Days Two and Three, Trip Three
After my last post on Sunday, I went for a wonderful walk around Wascana Park in Regina. Helpfully (I could have died) I forgot my camera, and decided (could’ve killed myself, later…kidding…) that it was too much bother to go back and get it. Big mistake. Wascana Park surrounds Wascana Lake, which is a natural formation, although apparently about 10 or 15 years ago the draining end was filling up with silt and algae, so they did a Big Dig and got everything running again. Anyway, it’s a little smaller that the Glenmore Reservoir in Calgary - I walked around the whole thing in maybe an hour and a half, slowly, so…three clicks around? Something like that - but it’s much better landscaped, with huge trees in preternaturally straight rows. More like an inverted Prince’s Island Park - with the land, playgrounds, gazebos, and overpriced concession around the outside and the water on the inside. Oh, and add some fountains. And a Legislature. Right. Yes. Forgot that bit. The Saskatchewan Legislature is cleverly built right next to this park, so you get lovely views of it over the water in two places. Also, in front of this great big sandstone building is a glorious flower garden named after and dedicated by the good Queen Liz a few years ago for the province’s centennial. This is what I like about cities in Canada other than Calgary (especially provincial capitals - Winnipeg is the same way, if not more so. More on this later). They have these people that they call architects. And they get these architects to design beautiful buildings out of natural materials and then commission gorgeous sculptures and carvings to decorate them with. And then they hire these people called ‘city planners.’ Or perhaps ‘urban designers.’ And they surround these beautiful buildings and their gorgeous ornamentation with beautiful landscaping, and parks, and make them accessible by putting them in the middle of their cities, right next to their downtowns and their shopping districts, and their universities and museums and public transit hubs. It’s really a revelation - someone thinking these things through so that the beautiful parts of the city are also the ones that people can and will take advantage of on a regular basis.
/rant.
Anyway, so I walked around Wascana Park, then over to the Safeway that I’d visited last time I was in Regina, only to find it closed. Stupid Sunday evenings in still-smallish cities. (Aside: on the radio the next morning as I was leaving town they were discussing the CBC’s new local news broadcasts at 5:00, 5:30 and 6:00, and the host-to-be mentioned that they would be able to update any unfolding stories over the three segments, and then corrected himself, “Well, we do live is Saskatchewan, so a lot of the time the stories won’t develop in half an hour, but when they do…” Oh, Saskatchewan) So I ended up at this restaurant called the Abbey, which was in a strip mall along with a convenience store and a Subway, so by all rights it should have been a dive, but I went in and there was a huge party of probably 30 people in a ring of tables in the middle of the main floor. I mean, the place was nice, with accent walls, and a small upper floor just around the sides of the room, a couple tables deep, and some stained-glass, oil-lamp kind of “this is a monastery” touches. But there was no one else in the place, just this big group in the middle. But, I needed dinner - I had been hungry before the three kilometer walk around the lake - so I sat down, alone, at the table. Ordered, ate. And people kind of drifted in and out of the restaurant, sat at the big table, were served. Some of them were hugging the waiters, the food was all being explained to them, and such (I had soup and yam fries - no explanation required). I passed the time deleting people I’ve lost contact with on my phone. Anyway, I figure it was either a family-reunion type dealio that they didn’t bother closing up for (another couple came in just before I left - they weren’t just taking pity on me because I neglected to read a CLOSED sign on the door, or anything), or the restaurant had quite literally just opened that night or that weekend, and all of the staff was instructed to invite everyone they knew or else. It was probably the latter - the tables were worn as if they’d been there for ever, but the patio wood and umbrellas were pristine, the paint looked really clean - like, vibrant, not dusty or grimy, you know? - and while my waiter was confident, I don’t think he was totally comfortable with the menu. If I were to play food-critic, I’d say to give them a try if you go to Regina. Albert St, just past Ellice. I think.
