America - part three

Wednesday 12th August 2009

10am
I’m now on my own computer attached to the internet in Pat & Frank’s house :-) Neil had already suggested that but I didn’t know if it was possible so I didn’t say anything, this morning Frank had the same brainwave and realised he had a spare Ethernet cable attached to his computer which wasn’t actually doing anything :-)

I didn’t sleep particularly well last night, sometimes I was too hot, sometimes too cold! I also had another odd dream. I was with someone (presumably my mum but I don’t know) and we were waiting for a bus somewhere. We looked round and a car had come down from a kerb and the front wheel had collapsed crashing the front wing into the pavement and it looked like one of those strange pictures you see of cars where the car is almost liquid. There was a man in this car and as the front wing had crashed down one of his windows had smashed and he had loads of glass in his face. Someone had a mobile phone and told someone else to ring 911 so presumably we were still in America / Canada. The next thing I heard Uncle Tony’s voice – we literally haven’t seem him for YEARS!!! It must be getting on for 15-20 years since we saw him :-S

I woke up at 7am this morning and went straight for a shower as I did yesterday. When I came down Pat was the only one up so we went out for our little walk round the back garden again.

We were trying to decide what I was going to have for breakfast cos I don’t really like cornflakes. I had a banana and we were still deliberating, by this time Frank had got up

5.35pm
We’ve been out today and have been back about half an hour. I’m actually really tired now.

We went out at 11am and went back to Cleveland where we were yesterday. Pat has decided to sit in the back while we’re going out so that I can take photos. After being in the front with Frank I think she’s glad of the opportunity to not have to sit there with his driving. At one point he nearly drove straight across the path of another car “I thought I had an arrow, maybe not” :-o And quite a few times he was far too close to vehicles in front and he often sped up only to have to brake quite sharply cos he then got too close again. At times like this I wish I wasn’t a driver so I wasn’t aware of what is / should be happening on the road and in the car. I can understand now how Connie feels wanting a brake pedal on her side of the car – though Doug’s driving is great, I’d happily sit next to him any time!!

We didn’t even try to park at the coastguard station today, there was another parking lot nearby but it cost $8. There was a sign saying lot full but the lady waved us in – there were just 2 spaces left and we got the best one – really near where we were going.

We’d planned on going on the boat trip up the river, we got there at 12 just when the next ‘cruise’ was going out so we went to get tickets and they said yes we’d make it onto this one :-) I think we were the last to get on the boat LOL

When we got on Pat said her and Frank usually split up – he goes upstairs and she stays inside so that’s what happened – I went upstairs with Frank, Pat and my mum stayed downstairs. The cruise was through a big industrial area – we went underneath 17 bridges – some of which raised, some were already high enough for us to go under anyway and at least one bridge spun round to let us through. Each time we got to a bridge that needed to move to let us under the captain blew his horn and where we were sitting the horn was really loud. At one point he blew his horn and I wasn’t expecting it so it made me scream, the girl sitting in front of me turned round and gave me a really dirty look!

Part-way through the cruise the battery monitor on my camera started flashing so I had a scrabble in my bag to find the new batteries – though thankfully this time I knew exactly where the batteries were in my bag so it wasn’t *too* bad and I didn’t miss too much scenery on the cruise LOL

The actual cruise with running commentary was about an hour long but then we had to turn round to return to the start. At that point I decided to go downstairs to meet Pat and my mum, I’d seen all the scenery and I was starting to feel burny anyway LOL

When I went down to meet mum and Pat they were really enthralled at the trip – not LOL Pat was thoroughly bored hahaha. I went to get some crisps and when I was in the queue I wished I’d had my camera with me cos the fire boat was on the river spouting water out of all its jets and that hadn’t been there on the way out.

When we got back to dock we were talking about a funny little man we saw painted on the road yesterday and I wanted to take a picture of it but it was on the main road by the science centre. I said I’d go on my own to take a photo and the others could just stroll around. I went the long way round to get to the man cos I wasn’t sure exactly where he was on the road. When I found him I initially just took a photo of the man but then decided to put my foot in the shot too so that you could see what size it is compared to my foot. Once I’d taken my photo I went back to the car by the shorter route and met the other 3.

Frank said his plan was to take us to the new restaurant for food – and he was buying! We’d been discussing on the way there how much our hotel in Canada had cost us and Frank and Pat said they felt sorry for us LOL

When we got to the restaurant I found it was a Chinese buffet place – just like the Mandarin. Initially we sat in a booth but we realised it wasn’t practical with us wanting to get up and down different times so we asked the waitress and we moved to a normal table. It was very nice, as normal I ate too much LOL. They brought us our bill while we were still eating and I thought it was odd but I realised why later on. We got there at about 3pm and the lunch buffet (at the lower price) finished at 3.30 so we realised we’d sneaked in just at the end of the lunch price. In fact the price was really good – something just over $27 for 4 of us!

We were then going on a brief shopping trip in search of American souvenirs but Pat and Frank wanted a few groceries from the shop next door to the Dollar store. One of the grocery items was a pack of beer and as she put it through the till the girl said “can I have a birthdate please?” – Pat was the one paying and she is obviously over 18 – she was born in 1932!!! We thought it was absolutely hilarious and the poor girl on the till was quite embarrassed – apparently the till needs a date of birth for beer or it wouldn’t let it go through.

We didn’t manage to get any American presents for people but we did manage to get presents for Connie and Doug’s dogs LOL. There was a pets section and it had little squashy balls decorated with the American flag – they were only $1 each so we got one for each dog as a laugh haha

There were no American souvenirs in either of those shops so we went to another shop a bit away but there was nothing there either. While we were in that shop another of Pat’s daughters rang to ask her something – she was in Pat’s house and couldn’t find something. Pat told her to stay there cos she’d be home very soon. When we got home Lesley was there so we were able to meet her as well. She didn’t stay very long cos she was on her way to get some groceries to make something for tomorrow’s cookout.

Now we’re doing what we’ve been doing every evening – chilling and messing about on the computers :-)