London! (No, not that London.)

I packed up my car for the day and made a dash for the border, the Canadian border, that is, for a rendezvous with a fellow blogger and good friend (she writes at Solo Mama, FYI). Although the purpose of my visit was purely social, it was also nice to get out of my comfort zone and cross an international border once again. To be honest, we wouldn’t have minded any place that had a grassy knoll to sit on and catch up, but as it happened we chose London, Ontario as our meeting point.

I obviously don’t live far from the Canadian border, and it made for a 3 1/2 hour one way trip, including the stop at customs.

Welcome to Canada!

Observations about Canada:

• The speed limit drops by 10 mph, from 70mph in the states to a measly 100 km/hr (62ish mph). Which means that my own actual speed dropped by 15 mph (I’d hate to get pulled over in a foreign country!) Sloooooow.
• There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to see along the 402. If there is civilization in Ontario before reaching London, it must be located far away from the freeway.
• My GPS doesn’t work in Canada. My phone GPS also doesn’t work in Canada. The “my location” feature of google maps is usually several blocks off from my location. This, and missing my exit, caused me to take a lovely driving tour of outer London. Good thing I study maps for fun in my spare time, and was able to figure it out from memory.
• You have to pay your bridge toll ($3.00) in cash only. If you are a dummy and assume they will take a credit card, and have no cash, you may get lucky and be allowed to continue on for free.
• Canadians love Tim Horton’s like Americans love Starbucks.
• There are really cute girls in Canada. Actually, I only noticed one, but as long as it’s the right one, that’s all you need!
• Border patrol agents want to know every detail of your life, and apparently think it’s crazy weird that someone would have friends in Canada, and visit them.

Observations about London:

• The river running through it is named Thames. So corny.
• There is no cutesy “Big Ben” statue, at least according to google.
• The city seems clean, green, and pedestrian/biker friendly. In fact, there were tons of bikers, skateboarders, and joggers.
• It should not be easy to get lost. Unless you are us. Even if you end up wandering through a residential street in search of a park, however, the houses are lovely and you may even stumble upon a kitten or two.
• I failed miserably as a tourist in London, so do not use this as your travel guide. I sat in a park the entire time I was there, after finding it, that is!

All of my photos of the impressive Blue Water Bridge sucked, so here’s what it really looked like

Photos of what I saw courtesy of Google:

 

 

downtown buildings

 

farmer’s market

 

castle-shaped building

 

The river Thames with the fountain

 

Photos that suck because I took them haphazardly:

the back of Budweiser gardens

same castle-like building

 

Lindsay looking at the fountain