Yesterday we learned something important about ourselves.

We need to learn French. Like woah. The thing is, we both worry about being rude – especially to people who work in restaurants and hotels and coffee shops and basically all the places we go to these days. And for us, not speaking the language feels rude. Especially when everyone seems to assume that we speak French. Awkward!

Anyway, we woke up ridiculously early thanks to the construction going on across the street from our hotel. Apparently in Canada they start work at 6am. Sigh. A least they were building a very tall building and using a crane and therefore mildly amusing to watch. Otherwise I would have been really grouchy about being woken up so early! As it was, it was only annoying.

Once Mike noticed the banging outside, we got up and went to breakfast at a place called the Universal cafe. We muddled through ordering, although the server didn’t speak much English and we, of course, spoke no French. Mike got an omelet and I got a crepe. Crepes are awesome. Especially when they’re stuffed with ham and cheese! Yum!

As we walked back to the hotel we tried to remember why we had decided to go to Ottawa. We couldn’t think of anything. Why do people go to Ottawa? We googled it and couldn’t come up with a compelling reason to go there and find a camping spot in the rain, so we decided to head back to the US and upstate New York instead.

That decision made, we wandered around Montreal for a while (in the rain) before finding our car and heading out of town. For the record, driving in Montreal is pretty annoying. They drive just like New Yorkers, except that because they’re Canadian, you assume that they feel really bad about it when they cut you off. You know, because Canadians are nice?

On that note, every state has the worst drivers. Seriously. No one knows how to drive. They all suck. In different ways, but it’s all awful. Except for New Hampshire. Drivers in New Hampshire are great. We’re not sure why. And man! The crumbling infrastructure! The roads suck in every state. Wherever we are, that’s where they are the worst. There are no exceptions to this one. Even New Hampshire has crappy roads. If we find a state with both good drivers and nice roads, we may have to move there. Just because.

Anyway, we made it across the border with our Canadian buckwheat beer and a jar of Nutella.(What? Isn’t that what everyone brings back from Canada?) We didn’t even get searched, although we did get a string of questions about where we’d been and where we were going and when we’d be home.

It poured all afternoon, and we decided that setting up a tent in the rain didn’t sound like much fun, so we decided to head to Plattsburgh to see a movie and hide from the weather for a few extra hours before we had to find a place to put our tent. So, we went to see Bridesmaids (mostly because it was the only thing that was playing other than Thor or Pirates, and I haven’t seen the last couple Pirates movies.) It was funny, but it would have been better if they had cut about a minute off every joke sequence.

When we got out of the movie, the rain had stopped, so we were hopeful that we could get to our campsite and set up the tent before it started again. No such luck. When we pulled into our spot the rain started coming down hard and didn’t stop…so we finally gave up and just slept in the car. It actually worked pretty well, and we were warm and dry all night. I do wish that the back seat (Mike slept in the driver’s seat and I took the back seat) was about three inches wider though! The only bad part is that the car smells a bit funky this morning, but we’ll go ahead and blame that on Mike.

Today we’re headed to Syracuse to hang with Mike’s sister, who just happens to be going there for the weekend, so that should be fun.