It started out as a fine morning, until my aunt asked me to do a favor for her.
Could I possibly look up trips to Montreal for this weekend?
Montreal?
Yeah, apparently her friend was hankering to go somewhere for the long weekend, real bad, and she posed Montreal as a possibility.
Seeing as everything my aunt has done for me, I figured that this would be okay. And seeing as I knew a smattering amount of French (also see my Paris post), Canada would be perfect!
Only, impromptu trips for the first long weekend of the Season, doesn't work out in terms of New York. Turns out everyone has this same goal to escape to Canada in celebration of Memorial Day, which only tells me that we are all unPatriotic and probably only the same amount of French. The train was booked. And an airplane was out of the question because of airfare. No one has a car.
My French dreams and imagined super clean sidewalks were diminishing quickly.
I mean, if we took a bus to Montreal with two train transfers, a whole day on the road, and then the train back on Monday evening, then it could possibly work. But that sounded too complicated.
I was getting texts that it was up to me then. Wherever I wanted to go, they said, we could. This not only told me that I was going, but also gave me a tremendously scary amount of freedom. Where did I want to go if I was going to plan a long weekend?
Well, home for one. A part of me feels silly when I admit to my recent friends that I want to go back and visit soon. They scoff, laugh in an impressive adult way and tell me that I've only been here for at least a month and a half, to which I twist my toe on the ground and look bashful with an "I know..." sort of response. But home was out of the question.
I know. I checked.
So second to that was the Syrup Festival in Vermont!
We missed that by a month. Ugh.
So third to that was Orchard House, the house Louisa May Alcott grew up in. It was the inspiration for Orchard House in Little Women and it had a whole museum dedicated to her. Can we say, Georgette could get themed bookmarks and cosplay? Um, yes. Yes, we can.
But inevitably, I didn't suggest it, though I did work out the plans just in case. I knew my aunt and her friend probably wouldn't like to visit a museum or walk around a small town like that. I also figured that they were probably after something a little more adventurous than bookmarks.
Which is how I ended up booking a hotel in Atlantic City.
That's where I'll be this weekend, celebrating the American dream, I guess.