Montreal is our next stop before visiting Toronto and Detroit.  It is just like being in France, everyone speaks French, all the sign posts and everything is in French. Very little English at all- and haven’t seen a McDonalds yet, but plenty of fromage places and people walking around in berets and holding french sticks, no joke.  They have a nice old town precinct, a Latin Quarter which is chocker block full of pubs, clubs and strip joints. Most of the shopping is in huge underground arcades linking the subway lines- there is 33 km of shopping underground- so when the streets are snowed under, you can quiet happily shop for foie gras or fromage or even onions.  Food has a distinct french style but there is the usual e-merican delicacies like burgers and pizza. Bottleshops have the French Champagne (Yes Moet) next to the beer- it’s really cheap packaged – you get a 6 pack of anything for well under $10- the European stuff the whole lot, but a schooner will set you back about $6-8 which is a bit more than the average Australian prices.  Not as good as the  US where (taking exchange rates into account) was as cheap as chips- we were paying as little as $2 US a pint- that’s probably only about $18 Australian by now.   Exchange rates here are about 80c to A$1- you can get a huge pizza slice for $1.25, a pub meal costs about $8-14.

Canada is in Election mode too- but the US elections are taking all the attention, even here. Sure New York and Boston are more democrat regions but Obama is really kicking some butt- Everyone is really into it- We went out for beers the other night in Boston while the debate was on- Everyone was watching it as if it was the last quarter in a close grand final- cheering and carrying on- weird stuff. Nothing like the apathy we have in Australia voting for either shifty or shonky. People are dressed up as if they are going the  the footy in their Obama Tshirt, badges and paraphernalia- very very weird.  We had a black guy on the train the other night who was giving a bit of a sermon to the carriage, really well educated and dressed guy who had some troubles due to the financial crisis- they are expecting so much to change, as if a light switch can be switched on and everything will be alright, but it just aint gonna happen!.  He is only one man in a big machine and hundreds of years of divisions and class hierarchy is not going to change – at least for a long time. Even in the week we have been here you can see a shift in the media to being very anti Bush and the republican policies.  Making it a interesting time to be here.

Being Autum or Fall as they like to call it the road is pretty scenic.  Didn’t see a moose but saw a squashed racoon, a squashed squirrel and Gary reckons he saw a Chipmunk or some other sort of rodent- Haven’t seen any beavers yet but still looking.

Salem is about an hours drive out of Boston and was a slight diversion on our way into Canada so we thought we should pop by. Salem is the home of the witch and pirate (of the RRRRRRR variety).  Quiet a nice little town but every full of every crap attraction you could think of and then some. Witch wax museums, fortune tellers, ghost tours, Which theme restaurants, Pirate Graveyards, Spooky tours, Frankenstien’s lab- dunno what he has to do with it.  The Salem Witch Experience -and my favorite the Psychic Witch- I knew she was full of crap when she asked me if I wanted my future told- she should have know I would have said no bugger off you old hag!   I reckon they should bring back the witch burnings- there seemed to be many roaming the streets- and that woman in the supermarket- get me a match and I would burn her (and the fat on her hips would burn for hours) she tried 7 upsells in selling 2 bottles of Gatorade- do you want some tissues for 1 dollar, would you like to upsize your drink for 69 cents, do you have a voucher book, would you like to buy one, would you like to purchase a badge for kids with no heads, ..would you like to bugger off you witch. Then you get a have a wonderful day Sir, and thankyou for your custom- AAARRRR!!!!!!   Die you battleaxe…. Nearly wasn’t worth the effort.

The Cheers Bar that was based on the TV series is in Boston, and we thought a great place for lunch and a few refreshments, we also found they had another Cheers bar in Boston – it was up in the Tourist area so we wandered up there to sample their beer also, was just as good as the original.  Beer and food were pretty reasonable and of course they had the gift shop at the exit.

Boston was about a 3 1/2 hour drive from New York, we ended up with a Chrysler 300 so we look like a couple of drug dealers. Boston is a nice green place plenty of parks and gardens, about the size of Adelaide.  They have recently removed a huge double decker freeway through the centre of the city called the Green Monster and replaced it with a big underground tunnel, the area the monster stood has been transformed into a huge long park which really breaks up the city and gives it some space.  The city has water on 3 sides so there are plenty of Squid Ports and other attractions and Irish Pubs everwhere – Rocky didnt’ get served in one because he couldn’t show a recognised ID to prove he was over 21…amazing.

Check out some of these ugly vehicle we found.  US auto designers have got better, their new styling is catching up to Europe and the rest of the world, although a little to go,, but they still seem to find a few designs which are a bit out of the box..like these beauties

Shame we didn’t take our good camera

You might know this picture as Monks Diner on the TV show Seinfield- There’s also a terrible Susan Vega song about it too- It’s about as good as the food.  The diner is actually a real diner on the Upper West Side of New York.  The place is called Toms diner, They only ever seem to use one or two different shots on Seinfield and cut out the Tom word.

New York has one – what a pitty Geelong hasn’t  (at least it gave a lot of people on council a free trip over here at ratepayers expence).  Perhaps we should turn Malop Street into Time Square.

Thought we might do these pictures in black and white to give them a bit of class- just like us