Tuesday, August 2, 2011

NYC, MTL, and Biking in Canada

Since my last post, I received my final B School rejection email so my trajectory is greatly changed. Actually, this has been my plan for the last 5 months, but this email made it official and mandatory!

As a reminder my camera is sleeping at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea; therefore, I don't have any photos to share.  Luckily, I have a flip so this blog will be all videos henceforth.

I want to share an older video of Vespa-ing around Rome.


I flew back from Croatia via Easyjet to Paris then flew American to New York.  Since Katie got busted and paid a 50 Euro fine for too large a bag on Easyjet, I was super paranoid.  To prevent this situation, since I was carrying two bags, I decided to put on all of my clothes at the airport terminal and pack one bag in the other.  The plan worked perfectly, and I boarded the plane dripping in sweat.

I landed in New York with little interruption and stayed for 10 days.  There were many nights out, but again, I have no camera.  Jason took Abdou and me to his friend Donnie's lake house where we went cliff jumping.
Actually twice!
I left NY and took an 8 hour $84 bus to Montreal.  One stop in Albany and a silly border crossing, then I was in Montreal.  The border crossings are very inconsistent from flying, driving, busing, or training into their country.  At any rate, I took the Metro from Berri-Uram to the Rosemont stop which I thought was close to Kyle, the man graciously holding my bike.  It turned out to be a 30 minute walk with my heavy bags.  I got to his place and took my bike for a spin.  I stopped at the bike store he recommended to fix the headset and got loaded up with gear that had broken down: gloves, air pump, tubes, and chain lube.

I was watching Super Troopers when a major thunderstorm beat on his skylight.  Kyle showed up after his date completely drenched in water.  The next morning I picked up my bike, then rode to a "ghetto" free pool.  The water was cool but warmer than I expected for Montreal.  That night, we went to a house party where I was the only American and the only one that didn't speak French.  I still held my own because the music they were playing was straight off my old Pandora "Hot Chip" hipster mix.

I got up at 7:30 am and hit the road.  I, for an unknown reasons, thought it would be better to get out of Quebec sans map.  This was a terrible idea as I was stuck in the train track area in Montreal for an hour.  I was cut off by tracks and at some point, had to push my bikes down the tracks and had to jump out of the way of a passing train.  The conductor wasn't happy I was there, but I wasn't happy they built this track inbetween a freeway I can't ride on a muddy muck.  I finally made it out of Montreal and stopped to eat lunch.

First taste of Poutin
Review of Poutin

This Poutin was terrible on my stomach as I had to run to the toilet immediately afterward.  I decided that am very easily impressed as the toilet was one of those really slow drainers but still managed not to clog with massive amounts of TP I tossed in the toilet.

I got to the Ottawa area an hour before sunset.

I made it to a coffee shop and used their free WiFi.  No one from Warmshowers emailed me so I had no place to stay.  I looked up a hostel and headed to downtown Ottawa.  While locking up my bike, I saw a squirrel scurry off a table, a racoon run on the fence, and a skunk rummage though rubbish.  I was in nature in the heart of a city.  I took a shower and intended to go see the nightlife since Monday was an Ontario holiday.  I put on my jeans and woke up the next morning at 8am.

I got up to pee then passed out again.  I wasn't on the road until noon.  There was a cool section of a bunch of bars and restaurants that I missed because I face planted on my crappy hostel mattress.  I made a 4 minute tour of downtown and Parliament Hill.


Ottawa gets a grade of A for bike friendly city.  This is the second best place to bike behind Santa Cruz that I have visited on this trip.

I rode about 8 hours and ran out of sunlight.  I found a place to camp in a partially mowed field behind a gas station.

I was on the road by 9am and after fighting headwinds for a third day in a row, I made it to my Warmshowers host in Deep River by 4pm.  It turns out my host Andrew is a nuclear engineer!

Tomorrow, I plan to ride to North Bay followed by Sudbury, some place toward Sault Ste. Marie, then Sault Ste. Marie.

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