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Area: Plateau Mont-Royal 994 Rue Rachel E, Montreal, QC $ – Canadian, Diner fare Open 24 x 7
We didn’t order dessert at Phayathai (link to review) to save a little bit of room to at least try the classic Canadian dish poutine on our visit north of the border. With a quick Google search of something like “Poutine Montreal,” you can’t help but notice that La Banquise is one of the most popular hits. It seems like a crowd favorite with many great reviews and a large number of devout fans speaking quite highly of the fast food diner. So, we biked a little outside of downtown to give it a whirl.
When we arrived around 11pm, there was [...]
Who doesn’t love shopping?
And, while shopping for basics isn’t as fun as shopping for glitzy, glamorous dresses, these basic items are a necessity for traveling light.
Here are a few of my favorite basic picks – from leggings to neutral sweaters, you can’t go wrong with these cheap duds… just in time for Fall!!Light Chambray available at Old Navy for only $24.95!
Striped cardigan that goes with everything – well, except that striped maxi below.
A neutral [...]
While planning our recent weekend trip to Boston, I knew from the start we weren’t going to make it very far without a car. I had taken advantage of the most recent IHG PointBreaks list and booked a room for 3 nights at $35/night, which put us in the Crowne Plaza Newton–about 7 miles from the center of Boston. To top it off, we were booked on Spirit Air and scheduled to arrive at 12:30am Saturday and had a flight out at 5:30am on Monday–not the best hours to rely on public transit or cabs. So, a car rental was in our future, like it or not.
A quick check on Kayak.com revealed only very expensive options, close to $200 for my 48-hour rental. Either the Boston [...]
1) Get Scrubbed to the Bone in a Turkish Bath
Ok, now before I experienced this, it was both a “can’t wait to do this” adventure and a “what the heck am I getting myself into?!” feeling. Traditionally, men and women are separated into totally different areas (yes, that meant separating from the one person I knew on the continent and putting myself into the trusting hands of… old women who scrub you down while you’re naked? And they’re just staring at you and laughing in a language you can’t understand). Yes, daunting to say the least.
So, Jeffrey and I took the wimpy way out and voted to go to the one [...]
Pros: RailEurope.com is a good resource for researching entire rail network in Europe and is the only place to book a multiday rail pass that covers numerous countries and service providers
Cons: If just booking a simple roundtrip or one-way ticket, it can cost 20-40% more than going direct to the train website
When planning our France trip, we needed to book about 3 train tickets to get us from CDG-Bordeaux, Bordeaux-Nantes and then Nantes-Paris. So, when trying to research the best way to book, we checked out all the venues, starting with RailEurope.com.
We were looking at taking the 11h05 [...]
Ahh yes, Spirit Air: the self-proclaimed “America’s Only ULCC-Ultra Low Cost Carrier.” The champions of nickel-and-diming, Spirit charges the customer only for what he uses. If you want to carry on a bag, you’re welcomed to for a fee, but they don’t add it to the ticket cost because they don’t charge those who don’t want the service. No matter what your opinion is on the big change in the airline industry, you can’t deny that Spirit Air has some damn cheap fares on their routes.
I don’t necessarily expect the same level of service on a $40 flight as I do on the $8,000 trans-Atlantic First Class ticket, but we all expect a minimum level of service [...]
I had a reservation at a Sheraton property that I made many weeks ago at the Fed/Gov’t rate. On the morning of my check-in date, I received a call from the hotel manager explaining that they were overbooked for the night and were starting by calling all SPG Platinum/Gold members to see if they would be willing to accept Starpoints for having their reservation cancelled. He said that they’re offering 7,000 Starpoints for volunteers (this is equal to 1 free night at the property)–I paused and thought about my travel plans: they were, in fact, flexible and I didn’t have to stay at that particular property. Suspecting that they [...]