The drive from Regina to Winnipeg yesterday was fairly uneventful. It’s my shortest drive of the whole thing, but I got more tired driving yesterday than I ever have on one of these trips. Barely an hour after downing a Red Bull (yes, my dear friend the caffeine-rich beverage) my eyes were closing so much I had to pull over and close my eyes for ten minutes or so. Even after that, and taking a walk, I wasn’t totally alert (I didn’t kill myself or anyone else, clearly…don’t freak, mom) until I got into Winnipeg, when I had to, or the whole maiming thing would become infinitely more of a possibility. Have I mentioned to anyone how strange Winnipeg roads are? I mean, I’ve only driven through the city three times now (two and a half, if you want to get picky), but even the main roads have fewer light-controlled intersections than you’d think, and more suicide-lane left turns than should, strictly speaking, be allowed anywhere. The roads are mostly small, like in Vancouver, but seem to travel faster (all the roads within the Vancouver city limits have a speed limit of 50 or less. All of them. Think about that for a moment. Make rules like that and you end up with a city that’s very different than one with, say, Deerfoot. And Blackfoot. And Crowchild. And Shaganappi. And…you get the idea. Again with the city planning thing). So it’s a little nerve-wracking. Last night I basically just hung out at the hostel. I did go find a Safeway, and got a couple of suppers’ worth of food…the second half of which I will partake in shortly. I tried to go to bed earlyish, and in doing so bothered a woman staying in my room. She was already in bed when I came upstairs at 8:30ish, but she wasn’t asleep. Good thing, too, because I’d been placed on a top bunk in my room (she was on a double bed with no upstairs neighbour), and this thing makes more noise than any bed ever. Squeaking, and cracking, and swaying, and screeching. So I change into PJs, get my alarm clock and my keys and my DS (it was 8:30 - I was going to bed, not to sleep :P ), and get up on to the top bunk (metal ladders hurt bare feet!), and try to make the bed, while sitting on it, without making too much noise. I fail miserably. The woman in the other bed sort of shifts around and sits up, and I apologize for making so much noise because really, I’m even irritating myself. She says not to worry, not my fault, etc. etc, which is very gracious, and I finally settle down to play and things get quiet. Now, two or three hours later, one or two other people come in (haven’t figured this one out....there were four beds that had been used as of the next morning, but it’s hard to tell when 95% of your consciousness is attempting to ignore the outside world, and the other 5% is trying to make sure your stuff isn’t being stolen), go through their unpacking, changing, tooth-brushing and loud-like-a-hurricane toilet using routine, like you do, and get into bed. One woman was assigned the bed right under mine, which led to more swaying and creaking, and some mild cussing on her part, which would have been amusing if I hadn’t been trying to sleep. I eventually did get to sleep…until some ungodly hour, when about seventeen fire trucks, the drivers of which found it necessary to lean on their horns as well as blasting their sirens, drove by. At some ungodly hour following that - actually, this happened at four thirty - the woman in the double bed who had been in the room when I arrived began to raise the blinds. And use the bathroom. And mess around with dozens of things, all in plastic bags. And zip and unzip zippers. And walk around with flip-flops on (when the floor is concrete - and it’s four-thirty in the morning - this is much louder and more annoying than you’d think). For ages and ages (or semi-sleep time) I listened to this, tried to cover my ears without moving too much and therefore creaking and giving myself away, attempted to make myself deaf through sheer force of will, and invented scenarios in my head in which I screamed at this woman (who, in said half-asleep scenarios was a long-time resident of the hostel who did this every morning, regardless of her room mates, so that she could paint the dawn - streetlamp-orange as it was) “YOU’VE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!” which would make her, ashamed but aware of the justice of what I was saying, shut up.
Maybe ten actual minutes later, when she realized that my bottom-bunk-mate was awake, whispered that she had an early morning flight that she had to make, and was trying to be as quiet as she could. I tried to feel more sympathetic after this, but…it was hard. Four thirty, people.
