With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no
Stratford yesterday - I have mixed feelings.
I got there around 6:20 and sat in Dylan's car with Dylan (obviously), Aliza and Randy rockin out to the German techno "Rubber Ducky" song that we all have grown to love, before heading to the buses.
The SET kids were insturcted by Schnarrzie to sit in on second bus, so we all got on and headed to the back. I agree with Dylan, we took up the back 1/3 of the bus, but it was cool. Pat showed up and ended up sitting his stuff with me before going off and playing babysitter. Britt was late, her alram didn't go off (I made Aliza call the house b/c Nelly scares me), but late or not I'm glad she made it! As she was my buddy for the trip - lol.
The bus ride was loooong, we watched "Hitch" and "National Treasure" - I listened to my MP3 player most of the way, with the occassional conversations with those around me.
When we got to the border, the patrol guy gets on the bus, says "is everyone here an American citizen?" yes "Do you all have your I.D's?" yes "Okay have a good day." That was it! Awesome. So we make it to the city and park on St. Patrick's street, which is the same street as our beloved Stalingrad - aka CR building. Basically its an old train repair shop and factory too I think. It was built from 1890? - 1906 (99 years old!) and its so big that trains could actually be driven into the building and lifted off the ground for repairs - the old steam engines mind you. The place is huge!
By the time Britt and I got there, as we had to stay behind with the rest of the SET kids and get instruction from Pat, the others were already talking to some lady whose name I never caught. We ended up getting a tour from a guy named George, who apparently is a British stuntman working construction in Canada - how's that for diversity? He gave us a bunch of great information about the place, and even took us upstairs, which we were not allowed to do last year. We saw elevator shafts and washrooms, old lockers for the guys that worked in the different bays and old signs still hangning on the wall. It was awesome! I bet we were there for over an hour. Dylan and Britt took pics which I need to get from them : )
After that we went to Buffy's - a store we found last year with incence and such. The SET kids had to leave early though to meet up with Pat at the theatre by 1:20. After the three hour show of Shakespeare's As You Like It, set in the sixties (very odd) - the rest of our group got to leave. The program kids stayed behind and watched as the crew of the Festival Theatre switched over the stage from As You Like It to Hello Dolly in one hour. It was amazing! By the time they finished, it looked like a completely different stage. The Assisstant Technical Director came over and talked to us during change over - he was pretty cool.
After change over we had time to kill, so we spent time looking around the theatre gift shop. I bought the soundtrack to the show which was performed by Barnaked Ladies - how cool! And there was a concession stand were people bought dinner. I bought Stewart's Cream Soda (soda mousse) it was some of the yummiest cream soda I have ever had in my life.
The buses came and got us from the theatre around 7 and we got on our way. I made Pat sit by the window on the way home, so I could talk to my friends. We watched "Princess Bride" (yuck) and "Harry Potter 3" and I listend to my music again. I talked to people on and off, but I was dragging.
The border patrol on the way home was trickier than going into canada. First of all our bus driver pissed them off by not stopping at some stop sign. Then when the guy got on the bus and asked us all to get out our ID's, I noticed that his name was Melvin and tried not to laugh. I figure if your name is Melvin, you have every right to be an asshole. He wasn't though, he just went through and checked everyone's identification then left.
The day was good. I enjoyed Stalingrad more than I can say. The only down side was that the SET kids didn't have much time to do anything. We had a whole 2 hours to ourselves. The rest of the day was spent either on the bus or in the theatre. Not bad considering we want to go into theatre, and I'm very thankful that Pat was able to line the observation up for us, I just wish we could have walked around the city more. Stratford is such a cool place, if you ever get the chance to go, I highly reccommend.