Canada | Andrea Downing

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O CANADA! O CANADA!

Posted on July 22, 2015 | 4 comments

Three nights ago—on Sunday—I suddenly awoke in a panic. I had diligently made sure that my car insurance, which comes due July 28^th, would be paid on time and would cover all fifty states. I never thought to ask about Canada. Sweat seeping out of every pore, I checked my policy, which I had brought with me, and sure enough it covered Canada. Sigh of relief. Then a hasty look on the internet revealed I needed an extra card proving this insurance. An early Monday phone call to my insurance agent was promptly answered and the response was, you no longer need one. Bigger sigh of relief. As I put the phone down, I suddenly thought, but what about Medicare? Cristal’s UN insurance was still operative and valid throughout the world, but me? To the internet again, and to my horror discovered Medicare doesn’t cross the border. Off I went on an internet search to get travel insurance. That was swiftly accomplished. Then Cristal asked, what about our phones? Is Canada a foreign country as far as Verizon is concerned? It is! Of course it is; if Verizon can get an extra buck out of you, it will. So, global data plan added on. And, at that point I had to ask myself, how could someone as well-traveled as I be such a total idiot?

The answer seems to be that somehow Canada doesn’t seem foreign. As I said yesterday, for the most part they speak English. They have the same shops and malls along the roads and everything, when you’re sitting in NY and planning, just doesn’t seem foreign the way, maybe, going into Mexico seems. But look again! The roads are marked in kilometers, temperature is measured in Centigrade, and the money…what is this plastic see-through stuff and the funny coins with the Queen on them? Forgive me, Canada: you’re not an extension of the USA even if your television seems to have more of our news than yours.

We are on Manitoulin Island, no thanks to Betty who wanted to get us here by a scenic route of gravel back roads. I think she knew full-well we dare not use Hilary because of the costly data plan.

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Tagged Andrea Downing, Canada, GPS, Manitoulin Island

SOO

Posted on July 21, 2015 | 4 comments

The two Sault Ste. Marie

The last time I was in Sault Saint Marie, I was fifteen years old and on a trip with fellow high school students. We were on a cruise through the Great Lakes, and I had just fallen in love for the first time with a boy who, according to my daughter, now looks like a walrus in his professional photo, which we tracked down. He and I danced the polka all night to the ship’s orchestra. As the saying goes, I felt like a million bucks.

After eating meals in Munising, Michigan, for three days, I now feel like a million pounds. Part of travel is trying to keep your meals balanced and healthy; eating in restaurants is not the best way to a healthy lifestyle. The break in Jackson did us well, as did the days in Buffalo, and some of our restaurant meals have been

The International Bridge connecting Michigan & Canada

excellent. But not in Munising. And when, on our final night, we decided to get frozen Lean Cuisine dinners, and a bag of microwaveable green beans to still our craving for veggies, we were appalled to find in the supermarket there four aisles of frozen foods and half an aisle of vegetables. Perhaps transportation to the Upper Peninsula is the problem, but it doesn’t explain why, when I ordered a salad, I was confronted with a mountain of processed meat on top of a small layer of lettuce. By the way, the local specialty seemed to be pasties.

Now we are in Canada and the first item on the agenda was lunch at an organic café. The Canadians here sound pretty much like us, look pretty much like us, and the food was just what the doctor ordered—or would have if he knew what we’d been eating in Michigan.