France 2023 - Perfect Hygge

My plan to get up early and go for a walk and swim is scuttled by a cozy duvet and inviting bed and we don't even wake up until 8:30. The weather forecast looks unstable for the next few days with plenty of rain and wind expected. But we didn't come at this time of the year for the weather; any sunshine we get will be a bonus.

After a leisurely breakfast and coffee we pile into the VW and drive to Uzes, a town about 20 kilometres east of here. It is a gorgeous little medieval town and today is market day so there are dozens of vendors in the main square selling food items.

Anna picks up a round of croissants from one of their favourite bakeries and we have a mid-morning snack in the shadow of architectural wonders. We learn about one of France's many interesting food laws - croissants made with pure butter (croissant au beurre) are always straight, while the lower quality ones made with margarine have the stereotypical curved shape. Care to guess which ones we eat?

We arrive at Comptoir Numero 7 just in time for our lunch reservation. Our server is a very young guy and what a pro he is. Perfectly groomed, clearly spoken, impeccable movements - it's impossible to think we could be anywhere else in the world right now besides France.

Our meal is incredible and we enjoy a slow, deliberate lunch. None of the other customers here are in a rush either. This is a real treat for Ana and I as we rarely go out for meals at home, and when we do it's simply nothing like this, as we can't get this quality of food and experience without spending a mortgage payment's worth of dinero at a fancy restaurant in Toronto.

After stopping to pick up six bottles of carefully chosen wine at the local wine shop, two platters of charcuterie from the butcher, and some groceries at the hypermarket, we return home and Ana and I embark on a solo walking tour of Vezenobres. We muscle ourselves up the steep streets, winding back and forth, through narrow passageways and shadowed paths until we reach the viewpoint at the top of the village, guarded jealously by a free range cat, part of a gang of felines who patrol the town and keep the villagers in check.

We take the long way down and pass by the bakery to pick up a fresh baguette then return to Chateau Olson where I take a lovely dip in the pool while Ana chills out in our room for a bit.

It is dark by the time we are into apero, this time around the coffee table in the primary living room, which is expansive and filled with custom furniture crafted from airplane aluminum. Anna's favourite spot is a curved desk which makes her appear either as a hotel concierge or as if she is sitting in a hot tub, depending on one's vantage point. There is also a Dr. Evil/Mork from Ork egg shaped chair with acoustics perfect for singing or humming to oneself. Michael's day perch is at the large aluminum table, on which is splayed out a rat's nest of video equipment, cameras, cords, converters, adapters, drones, and, strangely, tourist brochures.

But in this moment, we gather round the expansive wooden coffee table with our platters of charcuterie and drinks, while the weather outside gets progressively nastier, and soon the dark sky is alive with lightening flashes and strikes. The further into the night we delve, the stronger the light storm becomes. But what also strengthens is the perfect hygge - the now trendy Danish concept of coziness, something I learned about while living with my friends Martin and Marianne in Odense, Denmark nearly thirty years ago - and have never forgotten it.

Chill electronic music spills from the Sonos system and a hardwood fire rages in the fireplace, the heat circulating through the living room by the quiet fan. Nine votive candles flicker and burn on the table, creating shadows on charcuterie snacks and wine glasses. Indirect lighting casts a perfect orange yellow hue and backdrop to the intense bolts that erupt in the sky, visible to us from the deep windows cut into the stone. Our conversation flows easily and dances from topic to topic as we laugh and tell stories. Time passes gently. There is no rush and there is nowhere else we need to be right now. We are living in the present, our best lives, in the company of people we love. And the moment is not captured by photographs, because it simply couldn't be. It will live only in our memories.

France 2023 - Arrival in Vezenobres, it's Olson Time!

You know what I've never done before? Bought a package of four eggs. In America Norte, eggs come in quantities of 12, 18, 24, and 48 so we can buy several week's worth of eggs at a time and hope that perhaps one or two of them will hatch and produce roaster chickens. In big European cities, refrigerators are small and shops are plentiful so there's no need to stockpile food - you just buy what you need for the day and you're good to go.

Ana and I have a slow morning as we eat our four eggs, mini croissants, and apple then I do some writing and Ana packs up our things. By 10:30 we are walking out the door for the final time, headed for Gare du Lyon train station. It is a beautiful morning and the thirty minute walk gives us a chance to admire this dense urban wonder where curiosities exists around every corner and at the end of passageways, and whether you look up, down, or across.

