Tuesday 21st - Canada & Coney Dogs

We went to Canada!   For lunch.  Once we got through immigration.  Stephen had hassle at passport control because of a minor teenage misdemeanor.  So we spent about half an hour in the immigration office, feeling guilty for nothing while Stephen was grilled in the interview room.  I chatted to a man with a false arm and a woman chasing him around the US who was trying to escape from her to Canada.  

After we were through to Windsor (via a tunnel under the river), we went to Deputy Dog and had a Coney Dog (a hot dog with chilli and onions on top).  Stephen took us to Ceasars Palace Casino.  Oh my word, this was huge, with a sea of gambling machines as far as the eye could see.  

We drove back to Detroit over the bridge and to the Renaissance Centre or “Ren Cen”, the international headquarters of General Motor Company and a collection of tower blocks making up the focal point of downtown Detroit.  It’s a modernist dream of interlocking towers and walkways comprised of offices, shops and apartments on the waterfront.  And that was it.  Detroit downtown is very strange.  It was 3pm in the middle of a big city and it was dead, just a few people milling around.  A ghost town.  We took the People Mover, a monorail that loops around downtown, costing 50c per person for the round trip.  It was empty.  From this we saw the rest of the city, pretty run-down, once prosperous and glittering 1920s skyscrapers, now empty with missing windows.  It reminded me of the area in the film "Batteries not included".  Stephen tried to be positive and say things are looking up and improving, but it didn’t feel that way.  I felt like it was how we try to convince others and ourselves that Sneinton is getting better and not as bad as it seems in places, and I know that deep down you know it’s not that true.

For tea we went to the Californian Pizza Company - this was yummy.  Amazing pizza.  I couldn’t eat it all, so I took what was left home in a box!  Neat.  Then Joe and I went to the Old Navy shop, recommended to us by Joe’s big sister.  This was a cool shop.  I bought jeans and cords and other stuff.  Such good value and the style you can’t really get in England at the moment.

The pizza restaurant was on what we'd call a retail park, along with other restaurants and shops next door, huge shops, with car parks all around.  These areas were dotted regularly around the suburbs and this is where people go, rather than the city centre or downtown for shopping and eating out.