Day 8: We are the crazy people

The title of this post is due to this odd song playing in the music tent while I’m writing this blog post outside in hot and sunny Maine. Yesterday was the 4th of July (America F* yeah!) After five hours of driving and getting stuck behind a Christmas in July parade for an hour in a tiny town that offered a bacon and egg sandwich on a glazed donut (really New Hampshire? Do you want to kill your clientele? Yet another bad business model. You are supposed to entice the customer to come back.)

We rediscovered big red gum, which is now $.35! Back in my day, gum only cost a quarter. This gas station also has magazines with Channing Tatum and Alcide from True Blood to provide us with eye candy and a discussion of how Suavest of the Seas used to hang Usher’s picture on her bunk and say “usher, usher” while doing a shoulder shrug like he used to do in his videos. As you can imagine, this is went over well at her summer camp. There was also this interesting sign above the bathroom which made us unsure if we had to clean the bathroom in order to use it.

After picking up groceries, we headed to the campsite and were greeted by a ton of cars and a ginormous dog named Tito.

Our second fireworks show of the trip commenced with a rocky start, but the boys soon found their groove and put on a show worthy of Burlington. Towards the end, we became concerned when they started going off near the ground and we began biting our nails with anxiety as “Bombs over Bagdad” played in our head (everybody is fine).

The night ended with a bonfire, singing Counting Crows with acoustic guitar, and enjoying the thousands of stars and the Milky Way that we could see at midnight (unfortunately, despite the amazing iPhone, no camera can quite capture it but you can use your imagination.)

All in all a great fourth of July despite the Mosquitos. Sleeping under the stars in a tent with Tito’s snoring as white noise, a cool breeze and bottles of water from our best friend Dunkin Donuts. It’s all a girl could ask for. Happy birthday America!

❤ casually kissing cowboys

Day 7: Flex Days are the Best Days

We awoke this last morning in Canada in a somewhat foul mood (see previous, angry post about The BackUp plan). We decided that a free Dunkin Donuts egg sandwich (courtesy of mama Uttings gracious gift card) would fix the situation, so we looked up the nearest location, packed up the car, and headed out.

Then we ran into a series of set backs. First, Montreal traffic makes no sense. Delivery and construction vehicles stop in the middle of the street and apparently the right lane is for parking? We drove in circles for about 30 mins before deciding that the Dunkin Donuts was likely inside the mall, which is why we couldn’t find it from the street. After some angry gesturing from a cab driver Casually Kissing Cowboys and I headed in to stock up for our trip back to America.

Once locating the elusive DD we were told that:
a) they did not have 4 croissants
b) they don’t have chai or tea in Canada
c) they wouldn’t take our gift card

This set back led us to another American chain, Starbucks to get the drinks we desperately needed. The one redeeming thing about this morning was this hilarious graffiti:

So clearly, we needed a drink. We tracked down a vineyard famous for their ice wine. I wish I could capture the rap video gesturing we made every time someone said ice wine this trip. Instead ill give you this more polite picture of us with the actual wine:

Suavest of the Seas then led us through the border with slightly less anxious sweating than Techtalking and Walkin, even though I’m pretty sure neither one of them has even broken a law in their lives.

Back in gluttonous America, we headed straight for the Ben and Jerry’s factory. While waiting for our tour to start we read a little history of the dynamic duo that brought you Phish Food and Chunky Monkey. Apparently they’ve done a lot of good work around social awareness, fair work conditions and fair trade. Go you B&J.

We took a tour with a young, kinda nerdy guy who had clearly delivered all his lines way too many times as he rushed/mumbled through them all. Suavest of the Seas and I then spoiled our dinner sampling flavors unique to the factory.

Back on the road we saw some of beautiful Vermont.

Continuing on our unplanned Burlington stop we found a restaurant supplied by all local farmers for dinner. We realized then that the Burlington 4th of July fireworks were about to begin so we follows the throngs to the waterfront to see the spectacle.

Us New Yorkers were unfazed, unfortunately that was not the case for one very upset policewoman who kept starting fights with drunk people. What we witnessed next was hands down the best fireworks show any of us has ever seen. Seriously Burlington, you KILLED it. And this is why our flex day was the best day.

Traveling back to the car we decided to stop for a night cap to avoid this:

It was like a scene out of a zombie apocalypse movie. We survived though and found our way back to our favorite sleeping accommodations, the Holiday Inn Express.

All in all it was deemed a successful day and we can all agree we are now just a little more patriotic. Go America, and happy freaking birthday!