We walk into the huge station and I feel like Jason Bourne as I navigate through the crowd, eyeing the CCTV cameras everywhere. Unlike Jason Bourne, the only mystery I'm trying to solve is what platform we need to get to for the train to Nimes, in the south of France. As I'm pondering that, Ana sees a Starbucks sign and leaves to get a coffee, then comes back with a bottle of fancy hand cream.

"What happened to the coffee?" I ask.

"It was like 7 euro. The hand cream was half of that. So I went with the hand cream," she replies, overjoyed. My wife's brain works much differently than mine. I just can't see myself going out for a delicious hot dog and coming home with a bag of well priced grass seed and being very happy about it.

The TGV, France's high speed train system, rockets us across the countryside at a speed that makes the cars traveling on the highway look like they are standing still. These trains can reach speeds of over 300 kph, but it's hard to say exactly how fast we are going. One may think that you'd need to be buckled in and hanging onto a rail for dear life, like on a theme park rollercoaster, but the ride is completely smooth and there're people in the dining car drinking espresso and standing casually as they visit.

We arrive at Nimes Pont-du-Gard and my uncle Michael and aunt Anna are standing at the bottom of the ramp waiting for us. This is going to be fun.

Michael is my dad's youngest sibling and is only 8 years older than Ana and I. Anna and us are even closer in age. They live in Welland, Ontario and we see them frequently, but not as much as we'd like to.  Michael's first career was as an aspiring hockey star and went to a special high school in Wilcox, Saskatchewan to work on his wrist shots and face punches. But then he realized he wasn't very good compared to the rest of his teammates so instead traveled to Japan where he could be the best hockey player in the country since nobody there knows how to play hockey.  Along the way he got a side job in a small restaurant gutting fish and taking out the garbage and realized his true passion was in food services. He returned to Canada and went to cheffery college in Toronto then easily found work gutting fish and taking out garbage in a series of fly-by-night restaurants across the province. Once he learned his chops he started stepping over all over the dishwashers, kitchen porters, chefs de partie, sauciers, sous-chefs, and clawed his way to the top chef job which entitled him to work even more hours, under more stress, making crappy money, but at least being surrounded by a bunch of other fun people that had all lost their regular friends because the only day they got off was Monday when all the normal people are at work.

He eventually came to his senses and got a day job as a chef professor at Niagara College where he develops curriculum, creates programming, and teaches first year aspiring chefs how to not slice their fingers off or blow up the kitchen, all between the cozy hours of 9am and 3pm. But in his spare time he rebuilds meat slicers, pickles vegetables, collects knives, buys wine, ties fishing flies, produces amazing Instagram reels, writes cookbooks, creates recipes, and is a cameraman/video/audio expert for his favourite television personality - Anna.

Anna started out in the financial services industry but quickly realized her colleagues were all lame and she much preferred baking treats for herself and all her friends. So she went down the food services path as a pastry chef, ensuring herself a life of poverty and financial distress, lost weekends, burnt skin, relentless servitude, and an empty future. But then, she discovered the television industry and the television industry discovered her and she soon took over the Food Network and became the most famous baker and chef in the world and didn't have to wake up at 3 in the morning anymore to make doughnuts for ungrateful food nuffies.

At some point along the way Michael and Anna met, worked together, fell in love, got two Beagle dogs, bought a house, started a bakery, and built a pretty good life, or at least what they thought was good. Their life now is way better. They have moved on from regular burger flipping and to much more varied,  interesting, and profitable careers, so much that they no longer knead much dough (get it?). The variety of things they do makes your head spin - Anna's many television shows, writing cookbooks, food festival appearances, European culinary tours, sponsorships, charitable work, specialty catering, writing articles, a Youtube cooking channel, and that's just the stuff I know about. They are simply amazing.

We pile into their chubby brown VW cargo van and drive back to their fabulous fractional-ownership 350-year-old French mansion in the medieval town of Vezenobres. I know I like to call big houses "mansions" but this really is a mansion. There's an east wing and west wing. Eight bedrooms. Two kitchens. More couches than a vintage furniture store. There's a billiards table, two foosball tables, wine cellar, massive fireplace, outdoor pool, and a fig tree plantation. After touring us around the place and assigning us a room (which has its own foosbal table, of course), I realize that if I need to walk from the main lounging area back up to our room, I will need to pack a lunch, take some road pops, and would probably be wise to leave a trail of bread crumbs or empty beer bottles. As part of the visitor indoctrination session, we learn that this structure was built originally as a silkworm factory, and has probably been through many reincarnations since then.

