August ,18 2002 - Vol. 5 - Issue 3

So, I'm back from vacation and I'm exactly feeling in a bitchy mood, so this will be more of a combination of a bitch and a "can you believe it" kind of page. So sit back, and hopefully I'll make you giggle a bit, scratch your head and then make you go shower. Just kidding about the shower bit....

Our vacation this year started to be Maine, but it was too expensive to we decided to go to Canada instead. It was my son's first time going outside the United States, so he was excited about it more then we were. Anyway, we planned to go to Niagara Falls and Toronto. It was also about the same time as the World Youth Day (with the Pope) would be in Toronto, but he was leaving before we got there. We figured it would all blow over before we got to Toronto. Riiiigggghhht.

Needless to say, all of these "youth" that were in Toronto must have decided that since they were just down the road from the Falls that they should visit. Boy did they! Tons of tour buses and happy catholic kids. How do I know they were from this conference? Apparently everyone was given a backpack when they registered. That back pack was on every other person we bumped into. At least they were friendly even if they did have a tendency to shove.

So after hanging out at the falls for 2 1/2 days we went to Toronto. Holy cow! You guessed it, the youths that didn't go to the falls stayed in Toronto! Wait, that's not the best part. See before we left for Toronto, I decided to get instructions on how to find the Radisson hotel in East Toronto. Of course we go to the Fallsview Radisson to get directions. So we follow the directions, but for some reason can't seem to find our hotel. We can only find the Crowne Plaza which is right were the Radisson should be. Well after asking nearby folks about the Radisson, a guy at a gas station says that he thinks that Crowne and Radisson merged. Hmm, okay, let's go to the Crowne Plaza. So I go in there and the nice dude at the desk explains that this USED to be the Radisson. 4 years ago, but they moved (here look on this map) see, this is where it is. Cool, now we head to the right hotel, the whole time griping about how the Radisson would give us bad directions. Upon arriving at the hotel, I wander in and I'm told that they can't check us in because the computer is down. Okay, (deep breath) now I have had enough of the traffic and run-around that I need to relax in a hotel room, so I lay into this lady with "You can't check me in? I've been driving 2 1/2 hours of which an hour of that is because of wrong direction that the other Radisson gave me, so you tell me, how long more would you like me to drive around before I can go relax in my room?" She looks at me for a minute goes into the back office and then after 30 seconds comes back out and tells me we can do it manually. Wow, and I didn't even have to raise my voice. Little did I know, that the fun was not over.

See our package came with tickets to visit Ontario Science Center so the next morning we are there when they open at 10AM only to be told that the tickets were for 2 children. Shit! Back in the car and back to the hotel. I show the tickets to the desk clerk who apologizes and gives us the correct tickets. Back to the OSC we get back into the place and now apparently the tickets are good for 10% off adult fares. ARRRGGHH!!! Back to the Hotel and according to them, these are the right tickets. Fine. So we get OSC on the phone and they explained that I should go to the membership desk. Okay will do. So after 3 round trips and 2 hours we are finally in. I do have to give credit to the folks at the OSC. After we explained what had happened, they let John in for free. After that the rest of the trip was pretty non-eventful.

I know this really wasn't a bitch, but it was a funny story. Next time!