I had the opportunity this week to stay at Toronto’s Drake Hotel and we had a fantastic time. I had never heard of the Drake Hotel although it has the sort of name that sounds familiar to me. I found it on Trip Advisor and every other hotel in Toronto was full. I never did figure out why everything was booked, but the Drake Hotel seemed like a good fit for us. I picked up my chef daughter from her job in Muskoka and we spent 2 nights and 3 days together in Toronto. We checked in on Sunday afternoon. The hotel is small, charming, and has multiple restaurants and bars full of trendy, interesting people. We were given a room on the 3rd floor. We were surprised to find out there is no elevator so we trekked up the stairs and found a lovely but small, very cool guest room. We were greeted with complimentary sparkling wine on ice and the room was full of interesting items for purchase as well as a fun “mini-bar” area full of tasty beverages and snacks. The design concept really stood out and we felt like we were not quite cool enough for our hip accommodations. That said, Jonathan the manager greeted us warmly every time he saw us and made us feel incredibly welcome. He hugged us when we left–we felt loved and cared for in this fun hipster hotel. I am not sure we were cool enough for our surroundings, but we felt welcome and enjoyed its charm. We ate breakfast twice in their cafe and the food was fantastic. I only wish we had the energy to explore more of what was going on. There is a roof-top bar that looked very fun. We heard happy people partying late into the night. This didn’t bother us, it was kind of fun–like falling asleep on the couch during a really great party. During our stay, there was an open mike and a pickle contest...
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I met a woman on an airplane this morning. We were sitting next to each other on a very long flight from Buffalo to Phoenix. We said hello and talked about general travel thoughts when we got on board, and then we both napped. Toward the end of the flight we started talking. She was from the Ukraine and had been living in Toronto for 25 years. I asked about how it was for her being an immigrant to Canada. She told me Canada saved her life. She told me how much she loves Canada and about her house she sold, moving to Newmarket, Ontario and retiring. And she said that now she is a little bored. We talked about mothers and mothers-in-law and children. She told me about her first marriage and how she had a mother-in-law that was great but a husband who wasn’t so great and that he had since died. And she told me that she had remarried. She shared stories of life in the Ukraine. She told me about being there when Chernobyl happened. She told me about not being able to get information and having to talk to family in Canada to find out what was happening in her own country. She told me about not being able to get food in the Ukraine before she left. She said there just wasn’t any food on the shelves to buy. She said now there is food on the shelves but no one has money to it. She told me about her step-son who raises chickens and grows his own vegetables because he has time but no money to buy food. It gave me a glimpse of a swing back to an agrarian society and how it might happen. It was a new and interesting thought to me. I felt connection from sharing the intimate details of our lives and our hearts. She was kind and passionate about her family. I felt a little pang of disappointment as we...
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This summer we traveled to France. We spent 3 days around Paris, a week in a medieval village in the south of France called St. Ambroix, and a week in Sancerre. We rented a car and got to drive the highway in one direction and drove through all the smaller roads coming back. We didn’t have a GPS in our rental car and it felt quaint to attempt all that foreign driving with a map and a conversation. We drove through hundreds of roundabouts and our policy was to keep going around until we knew which way to go. We twirled around quite a few traffic circles on our journey. One of the threads of conversation that wove through this vacation, was the concept of “France–the brand” and how it compared to France–the reality. In North America, the concept of France and French products act very similarly to an upscale brand. If something is from France, it is guaranteed to be expensive, potentially hand-crafted, and new and cutting edge from a design perspective–innovative. France, the brand products might also center around fairly expensive European style food. In other cases, the word french is added to something ordinary to make it sound upscale. Some examples of how “French” is used to make a product more upscale would be French roast, French vanilla, French press, French toast, and of course French fries. France has nothing to do with producing coffee, vanilla, fries, or bodum coffee pots, but the word “French” gives them a little something special in their branding. Apparently before it was called “French toast” it was called German toast–apparently in previous centuries the German brand used to be more popular than it is today. Now, French is chic. French lavender is another example. Apparently French lavender is a variety native to Spain–maybe North Americans aren’t the only ones who use the word “French” to make their products more marketable. We found France, the country to be so different than France, the brand....
