Solo travelling to Canada day 10

On my last day in Canada, it was Canada day so I had to wear my Canada football shirt I'd bought!!!!

My plane was technically at 9:30pm (you'll see after why I say technically lol), checkout was at 11am but I got bored of waiting around at the hotel so I thought might as well wait around at the airport so I got a lyft there. My driver was really nice, he was morrocan and the day before Morroco had qualified itself for the next round of the World Cup so he was all excited lol!

Made it to the airport after a 25mn drive.

Saw this cool mural.

Had a roam around the shops, I saw there was supposedly a shop that sold sonny angels so that's what I was on a mission to find. Didn't find them but I found a book and some Canadian sweets I wanted to buy. I also saw Heated Rivalry in the wild lol!!

Made it to my gate!!!!!!! Never thought this would happen. I was fed up of pushing all my luggage around everywhere I went so I checked in my luggage and just as I did that, I got an email saying my flight had been cancelled... NOT good. So I went to tlak to a person that worked for Air France and they told me my flight wasn't cancelled. I was told I was put on the 9pm plane ON THE NEXT DAY!!!!!!!!!!! I totally panicked (and cried a bit I admit, it was the only time during my 10 days there that I actually stressed). I ended up bumping into a group of boys my age who were in the same situation as me and they told me how to reschedule my reschedualed flight. Which I did. I was put on the 5pm plane today. I dropped off my lugagge but was convinced I wouldn't be going home that day. 

I did end up making it on the plane in the end!!!!!!!!!!! My next worry was that I'd be landing at 5am French time and my train to Lille was at 1:30pm. In the end when I landed I managed to reschedule my train for 8am which was perfect because I got through customs and baggage claim within 30mn. I had time to grab a drink and a snack for the train ride. The complications didn't end there....... my train was cancelled lol. I then asked my mum to meet me in Lille and her train was delayed. Then my train from Lille to Dunkirk got delayed. Then my train left Paris and we got stuck for an hour so we were even more delayed. I honestly thought I would never make it home. In the end I made it home at about 2pm and I was honestly exhausted but I couldn't sleep. Then I slept for almost 12 hours and got totally jet lagged but after the next day I was fine!

Loved the way these clouds looked.

The advantage of landing at 5am was that I got to see the beautiful sunrise. 

More pictures from the sunrise.

Anndddddd then I was home!

Solo travelling to Canada day 9

On my last day in Canada (well my last full day) I started packing all my stuff and I quickly realised it would never all fit in my two suitcase so I went to buy another suitcase lol.

On my way back from the shop I saw this lorry that made me laugh and I knew it would make my mum laugh lol.

I wanted to buy a quick drink as well as a ginger ale to drink during the day so I went to the depanneur and thought the sign was very pretty.

On my way to the old port, I saw this shirt and it made me laugh a lot!!

I love the street signs in Montreal they're very pretty in my opinion!

The marina was very pretty, it reminded me of the one in Dunkirk and made me realise I didn't want to go home!!!!!!

Obviously had to have one last poutine again at the food stand at the old port. I miss this so much, I could definitely eat one right now. I bought the brown sauce they use to make it, so I'll be making one at home but it'll never be same as the potatoes taste different and I won't have the cheese curds! 

I was told by one of my friends from Dunkirk that one of the restaurants near the beach is owned by people from Quebec and that they have the real cheese and everything so I'm looking forward to trying that restaurant when we have time! My expectations are high now but I've had poutine in Lille with the real cheese and it was very nice so I'm hoping it'll be as nice!!

When I was planning my trip, I'd seen online that you could book a boat tour that went along the Saint-Laurent river and I'd packed all my days so much that I never took the time to do it so I thought my last day in Montreal would be the perfect time to do it. I booked the 90mn tour!

Here's the boat we took, it was way bigger than I'd imagined. I immediately spotted seats on the decking and that's where I wanted to sit to have the best view and I managed to get a seat so I was very happy about that! I was chilling on my own on my seat and someone sat opposite me and she was being really chatty and was asking loads of questions about me but not in a 'I want to be friends' way, it just felt weird lol.

Here's a view from the river just as we were leaving the port.

Here's the pont Jacques-Cartier, the guide told us it was 2,7km long which it very impressive!!! 

They had waiters come and ask if we wanted food / drinks and thought I'd make the most out of the experience and ordered an alcohol free cocktail! It was very nice. Bonus : the picture I sent my mum from the river cruise lol.

We saw lots of little boats.

We could see the old port and the big wheel from the pier and it looked tiny.

Then we saw this clock tower and it looked a lot like Big Ben and the guide told us that it was actually built by the people who built Big Ben!!!

