Our Week In Quebec City

Chateau Frontenac at dusk.

From Quebec City June 2012

Early in June Toni and I went on our first vacation in four years. Of course we have been living in new locales but that is different from a vacation. For this trip we went to Quebec City. I was there only once before when I was eight years old so I have just vague memories of it. It was an easy decision to go there as it is just a one hour flight on the best regional airline in the world, Porter Airlines. Upon landing we grabbed our luggage and went straight to the taxi stand. The driver spoke no English at all but we expected that as only 1/3 of the population is bilingual. We got settled in and gave him the hotel location on paper. I noticed the catchy music coming from the radio. It was in French of course but I quickly realized that I knew the song even though that seemed impossible. It took a minute but I finally recognized it as Michael Pagliaro. He was well known in Canada but not the States. The song I was hearing was one of his best, “What the Hell I Got”, which I used to have on a single but that version was sung in English. What are the odds that I would hear a 1975 French recording that I would know the minute I set foot in Quebec? Here it is in English.  What a welcome to the city.




We loved our lodging at Hotel du Vieux-Quebec.  I would never consider staying anywhere else. They start the day of right with breakfast basket hanging on the door every morning. The hotel is located right in the thick of Old Quebec and within walking distance of dozens of restaurants and shops. We definitely took advantage of the restaurants. Although less than a third of the population speaks English we were able to fumble through with our vocabulary of about thirty words.



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Quebec City is over 400 years old, the only city north of Mexico that still has its ramparts intact. It has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site so if you visit keep your camera charged up and have a fresh memory card. They say it is the most European city in North America and between the language and architecture I have to agree. I will let the photos we took tell most of the story. There were only a couple of things on my ‘must see’ list. The first place was The Plains of Abraham. This was the only thing I really remembered from my childhood visit. I didn’t know it when I was little but this was the site of the most famous battle in Canada. As part of the French and Indian War in 1759 the British defeated the French here in a 30 minute attack that lead to the French losing control of Quebec and eventually all of Canada. Today it is acres of rolling grassland used as a park with scenic views of the St. Lawrence River valley. The other place was the St. Matthews Anglican Church where my Grandpa Nosworthy was baptized. After I booked our hotel I looked up the church and was on the same street, rue St-Jean, less than a meter west…a ten minute walk!!

With this Google street map you can stroll around the grounds.


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I have mentioned my family trip a few times in this blog. It was my only travel as a kid but we covered a lot of territory in three weeks. We had stops in Chicago, Niagara Falls, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Portland Maine, Boston, New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Gettysburg. It was a true marathon and all by car with three adults and three kids in a Chevy Impala station wagon. Most of the places we just spent an afternoon. Sometimes they were simply pointing out sites from the car without even stopping, especially towards the last part of the trip. Without setting out to do so I have suddenly realized that I have been going back to most of these same places as an adult and seeing them properly. In a couple of cases I have been actually living there. It was not intentional but there are only four places left on that list that have not been revisited.

Santol is on duty at the lobby of the Chateau Frontenac.  He is always ready for a walk with the guests.

The baptismal fount in St Matthews Church.  Grandpa Nosworthy was baptised here nearly 100 years ago.

The Plains of Abraham were just as I remember them as a kid

The Funiculaire that takes you from the upper part of Old Quebec to the lower part of Old Quebec.  It is an elevator that goes at a 45 degree angle.

Perhaps our favourite restaurant located in the lower section

Another photo from dusk at the centre of town

Toni's hair seemed to blend right into the sculpture behind her.

At the Chateau Frontenac for afternoon coffee

HERE are the slideshow photos full size.

If you haven't seen enough already check this LINK for a panoramic view of the city showing the upper and lower parts and the Funiculaire that links them.  It is a large photo so give it some time to load.

Plumb Visit

Last month we had another visitor.  Jay Plumb, his wife Sara Zucker, and their 9 year old daughter Raphaella.  They were here for a long weekend that was sort of a make up date.  They originally had planned to visit us last August for just a couple of hours during their layover on a plane trip from Boston to Quebec City.  At the last minute Jay discovered his passport had expired.  He managed to salvage the QC trip but wound up making it a road trip instead.  They were left with vouchers for the airfare and applied them to this trip.

