Cruising Around Canada and New England!

This is going to be a long one!

We left early in the morning for Montreal on May 19th (happy 6 months to Bianca!!!). We get to the Ithaca airport and, of course, there's a huge line for security. And OF COURSE something happens to us - they couldn't find Bobby's reservation. Bianca and I were fine and got our tickets, but not Bobby. Why?? I don't get it. Obviously we all booked it together. Idiots. At the last minute they got Bobby a ticket and he ran to where we were in line, just as we were about to go through security, me freaking out because I did NOT want to take a 6 month old by myself on a plane to a foreign country (lol as if Canada is THAT foreign). But all in all, we made it.

We arrived in Montreal and relaxed in our hotel room for a bit before exploring the city! It's absolutely beautiful Felt like Europe. We went inside a really pretty church,

 and ate yummy Italian food while Bianca slept, silly girl. We also ate yummy cupcakes (I'm a bit aobsessed with fancy cupcakes hehe). And then we called it a night.

May 20th

We decided to go all over Montreal today! We walked to the nearest metro in Chinatown and took off for this big hill that had a huge cross on it. It looked like fun!

We had to take a taxi up there because there was no way in hell I was pushing a 21 lb baby and heavy diaper bag/stroller up that huge hill. Funny story, the first taxi guy was sleepin and Bobby couldn't wake him up, so we hopped in another taxi and the driver called him an idiot haha. The guy gave us his card and told us to call when we wanted to come down. So we explored. Bobby and I took turns going up this cool path.

So we called the guy to bring us back down (because it was a pretty long and steep road with no sidewalks) and they said they couldn't get us because we didn't have an address.UGHHH! We looked at a pole, called again, and attempted to give a road name and number, but they hung up on us cause they "didn't speak English." Yeah. So we just walked down the road. Passed a couple of homeless people. It was...wonderful. 

Anyways, then we went back to the metro and headed off to this cool biosphere that had all the different seasons in it! Except of course winter, because that was under renovation. Of course. The coolest one. Whatever. We were SOOO hot by then (the weather lied and told us it was gonna be cold, boo!) so I changed Bianca into something cooler. This was a pretty awesome place though, we loved it!

Then we went over to the big observatory town in the Olympic Stadium. You took an elevator up and it was a cool view of the city!

By then we were exhausted, but we decided to go to this basillica thing...which had the steapest hill ever to walk up! But it was worth it. 

 

After that fun adventure, we were STARVING!!! And Bianca was cranky. We ate in this chinese resuaturant in Chinatown in a hotel haha. It was pretty though! Once I got Bianca to sleep, all was well. 

May 21st OUR CRUISE ADVENTURE BEGINS!!!

So we head over to the boat that morning and we learn that our boat couldn't fit under the bridge there because the water was so high, so they were going to bus us to Quebec City and basically give us an extra day/night there! Hooray!

The bus ride was fine, we even were given snacks! It was nice. Then we all went and boarded the boat! So exciting! It was very pretty. And so nice. All the staff are trained to learn your name. I really liked that.

 

(in case you forgot what day it was)

                                                     (our room)

We ate dinner and then walked around Quebec (which was my fave city in this whole trip!!! BEAUTIFUL!!!) 

May 22nd QUEBEC CITY

We got up early and took a funurcular up to the top part of the city and walked around this really fancy hotel.

Then we walked to where this fort was supposed to be. I say supposed because we never saw it. Instead apparently we went on this never ending walk around it's walls. Yawn. But it was pretty, so I shall not complain.

We fed Bianca some lunch in this cool park and continued our journey of Quebec!

Our last stop was this maple store (I am also addiced to anything maple). We got a "maple taffy" which was more like sugar on snow (see the VT post for a defination). It was yummy no matter what it was called. 

We retired to our room to relax and explored the boat. We had a meeting that afternoon before we set sail about our lifeboats and everything. We also rented a movie and ate some yummy dinner. At night there was a towel animal on our bed, aw! So cute.

May 23rd AT SEA DAY

Today was our first formal day/night, which was fun! We just watched movies all day,

 ate yummy food, 

and explored the ship. 

In the afternoon, the big thing to do is look at a rock in the ocean, Perce Rock. Yup. It was cold, and kinda miserable, so we just went  up to the dining room to view it, since  they had big windows. Yeah we couldn't hear the commentary very well, but we were warm and had pretty darn good view of it, so it was all good.

