Toronto :: Canada
It's only been a few months but already there are visitors to show a good time.
Places: Toronto, Niagara & Niagara-on-Lake.
Coolest thing I did: The Maid of the Mist, despite all it's tourist cache, was rather cool.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: The wineries here are so young that they make the Adeliade Hills look like Bordeaux for wine making vintage.
After a lull of normal life the visit of some of our friends from various parts of the Antipoean ex-pat world has given the tourism a lease on life once again. Lisa flew in from London on the red eye for Thursday morning, Kate arrived later the same night from Adelaide (which I'm told involves about 4 planes) and Paul arrived from Vancouver on Friday morning. While I was busy working the girls (and later Paul) managed to drink their way around town. Apparently the Steam Whistle Brewery just over the road from the CN Tower is worth a look but I'm just going to be left wondering, as by the time I got home from work on Friday afternoon the lot of them were stewed and happy.
So we decided to show them some of the best we'd learned about nightlife in Toronto in our short stay here. This was a good idea to start with but the big day of drinking mixed with all the duty free and our new found knowledge of how to make some tasty cocktails out of mostly Vodka, we only managed two bars. Eddies Pool Hall on College Street is a nice place to start a night out, as it is indeed a pool hall. It's got enough trendy decor and high enough drink prices to let you forget that it is, but as the girls say, it's "funky" which tends to mean if you're a bloke "Pricey but you don't mind too much". I made the fatal mistake of starting on the Rusty Nails (which are a concoction of scotch and dramuie and ice) and the night started to spin rapidly out of control. We then took the group round the corner to the converted car garage which is The Octopus bar and it all gets very hazy. I know I took Kates camera and reverted to my old trick of taking my picture with a lot of random strangers becasue the pictures left evidence. Apparently the drinks went into a mix of Heineken and Rusty Nails and that was about it. I went from the life of the party to comatose in about 30 mins but much fun was had by all.
The next morning was supposed to be a trip out to the Islands for bike riding but it turned out to be mid-afternoon. Yvette was nowhere near the top of her game due to the previous evenings festivities so she spent much of the afternoon asleep under a tree. The rest of us got the crappiest bikes left in the hire place and I regaled all with my witty Napolean Dynamite quotes ("go over any sweet jumps on it") despite the fact that the movie left me confused more than anything else. It was a nice day and the fresh air did me the world of good. If anyone else was suffering they managed to hide it pretty well and after a quick feed of chicken wings (a hangover's best friend, trust me) we were back on the beers in the lazy afternoon sun. The resteraunt where we ate also looks over the paddle swan boats from the Island's amusement park, which is lots of entertainment because the voices keep coming over the loudspeaker saying "number 20, your ride is over. Seriously, don't make me wade out there and get you. Guess you had to be there.
Sunday was a bit too much shopping in Kensington Markets intersped with some more drinking of beer. It's a trendy part of town and the streets are blocked off on the weekends, meaning people have table tennis and giant polo and stuff like that out in the street. There was also a band which I thought were pretty good, and I watched them for quite some time while the girls wandered in and out of the shops to get the shop assistants all excited with their trying things on and not buying them. Some beers in Sneaky Dees, some more in the Supermarket and some in between in some other place we found by accident and that was pretty much it for the day.
Sunday meant a hire car and the 5 of us going off to do the tourist thing in Niagara. The falls were just as spectacular (but not so special without the snow and ice) this time around, but I loved the Maid of the Mist, which didn't run last time I was there. It's a boat that gets right up close and personal to the falls, so close that it's hard to hold your eyes open in the spray. It's like looking directly into a storm, with all that power and energy so close you can almost touch it. Despite this apparent danger, you feel like you are on an amusement park ride, with it's long line up, being crammed onto the boat with as many people that will fit and the flash bulbs going off it's almost a bit too safe. Still, the plastic ponchos they give you to keep dry have more of a psychological impact than anything else. You still end up sopping wet and smiling.
For lunch and the way home we saw the posher side of Niagara, Niagara-on-lake. When contrasted to the garish sideshow that is Niagara Falls, the town is quaint enough, even if it's obvious that some business saavy has been mixed in with the rustic charm to make sure those cash registers keep ringing. With a bit more time it would be worth exploring, but all you would probably do is end up with lots of little trinkets and nick-nacks and teapots and stuff like that. Instead we decided to go and track down the free wine tasings of the surrounding valley. I abstained, having to drive our hire car, and wasn't that dissapointed after my last foray into Ontario wine. However, some wine was drunk, some more was purchased and all were happy. One of the places even let the girls taste ice wine which I didn't think they did. I like the idea of ice wine (picked at the right time, the right temperature to make the sweet desert wine taste) but I don't think I could bring myself to give anyone $60 for one of those tiny bottles, it just feels wrong.
All told, I think it's a lot like having to teach someone anything. As soon as you are forced to explain something out loud you really have to think about what you are saying and that's probably the first time you really get understand something properly. I got a better understanding of all the things I've learned about this town and am starting to think less of it as a faceless North American city and more to appreciate it's little touches of character and culture. It's not as pretty as Vancouver or as cultured as Montreal, but it is home.