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Last year, I got my passport in hopes of going to Canada since it’s within driving distance. Financially it was rough even applying for the passport, but I did the thing because I knew I wanted to travel out of the country in the near future. Last month, I FINALLY got to use my passport to go to Canada!
As I’ve mentioned before, I am super broke so I tagged along with my parents and my sister on a family trip. Obviously my parents know my financial situation, so I didn’t have to cover any part of the trip. I’m VERY thankful to have parents willing to pay for me to take a trip out of the country. Not only did we go out of the country, but we stayed in a chalet that had wolves right outside our windows. Peep the video below to see some footage I took while I was there.
While I was really excited to finally get to go to Canada, I also had a lot of anxiety about it as well. I’d never gone through border control, so I didn’t really know what to expect. It was really just the unknown of it all that gave me so much anxiety.
Prior to my trip, I asked my friends who had gone through border control what to expect to try and help ease my anxiety. This specific anxiety kept me from just driving into Canada myself. I figured going with my parents my first time would ease that stress a bit since I wouldn’t be the one actually driving through and interacting with the guard.
The other thing I had anxiety about was the fact that Quebec, where we were going, is a French speaking province. I was TERRIFIED about the language barrier. I took French all throughout middle school and for two years in high school, but it’s been more than a decade since my last French class. At this point, I can’t really speak French.
We were so close to the U.S. border that most people could speak English, but a lot of things were also in French. I was a bit self-conscious about the fact that I couldn’t communicate with the locals in French. But, I’m glad I knew enough to say “hi” and “thank you” to them. Thankfully, all of the places we went to had things in both French and English.
While I had a lot of anxiety surrounding the trip, I had a lot of fun! As I mentioned earlier, we stayed in a chalet with wolves right outside the windows. We stayed at Parc Omega, which not only had wolves, but plenty of other cool animals to see as well. There were deer, elk, bison, bears, goats, and more.
Some other things we did while we were in Canada were Mount Royal Park in Montreal, Manoir Papineau National Historic Site, Mount Tremblant, and the waterfall Chute du Diable (or in English, Devil’s Fall). I’ve been doing a lot of historic houses lately locally in Connecticut, so I had to sneak one in on this trip.
Being in the mountains on this trip made me realize just how much I’ve missed them. I used to drive to the mountains in the surrounding states a lot. But, I haven’t been able to take many trips to Vermont and New Hampshire due to financial reasons. I really loved getting the chance to go to the summit of Mount Tremblant and being surrounded by mountains.
Overall, it was a solid trip. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to go to Canada and get a taste of what it has to offer. In a few months I plan to make another trip to a different part of Canada. I’m more confident traveling there now that I know what to expect with crossing the border and such. I’m only four and a half hours from the border and I will definitely be exploring Canada more.
-Kailey
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