Here is my map of the places I visited while I was in San Francisco last December. Was only there for two days, so it is mainly tourist spots, but definitely wet my appetite for another, longer visit.
I SO need to get away for a few days. Just for a weekend at least.
It is not that I am antsy… just feeling blah. And ‘a change is a good as a rest’ as they say.
Clearly my subconscious knows this as every time I’ve been online recently I suddenly veer off and start looking at travel sites. I have already got lots of hypothetical options lined up for both the Easter and the May 2-4 long weekends. The question remains: will I be able to hang on that long?
Does anyone have any ideas for quick (and inexpensive) getaways? Drop me a comment!
(and yeah I’d kind of also like to know if anyone is reading this. Know I am an infrequent blogger… but still. Hello?! Anyone out there??)
Posted in weekend getaways | Tagged weekend getaways | Leave a Comment »
As you may know, Australia holds a special place in my heart, and right now it is deeply saddened by the horrific wildfires that are devestating whole towns, killing people and destroying wildlife.
Especially after seeing stories like this, about this poor koala. I love koalas…
I know times are tough all over, but if you can help out… please do
I’m big on helping the animals:
If you would prefer to help the people who have been hurt by these fires, please donate here:
Thank you!
Posted in Australia, personal | Tagged Australia wildfires, RSPCA, koala, help | Leave a Comment »
Had a quick trip to Chicago and while I managed to get a lot done (even another ghost tour), I have to say that the hotel experience left a lot to be desired.
Despite getting a great rate and being in a great location, I can definitely say I will not be staying at the Silversmith Hotel again.
It seemed like such a promising start: they had a room ready for me when I got there very early. Sure it was a queen, and I’d paid for a king, but I could put up with that.
Sadly, it was all downhill from there…
After heading out for the day I returned to the room for the evening and tried to set up a wake up call, but for some reason the phone in the room was set to ‘rotary’ and while I could hear it churning, it wasn’t connecting with anyone. I gave up and set alarm on my watch and went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep because of the stratchy things in the bed: turn out they were toe nail clippings. Yep, the bed had only been made after the last user, the sheets hadn’t been cleaned. Disgusting.
In the morning I went for a shower, but the setting on the shower head was stuck between two settings and wouldn’t move. All I was getting was a dribble by the one cluster of massaging jets: the other two clusters were too full of gunk to send water out. DISGUSTING!
I told the Front Desk this (again, phone not working… had to go down in person), and when I returned for my second (and thankfully last) night the shower was working properly and the phone working. And the sheets appeared to be clean. Unfortunately the rest of the bedding wasn’t so good.
I had noticed it was cold the previous night, but there was a major cold snap on in Chicago so I just put it down to that. That day, however, had been mild and so there shouldn’t be a problem. That is when I really looked at the bedding (other than the toenail-ridden sheets) and discovered there was only one blanket on the bed. A summer-weight blanket. And the bed spread was also a summer weight blanket.
I checked the closet as, in most hotels, there is usually an extra blanket there. No blanket. And no answer at the front desk or housekeeping.
I spent the first half of the night waking up every hour, getting up and turning the heat up in the room, then tucking myself back in and hoping it would get better. Finally, around 2 am I got up, maxed out the heating, folded the blankets over a few times and got fully dressed before returning to bed. I managed to sleep the rest of the night until my early wake-up call.
Fortunately the shower worked, though my teeth were still chattering from being cold all night.
After getting dressed I tried to check out using the on-screen process it said that it could not be done. Great! Another stop when I am trying to rush out…
I go to the front desk and am told that I couldn’t check out that way because I had prepaid the hotel through a third party, and I had to pay for the incidentals. I said, yes, but I gave you a credit card for the incidentals at check in. It is the credit card that you just finished saying “should I just leave it on your …… card?” I am treated to a lecture on how if I had gone through the hotel to book my room this wouldn’t have happened. Way to punish your customers!
To add insult to injury, I am coming off the elevators on the first floor and the bell man walks by, heading away from the front door. I am almost at the front door (a good 30 feet away) and I hear “Hey you! You want a cab?” yelled at me. Kind of rude…
Oh and yes, by the time I returned home I had a very major head cold. Sick as a dog for days…
Posted in Chicago, hotels | Tagged Chicago, hotels, Silversmith | Leave a Comment »
Sad to say, one of the stories I had heard somewhere about the Queen Mary is untrue.
