Canada and Two Green Beans

I think it would be prudent to  write about Canada Part I last weekend before leaving for Canada Part II this weekend.

I went to Canada with Cecille, who was going because she wanted to go on a Mormon excursion. The actual Mormon part of the trip was meant to be quite minimal (although of course Cecille added extra Mormon activities at the last minute), and I hadn’t been to a place just to go to a new place in a while. Plus, French!

Very windy at Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls was awesome. We saw both the Canada side, which was like a little Las Vegas, and the New York side. The boat tour was really fun (Hornblowers on the Canada side!), and we were lucky that it wasn’t too cold even though it’s November. Though the second day was quite windy on the New York side, it was lovely to walk around.

I enjoyed the second surprise Mormon excursion because we got to walk through the pretty woods and climb a big hill.

In Montreal we went to St. Joseph’s Oratory, the basilica, and the Mormon temple.

I appreciate the experience of touring the Mormon temple, but I don’t think I’ll have any desire to do so again. It was like a very clean hotel with some strange uses.

Mass at the basilica was great. I remembered only a few of the Mass parts in French, but got almost the whole Our Father! I tried to pay attention in the homily but could only catch random words and phrases, like “sinners,” “he responded,” “from the first reading,” “Holy Spirit!,” “compassion,” and “Jesus.”

The oratory was also gorgeous. What a beautiful space.

Since it was the first trip to Canada for both of us, we naturally had to eat at Tim Hortons. It was good 🙂

In other news, my green bean plant, grown from a first generation green bean plant, gave me two beans before it died of cold weather. I honored its sacrifice by eating them.