• Homepage
  • Destinations
  • About Me
  • Contact
  • Blogs I enjoy
facebook twitter pinterest instagram

Mum's Gone To …

Travel tales of an empty nester
  • Homepage
  • Destinations
  • About Me
  • Contact
  • Blogs I enjoy
Home  >  Blog  >  Mum’s Gone to Canada – Day 11 – SatNavs

Mum’s Gone to Canada – Day 11 – SatNavs

Trish Burgess Posted on12/11/200929/01/2019 Canada, family road trip in Canada, Montreal 3 Comments
Marriott hotel in Montreal
Get back in our little car today and take the quick, not-so-scenic route to Montreal. As usual I sit surrounded by maps and guide books, trying to make sure I know which way we’re going, as I’m not completely trusting of our GPS system. I wonder, though, why most SatNavs have female voices. I think it’s meant to be calming for the driver though Hubby is convinced it’s to make the driving experience more realistic. He is happy to shout and curse the SatNav woman because he says it’s the same as shouting at me when I give him wrong directions. As is often the case, I read out bits from the guide book a day late. “Ooh we could have gone on a steam train in Quebec”, as we’re 100 miles or more in the opposite direction.

 

Discover that we could also have gone on a whale-watching expedition and this makes me shudder, remembering the disastrous experience in Iceland last year when the mixture of seasickness and the previous day’s dose of laxatives, lead to a very unpleasant three hours in the Arctic Ocean. My book says that while the whalers of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth tribe were out hunting, their wives were expected to lie perfectly still at home in the hope that the whales would become equally docile. Now that’s the job for me, “Just stay at home and lie down, darling, until I get back this evening.”

 

 

Dougie tells me to put the books away for once, get my face out of the maps and just enjoy the scenery (what scenery? We’re going the direct route.)

 

“Trust the SatNav”, he declares, “she knows the way to Montreal.”

 

It’s all going very well until the last ten minutes. Montreal is on an island in the middle of the St Lawrence River so we know we have to go over the river at some point and head towards the Downtown area which is full of skyscrapers. SatNav woman takes us over a fantastic bridge and then, just when we think we’re nearly there, the stupid woman directs us through a huge tunnel in the middle of the city. The signal for the satellite gets progressively weaker until it disappears altogether. Just at that moment, in the middle of the tunnel, the road splits left and right.

 

 

“Which way do we go?” Dougie asks me.
“Don’t ask me, you told me to put my maps away, told me to trust the SatNav.”
“Which way do you think then?”
“Erm, err, hmm, well I don’t think it’s right as that says University, so let’s try left”, I say with the conviction of a woman who has no idea what she’s talking about.

 

We turn left, come out of the tunnel and are now travelling on another bridge back out of the city. GPS lady most confused, wakes up from her slumber and issues some ridiculous “turn left”, “turn right” commands one after another as Hubby frantically yells and shouts at her, me and the world in general.
“Re-calculating, re-calculating, make a U-turn where possible”
“I CAN’T MAKE A U-TURN, YOU FOOL! WE’RE ON A BRIDGE! WHY DID YOU TAKE US THROUGH A TUNNEL WHEN YOU KNOW WE’D LOSE THE SIGNAL? ARE YOU COMPLETELY MAD?”

 

 

As Dougie rants at her, like Basil Fawlty with his Mini, we drive away from Montreal for some time before she can get her bearings. We park up, have a big shouty session, then try again. This time, SatNav woman gets it right and we eventually pull up to the hotel. Valet parking awaits us again and a doddery old chap in a peaked cap looks like he wants to take our cases. Dougie reckons the old bloke would have a coronary carrying all my shoes and is so fired up anyway, he grabs the cases, hands the keys over, and stomps inside. I think he would be happy never to see the car again.

 

 

 

Once settled in, we decide to start making use of our free 3-day Museum Pass with a trip to the Biodome, which used to be the Velodrome when Montreal had the Olympics. The great thing about the hotel is that it has its own Metro station! We take the lift down to the basement and come out in the Underground. We discover there is a huge network of stations and walkways underneath the city and they are all linked to each other so that in the winter no-one need to go above ground: shops and restaurants too, all underground. In the Metro I take charge. Having lived in London many years ago, I always feel comfortable getting around another city’s underground system. I seem to know instinctively where we need to be and which escalator to take. Dougie says it’s a pity I don’t have the same innate sense of direction when I’m above ground…

 

August 2008

Previous Article Mum’s Gone to Canada – Day 10 – More Quebec
Next Article Mum’s Gone to Canada – Day 12 – Rod in Montreal

Related Posts

  • The Gallery: Picture Postcard: Niagara Falls

    23/05/2012
  • boardwalk in Quebec

    Mum’s Gone to Quebec with Wills and Kate

    03/07/2011
  • Marriott hotel in Montreal

    Mum’s Gone to Montreal with Wills and Kate

    30/06/2011

3 Comments

  1. Heather Reply
    26/02/2010 at 7:17 pm

    wow, they really have those underground walk ways and shops and stuff? that's brilliant, i would love to see that!

    Excellent story, brilliantly told as usual!

  2. muummmmeeeeee...... Reply
    28/02/2010 at 9:53 am

    I think you've got the same Satnav woman who resides in our car!

  3. Trish @ Mum's Gone to... Reply
    28/02/2010 at 9:25 pm

    Heather and mummmmmeeee – thanks for coming over and having a read. That satnav was a pain in the proverbials all holiday, starting with speaking French to us when we picked it up in Toronto!

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow Me

Follow me on Bloglovin’

Follow
Follow on Instagram

Random Visits

  • Mum’s Going to the Dordogne 18/07/2010
  • Around the World in 80 Minutes 03/02/2013
  • Mum’s Gone to Portugal – Having Dinner with John Torode 18/08/2011

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
facebook twitter instagram pinterest youtube

Recent Posts

  • Riverside Walk, Leamington to Warwick
    Riverside Walk from Leamington Spa to Warwick 16/05/2022
  • Craiglockhart Hill
    Heading for the hills in Edinburgh 18/01/2022
  • Kelvingrove Art Museum and Gallery
    Come on, Eileen! Finding the weird and wonderful in museums 08/01/2022
  • Paired up with Barney and Trevor at Nidderdale Llamas
    Trekking with Nidderdale Llamas 14/09/2021

Recent Comments

  • Trish Burgess on Trekking with Nidderdale Llamas
  • Bryce on Trekking with Nidderdale Llamas
  • Mark T Coupe on Miniatures in bronze: The sculptures of Joseph Hillier in Spalding
  • Trish Burgess on Dipping my toe back into blogging
  • Bryce on Dipping my toe back into blogging
  • Trish Burgess on A visitor’s guide to toilets in Japan
  • Tilly Jaye Horseman on Miniatures in bronze: The sculptures of Joseph Hillier in Spalding
  • Tilly Jaye Horseman on A visitor’s guide to toilets in Japan

Contact Us

To contact me, please visit my Contact page.

I'm on Twitter. Find me as @mumsgoneto
I'm on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/mumsgoneto
Instagram - mumsgoneto
Pinterest - Trish Burgess
Google plus - +TrishBurgess


Designed by 79DESIGN

UK WordPress Support

Website by 79DESIGN, Lincolnshire Web Designer