Powerball

As most of you probably know, the Powerball reached an all-time high of 1.5 billion dollars. We obviously had to get some tickets, but didn't want to go in alone. We signed a contract and everything, convinced we were going to win at least something. 

We lost...

xoxo,
Grace, Abby & Christine

Montreal Part 4 - Days 5 & 6

Hello everyone, hope you are staying warm! We apologize for these Montreal blog posts being so spaced out.
Day 5- On our last day of our trip we woke up, packed our bags and headed downstairs to enjoy a complementary hotel breakfast. It was as glamorous as it sounds with chocolate croissants, cheese slices and apple cider. Yes it was as weird and unsatisfying as it sounds. At this point we checked out of the wonderful Hotel Travelodge and we were on our way. Thankfully the roads were clear of snow and ice, unlike when we first arrived, so the driving was far less stressful.
Once again, Abby was getting anxious about the questions border patrol would ask and Christine was still nervous about smuggling trail mix across the border yet again. He proceeded to ask why we were there, where we went for New Years Eve and wanted to know if we had a good time. Thus, we were back in the U.S.A.

After driving for a while and listening to throwback music from our childhood, we decided we needed a bite to eat. Panera or Friendly's? That is the question. We ultimately chose Panera because Grace wasn't up for a friendly meal. The lines at Panera were as long as the lines at the border, but thankfully we noticed self service kiosks off to the left. Once we ordered we scouted for a seat and shortly after, received our food. At the table next to us was a young teenage couple who we presume was on their first date. Love was forming at Panera. They were our entertainment while dining and we were sad to leave the happy couple behind.
After stopping for a Starbucks with the friendliest drive thru cashier, we were back on the road for the final stretch.
Finally! We were back to Abby's house and greeted by her parents who wanted to know all about our adventures. Abby made us hot chocolate and we all settled by the fire while Christine read from Theodore's (Abby's Dad) new favorite book, "Saying Grace". After a delicious dinner of lemon chicken and rice, the whole clan headed out to the local holiday party full of desserts and neighbors.
While leaving the party, Theodore was struck by a cramp in his leg. Something that Abby is very used to, but Christine and Grace were terrified at his dramatic screams of pain. We laughed all the way home and soon crashed in our beds preparing for a long train ride back to Philadelphia in the morning.
We woke up, packed our bags and headed down to breakfast, but this one did not have chocolate croissants, cheese and apple cider. Instead it consisted of yummy eggs, bacon, toast and plenty of fruit. We then headed to the train station grabbed a quick hug from Abby's mom Nancy and headed to our next destination, New York Penn Station.

Grace insisted that we stop at the Kmart in Penn station so she could pick up some wrapping materials for our Christmas presents. At this point we were quite hungry and headed to Abby's favorite eatery, Chickpea to grab lunch. We then hopped on our final train and headed back to Philly where we were greeted by our new roommate, Amalia. As she finished unpacking, the three of us exchanged our Christmas presents. We all went to bed sad, knowing that the next day we would have to head back to our normal lives of school and work.

Until our next adventure!

xoxo,
Grace, Abby & Christine

Montreal Part 3 - Day 4

After we made the slow trek back to our hotel we quickly jumped in our beds...which were an interesting layout. The slowest part in planning our trip was coming up with sleeping arrangements. We didn't want to be sleeping in a dump, but are also on a limited college student budget. We were very happy with the price, location, and ratings of Hotel Travelodge, so we booked it. While filling out the room request form, I stated that three adults would be in the room.

Yes, we had bunkbeds. Abby graciously offered to take the top bunk and yes she did have a ladder.

We slept in the following morning only to discover that restaurants in Montreal aren't always open the day following New Year's. After spending a while google searching and coming up with nothing we decided to head back to Eggspectation...which had a 2 hour wait! At this point we were starting to get hangry and decided to wander until we found something. Luckily we found a little crepe/bagel breakfast spot. It wasn't amazing, but it was food and we were hungry!

Once we had food in our stomachs we were excited to start the day! We had exciting plans for that day which were visiting Montreal 1976 Olympic Stadium and exploring the Biodome. We decided to drive to the Olympic Park, which went surprisingly well, saying that Abby's GPS thought we were driving through buildings at some point. The hard part was finding somewhere to park, but after circling almost the entire stadium we finally found a parking lot open! Now the challenge was to find the entrance gates! After looking at several maps and almost getting stuck in a building we finally found it! Unfortunately the stadium was closed(apparently Canadians don't like to work New Year's Day), but the Montreal Tower was open!! 

The Montreal Tower is the tallest inclined tower in the world! It is about 542 feet tall and is on 45 degree-angle.