We quickly spent all day catching Bobby up on the "Fockers" movies so we could go to the movie theatre to see "Little Fockers." It was Bianca's first (and last...for a while anyways lol) movie theater experience. She was a little fussy, and we thought the movie was going to be funnier, but oh well. Then we got dressed up and had a fancy meal at night, which was fun. Everyone LOVED Bianca. She even made some friends with some older ladies who, whenever we would see them throughout the trip, would shout out "Hey! Is that Bianca? Bring her on over here!!!"

                                                    (our welcome aboard pic)

May 24th CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

We were greeted by the Mounties!

We decieded that since PEI isn't that big we'd rent a car and drive ourselves around to all of the Anne of Green Gables stuff. It was a great idea! It was so pretty there. We first went to the Anne of Green Gables house, which was interactive and really neat.

                                                 (lover's lane, hehe)

Then we got a raspberry cordial!

Then we TRIED to go to the Anne of Green Gables villiage, but I think it was closed for some reason. At least we could see it from the road.

Next we went to see the beach and see if there were any lighthouses (for Bobby, who LOVES lighthouses). We explored a little bit there, but it was getting a bit rainy, (and Bianca a bit cranky lol), so we didn't spend too much time there.

We kept hearing about this Cows ice cream place. We weren't even going to go, but man I'm glad we did! We did a fun factory tour and got to try some of their ice cream and it was AMAZING! Especially the Wowie Cowie. So yummy!

After eating lots of tasty ice cream and buying some funny Cows shirts, we were going to try to go into New Brunsiwick, just so that Bobby could say he's been there (I've been there before, Devan's grandmother used to live there). But we kept getting lost, so we just turned back and dropped the car off and went back to the ship. All in all it was an awesome day!

That evening there was a cooking demo I went to. It involved berries, and it was pretty good. Bianca was sleepy so I just went alone (plus Bobby hates raspberries). But it was still alright. That night we just relaxed, ate dinner, and walked around the ship. 

May 25th SYDNEY, NOVA SCOTIA

So appantly there's not much to do here, so this was one of the places where we actually went on a tour. We were going to the Louisberg Fortress. We got the cheapest tour there. There was a really pricey one that was about chocolate tasting that sounded AMAZING, but alas, we're broke college kids. So we get on the bus and get to the fortress and they tell us that only a couple people signed up for the "fun" (aka pricey) tours of the fortress, so they just said what the heck, and let all of us go on a fun tour...AND WE GOT TO DO THE CHOCOLATE ONE AFTER ALL, MUHHAHAHA! So, back to the Fortress. It was really neat acually. Everyone was in costumes and they fired off a gun and it was just neat to explore around the place.

Then we learned how they made hot chocolate back in the day. They asked for volunteers to help shave chocolate, so of course I had to help with that :)

And then we got to try it, and it was pretty darn good!!!

Then we listened to a lady talk about what clothing was like in those days, which was also pretty interesting. 

Then we left and went back to our ship because, yeah, there's not much to do there. At all.

After dinner, we went to see a show, Unforgettable, which was just musical threate and old timey songs. It was alright, Bianca did well through it. Late at night they had this HUGE dessert bar...but it was at like 11pm, which was way past any of our bedtimes. We decided to give it a try anyways, which was probably Bianca's least sucsessful event of the trip. She was a sleepy girl so we just grabbed snacks and at them in our room and zonked out for the night

May 26th HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA

We were greeted at the port by some bag pipe players, which was cool! Some welcome!

We went on another tour here, this time to see Peggy's Cove lighthouse and the Titanic graveyard/memorial. But of course our bus breaks down.

We got a new bus and were back on schedule (Bianca loves the literature they provided, haha!)

The lighthouse was neat though! Bobby and I walked around it and then jumped around on the rocks (separately). I felt like I was reliving my childhood again, remembering how I loved jumping from rock to rock by the beach.

We got our passports stamped here because we're that cool. Then we were off to part two of the tour, the Titanic stuffs! It was really neat to see, but also really sad at the same time. There's one grave that's called J. Dawson. Of course everyone freaks out because of the movie Titanic, but actually the dude's first name was NOT Jack. I think she said it was Jim or something else, but I thought it was funny.

When we got back to the port, we had some time to kill, so we just walked around the area and explored. We decided to go to the Titanic museum there since we had the time. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we got to go.

