I suppose I should tell you about Toronto. [1/3?]
Since, y'know, it's been a week.
Thursday wasn't much. Got home from work (which was crazy and stressful because the Universe knows when I have a con and insists on making me earn it every time), frantically packed the last few things I needed, and was back out the door two hours later, heading for Port Authority. I got there in just under an hour! :O Es was early too, and we didn't know when our next good meal would be, so we stuffed our faces at the pizzeria. The line for the bus was pretty hefty when we got down there, but we managed to snag seats in the front (which is good, because we like seeing where we're going, and there's slightly more legroom).
The first stop we made was after about two hours on the road, somewhere in Pennsylvania (we took I-80 and 380 across NJ and PA, then I-81 up to hit Syracuse) very early Friday morning. We found Slim Jims for Macho Man and that was our snack -- Es had some of her own. Good thinking -- and we tried to go back to sleep. It was hard to sleep because shortly after we got back on the bus it was pouring and the windshield was all foggy, so the driver had the A/C on. It was one of those horrid times when I was freezing and I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned (as much as I could in a bus seat) all the way up to Syracuse.
We switched drivers there, and it had stopped raining, so the new driver turned the heat on. Everyone dropped like flies. This was after waiting for an hour, though, because he was late coming in from Buffalo for some reason, and he was meant to take us back to Buffalo, so I thought we would be even later. Nope, I woke up near the Buffalo city limit, and we were perfectly on time (he must have flown down the highway. Suppose that's easy at 4 AM though)! We switched drivers again, and the last one took us the rest of the way to Toronto.
This, more or less, is the route we took.
It was so foggy Friday morning! We were on the highway headed for the Peace Bridge, and just... fog. Everywhere. To the point where we were on the ramp for the bridge and had to slow down. I didn't see the border until we were right up on it -- the flags tipped me off -- and my first (second) impression of Canada was "Canada is shrouded in mystery." We joked how, wow, Canada really is invisible, isn't he? But for serious, we couldn't see 200m in front of us. :|
I'd never been through customs before, so that was new. Puerto Rico's part of the United States, so I didn't need to do it then, and the last time I went to Canada, I just remember having my birth certificate; I certainly don't remember getting off the bus and answering questions! Anyway, it was nice and easy, and Es and I were one of the first, so we got to stand around waiting for everyone while going "EEEEEEE We're in Canada!" The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful -- but one of the first things we saw back on the road was a McDonald's and a Tim Horton's in the same building. We giggled, and I vowed to get a picture of it on the way back -- we switched the money in our wallets (rather I did; Es just used a different wallet), and I quizzed Es the entire way about the metric system.
"That sign says the speed limit is 60 km/h. How many MPH is that?"
"Temperature is 13ºC. Fahrenheit, please."
I think I annoyed her a little bit, but it's still a good idea to get accustomed to it, I think. (The answers are 35 MPH and 56ºF, give or take a little.)
We got to the bus station and Es' friend Anne-Marie was there waiting for us, once we figured out where to go. We brushed our teeth and grabbed a bite ("You have a 300 mL container of juice! How many ounces is that?" (Ten.))-- it was about nine in the morning, but it felt much later -- and sat around chatting for a bit to kill time. We had a long bus ride to go before we got to the hotel, but it alone wouldn't take all the time before check in.
I was very excited to ride the subway in Toronto. I'm very excited to ride the subway wherever I go, let's be honest. We bought day passes for Monday (turns out we used the FUCK out of them), and had an extra fare for the subway ride. The subway -- I'm not even sure there's a name for it -- reminded me a lot of Boston, though. So we went round in a U for a little while, then transferred to a bus. The concept of not proving I was just on the subway before boarding the bus was totally foreign to me, but I accepted it. Sure, I'll take not paying again. I still don't understand how transfers -- awww, they still have paper slip transfers! So cute! -- work, but whatevs.