Forever Yours,
The Gringo Gaucho

Day 6: The Day the Hormones Won

So, this is the first thing I saw on Day 6:

I’m not sure what omen a flying porta potty foretold but I’ll let you decide for yourselves. We decided to go to the Montreal market in Little Italy, which resulted in us wandering around because our tour book lacked a map of that section.

However once we got to the market and suffered some really weird gluten free crepes, we were able to appreciate the wonderful displays of produce.

The weather wasn’t cooperating and most of us had been kept up all night by the Mad Hatter bar next door so we decided to take a mid-day break and watch the best movie of all time:

You would think that would be enough to warrant the title of this post but there’s more. Read on.

We decided to walk to the old city and finally found the solution to Suavest of the Seas’ constant hungriness:

We weren’t really feeling like doing anything after dinner so we went back to the apartment and watched the worst movie of all time:

It doesn’t even warrant a YouTube clip because it is so terrible. Basically, this movie taught us that once you’re pregnant you lose your sense of balance, eat chili with your hands, and justify your decision to get pregnant as a way to stave off loneliness because your grandmother finally remarried. The title of this post stems not from the lack of activities and extreme apathy with no firm decision making but from the fact that we wasted 2 hours of our time in another country watching this movie. And that’s how the hormones overcame all good sense.

Btw, shout out to whoever comes up with the best caption for this picture, seen in our wanderings through Little Italy:

Have a happy fourth of July and tune in tomorrow to read about our epic unplanned day in Vermont (amazing pics included).

Till next time,
Techtalkin’ and walkin’

Au Revoir Canada

For all of those concerned parents out there we officially just crossed back onto American soil.

We drove across the border singing this but with Randi’s extra made up line about president Lincoln:

Our sing along quickly switched over to “Don’t want to Miss a Thing” as we celebrated America’s finest things; Aerosmith, constant fear of Armageddon, and Ben Affleck.

We are so, so happy to have the data use back on our iPhones. After much discussing we unanimously decided Siri and the Google Maps app (available now through iTunes) are far superior to the GPS that came with the car. The arrow doesn’t rotate to reflect the direction you are currently driving, there is no voice accompaniment, and it lists the next steps FROM BOTTOM TO TOP! Who reads that way?

Most of the time we were in Canada we just felt like this:

Anyway, we’re happy to be back. Blogging will be easier now that we don’t have to rely on wifi so expect entries for Montreal soon!
-the Gringo Gaucho

Montreal Public Transportation

Does anyone else recognize the similarity between the door closing sound on the Montreal subway and the classic Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”?

International Sensation

Hey ya’ll! Check out all the countries that have been tuning into our blog!

Day 5: SOA Montreal

Bonjour!

We didn’t do too much today since everything seemed to take much longer than it should have. We started with breakfast in Quebec City near the Old City. It was delicious, although it took 40 minutes and 4 waiters to get my cup of coffee. After breakfast we continued our search for Canadian cash which proved to be just as difficult as the previous evening. It’s like they don’t want Americans to have their hands on Canadian bills. Where’s the loonies at?

Eventually, Techtalkin’ and Walkin’ located a banque and we were able to withdraw enough bills to pay to get our car out of the lot. We crossed the River St Lawrence and headed into the wilderness.

We hit the Canadian highway and noticed immediately that the landscape very closely resembled Texas…so we listened to the Dixie Chicks. We learned last summer that they really like country music there.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty much the same, except for the really exciting stretch of the highway in which we were weaving in and out of traffic with a Canadian motorcycle gang. The following picture doesn’t do a great job of showing how many of them were on the road, but is a testament to the highly organized and efficient manner in which MC clubs maneuver traffic. Jax would be proud.

While listening to Tori’s 90s playlist (because that’s what the iPod wanted) we reminisced all of our first CDs. In an effort to raise “class participation” we would like to engage you in the following activity. We are going to list 4 CDs and would like you to comment back by matching each road tripper to their first CD. This is an experiment to see how willing you are to play with us. If we get a lot of responses we promise to try and include more interactive actives in the days to come. The CDs are:

1) The Spice Girls Spice
2) The Fugees The Score
3) No Doubt Tragic Kingdom
4) Toni Braxton Secrets

and in case you’ve forgotten, we are:

1) The Suavest of the Seas
2) The Gringo Gaucho
3) Techtalkin and Walkin
4) Casually Kissing Cowboys

Arriving in Montreal, we found our residence for the next two days, an unfinished apartment building. Fortunately, our actual apartment was completed and furnished, even if the elevator was not.

We call him Cheeba Charlie.