I’ve discovered that while staying in hostels, if you want to avoid the meaningless and awkward token sociability that tends to happen when you are existing (gasp) in the same dorm room as someone else, you simply stay, or pretend to stay, asleep until they leave. So, I got up at 8:00 this morning, later than usual but not bad, considering the night, and left the hostel about half an hour later. Brekkie at Tim’s, an ENTIRE Winnipeg Free Press (sadly, you still have to pay for the paper, despite the name…well, unless you find it on a food court table, like I did) including NYTimes Crossword…and then I started walking. Winnipeg is really a great city to walk in. Great paths, river on one side and ART on the other, at semi-regular intervals, with lots of joggers and walkers and people…it’s great. And small enough that you can see most of the downtown and the Forks in one day. But I didn’t. Because I did that last year. Today I went to the Manitoba Museum.
It’s a strange kind of cross between the Glenbow, the Tyrell, Heritage Park and the Science Centre. For one admission price you can see the museum galleries, which comprise the first three items on the list above, and for one or two other admission prices/upgrades you can see the Science Discovery Hall (or something) and the Planetarium shows. I only went for the Museum part, which was a good call. It starts with a quick primer on plate tectonics and prehistoric animals (poor Manitoba…it spent most of the cool period of history - also known as the part with the dinosaurs - underwater), and then moves on to the development of mammals on the prairies (yeah, giant sloth skeleton). Moving into more modern times, the museum seems to get confused (okay, the curator gets confused) as to whether it’s a natural history museum or a museum of early Canadian civilization and history. It goes from a discussion of the wildlife of the Arctic to the people and biomes of the grasslands, then a full-scale (!) replica of the first sailing ship to prove the viability of the fur trade in Canada (called the Nonsuch - launched in 1660-something, this is worth the price of admission, I swear), then more mixed-forest diorama stuff, then a miniature cave, then some WWII relics, then some Ukranian rye farming, which is connected to a marsh (?), an exhibit about the Metis and residential schools, and then an entire 1920’s village. It yawed back and forth from nature-comma-untouched to nature-comma-man’s impact-on, with little attention paid to chronological order. It was a little hit-and-miss in terms of recent research, too. At least one exhibit (can’t remember - brain fried) specifically make reference to 2009, but some of the signs and fonts were so the-1960’s-wants-its-typesetting-back I couldn’t stand it. The explanation of the probably-spontaneous provenance of life and the development of DNA was accurate enough, but the one on speciation cited the intermixing of the “mongoloid, negriod, causasiod…” (I’m paraphrasing…there were more) races as proof that all humans are one species. This, I’m sure, is at the very least exceedingly politically incorrent. Isn’t it? The bits about Aboriginal culture-scrubbing were suitably embarrassed-and-shamefaced sounding, at least.
So. Good day. I got back at three-ish in the afternoon and needed a nap. And then played Professor Layton more instead of napping, but I was horizontal and in bed, so it counted. And now it’s dinner time. Funny how that happens…
Talk to you tomorrow from lovely Wawa! I may even stay at the Beaver Motel again. Ah, the Beaver Motel. Always good for a laugh.
/rant.
Anyway, so I walked around Wascana Park, then over to the Safeway that I’d visited last time I was in Regina, only to find it closed. Stupid Sunday evenings in still-smallish cities. (Aside: on the radio the next morning as I was leaving town they were discussing the CBC’s new local news broadcasts at 5:00, 5:30 and 6:00, and the host-to-be mentioned that they would be able to update any unfolding stories over the three segments, and then corrected himself, “Well, we do live is Saskatchewan, so a lot of the time the stories won’t develop in half an hour, but when they do…” Oh, Saskatchewan) So I ended up at this restaurant called the Abbey, which was in a strip mall along with a convenience store and a Subway, so by all rights it should have been a dive, but I went in and there was a huge party of probably 30 people in a ring of tables in the middle of the main floor. I mean, the place was nice, with accent walls, and a small upper floor just around the sides of the room, a couple tables deep, and some stained-glass, oil-lamp kind of “this is a monastery” touches. But there was no one else in the place, just this big group in the middle. But, I needed dinner - I had been hungry before the three kilometer walk around the lake - so I sat down, alone, at the table. Ordered, ate. And people kind of drifted in and out of the restaurant, sat at the big table, were served. Some of them were hugging the waiters, the food was all being explained to them, and such (I had soup and yam fries - no explanation required). I passed the time deleting people I’ve lost contact with on my phone. Anyway, I figure it was either a family-reunion type dealio that they didn’t bother closing up for (another couple came in just before I left - they weren’t just taking pity on me because I neglected to read a CLOSED sign on the door, or anything), or the restaurant had quite literally just opened that night or that weekend, and all of the staff was instructed to invite everyone they knew or else. It was probably the latter - the tables were worn as if they’d been there for ever, but the patio wood and umbrellas were pristine, the paint looked really clean - like, vibrant, not dusty or grimy, you know? - and while my waiter was confident, I don’t think he was totally comfortable with the menu. If I were to play food-critic, I’d say to give them a try if you go to Regina. Albert St, just past Ellice. I think.