Anyway, so we got to the hotel in one piece. Koy and Jolene, two sisters we got to room with us, were already there waiting. Esmeralda checked in, and to her surprise, they had her down for two rooms! Um, no.... It took some sleuthing to figure out that there was actually another Esmeralda-from-the-States checking in the same day. Guffaw, guffaw. So we got to the room and... oh. This is a double? It's tiny. Once the five of us were inside, we couldn't figure out how to arrange our stuff just to unpack. Anne-Marie took some pictures of the room. Her back was against the wall when she took this. So, yeah. The Crowne is a hole in the wall (the con price was $149/night, but the sign on the door said $355!).
ANYWAY, once we figured out hotel shares and exclaimed over money (I wanted to see the larger bills I didn't have, and I showed off how American money is colored too, kinda. I hung onto a colored five and ten just for that purpose, lol. "It just looks like someone kinda spilled Kool-Aid on it."), and tried to unpack, we got dressed and headed out. Anne-Marie had already gotten her badge, and Koy and Jolene were doing the at-door thing, so Es and I would head out on our own, in time. By the time we were ready, it was somehow marvelously late, so we all went for dinner instead. I already posted a link to the Facebook album, but the highlights were that we had (shitty) poutine and beer among other things, and we drew on the tables with crayons. :D
At the con itself, well, it was mostly just wandering about the Dealer's Room and the Alley, especially since we got there so late. I'd wandered around the whole Alley, in fact, before finally asking where om_nom_berries' table was, because I couldn't freakin' find her (I thought it was one table, but that turned out to be another friend's; I remembered the wrong number!). She was about twenty feet from where I was standing, derp. ANYWAY so I bought stuff and I got the Zeldathology as a birthday present (THANK YOUUUUUU ♥) and we chatted about money. Louisa was about to explain how tipping strippers works because there are no dollar bills -- that's how we tip 'em -- when she got a flood of customers and I let her take care of them.
In the meantime, I asked Es to wander around, because I knew she would probably rather shop instead of listen to our silly conversation. I meant to be considerate. What I was, was stupid, because the minute I left Louisa and wanted to find Es, I pulled out my cell phone. But I couldn't text her, and I certainly couldn't call her, so I had to go and find her. Long story short, it was very unsuccessful, and I walked around for what seemed like an hour trying to find her, scouring (best I could) all corners of the Dealer's Room.
I did find a cool Zelda, though. Look at her hair, that wig's amazing!
And someone in the Crafter's Corner found me, took my picture, and said she was sending it to Humon that night. Whether that happened or not, I didn't know, but I promised to return with my Sister Sweden when I found her (right. I was Finland (part of that expression is genuine exhaustion, lol)). I eventually wandered back to the wrestling ring (there was wrestling!) and I saw her across the room. Whew! Yeah, explained myself and apologized, but I didn't leave her side for the rest of the weekend. Just when we were wondering how we were going to find everyone else, Anne-Marie wandered up, as did Tesla and her friends. So we hung out, took a few pictures, and were, eventually, on our merry way back to the hotel room dead tired.
The ground was wet from all the rain, and it got into my boots. I looked down, and the upper was starting to come away from the sole. CUE BROKEN HEART, because I've had those boots since I first started cosplaying; they've been to EVERY convention with me, they're god damn perfect for everything (I don't wanna know how many cosplays they belong to; it's at least five) and were the best $8 I spent/thrift store find in the history of the universe. I have no choice but to force another run out of them at AnimeNEXT, but after that I've got time to go shopping, and I might have to retire them. IT'S SO SAD. ;A;
But yeah, that was Friday. Time to end this for now, and will post the rest over the weekend.
Game Two tomorrow night! Oh, and unrelatedly, I found a Berryz Koubou fan blog. I've been reading that for the past couple of hours. Yup. But it's got great things, like Chinami speaking English. Some of Berryz are pretty good at English, but Chinami's is classic, though Momoko gives her a bit of a run.... /NERD
ELEPHANT. :|
But I would still like to know how you use the three seashells tip a stripper in Canada.