Anna and Michael take us for a walking tour around Vezenobres, which perches precariously on the edge of a hill. We walk through the eerily quiet narrow cobblestones streets, passing by stone buildings hundreds of years old. We stop to pick up baguettes from the local bakery and are instructed that two trips per day are required to the bakery - fresh croissants in the morning and fresh baguettes in the evening. I like this routine.

We return to Chateau Olson for apero, which is a mandatory daily pre-dinner ritual where you snack and drink. On the table are anchovy-stuffed olives, camembert-flavoured chips, multi-grain baguette slices, radishes with butter and salt, smoked salmon blinis, five varieties of cheese, and even a bowl of modest French-style bits and bites. Michael has a case of 30 Kronenburg beers, but the bottles are tiny and obviously designed for consumption by infants, so we just drink them fast to make it feel like a real beer.

Dinner itself is amazing - Veal Blanquette ladled onto gnocchi grilled with onions, garlic, butter, and fresh wild mushrooms with a beautiful plum and prune tart for dessert. And there're several bottles of fantabulous wine rapidly uncorked. We eat slow, talk fast, lurch from topic to topic, laugh, share stories and settle into the unfathomable fact that we have five entire days of this yet to come.

France 2023 - Arcs, Art, Rugby, and Pho

I had set my alarm for 6:30am but somehow we wake up at 8:30 - so much for the early start I was hoping for.

For our last full day in Paris we decide to start by taking the metro to the Arc Du Triumph. As I am usually the poor sucker heading off to work Monday morning, I took great pleasure in watching the working folk all sour and flat faced sitting on the train seats on their way to work. Not that I relish in other peoples' misery, but I relish in the absence of my own personal misery, and nothing makes me appreciate my lack of misery more than seeing other people in misery. So make of that what you will.

The Arc was a lot bigger than I remember it. It's in the middle of a gigantic roundabout that doesn't seem to have the same roles as other roundabouts as it looked like a real free for all. We walked through an underground tunnel to the middle of the roundabout and encountered a huge line of tourists. We walked right up to the front of the line, up a few stairs, and there we were in front of the Arc. I have no idea what they were lining up for. Maybe they were just English.

After walking around the structure, taking a few pictures, and speculating on what the purpose of it may have been (we assumed a huge vanity project that probably bankrupted the country for generations as these colossal public works endeavours are prone to do), we started the long walk down the Champs Elysees, a rather famous street in Paris.

We pass a few more panty shops and some designer retail, then reach the Place de la Concorde which has been transformed into the Rugby World Cup event centre. Throughout our first day in Paris we noticed a bunch of people wearing leprechaun costumes, which seemed odd, but I figured it was just autumn fashion from the latest haute couture collections. Then the next day I kept seeing Afrikaners all wearing Springbok jerseys and finally the bells in my triceratops brain went off - rugby! Sadly, it is closed, but I have a feeling we missed a mighty big party last night.

We continue on our way and pass through a massive garden with a series of really cool public art pieces. Then, we reach the Louvre, but this time from the other side. It still has a tremendously long line, but we weren't planning on visiting today, so we head into the side streets and find a lunch place that has a bunch of local Parisians queued up so it seems like a good bet. And it is.

Here, we decide to split up. I am keen on visiting the Centre Pompidou, a huge modern art gallery, while Ana wants to check out some vintage shops (without me standing in front of the store, waiting, like a lost puppy). I take a meandering route and walk through the Palais Royale and find a large fountain circled by chairs. To continue my celebration of Monday I kick back in a chair, put my feet up on the stone fountain edge, and just look around. I listen to the French conversations happening around me. I watch the birds. I enjoy the sun and cool wind. I close my eyes and relax for a good long while, but eventually my back starts to moan and creak so I get up and get moving.

After a random walk up and down streets, passing by dozens of cafes I would like to stop at, I arrive at the Centre Pompidou and....it's closed due to a "social movement", which I take to be understatement for a good old fashioned French strike. I continue along my way and pull up the Wife Tracker 2000 app on my phone and find Ana digging through vintage clothes in a shop on the Rivoli. Shockingly, she has struck out and is empty handed, but not for lack of trying.