Because of that turn of events months ago we were able to spend two days together instead of two hours.  Their visit was a great reason to get us out of the apartment and back into some favourite spots and also some new places we have been meaning to check out like the restaurant row on Baldwin Street.  A couple of highlights were taking the ferry out to the Toronto Islands again and we were also able to catch the very last day, in fact the last hours, of the Leonard Cohen print exhibition downtown.  The exhibit was around the corner from the Hockey Hall of Fame where Jay was able to acquire a souvenir,  a hockey puck with the old Kansas City Scouts logo.  I learned from him that franchise still exists today and is now the New Jersey Devils.

At Centre Island looking out on Lake Ontario

Allen Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place, Toronto

"Artworks" by Leonard Cohen

Outside the old Bank of Montreal building that now houses the Hockey Hall of Fame

I should point out that this is the very first time Jay and I had ever met face to face.  We have been friends for several years but only online.  This is not the first time this has happened to me.  In fact, it is becoming more frequent all the time.  These virtual friendships have led to many adventures that couldn't have been imagined years ago.  In this case Jay's trip to QC inspired us to go that route and we even stayed in the same hotel that they did.  More about that in the next post.  So now we have plans to visit them on their turf in Boston.

First Anniversary In TO

We recently passed the one year mark of living in Toronto.  We signed up for another year in our apartment making this the first time we have stayed in one place more than twelve months since leaving Lake Quivira in early 2009.  It is kind of nice to take a break from that pace.

I suppose this is a good time to assess the past year and look to the year to come.  For me the biggest thing is finally coming to accept Toronto for what it is and to quit holding it up to comparison with New York City.  That is simply not fair.  There is nothing like New York anywhere and for that matter every city has its own unique personality.  We do love Toronto but we also joke about it being the “Steampunk” version of New York.  Like what NY would be like if a couple of things had gone off in a different direction.  It is a little like living in an alternate universe.  Most of the things are the same, language, monetary system, culture, but all with significant noticeable twists.  Like if Great Britain won the Revolutionary War would the Queen be on US currency or would we spell color as colour and center as centre?  Would TO be more familiar if they had adopted a grid street system when NY did?  Very few streets cut through Toronto from end to end and none of them have numbered names.

It has taken most of the last year but Toni has finally received her Permanent Residency card, like a Green Card in the States.  Her status was changed officially in February but she only got the physical card a couple of weeks ago.  It was a very happy day for her.  In the meantime she “unretired” after a year and a half.  She has been working in sales for a Microsoft® Gold partner selling slots in software classes.  It is located just a couple of blocks away and so far she likes it and her employer is very pleased with her work.  Even though she is in sales it is very low stress.  The bonus is that it gives us some mad money, not just mad money but Canadian mad money.  We finally had some cash coming in that doesn’t have to be converted.  Checking the exchange has become something that we do every morning before we even check the weather.  A shift of a just a few cents on the dollar can send us into action with the currency broker.  

Most of you know that Toni and I first met in high school, Shawnee Mission South, while we were each dating others.  We continued bumping into each other through our college years again while dating others.  Eventually we managed to get together when we both unattached.  We often speculated that we might have crossed paths many years earlier when her father opened his County Fair supermarket near County Line Road and Mission Road in Kansas City, Kansas.  My family lived about a block from there the first couple of years of my life and later shopped there occasionally after moving to Mission.  

Now, I don’t really believe in destiny but I could speculate even further. There are scenarios where Toni and I could have both wound up living in Toronto since we both have family living here.  My grandfather could have transferred back to Canada to live and work near his brother, Great Uncle Roy.  Toni had considered going to The University of Toronto when her sister, Connie, moved here.  The fact is that Connie and Roy wound up living on the exact same street with only four houses between them is an incredible coincidence.  The possibility of yet another chance at crossing paths here several years later is rather intriguing to think about.  As it turned out I stayed several days at Roy’s house at 155 Silver Birch Avenue in 1963 and then I spent several days at Connie’s house at 177 Silver Birch again in 1995.  This is an obscure street in a tiny corner of the metro area.  To fully comprehend this click on the link below the map (view larger map) and then zoom out to see the entire city.

