the women are big and the men are dumb and the children are loopy 'cause they live in a slum
I thought I had to work today, but yay, I don't! So here's the next picspam and Fascinating Holiday Recap. Because enquiring minds wanna know.
When I first got into Toronto I got lost for something like THREE HOURS because of all the one-way streets and the fact that I thought the streets on the map were a lot closer together than they actually were. Also, I don't drive well in cities. London was not as bad because it was a lot smaller and the hostel was on a main road. This one was tucked into a little square but was still in the middle of everything. I heard Danny, the owner, say something like "If the CN tower ever fell over it'd fall on us first". Comforting, that. Also pretty accurate; we were almost on top of it. Needless to say, I got honked at a LOT because I suck at driving in cities. I mean, dudes. I suck at driving in the city I live in, so imagine what I'm like in the busiest city in Canada (which is ANOTHER ENTIRE COUNTRY, in case some of you didn't realise that). You'd think that they'd look at my licence plate and the freaked-out expression on my face and be more understanding but nooo, they figured they'd freak me out even more by laying on their horns.
I don't have any pictures of the hostel itself, but there are some here. Danny and his wife (I think her name was Shelley) were great hosts. They have a little girl named Victoria who is something like seven or eight and loved hanging out with the guests. I should have taken her picture, too. Bleh. I didn't take all that many pictures in Toronto in general. My battery went dead when peacey and I were at Kensington Market. Which? Was a lot of junk shops interspersed with fruit stands and little cafés.
I liked the buildings, all run-down and colourful. peacey decidedly did not. :) I did manage to get a picture of one:
That night I went with peacey and her sister to The Second City. I loved the show, but not so much the beer I had. Oh, well. Afterwards peacey and Cheryl went back to their hotel and I walked around for awhile and took some more pictures.
CN tower at night:
More flowers, this time in a park near the Rogers Centre:
Giant!Rick Mercer:
The CBC building was actually open, so I went in. The museum itself was closed so I couldn't go to any of the exhibits, but figured I'd go the next day after we hit the ROM.
The new batteries I bought lasted about a day. The guy at the convenience store said they were good for cameras. I didn't think so, but I bought them anyway. I did manage to take a few pictures at the ROM.
Inside the main building:
Outside of museum, including the alien spacecraft that apparently crashed into it:
peacey wanted to see the Rome exhibit and we were both disappointed that it wasn't there anymore. We did go to the Greece Gallery. peacey actually owns ancient coins like some of the ones exhibited. I was v. impressed. *g* We also saw the European Galleries, specifically the Arms and Armour exhibit. My inner Arthurian and War History Geeks loved it. The amount of intricacy and attention paid to warfare is really interesting. There must be books written about it. Also the amount of ornamentation on the armour. The best part of this exhibit, though, was watching peacey in total geekout mode. *loves*
We spent some time at the First Peoples Exhibit, and then peacey had to leave. After she left I went off on my own, hoping to see this exhibit, and then found out it wasn't there yet. So I went back to the First Peoples exhibit and ended up being able to tag along on a guided tour that was just starting. I'm really glad I went back because the volunteer knew her stuff (yes, actually, I did take notes. Your point?). Because of her advice I got to see the last twenty minutes or so of Nanook of the North. Very cool. Now I have to see the whole thing, of course.
I bought actual camera batteries at the gift shop along with a pen and a really pretty sketch of an inuksuk, then headed back to the CBC building. Saturday afternoon, the museum was sure to be open, right? Wrong. Apparently most of Toronto is closed on Saturdays, including the CBC and the PATH shops.
And, okay, this is when things started to get sucky. I got money at an ATM and proceeded to forget the card in the machine. Which meant that the card was eaten by the machine. I didn't realise this until I was almost to nos4a2no9's place. When I got there she made me a piña colada and let me whine about it all. omphale23 arrived a little later with her own tales of woe and we had a very lovely time talking about fandom, academia, and omphale23's philosophy of heights (1. high-up places are fine as long as one isn't surprised by them, and 2. heights where a fall would be fatal are less phobia-inducing than heights where one would live but break lots of body parts). She also tried to lure us into bandslash-land. I don't quite understand bandslash, but, y'know. Whatever butters your muffin. *g* The band boys do look lovely in eyeliner, I'll admit that. I still wonder if Beatles RPS is considered bandslash. Because I might be talked into that.
The next morning I went downtown to a Money Mart to try and cash a cheque. I was way too American or something, so they didn't let me. Fortunately, nos4a2no9 did cash my cheque (possibly on account of my apparent honesty and because I generally say nice things about Canada. She should moonlight at Money Mart. American tourists with ADD would love her.). We also had a very nice lunch. nos4a2no9 said the poutine we ordered wasn't real poutine. She called it "Ontario poutine". It was close, though, she said, and I had enough of it to realise I don't like it much, mostly because I don't like French fries much in the first place.
I had to leave earlier than I'd have liked, but I figured I wanted to get to Ottawa at a reasonable hour. The reasonable hour turned out to be the next morning because I didn't want to drive in the dark and miss out on the scenery.
More power lines, this time at a truck stop outside Bowmanville. These babies are everywhere:
I got a little lost while looking for a place to stay, but I also got some pretty pictures. These were taken at sunset, somewhere outside Port Hope:
I ended up stopping for the night at a Comfort Inn in Trenton and taking the back roads through Kingston. I was going to post the Kingston pics now but the entry is already way huge, so I'll post them with the Ottawa ones.