To be completely honest I was very excited about how we would be getting to the top of the tower, a funicular!! We bought our tickets and boarded the funicular and made the short 2 minute journey to the top. We were amazed by the views and how far we could see. While at the top, they also had a free Photo Booth with the background of the olympic stadium. We each took an individual picture to send to our loved ones back home, but also managed a group photo!

Sorry our heads block the view...

Our next stop was right next door, the Biodome! Abby had seen this the first day and had been dying to go! It actually was pretty cool and it was nice to spend the afternoon inside rather than in the brutal cold! We spent a large part of our day wandering from exhibit to exhibit. Took some selfies and attempted to conquer a fear

Yep...still terrified

Christine, on the other hand, found a new talent.

We begrudgingly said goodbye to our new animal friends and made our way back to the car. We realized that we were at the back of the complex, which was where our car was parked. Being the smart and adventurous individuals we are, we decided to tackle the snow covered stairs. Our hard work paid off, as we popped out right at the car!! We drove back to the hotel and our minds wandered once again to where we would eat! It was Christine's idea to try and find this little Italian place that she had found. Once we had found it, we were starving and were happy to find out we only had a short 15-20 minute wait. The restaurant was packed, but understaffed so it was a little bit of slow service, which we were fine with! We made our waitress's job easy as we all ordered the same entree and Abby and I ordered the same wine!

The trio that eats matching trios

Our entrees were delicious and we couldn't decided which one was our favourite. While waiting for our table we had noticed the yummy looking desserts and had already established that we needed one! We decided to share the tiramisu and it did not disappoint!

Three forks dove into the cake before I could snap a picture!

Our trip was coming to a closing, but we tried to not let that spoil the rest of our night! In the end, I wouldn't have wanted to ring in the New Year with anyone but Abby and Christine!

xoxo, 

Grace

Montreal Part 2 - Day 3

Hello everyone!

Day 3 was really the reason we went to Montreal... NEW YEARS! We had decided the day before that we were going to hang out during the day and do some sightseeing and then go to the Coca Cola New Years Eve party at night. When we woke up we were starving! We had done some googling and decided that for breakfast we were going to go to a little place called Eggspectations. We got seated with no problem, thank god, because when we walked by the next day the wait for breakfast was 2 hours! The menu was extensive. I think we would all agree that picking what we were going to eat might have been the most stressful part of the entire trip. But we eventually figured it out. While waiting for our food to arrive, we were intrigued by a baby that was roaming around the restaurant parentless. We wanted to relax, but we all had our eye on that baby because obviously the parents didn't. When the food came though, the baby didn't even cross our minds. Trying to describe the food would just be unfair, so here are some pictures.

My Fabulous Eggs Florentine

Christine's Fancy French Toast

Grace's Upside-down Eggcellent Egg Sandwich

After a fabulous breakfast we were ready for our day. Only problem was that we had no idea what we wanted to do. We re-grouped and bundled up at the hotel to decide what we wanted to do. We decided we would go to see the Notre-Dame Basilica and scope out where this New Years Eve bash was going to be. 

When we arrived at the Basilica we were surprised to find out that the entrance fee was $5. We questioned it for a second, but ultimately decided that we needed to be cultured and go inside. Personally, I am so happy we forked up the $5 and went inside. It was beautiful. 

Notre-Dame Basilica  

After that we wandered around and explored. Found some seesaws and played in the snow. 

Finally it was time for us to grab some dinner and head out for our New Years Eve celebration. We found this little place called Pub St. Paul close to the New Years Eve party where we got a pitcher of sangria and ate pub food. I would like to add, they were packed, so we were "eating" dinner for about 3 hours. 

After dinner we made our way down to the sea of people getting ready to ring in the new year. It was like an outdoor concert with food trucks and performers. The majority of the songs were in French though, which made things a little confusing. 

Fireworks followed the french countdown and alas! It was 2016! 

In the end, there its no one I would have rather been with to try and understand Canadian gas pumps, exits in French and terrifying border questioning.

May this be the first trip of many with my two best friends!

HAPPY 2016 EVERYBODY!!!

xoxo, Abby

Montreal Part 1 - Days 1 & 2

Hello, everyone! So sorry it's been awhile. We've heard all of your complaints and will try very hard to post more often. Now let's begin...

It all began a while back while watching Kourtney & Kim take on Miami...or was it New York? It doesn't really matter. What matters is we were watching the Kardashians as they took a trip to Canada. For some odd reason this struck up a conversation about going to Montreal, but when would we go?

We decided that night that we would go the week of New Years Eve. A few days later Grace and I bought our train tickets, and we all booked a hotel and figured out all of the logistics.