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Perhaps we were destined to be living together in Toronto and the Universe just took a little longer to get us on that course.  I don’t really think so but all the same it is fun to think about.  Alternate universe, right?

 

 

Oh, one more coincidence.  The photo above was from our first trip to Toronto together with Toni’s parents, Rosa and Is, to visit Connie.  The photo was taken by me near Yonge and Bloor exactly 30 years ago today. 

Gretchen Peters Concert

We finally made it out to a show at Hugh’s Room last week.  They consistently get all the acts that we like but it is kind of a trek to get there.  But now that we have done it I am sure we will make it a regular thing.  It turns out that we only have to take one streetcar, the King, to get there and back.  No transfers!  The layout is very nice.  There are three levels with café style tables and generous space to get around.  As a result there are wonderful sight lines.  I don’t think there is a bad seat in the house.  I doubt the room holds more than a couple of hundred people so it is quite an intimate setting.  The menu is a bit on the pricey side but as it turns out not over priced.  We had a salmon entrée that we agreed was about as good as we have had.

Oh yes, the music.  We were there to see Gretchen Peters.  She is by no means a household name but she did an album with Tom Russell a few years ago.  She is also pretty well known around Nashville as a very successful songwriter and has charted hit songs by Martina McBride, Pam Tillis, Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, Neil Diamond, George Strait, Faith Hill, and Etta James.  Not too bad.  She has released a handful of albums on her own label and that is how I got to know her over the years.

 

After a couple of songs Gretchen mentioned that she last played Toronto seven years ago and that she shared the stage with Tom Russell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Sylvia Tyson.  She also mentioned that Sylvia, a Toronto native, was in the audience tonight.  As the room is not large and there were only about 60 people there we figured we could see her.  We kind of craned our necks to see all the far corners when I suddenly realized that Sylvia Tyson was seated at the table right next to us the whole time!  You may not know of her either but Sylvia is a pretty big deal in folk music circles; she is best known as the writer of “You Were On My Mind”, a huge hit in the States by We Five.

After the show we spoke with Gretchen briefly before she had to run off for autographs and photos.  We introduced ourselves to her husband, Barry Walsh, and after discussing his piano style he in turn introduced us to Sylvia.  She was rather shy and soft spoken but didn’t seem in a great hurry to move on so we got to have a nice long conversation.  It was a truly unexpected bonus!

You can listen to some of Gretchen's latest music HERE.

 

  

Tax Day Canadian Style

 We finished our tax returns a few weeks ago. Actually I should say Toni’s cousin Steve finished them for us. By another strange coincidence he is a Kansas City native who married a Toronto woman a few years ago, and he happens to not only be an accountant but he specializes in cross border accounting. Having him on board gave us complete confidence that everything was done right on the first go round and he saved us a couple of thousand dollars. On top of that his office is only a couple of blocks away from our apartment.

As you can see from the photos things were a little more involved this year. As long as you are a US citizen you are required to file regardless of where you live or work. We still have a good part of our income from US sources so returns were required for two states, one province, and two countries, and we had to pay in two currencies. That took most of a ream of paper.

There are a few differences from US filing here. There is no joint filing option. Husband and wife file separately but you can shift your incomes from one to the other for the best outcome. The filing date is slightly later, April 30th.

One thing that is unchanged is that it is still a little painful. Well, not really. The truth is that I am quite happy to pay taxes to both countries. I know there is waste but I feel confident that most of it is well spent.

Daniel Lanois at The Great Hall

A couple of weeks ago we attended the Daniel Lanois concert. You might not know his name but you probably at least know his production work. He put on a special concert to celebrate his induction into The Canadian Music Hall of Fame the day before. This was also a big deal because he grew up in nearby Hamilton and started his first studios there, actually working out of his parent's basement at first. His mother and other family were in the audience.

The concert was at The Great Hall. This was significant to us as Toni and I went to a concert there exactly thirty years ago and this was our first time back. The room had been totally reconfigured over the years. This particular show was in the round and the stage area simply was an old Oriental carpet in the middle of the floor jam packed with his equipment and Brian Blade's drum kit. There was also a small toy HO scale railroad track running around the drum kit. The train carried two video cameras. These were part of the documentation of the show. There were several other cameras set up along with one cameraman. All the film footage was edited into the videos below.

