The boys (and girls) are back in town!

Back on the bus, heading to Toronto, just east of Kingston. We just did our final rest stop, and Mr. Papaikonomou and I have finished our sports trivia challenge. I sadly, had to buy the food.

The trip looked up for me today in Montreal – I’d been having a great time, when yesterday at Montmorency Falls my camera flash failed. It was clicking and failing to pop up, for no reason that I could see. The falls sure sounded beautiful – but there was no chance at seeing it thru the snow that was coming down. We found out this morning that Quebec City is 8 cm away from their all time recorded high in snow. One more storm, folks…they already have nowhere left to put it.

We then returned to the city, and did a walking tour thru the lower town, before we climbed up to the Chateau Frontenac. We broke into 3 groups, and did the hotel tour in 3rds while the other two had their lunches and free time. Following that, we started having our first real problem that didn’t involve a bus, as a few students (all from the same room) started first not feeling well, and following it up with some losing their lunches. Ms. Srinivasan returned to the hotel with them, and I switched to bus 2 to balance out the supervision.

We then went to Carnivale, which was interesting, but smaller than expected. If that’s the biggest winter festival in the world, then plainly there aren’t too many winter festivals. Another highlight was Mr. Vine, Mr. Papaikonomou and myself riding a zipline. We then headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest. The buses split for dinner, and the general consensus that I’ve heard is that bus #2 went to a much nicer restaurant. I know I loved my dinner, and I heard no complaints – I’m glad I volunteered to switch in Ms. Srinivasan’s continued absence staying with the sick kids. We were dining ahead of bus 1, so we got to go back to Carnivale to see it in the dark, and then we met up at Bonhomme’s ice castle. We never did get to see Bonhomme…talk about a letdown.

A highlight of the trip was the improv competition we went to see, in a room at the Quebec hostel. A common question I heard – “what’s a hostel?” The show was hilarious, and I must compliment a few of our student participants – Emily F, Jackson, Emily D and Imaan in particular stood out. Mr. Vine then told a story that was turned into an improv. It was very well done.

Back to the hotel for packing and cleaning, and it continued to go well – another good report from night security. Breakfast at the hotel was wonderful – and the amount of fruit was impressive. We loaded the bus and got on the road on time.

Montreal was nice, although it didn’t really work out. The Basilica was having a funeral, and all the restaurants in Old Montreal appeared to be closed for the winter. So a large number of kids wound up in that authentic and highly cultural Montreal restaurant, McDonalds. Maybe you’ve heard of it…..

The really nice part of Montreal for me was when I decided to break out my camera again – and to my surprise, the flash, after some difficulty, did indeed pop up. After examining it very closely, I discovered the reason for it “breaking”. Madame Froese had taken it to take some pictures of the kids making and eating their maple toffee in the snow. Turns out it takes about 36 hours for the maple syrup to dry out enough for it to not be holding a flash in the housing like glue. Thanks, Madame.

Overall, it was a great trip, but I sure wasn’t kidding about physically exhausting. I always thought the NYC trip was tiring, but take the same amount of walking and add 20-30 cm of snow to trudge through, and people are just wiped out. The “firsts” were unbelievable – and when asked their favourite moment, I’m fairly certain that it was the dogsledding for most. Just tremendous, even with the smell.

Behaviour was mostly good – nothing you wouldn’t expect from a large group of 12-13 year olds staying together in a hotel for the first time. Mr. Vine has acquired a rather large collection of laser pointers, but only about 43% of them came from one student. Also, I’m still trying to understand the logic not only of buying fart spray, but then going ahead and using it….in the purchaser’s own hotel room. I doubt I’ll ever get there, to be honest.

Line of the trip remains “Can I have a glass of waterre please”. No doubt the kids have a better one.

At any rate – it was a great trip, I’m fairly certain that everyone enjoyed it, although I did hear some grumbling about some of the food here and there – other than that, things were mostly wonderful. I certainly didn’t get the opportunity for an experience like this when I was in Grade 7 – I hope our kids appreciate how lucky they were. My hat goes off to Madame, who worked tirelessly to set this all up. Our tour guides and bus drivers were amazing. At this point, I can’t wait to get home and see my family. My wife, at 8 ½ months pregnant, was very kind to let me go and I’m going to be seeing to it that she gets an amazing Valentine’s Day weekend to make up for my absence this week.

Until I take up this traveling narrative again, very likely in June, I hope you enjoyed this one. I’ll be posting some photos at some point – no idea when. Let me know if you want any prints.