The drive from Regina to Winnipeg yesterday was fairly uneventful. It’s my shortest drive of the whole thing, but I got more tired driving yesterday than I ever have on one of these trips. Barely an hour after downing a Red Bull (yes, my dear friend the caffeine-rich beverage) my eyes were closing so much I had to pull over and close my eyes for ten minutes or so. Even after that, and taking a walk, I wasn’t totally alert (I didn’t kill myself or anyone else, clearly…don’t freak, mom) until I got into Winnipeg, when I had to, or the whole maiming thing would become infinitely more of a possibility. Have I mentioned to anyone how strange Winnipeg roads are? I mean, I’ve only driven through the city three times now (two and a half, if you want to get picky), but even the main roads have fewer light-controlled intersections than you’d think, and more suicide-lane left turns than should, strictly speaking, be allowed anywhere. The roads are mostly small, like in Vancouver, but seem to travel faster (all the roads within the Vancouver city limits have a speed limit of 50 or less. All of them. Think about that for a moment. Make rules like that and you end up with a city that’s very different than one with, say, Deerfoot. And Blackfoot. And Crowchild. And Shaganappi. And…you get the idea. Again with the city planning thing). So it’s a little nerve-wracking. Last night I basically just hung out at the hostel. I did go find a Safeway, and got a couple of suppers’ worth of food…the second half of which I will partake in shortly. I tried to go to bed earlyish, and in doing so bothered a woman staying in my room. She was already in bed when I came upstairs at 8:30ish, but she wasn’t asleep. Good thing, too, because I’d been placed on a top bunk in my room (she was on a double bed with no upstairs neighbour), and this thing makes more noise than any bed ever. Squeaking, and cracking, and swaying, and screeching. So I change into PJs, get my alarm clock and my keys and my DS (it was 8:30 - I was going to bed, not to sleep :P ), and get up on to the top bunk (metal ladders hurt bare feet!), and try to make the bed, while sitting on it, without making too much noise. I fail miserably. The woman in the other bed sort of shifts around and sits up, and I apologize for making so much noise because really, I’m even irritating myself. She says not to worry, not my fault, etc. etc, which is very gracious, and I finally settle down to play and things get quiet. Now, two or three hours later, one or two other people come in (haven’t figured this one out....there were four beds that had been used as of the next morning, but it’s hard to tell when 95% of your consciousness is attempting to ignore the outside world, and the other 5% is trying to make sure your stuff isn’t being stolen), go through their unpacking, changing, tooth-brushing and loud-like-a-hurricane toilet using routine, like you do, and get into bed. One woman was assigned the bed right under mine, which led to more swaying and creaking, and some mild cussing on her part, which would have been amusing if I hadn’t been trying to sleep. I eventually did get to sleep…until some ungodly hour, when about seventeen fire trucks, the drivers of which found it necessary to lean on their horns as well as blasting their sirens, drove by. At some ungodly hour following that - actually, this happened at four thirty - the woman in the double bed who had been in the room when I arrived began to raise the blinds. And use the bathroom. And mess around with dozens of things, all in plastic bags. And zip and unzip zippers. And walk around with flip-flops on (when the floor is concrete - and it’s four-thirty in the morning - this is much louder and more annoying than you’d think). For ages and ages (or semi-sleep time) I listened to this, tried to cover my ears without moving too much and therefore creaking and giving myself away, attempted to make myself deaf through sheer force of will, and invented scenarios in my head in which I screamed at this woman (who, in said half-asleep scenarios was a long-time resident of the hostel who did this every morning, regardless of her room mates, so that she could paint the dawn - streetlamp-orange as it was) “YOU’VE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME!” which would make her, ashamed but aware of the justice of what I was saying, shut up.