Next time: A Sunny Lakeshore, Fun With Western Union, and Utter Dorkery in Ottawa.
When I first got into Toronto I got lost for something like THREE HOURS because of all the one-way streets and the fact that I thought the streets on the map were a lot closer together than they actually were. Also, I don't drive well in cities. London was not as bad because it was a lot smaller and the hostel was on a main road. This one was tucked into a little square but was still in the middle of everything. I heard Danny, the owner, say something like "If the CN tower ever fell over it'd fall on us first". Comforting, that. Also pretty accurate; we were almost on top of it. Needless to say, I got honked at a LOT because I suck at driving in cities. I mean, dudes. I suck at driving in the city I live in, so imagine what I'm like in the busiest city in Canada (which is ANOTHER ENTIRE COUNTRY, in case some of you didn't realise that). You'd think that they'd look at my licence plate and the freaked-out expression on my face and be more understanding but nooo, they figured they'd freak me out even more by laying on their horns.
I don't have any pictures of the hostel itself, but there are some here. Danny and his wife (I think her name was Shelley) were great hosts. They have a little girl named Victoria who is something like seven or eight and loved hanging out with the guests. I should have taken her picture, too. Bleh. I didn't take all that many pictures in Toronto in general. My battery went dead when peacey and I were at Kensington Market. Which? Was a lot of junk shops interspersed with fruit stands and little cafés.
I liked the buildings, all run-down and colourful. peacey decidedly did not. :) I did manage to get a picture of one:
That night I went with peacey and her sister to The Second City. I loved the show, but not so much the beer I had. Oh, well. Afterwards peacey and Cheryl went back to their hotel and I walked around for awhile and took some more pictures.
CN tower at night:
More flowers, this time in a park near the Rogers Centre:
Giant!Rick Mercer:
The CBC building was actually open, so I went in. The museum itself was closed so I couldn't go to any of the exhibits, but figured I'd go the next day after we hit the ROM.
The new batteries I bought lasted about a day. The guy at the convenience store said they were good for cameras. I didn't think so, but I bought them anyway. I did manage to take a few pictures at the ROM.
Inside the main building:
Outside of museum, including the alien spacecraft that apparently crashed into it:
peacey wanted to see the Rome exhibit and we were both disappointed that it wasn't there anymore. We did go to the Greece Gallery. peacey actually owns ancient coins like some of the ones exhibited. I was v. impressed. *g* We also saw the European Galleries, specifically the Arms and Armour exhibit. My inner Arthurian and War History Geeks loved it. The amount of intricacy and attention paid to warfare is really interesting. There must be books written about it. Also the amount of ornamentation on the armour. The best part of this exhibit, though, was watching peacey in total geekout mode. *loves*
We spent some time at the First Peoples Exhibit, and then peacey had to leave. After she left I went off on my own, hoping to see this exhibit, and then found out it wasn't there yet. So I went back to the First Peoples exhibit and ended up being able to tag along on a guided tour that was just starting. I'm really glad I went back because the volunteer knew her stuff (yes, actually, I did take notes. Your point?). Because of her advice I got to see the last twenty minutes or so of Nanook of the North. Very cool. Now I have to see the whole thing, of course.
I bought actual camera batteries at the gift shop along with a pen and a really pretty sketch of an inuksuk, then headed back to the CBC building. Saturday afternoon, the museum was sure to be open, right? Wrong. Apparently most of Toronto is closed on Saturdays, including the CBC and the PATH shops.
And, okay, this is when things started to get sucky. I got money at an ATM and proceeded to forget the card in the machine. Which meant that the card was eaten by the machine. I didn't realise this until I was almost to nos4a2no9's place. When I got there she made me a piña colada and let me whine about it all. omphale23 arrived a little later with her own tales of woe and we had a very lovely time talking about fandom, academia, and omphale23's philosophy of heights (1. high-up places are fine as long as one isn't surprised by them, and 2. heights where a fall would be fatal are less phobia-inducing than heights where one would live but break lots of body parts). She also tried to lure us into bandslash-land. I don't quite understand bandslash, but, y'know. Whatever butters your muffin. *g* The band boys do look lovely in eyeliner, I'll admit that. I still wonder if Beatles RPS is considered bandslash. Because I might be talked into that.
The next morning I went downtown to a Money Mart to try and cash a cheque. I was way too American or something, so they didn't let me. Fortunately, nos4a2no9 did cash my cheque (possibly on account of my apparent honesty and because I generally say nice things about Canada. She should moonlight at Money Mart. American tourists with ADD would love her.). We also had a very nice lunch. nos4a2no9 said the poutine we ordered wasn't real poutine. She called it "Ontario poutine". It was close, though, she said, and I had enough of it to realise I don't like it much, mostly because I don't like French fries much in the first place.
I had to leave earlier than I'd have liked, but I figured I wanted to get to Ottawa at a reasonable hour. The reasonable hour turned out to be the next morning because I didn't want to drive in the dark and miss out on the scenery.
More power lines, this time at a truck stop outside Bowmanville. These babies are everywhere:
I got a little lost while looking for a place to stay, but I also got some pretty pictures. These were taken at sunset, somewhere outside Port Hope:
I ended up stopping for the night at a Comfort Inn in Trenton and taking the back roads through Kingston. I was going to post the Kingston pics now but the entry is already way huge, so I'll post them with the Ottawa ones.
Next time: A Sunny Lakeshore, Fun With Western Union, and Utter Dorkery in Ottawa.