The show was set up in three segments. The first was Lanois as a DJ using his own tape loops and sounds with art films projected on two large screens. The second part was the concert itself with just Lanois on guitar and pedal steel and Blade on drums. For a few of the later songs he brought out a bass player but I didn't catch his name. The final part of the evening was a meet and greet and he just hung out until everyone had their face time and photos. It really felt like he was throwing a party at home for his selected friends. It was very intimate, almost like sitting around a campfire. You might be able to see that there were only a couple hundred people about three rows deep around the perimeter of his stage area.

You should view the videos at full screen as they are high quality.

Uncle Ralph 1940-2012

Friday evening my Uncle lost his quick fight with lung cancer and today he was laid to rest. I was able to share these memories with him a few weeks earlier.

One of my cousins said how she will miss the twinkle in his eye. She was right. Check the photo at the bottom and see for yourself.

Uncle Ralph

Naturally I have been thinking about you a lot these last few weeks. Most of these memories go back to the late 1950s when we were all living on West 53rd Place in Mission. I thought I would share them with you here. I hope you enjoy them.

My family moved there in 1956 and Grandma and Grandpa Lavery moved into their new house across the street the following year. I still have vague memories of it being built. I grew up immersed in lots of family. For a brief period I had in my house at 6023, my parents, my brothers, my maternal grandparents, and one uncle. My paternal grandparents, two aunts, and four more uncles were living directly across at 6024. Whew !! The two houses were practically extensions of each other. Going from one to the other was totally fluid. Doors were never locked and no one ever knocked. There was always someone around and I was never lonely. In those days no one had more than one television set and only three channels to choose from. If the adults were watching something we didn’t like at our house we would go to Grandma’s to see what was on over there. I can only think of one time going into Grandma’s house when it was empty. I was probably seven or eight years old. I let myself in as usual and eventually went through every corner of every room of the house on all floors calling out, “Is anybody home?” As if someone would have been unaware I was there.

Somehow with all this family around Ralph still stood out to me. For one thing he was my godfather. Not that I had any idea what that really meant but that fact was always mentioned. “You know, Ralph is your godfather”. I am not sure how the selection process went or if anyone else was even considered. He must have been the first sibling with the godparent designation at the ripe old age of fifteen. Anyway I guess that gave me some special claim to him. I thought that he gave me a little extra attention and always made me laugh.

It seemed that there was always something going on and all of us had lots of fun all the time. But when Ralph got involved things were ramped up a bit. For one thing he was a shutterbug. He always had a little Kodak camera around to chronicle everything. It used pop in flash bulbs about the size of your thumb that looked like pretty blue cotton candy under glass when they were new. After they were used they would go dirty grey and be white hot and we were cautioned not to touch them. We would also have spontaneous ‘chicken fights’ in Grandma’s back yard. My brothers and I would be hoisted up on the uncle’s shoulders to make teams and ram and tug at the other teams until just one was left standing. It was pretty exciting to feel so tall and strong. The game was mostly a giggle fest as we would fall slow motion like a giant tree into a dog pile.

Even after Ralph and Patty married and moved to their tiny doll house in Roeland Park he was still around a lot. There were long games of catch with Frisbees every evening in the summer. Often a couple of dozen neighbor kids and the aunts and uncles just gathering in the street to mindlessly toss the new toy back and forth for hours. There were intense bouts of shuffleboard in the basement years before it was replaced with the pool table. There were marathon Tripoli games that would carry on until the morning hours or sometimes for days. There were huge piles of pennies stacked overnight waiting for the play to resume.

