Gabi On The Go: Last and rainy day

We all love a successful story and I came across a few in Stratford.

The Stratford Theatre Festival and Justin Bieber are this town's most obvious ones, but my favourite Stratford's successful story is Balzac's Coffee Roasters.

The first café started here, right where we are staying, in 1996 by a woman name Diane Olsen. Today there are 14 stores in Ontario and Balzac's is a well know brand in the province with its cozy and sophisticated ambience.

I am not a coffee drinker, although I used to love to get my tea from Balzac's at the Ryerson store in Toronto, when I was studying there.

Mike, though, made a couple of trips daily downstairs while staying here.

He even got a Balzac's mug as a souvenir.

From https://shop.balzacs.com/pages/our-story

While earning a university degree in French literature, Diana Olsen, President and Founder of Balzac’s, discovered a kindred spirit in Monsieur Balzac and his genuine passion for coffee. Upon graduating, she immersed herself in authentic French culture, spending a year and a half in France. Passing many enchanting afternoons in the Grand cafés of Paris, Ms. Olsen was inspired to bring this sophisticated celebration of coffee and social tradition home to Canada.

We spent the rest of the morning trying to avoid the rain and walking to different streets downtown.

I love these buildings.

A little pause at the Shakespearean Gardens for Mike to appreciate it as well.

Since we were limited by the water, we decided to bring back a fun travelling activity: geocaching.

We haven't done it for a while and the kids had almost forgotten about it.

"The world's biggest treasure hunt" is always fun.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", at specific locations marked by coordinatesall over the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and sometimes a pen or pencil. The geocacher signs the log with their established code name and dates it, in order to prove that they found the cache. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, such as toys or trinkets, usually of more sentimental worth than financial. Geocaching shares many aspects with benchmarking, trigpointing, orienteering, treasure-hunting, letterboxing, waymarking and Munzee.

The Stratford Perth Museum was completely empty when we arrived. It's kind of sad to see inside their map with visitors, comparing 2020 to previous years.

I think it's very important to support small places like this.

Many will not be able to stay in business after Covid. :(

Right away, the staff gave us some material for art craft and the girls made their butterflies wands, until rain forced us inside.

The museum is a mix of small exhibitions about the history of the area, from when the region was a locomotive repair hub, through the history of the Stratford Theatre Festival, furniture production, and to the impact of the wars on the community.

A little about the different economic transformations in Stratford Perth area.

But this guy caught most of our attention... again!

Just Bieber: Steps to Stardom is a cute little exhibition about the town's biggest celebrity at the moment.

It was extended until end of 2020 due to Covid.

His shoes, sweater, autographed photos and many other items tell the story about the musically talented little boy who takes over the world... creating what is known as the "Bieber Fever."