Quebec, Montreal, or Toronto ?

Sunday, September the 5th, we are in a plane connecting Chicago to San Francisco. Buses and flights give us definitely some time to update the blog offline :)

So what do you think about these 3 cities we visited in Canada ?

Well, Quebec is a small size city, with more “canadians” than the others. Its medieval character, pedestrian street, smaller size, cultural events make it a great place to live… in summer time. We just got testimonies of winter time, but with the Saint Laurent river in the city, it seems you’d better be equipped for the winter time…

Montreal is a new city, with 60% of expatriates. Bigger, more traffic, less cultural events, but still a charming cities. Green areas, night life, shopping streets reflects totally Montreal. However, this impressive underground network of stores to avoid going out in winter make me thing that the cold is not much better than Quebec :)

Toronto, even if it is supposed to be the newest city, as a strong personnality. More dirty, more chaotic, more districts (little italy, chinatown, portuguese village, korean village…), more ethnies…  it’s a melting pot… a smaller New-york version Canada.

So finally, Adam and I would vote for Toronto… but we need to post asap on Chicago… an awesome city!

My Canadian Photos

Hi all, on top of Adam's photos uploaded on the blog, I'm sending you a link of bunch pictures I did over the last two weeks. Just click on the thumbnail below. Cheers!

Traces of Hungarians in Canada // A magyarok nyomaban Kanadaban

Just a few steps walking distance from the famous Schwartz's in Montreal, stands a little shop named "Hungarian shop".Now the trick is that in fact this shop does not have much to do with Hungary, but if you step inside the "Fairmount"
just next door, you will most likely meet Joseph Prepszl, a friendly Hungarian shopkeeper offering a wide range of
Hungarian goodies. We were quickly obtaining some "Balaton" choco bars, and even though the "turo rudi" on sale is from Russia,
its a must visit place for any Traubi-lover Hungarian traveller:)

// Nehany lepesre csupan a hires montreali Schwartz's etteremtol all egy magat magyar boltnak titulalo intezmeny. Az
igaszsag az, hogy a boltnak nem sok koze van a magyarokhoz, "megvettek a Jugoszlavok", ahogy a szomszed boltban dolgozo
Prepszl Jozsef meselte. A szomszed bolt ugyanis "Fairmount" neve ellenere igazi magyar finomsagokat arul, es Jozsi bacsi is jokedvuen
elbeszelget a betevedt magyar turistaval. Gyorsan be is szereztunk par Balaton szeletet, es bar a turorudi orosz szarmazasu,
minden Traubi-szereto magyar kukkantson be ide, megeri.

Walking around in the hippie Kensington market in Toronto we found this weird marriage of Hungarian and Thai cuisine. Dont ask, we didnt try:)

// A torontoi hippi Kensington market negyedben jarva talaltuk ezt a fura otvozetet a magyar es thai konyhanak, ne kerdezzetek, nem probaltuk ki:)

Walking in the Distillery area we found some piece of Rubik-cube-art. The pictures are made of non-standard cubes to reduce the black
lines between the colored panels and can cost you up to a few thousand bucks.

// A Distillery negyedben jarva talaltunk egy Rubik-kocka muveszt. A kepek modositott kockakbol keszulnek, hogy a szines panelek kozotti fekete csikok
minimalisan zavarjanak, es egy-egy kep akar tobb ezer dollarunkba is fajhat. Tapasztalt kockazok hazilag hetek alatt olcsobban elkeszithetik;)

Stepping out at the bus station at the Canadian side of Niagara Falls a Hungarian traveller will drop his jaws. A depict of
the hungarian coat of arms salutes from the probably-once-famous Hotel Europa. Now closed and waiting for better days.

// A Niagara vizeses kanadai oldalan, a tavolsagi buszmegalloval szemben all a hajdan valoszinuleg szebb idoket megelt
Hotel Europa. Falan ma is tisztan kiveheto a magyar cimer.

Back from the Quebec country-side

Finally, back to modern world, with an internet access :) We spent couple of days in Parc Jacques-Cartier, one of numerous natural parcs here (www.sepaq.com).

Nature was amazing...

Animals were cute…

the team was motivated…

… enough to spend hours hiking and canoeing :)

We are now writing in a superliner bus to Toronto with a difficult wifi signal… so we will post more once we arrive! Take care all!

First day in Montreal

Sorry for writing in French (in fact, in Quebecois…) but the way they speak French here is so funny that I have to share it with my compatriots (Even the Belgium can be jalous the way they speak :D). Well, décalage horaire surmonté, on va magasiner l’après-midi pour trouver des flipflops…

… puis on répond à la très gentille invitation de Céline et on part dejeuner (le soir!) chez elle et Claire, avec nos hôtes, pour jaser un peu

Après ça, sans char, on part pour les foufounes électriques, mais le line-up nous a tanné… on a donc terminé dans un bar portugais ^^… la parté était pas plate du tout, tabernacle! Ce matin, on est quand même un peu magané là, mais on a bien crampé :p

Day 1 - London

To start the trip at the right pace, first evening at the musical “The Lion King”. Really worth seeing it, even if Simba has an indian accent… :)

Packing

Top 10 places we will NOT go to

Some of them we will only miss by a few hundred kilometers, some of them we might see only from the plane. For sure these are all fantastic places, which are worth another visit at another time. Here are the top 10 places we will NOT go to, in no particular order.

Bolivia – Salar de Uyuni (photo Szymon Kochański)

Ecuador – Galapagos islands (photo Chris Willis)

Chile - Easter island (photo vtveen)

India - Taj Mahal (photo Christopher Chan)

Antarctica (photo Martha de Jong-Lantink)

Chile - Atacama desert (photo Houston Marsh)

Amazonia (photo Daniel Zanini H.)

Hong Kong (photo Steve Webel)

Peru - Nazca lines (photo Steve Taylor)

Peru – Lake Titicaca (photo Andrew Miller)

One month to go

With only one more month to go until our trip starts, it is time to fill the pages of this blog. As you might know Paul and I are planning to travel around the World for one year. During our trip we will be traveling to Canada, USA, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, China, Kazakhstan and Russia. For a more detailed itinerary you can check the 'Route' section of this blog.

During our travel we plan to update this site at least once a week with our adventures and impressions, or whenever we find something useful to share. We will also upload photos and videos on the way. Not only we will be traveling, but we will be volunteering in Colombia and Peru and would like to share those experiences as well.

We hope you will enjoy reading the columns of this blog as much as we enjoy writing it, and if you have any questions, comments, tips, words of warning, hey, let us know!