We walk back to the apartment and have a video session with Magnus and together submit his online application for residence near George Brown college in Toronto where he will be starting a program in January. After this and a short chill out session, we walk back down towards Bastille station and pick up some chocolate and biscuit gifts for my aunt and uncle (who we will be seeing tomorrow) then sit down at a Vietnamese restaurant for pho and noodles. Yumm.

And for our last night in Paris? We watch a movie in bed. After walking 43 kilometres since we arrived three days ago, we're ready for a night off.

France 2023: From Markets to Museums to Catacombs

There is nothing quite like walking a few steps to a bakery in the early morning to pick up fresh croissants and coffee and reaping the spoils of somebody else's fine baking, which all happened while I slept. I also pick up some muesli, milk, fruit, and marmalade from the grocery shop and Ana and I have a lovely breakfast together.

We walk to the Bastille market. What was yesterday a long, empty boulevard is today a metropolis of nutrition. Fresh food vendors lined up in perfect rows sell a bewildering array of items - fresh fruit and vegetables, seafood, prepared foods, fresh meat, cold cuts, a gazillion types of cheese, bread and pastries, then also some clothing, jewelry and household goods. People cram into the spaces between the rows and everyone is a buyer. As we slowly walk though the passages the smells are overwhelming. Spanish paella being cooked in an Olympian-sized wok. The tang of ripe cheese that nearly knocks me over. Fish odours from the flounder, sea bass, sardines, crab, squids, shucked oysters and sharks. One team of guys has a huge chicken roaster running with at least fifty birds at a time in rotation. There is the unmistakable smell of Thai chili and fish sauce coming from the green curry and spring rolls at one counter. Ladies at the creperie fold up remarkable packages full of Nutella, fruit, and jam, the smell of which is drawing a huge crowd. The wafting air from fresh cut flower stalls and lavender vendors tickle the nosebuds.

This is likely the most amazing market we have ever visited. Sure, some in Asia are larger, but the quality of the food here is simply unparalleled. And the damn thing didn't even exist yesterday! And it will be gone tomorrow.

From here, we walk, and find a café in front of the Hotel Sully where we stop for a coffee. We have a video chat with Magnus, who is in Kuala Lumper on a backpacking trip and has just booked a flight to Tokyo. We check in with Stella too, as she traveled with some friends to a northern cottage for the weekend. I realize with glee that this is the goal we have wanted to achieve since our children were born - having two independent, confident kids that spread their wings and explore the world...while we do the same. I feel a tear develop in my eye, then realize that it's actually from a bird that just pooped all over me. Ana wipes me up and we continue our walk.

As we approach central Paris there appears more and more retail shops. I don't recognize any of them but Ana knows them all. Half of them look to be panty stores, or I guess lingerie as it's known here. There're all sorts of panties on display in the windows, some that contain no fabric whatsoever and seem to be made of knitted fishing line.

"Do you need new panties?" I ask.

"No, I already have drawers full of them," Ana says.

"But those aren't the lingerie type, I presume?"

"You're dumb."

You'd think a sandwich shop right across from the Louvre would be dreadful, but in true testament to French quality, our meal is amazing. We walk to the Louvre entrance but you can barely see it for the thousand people in line. So we skip it and instead cross the river to the Museo D'Orsay and after a short wait are welcomed in. It's culturey as shit. We see paintings by Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Cezanne and incredible sculptures by Rodin, including the Wall at the Gates of Hell that must have taken years and a lot of opium to complete. The entire building is an art piece - the structure, the walls, the ceiling, the floor. I love to visit galleries and museums when we travel but because Ana spends most of her conscious hours in an art gallery, she is generally less enthused, so she generally goes shopping while I'm arting it up. But today, she very much enjoyed it too.

We continue on to Saint Germain des Pres, yet another mile of designer fashion shops and find the Louis Vuitton store where Ana bought her original handbag so many years ago. We just finished paying it off.

Because we'd already walked halfway across the city we couldn't stop now so we keep on going and strut all the way down to the Catacombs of Paris, stopping only for a quick round of drinks at a theater café along the way. This is the one tourist attraction we both wanted to see so we had prepurchased tickets for a 6:15 time slot.

It was an experience. Imagine claustrophobic tunnels deep underground passing through the stacked up bones and skulls of millions of long dead Parisians with ominous Latin and French etchings in the stone column supports. My thoughts as I walked these tunnels? We will all end up a pile of bones, probably sooner than we'd like. So let's not waste any time.

