Canada, Part One

Channing and I landed in Toronto after a series of thankfully uneventful flights on Wednesday, May 28th in the early evening. Here you'll see some views from Channing's friend Joe's place, right in the heart of Toronto. Joe let us stay at his place any time we were in the city, so we were always fairly centrally located. The first night we went out for sandwiches and a couple drinks with some friends of Channing's, then fell asleep pretty early.

The next day we drove to Alexandria, a small town right next to the border into Quebec. Channing's friend from the military was getting married on Saturday, so we got there a few days early to help with the preparations. Literally within 10 minutes of arriving and meeting everyone for the first time, I was put to work. This was not just any wedding, folks - there were approximately 330 guests, including 11 bridesmaids and 11 groomsmen (of whom Channing was one). Of course, out of those 330 people, only about 30 were guests of the groom.





Between the rehearsal dinner on Thursday and the wedding on Saturday, Channing and I took a side trip into Montreal on Friday. We caught the train mid-morning and spent about 4 hours in the city before going back to work in Alexandria. Above are some shots of the Alexandria train station (it seemed the only major, umm, ANYTHING in the whole town... and it's not very major at all) as well as the view from the window on the way to Montreal. The last shot is of the outskirts of town with the larger, more modern city in the background.



Montreal is a beautiful city, with an interesting mix of modern buildings and more historic architecture (above is the music building for McGill University). Channing primarily wanted to show me Montreal because he wanted to see me freak out at the fact that everyone speaks French and all the signs are in French and I don't speak French ...Of course, neither does Channing. We managed to navigate our way around without incident, though, owing to the fact that everyone there also speaks English. So much for Channing's culture shock. I wish I had taken a picture of the French stop signs, though, as opposed to the bilingual stop signs you saw at the airports.

Saturday's wedding went off without a hitch. Considering the fact that the bride did EVERYTHING herself, from the food to the decorations to making all logistical arrangements - all for 330 people, no less - everyone was suitably impressed.



On the way back to Toronto from Alexandria we stopped by Kingston, where Channing lived as a teen and while he was in the Canadian Armed Forces. We met up with a good friend of Channing's whose twin brother actually came and stayed with us a while back. We ate at a very nice Indian restaurant then walked around town a bit while we waited for our train into Toronto.



Kingston is a beautiful college/military town surrounded by lakes and forest. The buildings throughout the entire town (at least the central portions) are made of stone, giving the place an almost medieval feeling.



We arrived back in Toronto late that night, around midnight, and got a few hours of sleep before catching an early morning flight to Halifax the next day... Pictures to come in Part Two!