My Trip to Toronto
You all know I road tripped up to Toronto over Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately, as soon as I got back I fell incredibly ill and was unable to make a post about my trip (or do much of anything) right when I came back soooo here it is!
Well it was a 13 hour drive which included stopping in Pennsylvania to pick up a friend. We drove through NY, NJ, PA, then NY again and eventually made our way to Canada and into Toronto. Hurricaine Ernesto followed us north for the entire drive so it was pretty rainy and wet the whole way up. By the time we arrived this is what we saw.
Temperatures were also in the 40's which I was totally unprepared for. We stayed at a REALLY nice hotel right in the middle of downtown Toronto. It was equivalent to getting a hotel in Times Square or Colombus Circle. We were in the middle of everything. It was evening though, and after such a long drive and being incredibly exhausted and under-fed, we were off to our first party which was more of a backyard rave/BBQ. I'd never been to anything of the like.
Drunk white people, bugging out in the freezing rain greeted us after we drove around looking for the place. As so very suburban as this was, we all met lots of cool Canadian kids and had a nice time before heading off into the streets of what seemed like a very 'college/university type downtown area that pretty much looked like the West Village in Manhattan. We ate at a restaraunt there then headed home for the night.
Finally, some freakin' sleep. The hotel itself was FREEEZING but they had a gym, free internet cafe's everywhere, and tons of other shit that was cool. Some people though, acted like they'd never been in a hotel before. :-P
Sunday morning we split up and roamed downtown Toronto which was cool. We found that some things were very different.
I'm not much of a smoker but they had bunches of marijuana shops and stations where people could go to safely and legally smoke their weed or buy their weed products, and go on about their business. The vibe I got while there was that things were definately NOT uptight. They had tons of random sex shops and strip clubs that were very blatant and had huge facades like Times Square billboards. The strip clubs there exercised Canadian rules, not US rules. You could look, touch, whatever.
A lot of it reminded me of NYC. I loved the fact that it was deveolped, but not overdeveloped to the point of the streets being filthy and overcrowded. Everything was really nice and clean.
I forget the name of this place but the area pretty much seemed like 34th Street in Manhattan or a mini-Times Square. I loved the fact that Toronto was so incredibly cosmopolitain. There were people from tons of different backgrounds and ethnicities living there and there wasn't an overwhelming amount of one type of person. There was a really nice mix of Japanese, Blacks, Indians, Koreans, Europeans, and native Canadians. The vibe seemed really chill among the people and they didn't seem slow, backwards, or prejudice in any way. Some Canadians there spoke fluent European languages, some Koreans there spoke fluent Spanish. It was awesome.
Some of the food was madness. These hot dogs and sausages were HUGE foot long and just... huge and they only cost $3. Oh yeah, money... well the exchage rate took a huge dip while we were there. When we got there, we could exchange 1 US dollar for about 1.98 Canadian, but within the first day the exchange rate dropped so that 1 US dollar exchanged for 1.07. canadian. Taxes there were nuts. I'd buy a pack of gum which cost 1 dollar, but after taxes cost 2.15. Everything there was taxed twice... Canada tax and Toronto tax, hence they have free health care and they all seemed much happier there.
Sunday night, the reason we all went up there, Labour of Love. OMG WTF BBQ stellar! They combined two mega mega clubs which created for a huge 13 hour party/rave/FUN! The place had about 10 rooms, each the size of a NYC club, multiple levels and all. The place was packed with well over 10,000 people.
Waiting on line there were tons of fireworks, a samba band, and pyrotechnics guys who were jumping around on trampoline while being shot with flame throwers. Observe.
As soon as I got in I marvelled at the size of the place. Waiting for a bunch of other friends I decided to head up to the Skybar which was a massive rooftop section that looked like this.
The view from the roof was spectacular.
The rooms inside... huge.
The people were awesome.
There were over 25 DJ's and they were all fucking amazing. Tons of different genres spun in the different rooms and they were all great.
Armin Van Buuren was on point.
Ferry Corsten played an amazing 6 hour set through to 10:00am.
The lighting was awesome.
Best weekend ever! I had tons of fun. Met tons of people. Had lots of laughs. Memories to last a lifetime. We stayed pretty much the entire time and partied our asses off. We were supposed to jump into the car and get going right after the party ended but we were all DONE so we extended our hotel reservation and slept. When we got back on the road ... oh wow we were all tired as hell. We had to wait on a 4 hour car line at the border just to get back across. It took 13 hours to get back so we weren't back until early Tueday morning. Can't WAIT to do it all again next year.