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It was my first time dining in a Michelin star restaurant and La Tour has one. We were in Sancerre for a language school and I wanted to have one really nice dinner in France before we left. We booked a reservation for Thursday evening. We talked about whether we should take the kids and we had a list of babysitters. Mel thought we should take them so they could experience it too, and I am so glad we did. La Tour has 3 Prix Fixe Menus. One of them comes with wine. We opted for the middle one which was 58 Euros for 5 courses. We ordered wine a la carte. We spent some time before we went for dinner, preparing the boys for what to expect. We asked them if they would like to go to a really special dinner. They said yes. We told them they would need to eat with a knife and fork and would need really good manners. We told them there would be dessert. We told them the food would be really interesting and they would need to try everything but they didn’t have to eat what they didn’t like. They were interested to try it out. We had 5 courses plus an Amuse Bouche, a soup, and the tiny dessert at the end of the meal. The courses were: Amuse Bouche–a tiny square of water melon with goat cheese and mint and a homemade crisp with shrimp and sesame. Soup–Cuttlefish with soy broth Salad–simple greens with viniagrette Appetizer–Gambas croustillantes à la noix de coco, nouilles de sarrasin Fish Course–I don’t know what it was but it was gorgeous Main–Cochon de Mr Dougy, brocolis et piquillos (Mel and Emerson got this) Pigeon de Saint Quentin sur Nohain, fenouil et cuisses confites (Xander and I had this) Assiette de fromages, grand classique Dessert–Île flottante, verveine et cerise (Mel and I had this) Fraises melba (the kids had this) Petite Fours–tiny lemon tarts and tiny chocolate tarts We didn’t...
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We had an opportunity to add a stop in Iceland on our way to Paris. Travel tip: If you book on Iceland Air, you can make a stop in Iceland at no additional charge. Iceland can be both wildly expensive or strangely inexpensive depending on how you travel. Almost all of the amazing geological sites are free. Because the country is an island, most of the consumer goods are imports, so if you stay away from shopping you can avoid high costs. Renting a car was interesting given that much of the country is impassable in a passenger car. We kept worrying that we were going to drive into a forbidden area but it never happened. We did see some giant SUVs that take people into the interior of the island. Next time, I want to go in there! We found an amazing Bed and Breakfast called Minna-Mosfell. They are near the Golden Circle and about 45 minutes from Kevflavik airport. The hosts Gudrun and Valur are warm and inviting. Their reviews on Trip Advisor are the best I have ever seen. They have a place with 3 rooms with a shared bath. Their set up is a lovely shared space with a sitting area and a table as well as a small self-catering kitchen. They have fresh home-made bread each morning as well as homegrown eggs, cheese, and tasty treats. We were able to make some sandwiches to take out on our day-trips which made our visit in Iceland so amazingly kid friendly. They provided a picnic backpack and a thermos for each room. This allowed for considerable savings and we ended up eating out for one simple meal each day. Their hospitality was unbelievable. The landscape in Iceland is fantastic. It looks like a moonscape when you fly into to town with all the lava. There are very few trees and when we were there in the summer, it was green everywhere with purple Lupines blooming all over the place. Driving around Iceland...
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4 countries 6 currencies 38 days 4 backpacks 3 rental cars 1 car loaned by friends 2 ferries old friends new friends 2 amusement parks 3 medieval villages 1 mountain climb to a chateau daily scrapbooks fresh baked bread old cheese, salami, french wine, Danish snaps, Danish beer, bubbles, 4 swimming pools, 2 hot springs, 2 beaches, and a whole lot of sunshine… It has been a week since we returned from our 5 week trip to Iceland, France, Denmark, and Sweden. I have had a hard time reintegrating back into my life. I have had difficulty writing. Not because I don’t have anything to say but because I have been on some kind of sensory overload for several weeks now and I have had a hard time forming a thought of my own. I have been awash in varied and intense emotions. I have had my fill of beautiful places and interesting visual stimulation. I have had my fill of re-connection and connection with people I have known, and people I have gotten to meet in the last month. I am physically spent. I can feel the physical exhaustion hanging on even though I have taken it easy this week and haven’t tried to do too much. I am sated by the time on vacation with my family and have been enjoying some time alone this week. Being in close quarters with my family was so warm and we have shared a real sense of connection that was sweet and special. Now we are all disconnecting just a bit so we can go on with our individual lives. People want to hear about our trip and I am not ready to talk about it much yet. It is like a new lover, something to savor that is greater than words. If I talk about it, I tie it down, I accidentally commit to giving it a meaning instead of letting my feelings exist on their own in a land without words. I want...
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