Maybe ten actual minutes later, when she realized that my bottom-bunk-mate was awake, whispered that she had an early morning flight that she had to make, and was trying to be as quiet as she could. I tried to feel more sympathetic after this, but…it was hard. Four thirty, people.
I’ve discovered that while staying in hostels, if you want to avoid the meaningless and awkward token sociability that tends to happen when you are existing (gasp) in the same dorm room as someone else, you simply stay, or pretend to stay, asleep until they leave. So, I got up at 8:00 this morning, later than usual but not bad, considering the night, and left the hostel about half an hour later. Brekkie at Tim’s, an ENTIRE Winnipeg Free Press (sadly, you still have to pay for the paper, despite the name…well, unless you find it on a food court table, like I did) including NYTimes Crossword…and then I started walking. Winnipeg is really a great city to walk in. Great paths, river on one side and ART on the other, at semi-regular intervals, with lots of joggers and walkers and people…it’s great. And small enough that you can see most of the downtown and the Forks in one day. But I didn’t. Because I did that last year. Today I went to the Manitoba Museum.
It’s a strange kind of cross between the Glenbow, the Tyrell, Heritage Park and the Science Centre. For one admission price you can see the museum galleries, which comprise the first three items on the list above, and for one or two other admission prices/upgrades you can see the Science Discovery Hall (or something) and the Planetarium shows. I only went for the Museum part, which was a good call. It starts with a quick primer on plate tectonics and prehistoric animals (poor Manitoba…it spent most of the cool period of history - also known as the part with the dinosaurs - underwater), and then moves on to the development of mammals on the prairies (yeah, giant sloth skeleton). Moving into more modern times, the museum seems to get confused (okay, the curator gets confused) as to whether it’s a natural history museum or a museum of early Canadian civilization and history. It goes from a discussion of the wildlife of the Arctic to the people and biomes of the grasslands, then a full-scale (!) replica of the first sailing ship to prove the viability of the fur trade in Canada (called the Nonsuch - launched in 1660-something, this is worth the price of admission, I swear), then more mixed-forest diorama stuff, then a miniature cave, then some WWII relics, then some Ukranian rye farming, which is connected to a marsh (?), an exhibit about the Metis and residential schools, and then an entire 1920’s village. It yawed back and forth from nature-comma-untouched to nature-comma-man’s impact-on, with little attention paid to chronological order. It was a little hit-and-miss in terms of recent research, too. At least one exhibit (can’t remember - brain fried) specifically make reference to 2009, but some of the signs and fonts were so the-1960’s-wants-its-typesetting-back I couldn’t stand it. The explanation of the probably-spontaneous provenance of life and the development of DNA was accurate enough, but the one on speciation cited the intermixing of the “mongoloid, negriod, causasiod…” (I’m paraphrasing…there were more) races as proof that all humans are one species. This, I’m sure, is at the very least exceedingly politically incorrent. Isn’t it? The bits about Aboriginal culture-scrubbing were suitably embarrassed-and-shamefaced sounding, at least.
So. Good day. I got back at three-ish in the afternoon and needed a nap. And then played Professor Layton more instead of napping, but I was horizontal and in bed, so it counted. And now it’s dinner time. Funny how that happens…
Talk to you tomorrow from lovely Wawa! I may even stay at the Beaver Motel again. Ah, the Beaver Motel. Always good for a laugh.