I had read somewhere, and I cannot for the life of me remember where, that some of the Queen Mary’s most famous spooks were the ghosts of servicemen who had died there during World War 2. No, I am not saying that there aren’t ghosts of servicemen, just that the story I had read was wrong: I had heard that they had died because they were sleeping in the first class pool, which is situated right over the engines (true and true), and that when the boat sailed through the Panama Canal, the heat from the engines combined with the heat of being close to the Equator resulting in overly cooked servicemen.
The Queen Mary is too big to go through the Panama Canal. Ergo, that last part isn’t true.
It is true, however, that the Queen Mary was used as a troop ship in the Second World War, however it operated in the North Atlantic, and I get the feeling that those troops who got assigned bunks in the pool area were probably happy about the extra warmth they would have gotten from the engines.
One of the highlights of my return from my trip Down Under was doing the “Dining with Spirits” tour on the Queen Mary, in Long Beach California. It was a last minute sign-up; I would have booked ahead of time but had been sure I would still be suffering from jet lag. Fortunately I had slept most of the day so I was fine and raring to go by the time I got to the ship.
I was also very excited because the Queen Mary has quite the reputation in ghost tour circles. I’ve seen a few ghost hunt shows about the ship, and was eager to try my own hunt.
Arriving at the ship is almost daunting… dark, overcast night, empty streets and then suddenly there she is: this huge behemoth ocean liner rising before you. I’ve been on cruise ships in the Caribbean before, but somehow the Queen Mary just seems more overwhelming.
There are a couple paranormal tours offered on board, but the one available that night was Dining with the Spirits, which included “upscale dining at the award-winning Sir Winston’s, followed by an intimate tour of the ship’s paranormal host spots.” Well, I was going to have to eat dinner anyway…
We were a small group that night (under 20), which I understand is quite the rarity. We all gathered in the bar area of Sir Winston’s, the ships ‘most elegant restaurant’. The bar is decorated with many pictures from the ship’s heyday, including some of its celebrity passengers. I met a couple who were not only doing the dinner/tour but also staying on board at the ship’s hotel. They were not the only couple doing so, I later discovered; most of the folks on the tour were staying there. Our paranormal guide says the ship is most ‘active’ around 4 a.m., so staying over is definitely something I’ll want to try next time.
Sir Winston’s definitely lived up to its elegant promise. The food was excellent and wonderfully presented. The group at my table spent most of dinner telling each other stories about strange encounters they had experienced or other ghost tours they had been on. Needless to say, we were primed.
Halfway through dinner we were joined by Andrew, who is one of the ship historians. He dashed the story I had heard, but confirmed another – yes, despite being unarmed the Queen Mary has sunk a boat. Sadly, it was an escort ship during WWII (a so-called ‘friendly fire’ type incident), and may account for some of the paranormal experiences. The ship also carried my POWs, which could also account for other ‘things that go bump in the night.’
Erika Frost, our paranormal tour guide joined us for dessert. She gave us an overview of where we were going and what to expect. She also gave us this directive: if taking pictures, take a few in rapid succession: If you get an orb on one and not on another, that is to be ‘trusted’ more than if you only take one picture. That one could just be of dust; a couple pics will clarify that. She also warned us that many folks did experience unexplained camera problems on the tour.
Another thing she mentioned is that the boat is completely stationary. While still surrounded by water, it was wedged pretty hard in, and so it just simply didn’t move. Any rocking feeling we might experience would be due to electromagnetic waves, something she says occur a lot in such a highly charged paranormal area. Indeed, some folks had mentioned it during dinner, though not all of us felt it.
I did also want to mention one slightly weird thing that happened during dinner. At one point I went to the washroom, walking through the restaurant’s lobby and bar. As I approached the lobby there was an overwhelming smell of cigar. Even the maître mentioned that someone in the bar must be smoking and he hoped the bartender would tell them to stop. When I went down the stairs to the bar, the smell was fainter, but more importantly – the place was empty.
Our first stop was one of the engine rooms, where a spirit called Johnny resides. He had been crushed in an accident many years ago, and is considered one of the ship’s most famous residents. Erika said she felt his presence, which I did not, though myself and a couple others felt there was someone else, hiding in the back area. Erika confirmed that there is another man whose spirit has been felt in that area but little is known about him; he’s shy and not that talkative. We stopped and some of us were given a chance to try dowsing. While the metal rods did do a lot of moving around, I am still not sure I felt a presence. One woman though, felt someone brushing against her a lot, and Erika did say that ‘Johnny’ really seemed to like her.