We left to explore downtown Montreal, which led us to the delicious Burger Bar on a terrace overlooking one of Montreals pub lined streets. The food was delicious, as Randi said, “I could eat this chicken sandwich every day of my life.” The conversation was richer though as Randi and I planned two alternative bachelorette parties for Katie. One involves Vegas, the other Sanoma, but both include a road trip. We plan on pitching our official itineraries to Katie via prezi when we return to NYC. Thoughts?

While eating, we noticed a promising roof top bar across the way so concluding dinner we headed up to sit on the couches below the heat lamps (yes, heat lamps in July, welcome to Canada!) We were enjoying ourselves immensely, especially after it began to drizzle and they pulled a special awning over us, until an Alan Alda lookalike came over, poured us four glasses of Veuve Cliquot and then slurred a bunch of incomprehensible words to us while asking if he could join our party. We declined, and then ran to the street only to later wonder, “could that have actually been Alan Alda?”

We really hope not. Anyway, it’s time for bed so we can thoroughly explore Montreal tomorrow.

À demain!
The Gringo Gaucho

Day 4: Quebec, the home of the crepe Nazi

On the morning of day four, we were relieved to find the sun shining and that it was no longer 48 degrees. As we made our way to the old city, we realized that French and English do not share an equal playing field so Tech Walkin’ and Talkin’ and Casually kissing cowboys were at a disadvantage, not that we were complaining. We are fast learners anyway.
The old City was quaint and cute, with plenty of historical statues such as the one of Gandhi.
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And fun signs that showed us that Canada does have a sense of humor!



We then walked around in a giant circle, reflecting on what a European-like city it was. (so European in fact that Gringo Gaucho accidentally called the money Euros the next day). The old City is filled with amazing architecture, a chill vibe and a woman who sings only 3 songs in rotation using her opera singer voice. (we know because we passed her at least 5 times and she was singing Broken Hallelujah every time.)

We had three missions for the day.
1) eat a crepe
2) go to the beating of the retreat (more on that later)
3)go on a ghost tour to educate ourselves about the city.
Along the way, we encountered an enormous great Dane, an $8 smoothie which was so small it for into a coffee cup that you’d get in a bodega, and creepy mannequins.
First, we found a crepe spot that had lemon and sugar crepes, as well as banana and chocolate crêpes. It was also the home of an amazing lemonade and the crepe Nazi, who was bossy, corrected our French, and seemed to not like us.



It was also discovered that there are plenty of photo ops around the city four tourists who are writing blogs and posting pics about their road trip to Canada.




At half past five, we ran (literally) up 5 flights of stairs and up some serious hills in order to make it to the beating of the retreat. What is that, you ask. Well, it is the changing of the guard outside of the citadel. We finally made it with 10 mins to spare when we received some bad news. It didn’t start until July 1st. We were defeated for a moment but then decided to take a picture with the guard, which was slightly awkward. Then they surprised us by actually changing guards. It was clear that somebody had lied to us. (Fist of fury). It also became painfully clear to Suavest of the Seas that the gift shop was lackluster at best.



After eating an Italian dinner, we hustled back to the ghost tour location (which is in front of a catholic religion store strangely enough) only to find out that their credit card machine was out of order. We ran down more steps to the main head quarters of the company, only to discover that they were gone for the day (who has a ghost tour at 8 and closes down the main store at 8? Poor business plan in my opinion!) Then we ran back up the steps to an ATM, which there seems to be a very bad shortage of here in Quebec City, with no luck. At this point, we were in a panic but were informed that there was still hope because we could by something in the store and get cash back. After a very tedious process of buying water and postcards, we were finally able to join the tour.
On the tour, we learned about a hanging, an executioner forced to punish his wife, an American wrongly accused of espionage (they’re on to us!) and a sinking cruise ship in the Saint Lawrence river. Although the stories were not as disturbing as the ones we heard about in New Orleans, nor did it include a shadow of creepy Jesus outside of a church, we did get to experience creepiness inside of a church.
Setting the scene: it is dark out and we are standing outside of this church.


The tour guide unlocks the church door and ushers us inside. It is pitch black and smells like incense. The only light in the room is a single candle in a lantern that he is holding. We are instructed to sit in the pews. There is a long, unsettling silence. Then our host begins to tell us a story of a woman who walks the upper balcony. She was even spotted by Queen Elizabeth. There are two theories about this woman. The first is that she was a nun who had an illegitimate child, which she killed. The second was of a woman who suffered from narcolepsy during a cholera outbreak, and was buried alive. Both stories put us on edge. The host then tells us to take pictures of the church with the flash on and see what we could get on film. As Randi whispers “please don’t do that” the candle is blown out and we are immersed in total darkness. When it was time to go, we practically ran out of there, all agreeing that we don’t need proof of ghosts after all. Especially if they look like this mannequin that we found in a shop window.