That night was our other formal night, which was fun. We hung around the boat and relaxed and watched movies. The formal dinner was nice too. I like getting all dressed up, and all of the attention our adorable baby gets when she's all in a cute dress.

Later that night we did a Beatles trivia game! The piano guy played a few bars of a Beatles song and you wrote down your guess. I got a lot right, but we were late, so we didn't get a paper to be entered to win whatever they were giving away. It was still a lot of fun though!

May 27th BAR HARBOR, MAINE

Welcome to Bah Hahbah Maine! Back in the old USA. We were excited to walk around and explore there, since Bobby heard from some classmates that it's nice. It was kinda crazy though. We couldn't dock at a peer, so in order to get on and off of the cruise ship, you had to get on a little speed boat thing that takes you to shore. It was kinda fun though, Bianca enjoyed it. 

The first thing we did was go on this trail walk, which was a bit hard to push a stroller though because the path was a bit rocky, but we survived. It wasn't as cool as we thought it was going to be.

Then we walked around and explored some more. Got some yummy blood orange EVOO (which made yummy brownies!). We went into this store, just looking around. The funniest thing happened. We were showing different cute toys to Bianca, but what does she fall in love with? A big blue net. Yes. A NET. She laughed and laughed and laughed. I wish we could have gotten it for her...but it would have looked a little weird to see a 6 month old throwing a net over her head haha. Then we decided to treat ourselves to some ice cream. This place had some crazy flavors, such as LOBSTER ICE CREAM! And yes, I tried it, but no I did NOT get it. The lobster was good, and the ice cream was good, but separately haha. We just hung out in this neat park overlooking the water and our cruise ship and had our ice cream (and milk for Bianca). Bianca had a great time playing in the grass for the first time! At first she was like uh, what's this??? But then she was having a blast in it.

After we got bored with hanging out (we were pretty tired by this point in the trip),  we just walked around the ship and took pics. At 4pm we went to a chocolate trivia thing that said there were gonna be treats...well they were liars and it was lame. The winner won a chocolate martini. Bleh. Oh well! 

Then we got ready for our last dinner, which we went to the formal place to eat since we heard it was gonna be something special. It was neat, the wait staff put on a little show for us with fire and our waiter guy gave Bianca a glow stick, which she LOVED! We even got to try baked Alaska...which honestly isn't all that it's cracked up to be. 

After that we saw a little bit of a comedy show and walked around for the last time. Got some souvenirs and went to sleep.

May 28th BOSTON!

We got here pretty early, but didn't have to get off until like noon or something. But everyone had to go through immigration, which we were all assigned a time. Yeah, we ignored that lol. We got an extremely early time and with Miss Bianca, we don't do early mornings. We got ready, ate breakfast and then waited until they called the last call (which really wasn't the last call, they were just trying to get the rest of us stragglers through) and then went through the line, which was super smart because since we waited, there pretty much was no line, SCORE!  We sadly left the ship when the time came and got a cab to our hotel, which was really nice. They even gave Bianca some toys, which she is really obsessed with now.

Once we were settled, we decided to explore Bawstin. We loved it! We did lots of things, like walk through some neat parks (like the one that has the Make Way for Ducklings ducks in it, even though Bianca was sleeping lol of course), saw the Cheers bar, saw a lot of the historical stuff that Bobby especially enjoyed, and just had fun. The Quincy market was really neat, (esp because they had a Newbury Comics there hehe). They had some festival of performers there that weekend, so we got to see some neat things. 

                                                (our hotel!)

We ate lunch in little Italy, yum yum! It was really good too. Bobby loved the sauce because it was really chunky, like how I make my marinara sauce. I thought it was spectacular as well. Then we saw more of the sites and went back to our hotel. I guess our hotel's resuaturant or the restaurant next to our hotel came up with Boston Cream Pies or something like that, so we decided to try it, and it was pretty good (but alas, I have had better). 

May 29th EL FIN :(

We were going home today, sad. So we just hung out, checked out the fair thing going on at the Quincy Market and ate some food (yay for GOOD clam chowdah). The plane rides home were alright. Bianca doesn't like the small planes to Ithaca just like mommy, but hey, I don't blame the girl. Overall, it was a great cruise and I'd def reccommend it to anyone, esp those with little ones. It's a pretty easy way to travel!