The Latin Quarter is a 30 minute walk back towards home so we again shun the public transport options and leg it there until we find the perfect place for dinner - Le Cercle Luxembourg restaurant. Our meal is amazing - onion soup, fish of the day, pesto penne, crepe Suzette. The atmosphere is classy and the server is great. We linger for quite some time, people-watching through the window, talking, listening, taking it all in.

We decide to take the metro home, but first we stop at McDonalds to check two things: Ana wants to see if the coffee good and I want to confirm that a Big Mac is called a Royale, as I learned from Vincent in Pulp Fiction so many years ago. It was a yes on both counts.

After 17 kilometres of urban street walking, we finally reach reach the apartment and collapse.

France 2023: Arrival in Paris

"What is that white thing hanging off the top of the suitcase?" I ask Ana as we walk up to the check-in counter.

"What do you think it is?" she says.

"Looks like your garter belt from our wedding."

"You're right! It'll help us spot our generic black bag when it rolls down the luggage carousel with all the other ones in Paris."

I eye her suspiciously as I have my doubts. I sniff it and it does not smell anything like her leg. Then, it hits me.

"That's a doily off your mom's coffee table! Brilliant!"

We arrive to security and put our stuff into the white baskets and wait. They're not moving. There must be a log jam in the scanner. The security staff start yelling at the guy working the machine. Meantime, Ana and I go through the metal detector and pass through, then I see the problem. The dude at the machine has his eyes closed and is smiling as he hammers buttons, spins dials, and pushes levers on the scanning machine. I think he's practicing for his Saturday DJ gig at the club. A passenger yells at him and tells him to wake up.

"Yo man, show some respect," he says as he snaps back to life and advances a few bags without looking at the screen. "You should be thanking me for keeping you all safe."

Um hmm.

It feels like night within the airplane. The window shades are all closed and most passengers are sleeping. Time on an airplane takes on strange qualities during an overnight run. Economy class plebs sleep sitting up, fitfully, but it usually feels like you haven't slept at all and have instead spent all night with your eyes glued to the entertainment system in the seatback in front of you, and occasionally that of your neighbours when some nudity or excessive violence pops up on whatever they are watching. The concept of night itself collapses, especially flying east as the earth's rotation seems to double, thereby halving the hours of darkness.

On this flight from Paris (well, actually Toronto) to Paris, our sleep is indeed shallow and uncertain. But the hours pass and when Ana opens the shade I am blinded by the light and shield my eyes and skin like an unearthed vampire as I hiss and curse.

The airplane lands and parks. We walk down the stairs, smelling jet fuel exhaust, and plant our feet onto French asphalt.

"We're here!" I say.

"Viva la France!" Ana responds. I kiss her right on the lips and realize we have come full circle. Last time we were here in around 2002 was as a couple with no kids. After nearly 20 years of child rearing and taking those little suckers everywhere we went, we now find ourselves alone again. It's a good feeling.

After collecting our bags at the surprisingly small and quiet Terminal 3 of Charles De Gaulle airport, we buy train tickets and spend a very long time riding trains, transferring trains, walking up and down station stairs and escalators, and finally arrive at Voltaire station then walk a short ways to our apartment, a modest studio at the end of a narrow courtyard filled with potted trees and bicycles chained to iron piping. The studio apartment has exactly what we need; no more, no less -  two plates, two forks, two cups, kettle, corkscrew, tiny fridge, one serrated knife,  one bed, and a classic European WC with no sink and a toilet that has no immediately obvious way to flush it. Perfect.

After unpacking we contemplate our situation. It is 1pm and we are exhausted, but there is no time to waste. We step out from the courtyard and find at least four eateries within one block of our studio. We check the menu of the first one, pass on that and go to the second. Looks okay, but maybe the third is better. We go there and have our doubts. Then we go back to the second, which is a Lebanese fusion place. That's when I feel the h'anger taking over so I tell Ana we have to sit down before I grow muscles, turn green, and start clobbering people. The cold beer,  delicious food, and bill that does not add 13% tax and 20% gratuity fix us up completely so we can now begin exploring. We start walking down the first street that points towards the centre.