One of the next stops was in the very bowels of the ship, right at the front, where the POWs had been kept. Haunted or not, this area was downright creepy. We turned off our flashlights, sat in a circle and just tried to commune with whoever might be there. For a while it was pitch-black, but then you could see shadows of people walking by the hatch door. Something you thought nothing of until you realized we were in an area that was locked to other people – we had to have a security guard let us in – and there were no lights on upstairs in order to cast shadows. We also heard several knocks and muttering voices.
It was here that I took some rapid succession pics that actually showed some orb shaped things.
And one of the other women who had ‘seen’ the other man down in the engine room confirmed my feeling that there was someone in the far right corner; a woman. Probably a nurse.
We all got out of that area quite quickly.
The last area we went to was the first class pool area. This is considered another one of the ship’s hot spots, and one of our tour participants had told a story about an experience he’d had there a few decades before; something that had scared him enough that this was his first time back.
Almost as soon as we arrived one man started asking about the little girl in the corner.
Erika supplied her name, which I am afraid I have forgotten. She is also one of the more famous ghosts aboard, believed to have been a young girl who drowned in the second class pool area, but when it was closed and turned into more cabin space, had moved to this pool area.
Frankly I was more unnerved by the person I felt watching from the upstairs balcony.
After a wander around the area we were asked if we wanted to enter the change room area, where there was supposed to be a ‘vortex’ – portal to the other side. The man who’d told his story had said his experience had happened right at the end of the hall of change rooms…. so guess where I went? Yep. I didn’t taunt the ghosts, as he said he’d done, I just went down to the end, turned off my flashlight (as all the others did) and waited. Let me also say, the nearest person to me was three rooms down. No one close to me at all.
So who the heck as rubbing my feet?
First the right then the left, then a pause, then left then right. And my skirt was lifting a little at the bottom.
There was also a feeling that something else was in the room with me. So I stepped out into the hallway… just as Erika said, “Whoever is down at the end, there is a strong presence down there with you.” “Yes,” I replied. “Which is why I moved out to the hall.”
When I mentioned the feet thing to her later, she laughed and said, “Oh, you probably got one of the cats then.” The Queen Mary had, in its heyday, a bit of a rodent problem. So cats were brought on board to take care of it. And many had never left… As soon as she said it, it made total sense: it had felt exactly like a cat brushing back and forth around my feet. And it wasn’t the first time I’d had cats show up for me on a ghost tour. It would seem that, despite not having a real cat at present, I am still a cat person.
All in all, an interesting experience. I am not sure how much of it was my imagination or if I did encounter something paranormal, but I did enjoy the evening. And I definitely would like to return for a night in the hotel and another tour. Maybe that one that starts at midnight…
Posted in California, ghost tours | Tagged California, ghost tours, Queen Mary | Leave a Comment »
I started on my trip Down Under with high hopes and in good spirits. My stop in San Francisco was wonderful; I love that town. So much to see and do… and the food! YUM! What a great start to my trip (the only ‘bad’ spot being the man in the next hotel room who liked to be called “the King” during sex… I kid you not!).
Unfortunately, Air New Zealand decided that my bags needed to stay in San Francisco even though I had left. I arrived in Sydney, after a long 13 hour flight to Auckland, an hour rest and then a 3 hour bump over to Australia, to discover that my bags had been left in the US. Actually, that was discovered about 6 hours after my arrival – until then no one knew where they were.
The first day I was more concerned about getting clean clothes, but as days pass that quickly fades when you have trucked around the world to spend Christmas with your nephew – his first Christmas – and with your somewhat estranged side of the family, and have arrived empty-handed. Literally. Definitely not the way to make a good impression.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported, while I was in Australia, that several thousand travellers had had their bags go missing, and I also heard from several Aussies that both Qantas and Air NZ have a ‘propensity’ for losing bags around the holidays. I am not sure if there was any truth in the rumour that one Qantas flight from London Heathrow has arrived filled with travellers, but sans all luggage, but I can certainly believe it.
It took almost four days for my bags to show up. After Christmas. After having to sit there like a beggar at the table, feeling like crap whenever anyone handed me a present to open, knowing that the best part of Christmas is the giving of gifts – and I had nothing to give (yet).
