Day 1 3-13-11

 The highly anticipated day is finally here. We are set to embark on our journey to Quebec.  After waiting months for this day to finally come, I am excited to finally begin our adventure.  The day begins waking at 4:20 AM; daylight savings time couldn’t have been a worse day for me any other day of the year.  On 3 hours of sleep, I managed somehow to get out of bed, and drive with my girlfriend to the tunnel entrance in downtown Detroit to meet my group.  One member of the group dropped out at the last minute, this left Paran, Ruchir, Andrew, Cecil, Jacob, Rebecca, Dr. Taylor, and myself.  I think we have a great group, and we are all starting to get to know each other better.  After saying goodbye and parting ways with LaToya, I met my group at the Old Mariners Church, and after splitting into two separate cars, we set out to cross into Windsor via the tunnel.  We all got our documents out for customs, hoping we wouldn’t encounter any problems, we answered a few questions from the customs agent, and he let us on our way.  Yes!!!  We didn’t get pulled aside for a secondary search, which would have been a bad start to our trip.  The other car had no problems crossing as well.  We arrived at the Windsor train station quite early.  Our train didn’t leave till 9:30 AM, so we had quite a wait to board, but we had to leave ourselves ample time in case we were stopped at the border.  This also gave us time to discuss our plans for the trip, and discuss other topics such as the proposed Wayne State public funding. 

            We boarded the train at around 9:00 AM, the attendant at ViaRail let us all board together as a group before anyone else got on the train.  We were all sitting together; the train was very nice inside.  After departing from Windsor, we went over some of the readings we were required to read; as well as did some research on the companies we will be seeing together.  We all decided as a group we would each come up with two or three questions about each company to ask after their presentations.  We wanted to be well informed and ask good questions to find out as much information about each company we could.  After making a few stops at some smaller cities, we finally arrived in Toronto.  The CN Tower dominates the Toronto skyline, a magnificent site even from inside the train car.  The city almost looks like any other American large city, but it is very unique and different in other aspects.  We arrive in Union Station, in downtown Toronto.  The lobby for the station is beautiful.  Massive columns dominate the scenery as passengers fill the station.  We meet Paran’s parents, who live in Toronto.  They have been gracious enough to provide lunch for all of us!  We had KFC, and Subway veggie subs for the vegetarians in our group.  The food was outstanding as I was quite famished.  After thanking Paran’s parents, with an hour or so layover, we exit the station onto the street.  As soon as you step outside the station you are thrown into the bustling downtown of Toronto onto York street.  Skyscrapers surround you as high as you can look up.  We walked around downtown taking in the sites, taking pictures.  Before heading back to the train station we tour the Fairmont York Hotel.  The hotel is a Toronto landmark.  The lobby is amazing, very elegant and classy.  After touring the hotel, we headed back to the station were some of us had a drink, some coffee, some Canadian beer. 

            We board the train to Montreal just before 5:00 PM.  I try to sleep on the train but I can’t fall asleep.  I will keep working on some school stuff until we get there.  We are just outside of Montreal now!  We will go out for a late dinner, then its off to bed, it’s been a long day, and we have to be up at 7:00 AM to meet with our first company.  Can’t wait to hit the sheets!

Wayne State University Study Abroad Canada via Rail

Hello,

I've decided to keep a blog while visiting Quebec for my study abroad class.  Several students, including myself, and the associate professor of my program, are going from our Global Supply Chain Management program. We are leaving tomorrow morning, headed from Windsor to Toronto.  We have a three hour layover in Toronto, then depart to Montreal.  Once in Montreal we will be visiting various supply chain management companies.  I will be keeping a journal and taking photos along the way.