Day 1: 

The day finally came. I was working from home and Grace was supposed to be landing in Philadelphia at 1 and our train would be leaving at around 5. Grace texted me earlier that day to tell me that they were not cleared to land due to freezing rain. She emailed me our tickets just in case she didn't make it on the train. I tried not to freak out, as I have never traveled anywhere like this alone. What would I do if Grace, the expert traveler, was not there?

The good news is Grace's flight was able to land an hour late, but she still made it back to the apartment with plenty of time to pack. We headed to the train station an hour early just to make sure that we would be there on time, with plenty of time to board. We got on the train smoothly, all be had to do was wait until we heard Penn Station being called. We only slightly freaked out when we thought we missed our stop. It was called Newark Penn Station, which said in the right accent sounds like New York Penn Station.

Once we were at the correct Penn Station we walked around and could not find where we were supposed to be, until we finally wandered upstairs. WE FOUND IT! Our train was slightly delayed but we got on our Albany train without a hitch. We finally reached Hudson and saw our first snow of the year, and of course, Abby with a giant smile on her face.

Abby drove us back to her house in her new car, and we settled in for our last night of 2015 in the USA.

Day 2:

The next morning we woke up to a fabulous breakfast. Before sending us off, Abby's mom made sure we all had everything we needed. Who knew the most important things on that trip would be our garbage bag and our trail mix?

Abby drove us the full 4 hours there. The ride was pretty boring up until border patrol. It was all fun and games until Grace told Abby that they were going to ask her a few questions. They asked a lot more questions than usual. Needless to say, Abby was quite flustered.

Sign for customs!

 Once we got into Canada Abby decided it was time to get gas. Which she was unable to do alone, so Grace joined her. Once they struggled for at least 5 minutes with the gas pump that was mostly in French, we decided to go inside to pay.

Caught struggling at the gas pump

About 45 minutes later we finally made it into Montreal. Where we found that they don't really plow their roads. The roads were slushy and disgusting, good thing Abby got brand new car mats!

Our cute little hotel surrounded with piles of snow!

After finally checking into the hotel, and getting settled we decided to go try to find somewhere to eat dinner. We ended up at a place called Baton Rouge, mostly because there was some English on their menu. We all got burgers and a glass of wine, because as you may know the drinking age in Canada is 18. Once we finished dinner we wandered across the street to find a cute little Christmas Village filled with different vendors that sold waffles, spiked hot chocolate, and even warm cranberry juice, that was quite tasty. There were also different statues and even an igloo that you could go inside to drink your spiked hot chocolate, which was much stronger than we had anticipated. Too strong that we couldn't even finish it.

This cuddly polar did not want to selfie. It took him 15 tries to get a nice picture.

Getting someone who speaks french to take your picture can get quite interesting...

That night we went back to the hotel in hopes of figuring out where else we would go that night. Instead, we ended up staying in to try to figure out our plans for the next day, New Years Eve.

Stay tuned for more posts about Montreal!

xoxo,
Christine

Grace in Italy

Hi hi hi!! Sorry for the long delay in blog posts; it has been a whirlwind of the past few weeks. Anyway, I originally suggested that each member of GAC do a post highlighting their winter break, but both Abby and Christine insisted that they did not have an exciting break, but I had to do one because I went to Italy....Unfair, I know.

This past fall quarter I took a business consulting course through Drexel's Lebow college. In this course we were tasked with coming up with a plan to bring our client, a small family-run olive oil company based out of Saluzzo, Italy, to the US specialty food market. We worked on coming up with a well rounded presentation that included social media campaigns, a new website, and shipping, distribution, and manufacturing costs. After our 10 week course we had the wonderful opportunity of traveling to Italy to meet our client and present our ideas in person. Now, our presentation was only 1 day, so for the other 6 we were able to explore Italy. 

During our trip we were able to visit the LavAzza factory, where they supplied us with a wealth of coffee knowledge but also unlimited cappuccinos. 

We asked the question, "Why is the A capital in LavAzza" and as for the answer they are unsure

Our group of 18 students was divided up for the LavAzza factory tour and obviously my group was the best! Just look at the quality of the selfie!!

During our short time in Italy, I had some of the strangest dining experiences ever. At this particular restaurant they set up a table just for us and once we had eaten told the entire restaurant that we were American's and proceed to take our picture. 

The trip was the perfect mix of education and pleasure. Our group bonded and by the end of the week we were sad to say goodbye to Italy, but also to one another. I truly made some very special friends on the trip. But not to worry, we already have a reunion dinner in the works. 

xoxo,
Grace

P.S. The Montreal blog posts should be up soon!!