We covered 4 countries and 6 cities in 2 and a half weeks, and stayed in 6 different houses during this time. At the end of it Daksh just wanted to go back home, but overall, I thought the kids coped quite well. We like to think that our mad travels have been largely good for the kids. Whether they thank us for it or resent us for it, only time will tell.
Toronto
The Toronto visit didn’t get off to an auspicious start. We had a rather long wait to get into the Airbnb we had booked, and in this time we had to deal with an extremely rude concierge who wouldn’t allow us to wait in the lobby. We sat outside with our luggage, but children being children found some amusement. The dots on this pillar would light up when you touched or waved your hand over them and that kept Vedant amused for quite a while.
Rahul had very wisely booked us on a Niagara Falls tour, so we all hopped onto a minvan the next day and set off for Niagara Falls. We stopped at a vineyard and a picturesque town called Niagara-on-the-lake on the way. Having ice cream every chance we got had become something of a tradition, so that’s what we did sitting on this bench. It was a really pretty town and had horse drawn carriage tours, a clock tower, and loads of old world charm.
When we took the boat to get to the falls, everyone crowded on the top deck assuming the view would be best from there. As we got closer to the falls, the deafening roar and the monsoon shower like spray from the falls made Vedant very uncomfortable and he started crying. So I rushed to the lower deck, and surprisingly, got better photos of the falls from there. Here’s Daksh shutting his ears to drown out the noise, while Vedant and I were quite comfortable downstairs.
And just before we boarded the bus back, Daksh got to meet a chipmunk 🙂
The next day we went to Toronto aquarium.
And the next day to the wedding that had sowed the seed for this whole mad trip. Where Vedant danced and danced and Daksh made some new friends 🙂
New York
Our stay in New York was too short and hurried, made worse by the fact that flight from Toronto was delayed by almost 3 hours, and we had to check out of our Airbnb with all our luggage 10 hours before our flight. The highlights were a visit to Strand bookstore, a trip to Brooklyn by ferry for hot chocolate, and a trip to the Museum of Natural History. In the first photo below, Vedant is trying to catch the wind :-). The second photo was taken in Brooklyn, and the last at the Museum.
