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The 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