Of course, Ralph always had the best fireworks. One time my brother and I went with Dad and Ralph to a fireworks tent. It was after dark but the tent was lit up and busy. They were off to the side talking with some man as I wandered through the aisles lusting for all the bright packages and odd spinning and flying contraptions. The next thing I knew we were behind the tent and the man opened the trunk of some old Chevy. Boxes were filled and money exchanged and we were on our way home. In those days all the kids would be shooting off firecrackers in the street for days. We would be blowing up little safe stuff like Lady Fingers and Black Cats and the smell of smoldering punks filled the air. The ‘kids not playing with matches’ rule was suspended. Occasionally Ralph would march out to the street from Grandma’s house with a coffee can of water and a soup can. All of us kids would stop and stand back while he set things up in the middle of the street. The can of water went down first then a cherry bomb with a water proof fuse was lit and in one quick movement put into the smaller can and place upside down in the water. A few seconds later the explosion would shoot the soup can straight up and we would scream with approval and beg for more. More would eventually follow but he would only do one at a time. I think that he spaced them out so that Mrs. Woodward would come storming out of her house and give him hell.

Then there were the wonderful summer weekends at Lake Annette. What a playground that was. I am sure that had a huge influence on my buying a house at Lake Quivira and that turned out to be the second biggest decision of my life.

Maybe someone would like to step up and tell the story of Ed Schranz and the bat or share the many legends of the great Fourth of July parties in De Soto.

There are lots of fun memories. Nothing was ever planned or scheduled. It just happened. Eventually things changed though. Everyone got married and spread out and had families, a whole lot more cousins. Life got complicated. Invitations started to precede events, doors were no longer left unlocked, we called ahead to make sure someone was home, and we started ringing doorbells. I am not sure when I got too big for a chicken fight. Of course we had no way of knowing when we had played our last chicken fight and all the other things. I don’t think it would have mattered anyway. We couldn’t possibly have had any more fun at it than we did.

Thanks Uncle Ralph.

Mission Impossible

The Holiday Season was a little more hectic than usual this year. Less than two weeks before Christmas Toni received a notification from Canadian Immigration that they were still waiting to receive her FBI clearance and that she had until January 17^th to get it in. This is a crucial component to getting Permanent Resident status or PR card (like a Green Card in the States). Toni had sent the application in eleven months earlier when we were still in New York. The FBI clearance was sent in separately because her fingerprints were unreadable the first couple of times and took a third effort to get good ones. She had every reason to think the FBI form would be matched up with the rest of the application. The notification was delayed additionally because Immigration had failed to update our address and it went to New York first. Argghh!!

So here we were with about four weeks to react with Christmas and New Years looming in the middle. The letter said that if she missed the deadline the application would be returned and she would have to start over. This could mean having to take another medical exam and yet another FBI clearance and all the fees to go with those. To make matters worse without her PR status Toni’s temporary Ontario Health coverage (OHIP) was going to expire soon.

We spent much of the rest of the day scrambling to put together contingency plans. Toni found a nearby immigration lawyer and getting quotes for health insurance. We also gathered up all the paperwork we could for a visit to our local MP, Member of Parliament, Bob Rae. This would be like going to your Congressman in the States.

The first thing the next morning we grabbed a cab to the MP’s office and we were prepared to camp there to get some help. Fortunately it was only a five minute ride away. We went in and briefly explained our situation and were directed to a small office where we were seen right away. We expected to have to go into a long drawn out explanation but the woman understood the issues right away and sent some emails and copied a few documents. The woman, Denise, assured us it would be okay and gave us confidence that she would get this straightened out and we should stay in touch if we didn’t have our answers in a couple of weeks. Fifteen minutes later we were on our way back home.

Indeed, the next morning we received an email confirming our address had finally been updated and they were clear that we did not want to abandon Toni’s application. Meanwhile, Toni continued exploring lawyer contacts, just in case. However, we were told that we would only need to go that route if her application got totally rejected.

After a few more weeks of being in limbo Toni contacted the MP’s office again in mid-January. Denise said they would help get an extension on her health card and a committee was deciding if they would accept the copy of the FBI clearance form in lieu of the original.

January, Friday the 13th turned out to be Toni’s lucky day! After working with our MP's office (Bob Rae's Assistant) and MPP's office (Member of Provincial Parliament Glen Murray's Assistant) by phone, online, and in person this week, they hooked her up with the Ontario Ministry of Health. Toni showed them her updated resume and a good letter of recommendation from her volunteer position in Toronto. Although never requested in any instructions, this seemed to help the situation the way a greased palm does with a maitre d'. In the span of about four hours by phone and email, an analyst from the Ministry resolved all her problems. Toni gave her the documentation regarding the PR application and signed a release for her by scanning and emailing back and forth. She was then able to plead Toni’s case to a representative at the Federal level in Immigration so that she could have access to her file and see that everything was done right for them to process the application. She then decided to extend her OHIP through mid-Sept. of 2012 and beyond should there be further delays.

