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captainsblogThe continuing storrrrrreeeeee.... of the trip, that's gone to the dogs.
Don't worry. This does have a happyish ending. Doubly so because "dogs" is indeed now plural across our 800-mile extended fam. After issues with biting, possible eviction and a swallowed-whole rib (this, too, did pass), Emily and Cameron have now officially adopted Jenna. She's happy, as you can see:
But closer to home.... only about 90 miles north, in a country somehow far far away.... it took four tries on three different booking sites, but I finally got a place for us to stay in Toronto before the concert this Friday night. One complication I'd forgotten about is that it's their Thanksgiving weekend, but the Day, eh?, isn't until Monday. Still, we think it led to freeze-oot number three just now.
To recap: I tried one booking site on Saturday morning, finding a perfect place for a decent price around the corner from the concert venue. Only it never got confirmed because the website couldn't get the credit card approved. There's plenty of available credit on it, and there's some suspicion of, well, suspicion on the part of Citibank about a charge coming through from another country. Unfazed, I moved on to Site The Second, which located one a little further away, but not too, and for fewer ¢DNs than the first. This one took the credit card (only then mentioning a $300 deposit in case we turned out to be five drunken frat boys), gave me a confirmation number, but then, after I noticed no credit card payment had posted, sent me an unconfirmation email. The site said it was once again a credit card issue, but this time I called the "host," who told me she'd pulled it from the site for this weekend because they're doing construction.
Um, thanks, I guess? So on to AirThreeAndThree, the website that started all this private-home-rental nonsense. (We wanted this rather than a hotel because those can be utterly unpredictable about things like being put in a room next to five drunken frat boys, plus, this time, Thanksgiving weekend.) There, even closer to the venue than the second and almost as close as the first, was a nice looking place, decent price, and after five rounds of AirBndB-S about profile pictures and identification documents, it was good to go.... until it wasn't. THAT host suddenly realized he had to be there Friday night for company coming Saturday morning.
By this point, I was getting pretty punchy. In scrolling around the map on their site to try to find SOMETHING, I discovered there's an actual exurb neighbourhood in the GTA named..... Brimstone.
Please, tell me more!
Golf and Lockport?!? Maybe I have descended into hell:P
After seeing that, I was almost ready to go back to the third guy and beg him to just let us camp out in his driveway, but ultimately I found the Fourth. Pretty close to the concert, comparably priced, and the hosts are Jose and Peter. They sound nice. They're actually looking forward to taking our money, which seemed to be a near impossibility after the first three tries. So we have a place to crash both before and after the show:)
Now we just have to pray the idiot in DC doesn't declare war on Canada in the next two days and close the border:P
Don't worry. This does have a happyish ending. Doubly so because "dogs" is indeed now plural across our 800-mile extended fam. After issues with biting, possible eviction and a swallowed-whole rib (this, too, did pass), Emily and Cameron have now officially adopted Jenna. She's happy, as you can see:
But closer to home.... only about 90 miles north, in a country somehow far far away.... it took four tries on three different booking sites, but I finally got a place for us to stay in Toronto before the concert this Friday night. One complication I'd forgotten about is that it's their Thanksgiving weekend, but the Day, eh?, isn't until Monday. Still, we think it led to freeze-oot number three just now.
To recap: I tried one booking site on Saturday morning, finding a perfect place for a decent price around the corner from the concert venue. Only it never got confirmed because the website couldn't get the credit card approved. There's plenty of available credit on it, and there's some suspicion of, well, suspicion on the part of Citibank about a charge coming through from another country. Unfazed, I moved on to Site The Second, which located one a little further away, but not too, and for fewer ¢DNs than the first. This one took the credit card (only then mentioning a $300 deposit in case we turned out to be five drunken frat boys), gave me a confirmation number, but then, after I noticed no credit card payment had posted, sent me an unconfirmation email. The site said it was once again a credit card issue, but this time I called the "host," who told me she'd pulled it from the site for this weekend because they're doing construction.
Um, thanks, I guess? So on to AirThreeAndThree, the website that started all this private-home-rental nonsense. (We wanted this rather than a hotel because those can be utterly unpredictable about things like being put in a room next to five drunken frat boys, plus, this time, Thanksgiving weekend.) There, even closer to the venue than the second and almost as close as the first, was a nice looking place, decent price, and after five rounds of AirBndB-S about profile pictures and identification documents, it was good to go.... until it wasn't. THAT host suddenly realized he had to be there Friday night for company coming Saturday morning.
By this point, I was getting pretty punchy. In scrolling around the map on their site to try to find SOMETHING, I discovered there's an actual exurb neighbourhood in the GTA named..... Brimstone.
Please, tell me more!
Golf and Lockport?!? Maybe I have descended into hell:P
After seeing that, I was almost ready to go back to the third guy and beg him to just let us camp out in his driveway, but ultimately I found the Fourth. Pretty close to the concert, comparably priced, and the hosts are Jose and Peter. They sound nice. They're actually looking forward to taking our money, which seemed to be a near impossibility after the first three tries. So we have a place to crash both before and after the show:)
Now we just have to pray the idiot in DC doesn't declare war on Canada in the next two days and close the border:P
Raises so many points / snide observations
Date: 2019-10-09 03:05 pm (UTC)2. That segues nicely into, "there's really a town called Brimstone?" Bwahahaha. (There's also a town called Dildo, among other amusing names.)
3. For the center of international finance, American banks are amazing incompetent about foreign transfers and even credit cards. Just had to reissue an honorarium check to one of our recent speakers, because Bank of America (only 2nd largest bank in the world?), couldn't deal with a Canadian check. Admittedly it was written in French, but still, the digits are the same.
4. Of course, I COULD make snide comments here about American visitors who don't bother to check when Canadian holidays are/assume they are the same time as the American ones with similar names... but I'm refraining.
5. Just for the record, Thanksgiving in both countries (and Sukkot in Isreal), being harvest festivals, happen at the appropriate times for harvesting in the respective countries. Christmas/Hanukkah, being geared to the winter solstice, happen around the same time. Sometimes we move Christmas a few days just to confuse American visitors (joking).
Re: Raises so many points / snide observations
Date: 2019-10-09 03:29 pm (UTC)And you're mostly right about the banking issue. Most local branches used to carry Canadian currency for exchanging; now, you practically need a notarized letter from the Canadian ambassador to get a loonie or toonie around here. The one place that's very good about it, as they are with everything, is Wegmans; their registers compute the exchange rate and return the proper US change.
Finally, never forget Dave Letterman's old pal from Regina:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Assman
Re: Raises so many points / snide observations
Date: 2019-10-09 03:51 pm (UTC)My local bank in Portsmouth NH used to carry Canadian money. Dunno if they still do. However I was ironically amused that a small bank 5 hours from the border would carry it, whereas it was a major production to get it from a major bank in a major money center, or even many smaller banks closer to the border.
As for Thanksgiving as a holiday, it’s not the big deal in Canada that it is in the US. It’s mostly just an excuse for a long weekend in October; I actually had forgotten about it until this morning when Nom reminded me that the kids were off b/c school/daycare is closed. I had to email Evil Secretary to double-check that we were closed.