We reach the Bastille neighbourhood, which has a long and wide meridian lined up with metal frames for the huge market held here twice weekly. There is an outdoor art exhibition with huge, vibrant paintings that challenge your social conscience. From here we see a wide canal with boats, so naturally our feet lead us that way. Most of the boats are large, live aboard canal vessels, very long and somewhat narrow, and most have outdoor patio furniture, potted plants, and bicycles amongst the ropes, chains, dinghies, and life rings.

We follow the channel out to the mighty Seine and walk the concrete shoreline until we reach a bridge, which we cross. From here we see the scaffolded profile of Notre Dame, under reconstruction since the huge fire that consumed half of her. All around us are mighty and ancient buildings, typical of European power capitals, but perhaps none quite so majestic as those in Paris.

Along the left bank of the Seine are kilometers of green wooden cabinets, tended by the Bouqinistes of Paris - the  book sellers, who have been at it since the 16th century. Books, comics, photographs, and tourist kitsch are amongst the items for sale. I could have filled a bag with purchases here. I could have filled a second bag with gear from a record shop I found that sold exclusively heavy metal products - cd's, DVD's, albums, comics, posters, figurines. Rock on.

After cutting back across the river and passing through Notre Dame (and masses of tourists) we walk along the Rivoli, a beautifully wide street that demonstrates everything wrong with urban planning in Canada. Going from left to right we find a wide pedestrian strip with many café and restaurant patios, then a series of classy black lane separator poles, then a bike lane wide enough for two streams of bicycles, then a single lane for traffic (which bikers also use), then a meridian space for pedestrians to stop as they are crossing the street, then another car lane, bike lane, and pedestrian space mirroring that on the other side of the street. The total space dedicated to vehicles is less than one third of the width. What does this result in? People. Lots of people. And all manner of human powered vehicles zipping around - bicycles, bicycles towing trailers, skateboards,  in-line skates, scooters, but also electrically powered ones like ebikes, mono-wheels, and electric scooters.  On the side streets where parking is available we see electric chargers everywhere, which results in - guess what? Thousands of electric cars and electric motorcycles. As I stand on the street admiring this beautiful scene before me I realize something else. I am not overpowered by the stink of car exhaust. The fuel powered vehicles that remain are ultra efficient and many use alternative fuels like propane and maybe natural gas. It is truly inspiring and this is by far the most profound change I see in Paris since we last visited more than twenty years ago.

We visit an incredible church. I feel like I've been here before, but we've visited a lot of medieval churches. The stations of the cross adorn the interior walls, but what's this? One of the stations seems to have fallen off and there is only broken plaster hanging off the wall, perhaps now devoted to Jean Tabernac, Patron Saint of Concrete?

After a glass of champagne and pint of beer at one of the many cafes on the Rivoli, we walk back to our neighbourhood on exhausted legs navigated by overtired brains. At the Carrefour we find a huge block of brie and bottle of red then visit the bakery for a baguette and focaccia and enjoy a lovely backpacker dinner in our room. We are exhausted beyond belief but I talk Ana into one last evening walk around the neighbourhood then we return to the room and collapse. Day 1 complete.

July 30 – Back Home to Newport

It’s 1:30 pm on Sunday. Ana and I are sitting on the bow of SeaLight as the sun shines down, the wind blows directly in our face, and the autopilot drives us home. It the first time we’ve done this during the trip and it gives us a chance to reflect on the amazing times we’ve had with our family and friends over the past 18 days and all the new places we’ve explored.

During this trip we covered 804 kilometres or 404 nautical miles which translates into approximately 72 hours of sailing. This averages out to just over four hours of sailing per day, but of course much of this came in larger passages which gave us time for down days where we didn’t sail at all.

This is now our fourth major sailing trip on Lake Ontario and I feel like we’ve achieved a pretty good feel for the lake. There’re a few spots left to explore on the US side of the lake, plus a number of marinas and yacht clubs in our neighbourhood in the western end that we’re yet to visit. Next time around we might decide on a slower pace and focus in on fewer stops with more time to fully explore each area. Saying that, I will admit we tend to get bored quickly. When we’ve had more time allocated on earlier sailing trips, like the longer 4 week trips we’ve done up to the North Channel, we’ve always just expanded the range of where we went instead of focusing in on smaller areas, but I guess that’s just what we like to do.