Four days. A day and a half of which they had sat in Auckland waiting for someone to notice that they belonged in Australia not New Zealand. During that time I had called Baggage Services about six times, sitting on hold for on average an hour each time. Air New Zealand graciously compensated me $100AUD for my troubles… but I had to come to them and get it.
They failed to compensate me for having to replace one suitcase – when my bags did finally show up one of them wouldn’t roll properly. I opened up the back to see why the handle wouldn’t work and discover that the entire infrastructure was bent inward in a reverse V. I am afraid to think of how it was thrown in order to have created such a deep bend.
I said ‘ruined’ didn’t I? Well, perhaps not entirely, I did get to spend time with my family and to play with my nephew, but the first few days of my trip were marred by a preoccupation with the bags. Christmas Day was unenjoyable because I was unable to give the presents I had spend months selecting. By the time they did show up it was very anticlimatic, and I still felt like the beggar child. So no, not entirely ruined.
But it sure felt like it.
Posted in Air New Zealand | Tagged Air New Zealand, lost luggage | Leave a Comment »
I will be visiting San Francisco for a few days before my trip Down Under, and am very much looking forward to it.
While I did look for an inexpensive, historic hotel – and I found that SF was full of those – I opted for a more modern hotel just off Market street. A four star hotel for just over $110 a night, near Christmas-time? Sold! It was less expensive than several 2 star hotels I was looking at and while it may be modern, its proximity to areas such as Union Square, Market Street and the Embarcadero is a plus. I won’t be staying in ‘history’ on this trip but I will be visiting it a lot.
I already have my ghost tours booked and am very excited about that. I will be doing the Haunted Haight tour and also the Chinatown Ghost Tour (or at least I hope I will be doing the last one as it is the one I am most interested in. Right now they are not sure they’ll have enough people signing up). I will post again after I have finished the tours.
The big question is, of course, will I leave my heart there?
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The town of St. Jacobs, Ontario is having a “special holiday shopping Open House” November 7-9.
St Jacobs is located just north of Kitchener-Waterloo, about an hour and a half outside of Toronto. It is a beautiful old country town, popular because of its Mennonite heritage and its wonderful crafts and home-made goodies. This weekend is a great opportunity to take a look around, enjoy wonderful food and maybe find that perfectly crafted holiday present.
You can even leave your car in Waterloo and catch aride on an old steam engine to get to either the famous St. Jacobs Farmers Market or to the
town itself.
Posted in Ontario, farmers markets, weekend getaways | Tagged farmers markets, Ontario, weekend getaways | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Places | Tagged Places, Tripadvisor | Leave a Comment »
On Sunday, go directly to Lansdowne Park to the Ottawa Farmer’s Market!
It is a small market, but most of the food on offer is organic and reasonably priced. Have lunch in the ‘food court’ – which is actually just a tent with food from local vendors. Very yummy!
There is also a large number of crafts on offer too. I got some great Christmas presents there (not telling in case any of the recipients are reading, LOL).
As much as I like the Byward Market, it doesn’t seem to offer as many home-made crafts as it used to (I found several of the vendors I had found at the Byward in past years at the Farmer’s now). Sure there are lots of aboriginal and South American crafts there, but didn’t see any of the local crafts that I found at the Farmer’s market.
Ottawa bakeries
In Toronto, chances are you’ll find a coffee shop on just about every corner. Sure they may be one of the many chains (Starbuck’s, Second Cup, etc.) but some are also just your basic neighbourhood coffee houses. In Ottawa most of those corners seem to be taken by bakeries (bakeries that often have tables and do serve coffee and such too).
Really great bakeries. Most serving French pastries that are beautiful to look at. Light and airy cakes filled with luscious buttercreams… I’m hungry.
Now that I think about it, when I was growing up in Ottawa there were always great bakeries to chose from. Which may be why I don’t eat as many pastries here in Toronto; Ottawa spoiled me. (Sure Dufflet pastries are nice, but I find their cakes too grainy).
So if you are in Ottawa, pull up a chair and order a cafe au lait and something from the display case. After all, there is so much you can walk around and see in Ottawa, you’ll soon work off the calories.
Oh, and if you are looking for great pies and breads to take home: swing by Boko Bakery on Elgin St. Pick up a raspberry pie for me too, will ya?
Posted in farmers markets | Tagged bakeries, farmers markets, Ottawa | Leave a Comment »