I'd had my poutine quite early so I thought I thought I'd get a little snack, I wanted to stay in the old port so I went to the place Jacques Cartier and went to the place I had cookie dough and this time I had two scoops LOL!!!!

Saw some cool magnets but I'd already bought loads so I thought I wouldn't get any more.... WRONG!!! I got two mini magnets for my mum!

Had a ginger ale while I was writing in my journal and writing my postcards!

By then it was nearing the end of the afternoon and I was walking back towards my hotel and walked past these fountains again which I still found cool.

Took a different route to my hotel - I was very chuffed as I knew my way to and from my hotel to the old port without using a map. I didn't want to go back so I stayed on a picnic table, wrote more in my journal and chilled a bit while listening to the new Noah Kahan and Olivia Rodrigo album which were the soundtrack of my trip. My sister and two of my best friends made me playlists to listen to on the plane and while I was there so I also listened to them. 

Decided it was time to go back to my hotel and had one last ginger ale which was still as nice as the first time I had it. I even started buying some at home as I loved it so much lol!!! 

Solo travelling to Canada day 8

 On Monday, I'd planned to meet up with a girl I'd met online. I started the day with a solo walk to the old port as she was only meeting me at 11am and I was up quite early.

She picked me up and we went straight for lunch. Before that we had to deal with an animal emergency in the car park. Somone had left their dog in their car and it was really hot so we called security and had to find them in the shopping center which was a whole adventure lol 

I paid for the car park that day and in the two car parks we parked in we paid around 80cad if i remember rightly. 

If you read my previous blog posts about Canada, you'll know I discovered the restaurant LOV. We went there for lunch. It was really pretty inside the restaurant.

We were only planning to have a main but there was an offer going on where you could have a drink and a started for 5$ extra so we decided to do that. As a starter I had gyozas which is one of my favourite foods!! They were very very nice

We both had cocktails. I had an alcohol free cocktail and I can't really remember what it was but it was very nice, and my friend had a mojito.

As a main I obviously had to have what I'd ordered previously which was the butternut squash ravioli and they were just as nice as the last time I had them!!!!

Back in the car we go

We parked in the old port and I showed her all my favourite spots. We parked near the beachy bit of the old port which was a serious downgrade from the beach we have in Dunkirk lol but the view on the marina was nice!

Did some exploring.

The flag on the big wheel had changed as on the 1st of July it's Canada day!

Explored the actual pier which I hadn't actually been on since I got here even though I kept coming to the old port, I kept only going back to the spots I went to already lol!

We were both really hot from walking around and I was also having a hypo so we decided to grab drinks. I had a mango and strawberry smoothie and my friend had a pink lemonade which were both very nice, very refreshing and made my blood sugar go back up!

We did a bit more exploring around the old port and the place Jacques Cartier. We hit up a couple shops. My friend bought a ring from a little stand at the pier and we bought matching caps at a gift shop.

After that we wanted to watch the football game that was happening in the evening (it was the World Cup) so we decided to go to the restaurant as we knew they had TVs! We went to 3 brasseurs which we have in France but I we have in the north of France but I was intrigued as to if they had the same menu as we had in France!

They had nachos which poutine cheese on which I was very tempted by but my friend wasn't hungry enough for a starter so we only had a meal and we both had flammenkueche which are typical from the east of France. I had flammenkueche "de Lille" (town in the north of France where I lived for 3 years) and my friend had a peperoni one. We both loved them. 

We had planned to go to the parc du Mont-Royal (where I'd been a couple of days ago) to watch the sunset, it was the main reason for our hangout. We ended up staying at the bar longer than we'd planned and we had a 40mn drive to the park and we knew we'd never make it so we decided to just watch the sunset from the port and improvise the rest of our evening. 

My friend and I took pictures of / with each other to be able to look back on.

We had also planned to go to the Jazz festival but by the time we left the port, we we were stuck in traffic and we couldn't find anywhere to park so we gave up and just drove around the town for a while which was nice. I hadn't had the chance to see the town by night so it was very cool to see.

My friend came up with the idea of still going to the park but to see the town by night, so that's what we did. We ended up seeing loads of wild raccoons in the park which was very very cool. I'd never seen raccoons before so it was even cooler to see that up close.

My friend took a picture of me at the park which looked very cool but when I tried to take a picture of the view itself the pictures looked terrible lol. 

We met up at 11am and by the time she dropped me back off at my hotel it was almost 1am and then she had almost an hour drive home. I think it was one of my favourite days in Canada!!!!! She was lovely and we even said if (when) I go back, we need to hangout again!!!