Along the way we defrost both the fridges (and pick more coffee grounds out of the top loader), clean and vacuum the boat, pull off the bedding, pack up our stuff, so by the time we arrive at Newport we are nearly ready to head home. Earlier in the day after breakfast, Magnus headed back downtown to hang out then took the train back to Aldershot, got the van, then meets us at the marina just as we are arriving. We take a few photos of us and Lydia, Daryl, and Chili then we were off, just as a big thunderstorm passes overhead and drenches everything. That’s been the story of the trip – sun to rain to wind back to sun back to rain. It’s all good.

And thus ends the 2023 sailing trip.

July 29, 2023 – Rainy Day in the Big Smoke

We didn’t see much of the kids during last year’s boating season. With Magnus driving and Stella working every Saturday, it just didn’t work out very often and we thought they had both really lost interest. Which is why we were so happy they both decided to join us for parts of this boat trip. They are both at or near a junction in their lives where they are making big decisions so we always have plenty to discuss, as we do over breakfast this morning with Magnus. He is on the tail end of a gap year and looking to make his next move, which will likely be school, and he wants to get started on something in January. So we decided last night to walk over to George Brown college today and have a look around as they offer some programs he is interested in.

A big nasty system rolled in last night and it is pouring outside. I dress up in my full rain gear – pants and jacket, which Ana and Magnus just wear jackets. After walking for a short while through the torrential rain we slip into Shopper’s Drug Mart to pick up two umbrellas as Ana fears a major makeup malfunction. From there we have a long, drawn-out coffee stop at Aromas Espresso Bar then continue on our long walk to George Brown through half empty streets, unheard of for a Saturday in Toronto.

The first George Brown college building we reach looks closed but we find a back door entrance and give ourselves a tour. The entire building is deserted and there are construction works in progress, giving it the feel of a set on a zombie apocalypse movie. We go over to the culinary arts building which isn’t hard to find because we can see people through the streetside windows in there wearing kitchen whites and making bread and cookies.

We walk in and it smells heavenly. There is a single administrator working and she gives us a brief overview of George Brown and points us in the direction of the adjoined Business department which offers the program Magnus is interested in. We take a quick walk around then decide it would be best to continue our discussion over lunch so we find a nearby Thai restaurant and go crazy with the curries. Magnus positively loves this area of this city as it right in the middle of all the action – Front Street, St Lawrence Market, the Financial district, and within walking range of the entire downtown.

Ana finds a thrift shop and thrifting ensues. I duck out early with a big bag of our purchases and Ana’s umbrella which I am charged to protect and go outside to sit in the park. The rain is finally letting up and bits of sun are peeking through the clouds. When Ana and Magnus come to get me I, of course, leave her umbrella hanging on the back of a chair and don’t realize it until we’ve walked a couple of block, so I race back and of course it’s gonzo. I creep around the park hoping to yoink a similar umbrella from another hapless doofus who left one lying around, but no such luck so I return empty handed and feel great shame.

We make the long walk back to the boat then have a nice chill out session in the cockpit for a couple of hours, then Magnus heads back into the city for a solo coffee and Ana and I go over to a nice lakeside seating area in the marina that has a firepit, Bluetooth speakers, comfy loungers, and a resident mink that peeks out from under a planter every once in a while and scratches the back of his head on the wood while he looks up to the sky with glee. We have a drink and enjoy the beautiful sunshine that’s finally made its full appearance. Life is good.

Soon the Thai curry wears off so we walk back downtown, meet Magnus, then have spectacular rotis from my favourite place to eat in Toronto – the Indian Roti House, just across from Amsterdam Brew House. Ana goes for a slice of pizza instead as she claims Indian food turns her insides upside down and we don’t want to risk any permanent damage to the boat’s plumbing.

It’s getting close to dark when we get the call from our friends still moored in the islands. Our presence is required. So we jump in the dinghy and accidentally motor right through the restricted zone beside the airport runway. The giant white marker buoys which are so easy to see during the daytime are much less so at night and we get totally confused with where we are. Fortunately no police boats come chasing after us and there’s no botched plane landing.

We settle on Chris and Miriam’s boat for a drink and visit and confirm that yes, Daryl and Lydia were stalking us last night, but gave up and went out drinking and clubbing instead. Man, those guys have energy.

We play it safe on the dinghy ride home and take a wide berth around the buoys but still manage to accidentally cut through half of the forbidden zone, but now we just feel like marine commandos on a midnight mission.

As we pass by the phenomenal Toronto night skyline headed to the boat I think again how incredible this city and this moment is.

And tomorrow, we will head home.