Oh, Canada
I can now check some things off my List: 1) go to Canada; 2) go to a concert out of the country; and 3) see the Tim Burton exhibit. Because this weekend, I did it all!
My friend and I planned this trip some weeks ago around The Pretty Reckless concert in Toronto. She's really into them and got me into them, and since their concert tickets were only 20 American dollars, we decided to try to go. The Megabus tickets were only $8 there and $5 back, and thanks to family & friends hotel discounts, we were able to only pay $30 a piece for two nights in a hotel.
Unfortunately, Stephanie doesn't know how to plan anything and waited too long to remind her mom about the hotel and so by the time we got it, the concert had sold out. But we decided to go to Toronto anyway, since we'd already planned most of it. We'd just do other stuff and try to purchase tickets off of Craigslist or something.
Luckily, we didn't do the latter.
The bus ride was 12 looong hours (but can't really complain when you only pay $8) so we got there around 10pm Friday. We ate and walked around the city to scope it out for Saturday. Managed to find the clubs and the Tim Burton exhibit we'd already planned to go to. So on Saturday, we went back.
We didn't do that early wake-up thing that folks seem to want to do when vacationing (because college students, hello!) so we got to the exhibit around 2:30. We got to be kids for a little and design some monsters and then animate them on these computers, which was really cool. And then we went through the actual exhibit.
As a lover of Tim Burton, I must say it was AMAZING. We weren't supposed to take pictures but I took some anyway on my cell. I just couldn't NOT! How could I go to a Tim Burton exhibit and not have picture memories of the creativity that is Tim Burton's mind? That's just crazy. Here are a few of them:
A carousel. It spun and made noise and everything. Was the coolest thing ever.
One of Burton's female characters
Jack Skellington & Sally
Some of Burton's original artwork
After the exhibit, we walked into the fashion district and eventually to the club - the Tattoo Rock Parlour - where The Pretty Reckless was performing. We'd decided to at least go see if there were anymore tickets available, and if there weren't, we'd just go ice skating instead. Yet, tickets were available! And for the regular price, which we would not have gotten from anyone on Craigslist. So we got to see them, which was great since they were why we originally went to Toronto. They also had two opening bands. One of which was really good - A Thousand Horses - and one which was basically a boy band - Runner Runner. Yeah, those still exist, apparently.
But the show was really fun. The Pretty Reckless is basically rock but you can actually dance to their music, too, which is nice. After the show, we went to eat and then hung out at this bar and played pool until around 2am when it closed. Met this random drunk guy when we left who was just hilarious. He walked with us to Yonge St because he had no idea where it was by this time. It was funny: we were the tourists but we were showing this resident where the street leading to his home was. He was all like, you're from America? I didn't know people came from there!
It snowed all Saturday, too, so that was fun. I really love snow even though I hate the cold. *shrug* All in all, it was a nice weekend break from college life. The only thing we didn't get to do was go to gay Toronto, which looked really cool on the website. There just wasn't enough time. Was still good, though. We caught the bus back to DC this morning, got in at 8:30, and totally not ready to return to real life tomorrow.
My friend and I planned this trip some weeks ago around The Pretty Reckless concert in Toronto. She's really into them and got me into them, and since their concert tickets were only 20 American dollars, we decided to try to go. The Megabus tickets were only $8 there and $5 back, and thanks to family & friends hotel discounts, we were able to only pay $30 a piece for two nights in a hotel.
Unfortunately, Stephanie doesn't know how to plan anything and waited too long to remind her mom about the hotel and so by the time we got it, the concert had sold out. But we decided to go to Toronto anyway, since we'd already planned most of it. We'd just do other stuff and try to purchase tickets off of Craigslist or something.
Luckily, we didn't do the latter.
The bus ride was 12 looong hours (but can't really complain when you only pay $8) so we got there around 10pm Friday. We ate and walked around the city to scope it out for Saturday. Managed to find the clubs and the Tim Burton exhibit we'd already planned to go to. So on Saturday, we went back.
We didn't do that early wake-up thing that folks seem to want to do when vacationing (because college students, hello!) so we got to the exhibit around 2:30. We got to be kids for a little and design some monsters and then animate them on these computers, which was really cool. And then we went through the actual exhibit.
As a lover of Tim Burton, I must say it was AMAZING. We weren't supposed to take pictures but I took some anyway on my cell. I just couldn't NOT! How could I go to a Tim Burton exhibit and not have picture memories of the creativity that is Tim Burton's mind? That's just crazy. Here are a few of them:
A carousel. It spun and made noise and everything. Was the coolest thing ever.
One of Burton's female characters
Jack Skellington & Sally
Some of Burton's original artwork
After the exhibit, we walked into the fashion district and eventually to the club - the Tattoo Rock Parlour - where The Pretty Reckless was performing. We'd decided to at least go see if there were anymore tickets available, and if there weren't, we'd just go ice skating instead. Yet, tickets were available! And for the regular price, which we would not have gotten from anyone on Craigslist. So we got to see them, which was great since they were why we originally went to Toronto. They also had two opening bands. One of which was really good - A Thousand Horses - and one which was basically a boy band - Runner Runner. Yeah, those still exist, apparently.
But the show was really fun. The Pretty Reckless is basically rock but you can actually dance to their music, too, which is nice. After the show, we went to eat and then hung out at this bar and played pool until around 2am when it closed. Met this random drunk guy when we left who was just hilarious. He walked with us to Yonge St because he had no idea where it was by this time. It was funny: we were the tourists but we were showing this resident where the street leading to his home was. He was all like, you're from America? I didn't know people came from there!
It snowed all Saturday, too, so that was fun. I really love snow even though I hate the cold. *shrug* All in all, it was a nice weekend break from college life. The only thing we didn't get to do was go to gay Toronto, which looked really cool on the website. There just wasn't enough time. Was still good, though. We caught the bus back to DC this morning, got in at 8:30, and totally not ready to return to real life tomorrow.