:-)
Well it was a 13 hour drive which included stopping in Pennsylvania to pick up a friend. We drove through NY, NJ, PA, then NY again and eventually made our way to Canada and into Toronto. Hurricaine Ernesto followed us north for the entire drive so it was pretty rainy and wet the whole way up. By the time we arrived this is what we saw.
Temperatures were also in the 40's which I was totally unprepared for. We stayed at a REALLY nice hotel right in the middle of downtown Toronto. It was equivalent to getting a hotel in Times Square or Colombus Circle. We were in the middle of everything. It was evening though, and after such a long drive and being incredibly exhausted and under-fed, we were off to our first party which was more of a backyard rave/BBQ. I'd never been to anything of the like.
Drunk white people, bugging out in the freezing rain greeted us after we drove around looking for the place. As so very suburban as this was, we all met lots of cool Canadian kids and had a nice time before heading off into the streets of what seemed like a very 'college/university type downtown area that pretty much looked like the West Village in Manhattan. We ate at a restaraunt there then headed home for the night.
Finally, some freakin' sleep. The hotel itself was FREEEZING but they had a gym, free internet cafe's everywhere, and tons of other shit that was cool. Some people though, acted like they'd never been in a hotel before. :-P
Sunday morning we split up and roamed downtown Toronto which was cool. We found that some things were very different.
I'm not much of a smoker but they had bunches of marijuana shops and stations where people could go to safely and legally smoke their weed or buy their weed products, and go on about their business. The vibe I got while there was that things were definately NOT uptight. They had tons of random sex shops and strip clubs that were very blatant and had huge facades like Times Square billboards. The strip clubs there exercised Canadian rules, not US rules. You could look, touch, whatever.
A lot of it reminded me of NYC. I loved the fact that it was deveolped, but not overdeveloped to the point of the streets being filthy and overcrowded. Everything was really nice and clean.
I forget the name of this place but the area pretty much seemed like 34th Street in Manhattan or a mini-Times Square. I loved the fact that Toronto was so incredibly cosmopolitain. There were people from tons of different backgrounds and ethnicities living there and there wasn't an overwhelming amount of one type of person. There was a really nice mix of Japanese, Blacks, Indians, Koreans, Europeans, and native Canadians. The vibe seemed really chill among the people and they didn't seem slow, backwards, or prejudice in any way. Some Canadians there spoke fluent European languages, some Koreans there spoke fluent Spanish. It was awesome.
Some of the food was madness. These hot dogs and sausages were HUGE foot long and just... huge and they only cost $3. Oh yeah, money... well the exchage rate took a huge dip while we were there. When we got there, we could exchange 1 US dollar for about 1.98 Canadian, but within the first day the exchange rate dropped so that 1 US dollar exchanged for 1.07. canadian. Taxes there were nuts. I'd buy a pack of gum which cost 1 dollar, but after taxes cost 2.15. Everything there was taxed twice... Canada tax and Toronto tax, hence they have free health care and they all seemed much happier there.
Sunday night, the reason we all went up there, Labour of Love. OMG WTF BBQ stellar! They combined two mega mega clubs which created for a huge 13 hour party/rave/FUN! The place had about 10 rooms, each the size of a NYC club, multiple levels and all. The place was packed with well over 10,000 people.
Waiting on line there were tons of fireworks, a samba band, and pyrotechnics guys who were jumping around on trampoline while being shot with flame throwers. Observe.
As soon as I got in I marvelled at the size of the place. Waiting for a bunch of other friends I decided to head up to the Skybar which was a massive rooftop section that looked like this.
The view from the roof was spectacular.
The rooms inside... huge.
The people were awesome.
There were over 25 DJ's and they were all fucking amazing. Tons of different genres spun in the different rooms and they were all great.
Armin Van Buuren was on point.
Ferry Corsten played an amazing 6 hour set through to 10:00am.
The lighting was awesome.
Best weekend ever! I had tons of fun. Met tons of people. Had lots of laughs. Memories to last a lifetime. We stayed pretty much the entire time and partied our asses off. We were supposed to jump into the car and get going right after the party ended but we were all DONE so we extended our hotel reservation and slept. When we got back on the road ... oh wow we were all tired as hell. We had to wait on a 4 hour car line at the border just to get back across. It took 13 hours to get back so we weren't back until early Tueday morning. Can't WAIT to do it all again next year.
:-)