It’s a new month! We didn’t have much of a plan for today, except for David needing to do some work. While he was working, Claire and I worked more on the project and we all had a pretty chill morning.
In the early afternoon, Claire suggested that we go and get her G1 drivers license, an idea that had come up a few days ago but we had all forgotten about. It’s something she’s wanted to do for a while, but never actually got around to doing. We finally pushed her to do it, and after David wrapped up some work and Claire did a few more practice tests, we headed to the test centre.
In Ontario, you don’t need an appointment to do the written test like you do in BC, so we were able to just walk in, and within 10 minutes she was ready to take the test. Something else that’s different though, the test is $130! I remember it being less than $50 in BC, and that’s only if you passed, if you failed it was only $15 or so. Regardless, David and I walked (or rather, sprinted through the rain) over to the nearby McDonalds to grab a snack while we waited.
A short time later Claire called us to say she was done, and that she’d passed! We walked back over to the test centre and I ran her documents back to the car so we didn’t have to carry them, and then we walked next door to the bowling alley. We’d seen this bowling alley and arcade combo when we arrived, and had decided that if she passed her test, we’d go bowling as a reward.
Rather than paying the full price, we lied and said we’re all students (even though I’m technically not) to get the $10 for 2 games deal. Relatively good for bowling, and I’m happy to pay $5 per game, especially since they let us use our own shoes so we didn’t have to pay for rentals, though they were available if we wanted to. I did pretty well in the first game, beating David by only a few points, but my lead fell apart in the second game where I got absolutely destroyed by both of them. I didn’t get any strikes either, while David got two.
After bowling we walked over to the arcade and paid $30 for 200 credits, enough to play 15 or so games, and spent about 30 minutes playing a variety of different games, ranging from pretty decent to absolutely terrible. There was one game that cost 24 credits that literally only lasted four seconds, and was comprised of two water channels and two pumps that you manually pump to push a duck down the track, and aim to get your duck across the finish line before your opponent. It wouldn’t be that bad of a game and would actually be pretty fun if it was longer, but before we’d even registered what was happening, it was over.
We got enough tickets (435) to purchase a packet of sour gummy strips from the arcade shop, which was a nice bonus at the end. We then went back to the car and headed out to find an empty parking lot where Claire, now legally allowed to drive as long as I’m in the passenger seat, could practice moving a car. We weren’t ready to try any public roads, especially given she’s not listed on the insurance, but we figured a parking lot was fine for now.
We spent about 45 minutes at the parking lot where I showed her how all the functions in the car work, and let her practice driving around, using indicators, smooth braking, and even a bit of parking, both forward and backward. Her first attempt at parking is shown below in all of its glory (though, to be fair, I did take the photo before giving her a chance to readjust, and she did better later).
Despite not having his license, we even gave David a shot at driving around the parking lot. He’s had a tiny bit of experience driving a manual in England (he has his learner license there but has barely driven) so he was a bit better at it from the get go, but he’s never driven an automatic so he was surprised at how easy it was in comparison.
We then went to a gas station (with me driving again, of course) to give Claire the experience of using a gas pump, where she promptly spilled a bit of it down the side of the car by forgetting to let go of the lever before taking it out of the gas tank, but that’s all part of the learning process. We then used our newly filled up car to go to a restaurant named “Guelph BBQ”, where we got a ton of food, much more than we were expecting, and took it home for dinner.
When we got home, we ate our dinner and watched some stuff on the TV, then played games for a few hours as a group before again calling it a night. I had planned to leave that afternoon, since David is leaving for a trip to England in a few days and I wanted to give him and Claire some time without me before he left, but given it was so late, they suggested I stay the night again, especially since I could then drive Claire to an event she had in Toronto the next morning.