The Home Stretch

It is surprisingly difficult to blog consistently on the road. There seem to always be internet issues (e.g., a hotel said that they had free wireless, but the network is down, etc.) . And then there is the issue of sharing a single computer with my beloved husband. We need to find an apartment so the movers can bring our stuff, including the other computer. But, before I get to apartments, there is the final leg of the vacation to blog about, isn't there?

Last week, we visited friends in the Midwest, as I mentioned previously. We were in the Midwest, of course, during the massive heatwave that was killing people left and right. Somehow, we were spared. The heat and humidity were unbearable and growing up in the Central Valley of California, where the temperatures would get up to 110 degrees in the summer, did not prepare me for the freakish humidity. In California, it's a dry heat. It always used to irritate me when people would say that (okay, it still does). I would think, what the hell? When it's that hot, it doesn't even matter! Don't diminish my experience of the heat! Well, now I'm reformed. There were some days where I would have really liked a dry heat. Or the wet cold of some fog.

One of the fun things about Ohio was getting to hear from some of our Midwestern friends all about the Dayton Daily News, where Todd had his first job after school. What a hilarious and incestuous office! I swear, that place was (and from the sound of it, still is) like a sitcom. And in some cases, what HBO shows very late at night. And Todd had never told me about this aspect of it; he has just told me about how boring he found Dayton. Although I don't think I'm at liberty to divulge the details here, suffice it to say that at least the newsroom wasn't boring.

Todd also showed me Young's Dairy Farm, where you can pet cows and goats, and get cheap and delicious ice cream. Yes, Todd and I were the only adults without children in tow petting the animals. Would you expect something different?


From Ohio, we headed to Niagara Falls and then to Canada. Niagara Falls was a free park that was trying to be a rip off. That is, the admission to the park was free, but if you wanted to park inside the park (which is actually pretty small), then you have to pay $8-$10. And if you want to walk on the pedestrian bridge to get a really good view of the falls, then that's $11.50. And I don't even want to know how much it costs to don a blue plastic poncho and walk around or ride a boat at the base of the falls. We ended up parking in the town and walking to the falls overlook, all of which we could do for free. We spent about 5 or 10 minutes actually looking at the falls, which made me very happy we didn't spend 10 bucks to park near them. The falls were nice and stuff, but not worth a the $11.50 view.


And then, Canada. When crossing the border, I happened to be the one driving, so I was the one the customs agent addressed as he looked at our passports. At this point in our trip, I had serious vacation fatigue, the symptoms of which are exhaustion and difficulty remembering where one has been. So, of course, the customs agent first asked me where we are from, the most difficult question to answer. When I told him we are moving and it feels a bit like we are living out of our car, I immediately realized that the "living out of our car" bit could sound somehow suspicious. So I stammered out something about how we are not really living in our car, ha ha! Customs agents do not smile, which makes them a tough crowd. The person who had been in line in front of us had been asked to turn around (for what, I don't know) so I was worried that my strange answers would result in the same fate. Then the agent asked us where all our stuff is if we're moving, and where we stayed last night. What? I don't know! Oh my God, I'm going to get kicked out of Canada! Because I was having a difficult time remembering the answers to those questions, I looked at Todd, wild-eyed, and he seemed to know that our stuff was in storage with the movers and that we had stayed in Cleveland the night before. We were then allowed to enter the country and drive in kilometres rather than miles.

In Canada, we visited Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. First, let me comment on the style of driving in this part of the world: It involves a great deal of tailgating and extremely fast speeds. It also involves trying to run people, especially me, off the road. I find that it helps to yell at the other cars, especially if you have your window up.

Toronto is an extremely diverse city, and I really liked it. It is also very large: We were there for 2 days, and we didn't really see all that much of it. The night we came into the city, an electrical storm was brewing, and the rain began to fall, fortunately, once we got inside the hotel. The storm was spectacular. I learned in the paper the next day that the wind apparently took the roof off a house. I wasn't surprised, given that the wind felt like it could have blown our car off the road when we were driving.

We spent one day in Ottawa, Canada's capital, and walked around the parliament building and on the lovely pedestrian mall. There was an anti-Israel protest going on outside the parliament building. I wonder why the protesters didn't see fit to protest Hezbollah. It is a terrorist organization, after all. It seems like they are missing the boat here.

Then to Montreal, where they speak French. I never took any French classes, and Todd got a C the one year that he took French in high school. I do know how to say "My name is Claude" in French, thanks to a Friends episode in which Phoebe unsuccessfully tries to teach Joey how to speak French. Luckily, the Quebeckers we ran into knew English as well, and were used to people like us. Todd knew how to ask if someone spoke English, which helped. Generally, however, what would happen is that someone would say "Bonjour" and I would stifle the urge to say "Hola" because Spanish is the only other language in which I have any rudimentary understanding. Because of this stifling action, in combination with my lack of French skill, I would generally squeak out a "Hi" instead of a "Bonjour." This would cue the waiter or whomever that I'm an English-speaking freak, and the person would break out the English. Luckily, nobody seemed offended by my stupidity.

Now, we in finally in Massachusetts, and I'm so happy to be here. This week, our goal is to find an apartment. I have visions of hardwood floors dancing in my head.