The Joys of Travel Mk II

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We take a final quiet stroll through the quaint backstreets of Old Quebec. Some of the house numbers are a bit on the quaint side too; I thought they only had numbers like 41 1/2 in Harry Potter movies.

Today we’re flying to Toronto to catch up with Emma and Michael. We should be feeling relaxed, but we’re not. We paid an exorbitant amount of money for a downtown apartment through Booking.com several months ago. We quickly got a message back to say it was all confirmed, but then about a month later we got an email out of the blue headed “Request to Cancel”; it seemed that our money hadn’t made its way from Booking.com‘s coffers to those of the owners. …. so we messaged Booking.com who reassured us that everything was fine. We also messaged the owners, but the alarm bells started ringing when all we got back was stony silence. A few weeks later we happened to notice that the Booking.com website was showing the property as not taking any more bookings, ever. Booking.com however continued to assure us that everything was fine, but the silence from the owners, the people who hold the keys we need to actually get in, continued to be deafening. By then it was way too late to think about trying to get a refund and book somewhere else. It’s a public holiday for Canada Day here tomorrow, so I don’t like our chances of finding alternative lodgings if we arrive to find the doors locked and the owners uncontactable. At least there’s no snow on the footpaths at this time of the year if that’s where we end up sleeping….

It never ceases to amaze us what people try to carry with them on planes. The guy in the queue in front of us is wearing a baseball cap that’s completely covered in sharp metal spikes. I suspect he’s going to have a bit of fun trying to get through security with that one. It also looks like he’s got a full blown Indian headdress in his bag …. well there’s lots of feathers hanging out the top, so if it’s not a headdress I fear for the welfare of whatever exotic birds he’s got trapped in there. He’s also trying to check in what looks to us like close to a hundred inch TV screen. Hmmm.

Quebec Airport is quiet and small. We assume it’s just domestic, but there is one transcontinental flight on the board… yep, an Air France flight to Paris… where else. If this place isn’t a French colony again yet I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. We learnt yesterday that if you live here and speak French you’re known as a Québécoise, but if you live here and don’t speak the local language you’re just a lowly Quebecer. We suspect the latter might be quite a rare breed.

It’s been a relatively uneventful day thus far so I thought I’d pad out this entry with some commentary on a subject dear to my heart - the demise of the in-flight magazine. I think this has probably got something to do with fears that the dreaded virus might be lurking between the pages, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped the airlines from continuing to populate their seat pockets with ads for credit cards, and of course safety cards... surely catching COVID from a safety card would be just about the ultimate irony. I always reckoned that the magazines were great for killing a few long flight hours, reading about local destinations or looking at maps. … and I think I might even have found one once in which the crossword hadn't already been done.

We arrive at our downtown Toronto apartment building to find …. well nothing. No way of getting in and all attempts to contact the owners going to voicemail. We were right to be worried after all. After several unsuccessful attempts we manage to get through to Booking.com. They can’t contact the owners either, so they try to find us some alternative digs. They tells us that our situation is very rare. The first offering is “only a twenty to thirty minute drive” from where we are (well it would be if we had a car) and would be an excellent choice if we all like sleeping on sofa beds. No thanks. How about a nearby AirBnb, which is available, well it would have been if someone else hadn‘t managed to snap it up in the few seconds between us trying to book it and trying to pay. This is going well, not. There now seem to be a lot of Toronto Blue Jays fans stampeding past along the footpath after tonight's game. I hope they don’t trip over us while we’re lying there wrapped up in our sleeping bags… did someone remember to pack the sleeping bags? Issy finds something nearby, but Booking.com lady says it’s too expensive for them to cover the cost difference. We tell her we don’t care and swoop on it anyway. We arrive to find that it’s right next to what looks like the world’s busiest freeway, most of the blinds and curtains are missing, there’s cardboard taped over some of the windows where the glass is supposed to be, there are wires hanging out of the walls, and it’s eye wateringly expensive - like overwater bungalow in Bora Bora type expensive, but it’s a bed. We won’t be able to sleep because the noise is deafening and there are lights flashing in from every angle; but it's a bed. We got here at six o’clock and it’s now nearly eleven, most of it spent on hold to Booking.com, so there’s five hours of our lives that we'll never get back, and wouldn't be in a hurry to have to relive.

We grab Emma and Michael from the station. Issy suggests we look for some Canadian cannabis to puff on to ease our completely frazzled nerves, but we settle for a sports bar with beer, lots of beer. …….the joys of travel.

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Photos

Italian restaurant, Old Quebec
We ate there a couple of nights ago. It’s been there for more than 50 years.

Esplanade Park, Old Quebec
This guy is Nguyen Trai, a 14/15th century Vietnamese Confucian scholar, poet and politician (doubt you’d find that mix in too many modern day politicos…)

Comments

[Home and Away]

Bummer...
Isn't travel fun!?

[DaveandIssy]

Isn’t travel fun
It’s funny how the misadventures seem to be what you remember the most.