Hasta mañana
Casually Kissing Cowboys.

Day 3: Portland, ME

Hello readers, sorry for the delay but with our action-packed Quebec adventure, we got a little behind with the blogging. Day 3 got off to a little bit of a late start as we recovered from a late night involving live music, Dominos pizza (with no garlic sauce, much to the Gringo Gaucho’s chagrin), and Super Troopers. We drove back into Portland and got some brunch at a place that featured the best artwork seen on any of our road trips:

Then, our gracious host, Josh, got to show us around the shopping area. Mostly he waited patiently while we looked at all things “Maine kitsch.” We found another thing to do “for the kids” before we grabbed a drink overlooking the harbor and soaked up the Maine sun.

Then we hopped on the road to Canada. And because it was the first time I was driving on the road trip, this happened:

Now, our long term followers will remember how I masterfully maneuvered last year’s crazy Sourthern thunderstorm, which included red sheet lightning and huge trucks splashing waves of water onto our car.

As someone who has a healthy respect for summer thunderstorms and consider Southern storms to be among the craziest all I have to say is, Maine don’t play.

We showed the people of Maine that it’s okay to pull over when the weather is too crazy and once it cleared we proceeded toward the border. It gets quite pretty up in Maine and we caught some great pictures (although not of the moose that was in the middle of the road).

Courtesy of CKC

We finally pulled up to the border (no pics allowed) where we were allowed through with very little fuss. My question is, why do you automatically feel guilty when asked questions by police? I have no idea why I had to think twice about whether or not I had ever been arrested (Mom, the answer is still no). Then, we realized that we had not thought ahead as we all turned off our phones and had no idea how to get to Quebec City. Luckily, the Gringo Gaucho’s mother’s voice rang out (at least in GG’s head): “Why don’t you use the GPS?” Thank goodness because we don’t even have maps in the car.

Things changed drastically at the border. The landscape changed to farmland, the signs became extremely detailed, and I could no longer read anything. Still driving is driving and we made it to Quebec City. After a quick trip to McDonalds we settled in for the night and prepared for our first day in Canada.

And here is what we listened on our drive up to Canada:

You’re welcome.

Until next time,
Techtalkin’ and walkin’

Day 2: Bean Town

We awoke this Thursday morning to the rhythmic clicking of Casually Kissing Cowboys’ keystrokes on the iPad as she researched a place for us to stay in Quebec. We rose our weary, burnt out, teacher selves from the air mattresses and couches we were occupying and headed outside to catch a bus downtown. As we waited in the misty morning these cynical New Yorkers bombarded our gracious host with a variety of complaints. “We’re hungry!” “We need water!” “I’m stiff!” “I’m cold!”

Luckily, our host Katie (not Teck Talkin and Walkin) and Boston complied. After a delicious breakfast in an ill designed diner, we stepped onto the sidewalk to see (gasp!) the sun!

Observe here the previous gray sky in the background of this statue of George Washington wearing a Bruins jersey:

After seeing the beautiful green parks and multiple fountains in Boston Commons and the Public Gardens we made our way to the mall. Randi loves malls. Not as much as Dollywood.

We went to the top of the Prudential Building to get a better panoramic view of the city and order a pink beverage. Actually, that wasn’t planned but it made a nice picture.

Check out Randi’s “bimbo glasses.” Want to see them again? Yeah, me too:

We took some poor quality pictures on account of the glare but we will show them to you anyway.

Just so you can see what we saw. Here is the view from the top of the building followed by a picture from the street.

We hit the road again only to learn you should never try to drive out of Boston at 4 pm on a Friday afternoon in the summer. Our next host didn’t tell us what a bad idea that was until we were already stuck in gridlock traffic. Alas, with a sugar rush from our never ending supply of pez we survived and crossed over into two states Katie has never been to, NH and ME.

We arrived at Fish’s house just in time to shower before a dinner to celebrate a very special “uncle’s” birthday. The sushi restaurant accommodated us with lots of tempura fish and some mochi ice cream complete with a surprise candle and rendition of Happy Birthday which was sung through an origami mouth that had I ❤ Jed written behind it. Having trouble visualizing that?

Upon leaving the restaurant we accidentally stumbled upon the road trip attraction statue of some western director. This happened:

What happened next was a lot of 90s cover bands and dancing. It was fun, exhausting, and afterwards we all looked like this:

Overall it was a very successful birthday. So here’s to you Uncle Jed! We will see you Mainers on the return but for now we are Canada bound!

Au Revoir!
The Gringo Gaucho