the US in '97-'98>
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