Thursday wasn't much. Got home from work (which was crazy and stressful because the Universe knows when I have a con and insists on making me earn it every time), frantically packed the last few things I needed, and was back out the door two hours later, heading for Port Authority. I got there in just under an hour! :O Es was early too, and we didn't know when our next good meal would be, so we stuffed our faces at the pizzeria. The line for the bus was pretty hefty when we got down there, but we managed to snag seats in the front (which is good, because we like seeing where we're going, and there's slightly more legroom).
The first stop we made was after about two hours on the road, somewhere in Pennsylvania (we took I-80 and 380 across NJ and PA, then I-81 up to hit Syracuse) very early Friday morning. We found Slim Jims for Macho Man and that was our snack -- Es had some of her own. Good thinking -- and we tried to go back to sleep. It was hard to sleep because shortly after we got back on the bus it was pouring and the windshield was all foggy, so the driver had the A/C on. It was one of those horrid times when I was freezing and I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned (as much as I could in a bus seat) all the way up to Syracuse.
We switched drivers there, and it had stopped raining, so the new driver turned the heat on. Everyone dropped like flies. This was after waiting for an hour, though, because he was late coming in from Buffalo for some reason, and he was meant to take us back to Buffalo, so I thought we would be even later. Nope, I woke up near the Buffalo city limit, and we were perfectly on time (he must have flown down the highway. Suppose that's easy at 4 AM though)! We switched drivers again, and the last one took us the rest of the way to Toronto.
This, more or less, is the route we took.
It was so foggy Friday morning! We were on the highway headed for the Peace Bridge, and just... fog. Everywhere. To the point where we were on the ramp for the bridge and had to slow down. I didn't see the border until we were right up on it -- the flags tipped me off -- and my first (second) impression of Canada was "Canada is shrouded in mystery." We joked how, wow, Canada really is invisible, isn't he? But for serious, we couldn't see 200m in front of us. :|
I'd never been through customs before, so that was new. Puerto Rico's part of the United States, so I didn't need to do it then, and the last time I went to Canada, I just remember having my birth certificate; I certainly don't remember getting off the bus and answering questions! Anyway, it was nice and easy, and Es and I were one of the first, so we got to stand around waiting for everyone while going "EEEEEEE We're in Canada!" The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful -- but one of the first things we saw back on the road was a McDonald's and a Tim Horton's in the same building. We giggled, and I vowed to get a picture of it on the way back -- we switched the money in our wallets (rather I did; Es just used a different wallet), and I quizzed Es the entire way about the metric system.
"That sign says the speed limit is 60 km/h. How many MPH is that?"
"Temperature is 13ºC. Fahrenheit, please."
I think I annoyed her a little bit, but it's still a good idea to get accustomed to it, I think. (The answers are 35 MPH and 56ºF, give or take a little.)
We got to the bus station and Es' friend Anne-Marie was there waiting for us, once we figured out where to go. We brushed our teeth and grabbed a bite ("You have a 300 mL container of juice! How many ounces is that?" (Ten.))-- it was about nine in the morning, but it felt much later -- and sat around chatting for a bit to kill time. We had a long bus ride to go before we got to the hotel, but it alone wouldn't take all the time before check in.
I was very excited to ride the subway in Toronto. I'm very excited to ride the subway wherever I go, let's be honest. We bought day passes for Monday (turns out we used the FUCK out of them), and had an extra fare for the subway ride. The subway -- I'm not even sure there's a name for it -- reminded me a lot of Boston, though. So we went round in a U for a little while, then transferred to a bus. The concept of not proving I was just on the subway before boarding the bus was totally foreign to me, but I accepted it. Sure, I'll take not paying again. I still don't understand how transfers -- awww, they still have paper slip transfers! So cute! -- work, but whatevs.