Toni was also given instructions of how to leave and return to Canada without a hassle at the border if she still doesn't have her PR card...just bring her proof of address, health card, and any letters from OHIP and Canadian Immigration with her US passport.

The next day we received an email from Buffalo saying Toni was in the final stages of PR approval with instructions to send them a copy of her passport and two PR photos. She carefully followed the detailed mailing directions and now the requested items have been delivered to the Fort Erie address and she was told to expect her final PR documents by February 1. We did in fact receive the promised paperwork. That left one more big step.

Saturday, February 4^th mission involved the culmination of 18 months of intense planning, two inches of paperwork, border crossings, customs agents, multiple passports, a rented car, all with Niagara Falls in the background. It could be a Hitchcock scene with Cary Grant but it is really rather mundane. We had to drive an hour and a half to the border, leave Canada, and reenter to go through the immigration station and get Toni’s paperwork stamped and entered into the system.

The conventional wisdom is to enter the States with your US passport but at the last minute I changed my mind and showed my Canadian one. This turned out to be the right decision as we were waved through after only two questions instead of the barrage that would have come with the US one. We pulled through past the gate, made a U-turn and we were back in Canada. Thirty minutes later Toni was a Permanent Resident. We drove home, returned the car, and cracked open the champagne as soon as we got inside the apartment.

Mission accomplished.

This document stapled into my passport arrived on Thursday, Feb 2, 2012. I filled out the application to get it in Sept. 2010, completed that in January 2011, and it took 12 months to get it approved. I signed this document today, Feb 4, 2012 at the border in order to receive in 6 to 8 weeks a laminated Permanent Resident wallet card. Now I can have a Canadian bank account and credit card in my name, work or go to school if I wish, and my gov't health care will be permanent.

On February 6th with this document in hand I successfully obtained all my benefits by visiting several downtown offices. Coming in the post I have my PR Card (6-8 weeks), my Social Insurance Number (SIN) Card (2-4 weeks), and my new Health Card (4-6 weeks)....meanwhile I use the paper documents I got today at banks and doctors offices. I scanned them in case disaster strikes while waiting.

Holidays In Canada

Canadian Boxing Day crowd at Toronto's Eaton Centre just a few blocks from our apartment.

Yes, there has been a huge gap since my last posting. It is not for lack of interesting things happening here. I just seem to have misplaced my reporter’s hat.

I will try to give a quick overview of the last few months. As you read the following try to imagine the calendar pages flipping over and flying off in the background as in the old black and white movies.

October 10th
We celebrated our first Canadian Thanksgiving with Toni’s sister and her family at our apartment. The menu was the usual turkey and dressing.

October 15th
Occupy Toronto started their protest in the Financial District a couple of blocks west of our apartment. Later that evening we learned they were camping in St. James Park across from our apartment. Weeks of speeches, tents, and drumming followed. Every Toronto television station opened their broadcasts here every night. With our proximity we felt involved in a way. Toni goes through the park to get groceries and would often pick up a few extra items to drop off on the way back.

November 23rd
Occupy Toronto encampment was dismantled peacefully after 40 days of protests. The grounds were essentially ruined but a week later new soil and sod was installed from a donation by a local landscaper. Our park is back better than before.


November 24th
We celebrated our first American Thanksgiving away from America. We had another traditional turkey and dressing dinner. This time we were at a nearby restaurant with a group of expat friends. It was fun to compare notes about Toronto and Canada and linguistic differences. Other popular topics were immigration dos and don’ts and red tape horror stories. Basically we shared our common backgrounds and current situations that only expats would truly understand.

December 26th
Our first Boxing Day. This has become the biggest shopping day of the year, not unlike the day after Thanksgiving in the States. We enjoyed the extra holiday with our nephew, Jesse, at lunch at a small vegetarian restaurant on Queen Street West and then he and Toni went on for a movie later.