Anyway, so we got to the hotel in one piece. Koy and Jolene, two sisters we got to room with us, were already there waiting. Esmeralda checked in, and to her surprise, they had her down for two rooms! Um, no.... It took some sleuthing to figure out that there was actually another Esmeralda-from-the-States checking in the same day. Guffaw, guffaw. So we got to the room and... oh. This is a double? It's tiny. Once the five of us were inside, we couldn't figure out how to arrange our stuff just to unpack. Anne-Marie took some pictures of the room. Her back was against the wall when she took this. So, yeah. The Crowne is a hole in the wall (the con price was $149/night, but the sign on the door said $355!).
ANYWAY, once we figured out hotel shares and exclaimed over money (I wanted to see the larger bills I didn't have, and I showed off how American money is colored too, kinda. I hung onto a colored five and ten just for that purpose, lol. "It just looks like someone kinda spilled Kool-Aid on it."), and tried to unpack, we got dressed and headed out. Anne-Marie had already gotten her badge, and Koy and Jolene were doing the at-door thing, so Es and I would head out on our own, in time. By the time we were ready, it was somehow marvelously late, so we all went for dinner instead. I already posted a link to the Facebook album, but the highlights were that we had (shitty) poutine and beer among other things, and we drew on the tables with crayons. :D
At the con itself, well, it was mostly just wandering about the Dealer's Room and the Alley, especially since we got there so late. I'd wandered around the whole Alley, in fact, before finally asking where om_nom_berries' table was, because I couldn't freakin' find her (I thought it was one table, but that turned out to be another friend's; I remembered the wrong number!). She was about twenty feet from where I was standing, derp. ANYWAY so I bought stuff and I got the Zeldathology as a birthday present (THANK YOUUUUUU ♥) and we chatted about money. Louisa was about to explain how tipping strippers works because there are no dollar bills -- that's how we tip 'em -- when she got a flood of customers and I let her take care of them.
In the meantime, I asked Es to wander around, because I knew she would probably rather shop instead of listen to our silly conversation. I meant to be considerate. What I was, was stupid, because the minute I left Louisa and wanted to find Es, I pulled out my cell phone. But I couldn't text her, and I certainly couldn't call her, so I had to go and find her. Long story short, it was very unsuccessful, and I walked around for what seemed like an hour trying to find her, scouring (best I could) all corners of the Dealer's Room.
I did find a cool Zelda, though. Look at her hair, that wig's amazing!
And someone in the Crafter's Corner found me, took my picture, and said she was sending it to Humon that night. Whether that happened or not, I didn't know, but I promised to return with my Sister Sweden when I found her (right. I was Finland (part of that expression is genuine exhaustion, lol)). I eventually wandered back to the wrestling ring (there was wrestling!) and I saw her across the room. Whew! Yeah, explained myself and apologized, but I didn't leave her side for the rest of the weekend. Just when we were wondering how we were going to find everyone else, Anne-Marie wandered up, as did Tesla and her friends. So we hung out, took a few pictures, and were, eventually, on our merry way back to the hotel room dead tired.
The ground was wet from all the rain, and it got into my boots. I looked down, and the upper was starting to come away from the sole. CUE BROKEN HEART, because I've had those boots since I first started cosplaying; they've been to EVERY convention with me, they're god damn perfect for everything (I don't wanna know how many cosplays they belong to; it's at least five) and were the best $8 I spent/thrift store find in the history of the universe. I have no choice but to force another run out of them at AnimeNEXT, but after that I've got time to go shopping, and I might have to retire them. IT'S SO SAD. ;A;
But yeah, that was Friday. Time to end this for now, and will post the rest over the weekend.
Game Two tomorrow night! Oh, and unrelatedly, I found a Berryz Koubou fan blog. I've been reading that for the past couple of hours. Yup. But it's got great things, like Chinami speaking English. Some of Berryz are pretty good at English, but Chinami's is classic, though Momoko gives her a bit of a run.... /NERD
ELEPHANT. :|
But I would still like to know how you use the three seashells tip a stripper in Canada.