Canada – The Whirlwind Tour – Part 2

July 18

Virginia’s mom had told us that we were going to be joining up with everybody at Andy’s for a family reunion. Boy, were we surprised.

When we got there tables and chairs had been set up in the lovely front garden, and Andy, Dominica and Mum Virginia in particular had put a huge amount of effort into making things look good (for example by putting flowers on every table), and into organising food and drinks and all.

As people started to arrive, we realised that something was up, as we kept on being handed cards that were full of money by people (some that we barely knew), which held greetings like “Congrats the newly weds.” We were so overwhelmed by the number of people there (upwards of 50), that we only properly clicked that Mum Virginia had organised this as a kind of late wedding reception, a fair bit into things… when a cake (which was heavenly) arrived with Virginia’s Grandparents’ wedding statuettes on top, as well as the tiara that was worn by her grandmother when she got married.

Having finally managed to herd us over to the cake, which was not an easy task as we had both chosen this opportune time to go to the bathroom, we stood there and grinned, feeling that perhaps a bit to much fuss was being made over us, and finally cut the cake, to the genial cries of a horseshoe of happy relatives.

The day turned out to be lovely and sunny, which was a huge relief to Mum Virginia, with wonderful food, and good people who all had a lot of fun.

I’d did get to meet one of V’s best friends Meron on the day (Kelly was there too), which was good, considering that we’d be spending the night and the rest of the day at her house.

July 19

We had a lovely chilled out day at Meron’s, just hanging out in the garden (should clarify that to yard for all the Canadians), and she and Dave prepared pork tenderloin kebabs for us… lip smacking goodness.

We needed a couple of these break days over the month and they always came at just the right time. Wonderful and relaxing.

July 20

We made an early start so we could catch the train to Toronto which would be our first trip away from the St. Catharine’s area. Wow did we fill that time.

We arrived in at Union Station, Toronto shortly before noon. The station is a huge old building, outside of which were plenty of modern buildings. Toronto is like this throughout, with old meeting new at every corner. One instance of this, and something that adds charm to Toronto, is the fact that there are bright red electric street cars (i.e. trams) still running all over the city.

It was onto one of these that we jumped, to make our way from the station to Karen and Tony’s apartment, where we would also meet up with Matt and Helen. All four are friends of Virginia’s, who she met in Korea.

Together we went touring the city by foot, and covered a great big part of it for one afternoon.

We headed through China Town on towards over to Kensington Market which is full of arty shops, selling fun crafts and clothes, and some blatantly using their fun locations to pawn off some uber-touristy things (so I bought, of course, some moose socks :D)

After an hour or two of wondering around, we made our way out towards the CN tower. The tower is certainly one of the prides of Canada and as the signs on the walls freely boast, is the tallest free-standing building in the world (553m), and has been for the last thirty years.

This begs the question “what happened to the Burj Dubai?” Well technically speaking the Burj now holds that title as it topped out at 818m just recently, and passed the height of the CN tower about 2 years ago. None the less, the CN is still the world’s tallest completed freestanding structure… for a bit longer… and thus one of the best views out there (except if you happen to have a job at the top of the Burj).

On the way up the CN you ride in a glass floored elevator, which is a thrill. And what a view it was when we finally got to the top.  360 degree  views of  Toronto, past the lakes; and on the day we were there it was clear enough to see the horizon, and just get an inkling of the curvature of the earth.

There are big glass panels in parts of the floor of the tower-top, and you can stare directly down to the ground over 500m below. (also you can lie down and pretend you are skydiving and afraid for your life).

 

Following our trip to the top of the tower, after a quick stop to a real North American hotdog stand, we met up with Karen who had been at work all day, did a bit more walking, then headed back to the apartment, and split up for a guys/girls night out. Matt, Tony and I headed out to watch a really brilliant band called The Datsuns, and could be seen making our way home (and chatting to homeless people) in the early hours of the morning.

July 21

We left Tony and Karen’s fairly early to meet up with another friend of Virginia’s, Kat, who went to university with her.

The Canadian weather had up until this point played right into our hands, providing sunny, warm days when we were doing anything outside, and rain on days when we were inside, and it didn’t matter, or was indeed a treat. This day was no exception.

We had seen that the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) had an exhibition of the Deadsea Scrolls on, and so the three of us headed up to the museum under a gloomy sky, which would turn to a heavy rain once we’d entered the museum.

Unfortunately I’d been fairly fluey since arriving in Canada, and started to feel deathly ill at the museum. That having been said, the museum was wonderful enough that I pulled my way through and still thoroughly enjoyed the day.

I loved the Scrolls exhibition, as apart from the scrolls they had plenty of artefacts - ancient roof tiles, jars, bone carvings, and cooking pots- that were in amazing condition. The scrolls on display were unfortunately not the larger, more complete scrolls that were found in some of the earlier discovered caves (the bulk of these major scrolls are on display in the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, bar one which is in the National Archaeological Museum of Jordan). Rather we saw some of the tiny fragments (of which more than 100,000 were found) that were discovered outside of their shattered containers in other caves and took scientists decades to puzzle through and piece together. “The Deadsea Confetti” Virginia lovingly called them.

In the collection were various books of the Bible (fragments of all of the books of the Bible, except one, have been found in the so far discovered scrolls), many books that were not canonised into the Hebrew Bible, but none the less still religious works, and many others which contained anything, from the rules of war to a cure for leprosy.

The rest of the ROM was amazing too… and far too huge to complete in one day even though we only left at 6 in the evening. My favourite section was the was the Egyptian galley, which had, amongst tonnes of other things, an entire papyrus “Book of the Dead”, a cast of a huge wall full of hieroglyphic sculptures telling the story of a journey made by one of the queens of Egypt and the discovery of many never seen before animals and treasures, and an amazingly preserved mummy (looking at it made me feel truly creeped out for one of the first times since I was a young child – very cool).

I also saw my first real moose!! Although sadly, it was  stuffed.

July 22

After a nice night of “kuiering” at Kat and John’s and then splitting with them after breakfast we headed out towards the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), where there was to be – alongside its mainstay exhibits – a surrealist exhibition. We both enjoy galleries as it is, but being someone who loves Dali, and any kind of slip-slidey, dream-like art, this was an absolute treat for me.

The AGO really is an impressive galley, housing a huge array of art from around the world. Definitely on a highlight of Toronto , it is one of the best, probably the best, gallery I’ve been to.

And again, we didn’t get to finish it all unfortunately, even though we spent the entire day there (it’s huge), before we had to make our way back to Union Station to catch our train back to St. Catharines on time.

Leaving Toronto we saw a news team (City TV) who were preparing to shoot. Presumably they were covering the story that the Via trains would not be runn   at surprised ing because of an impending strike. Luckily for us the strike only came a few days later, and seeing as we were to hire a car from hereon out, would not effect us.

July 23, 24

The next two days we ded icated to seeing and doing everything in and around Niagara Falls. Bridget, Virginia’s niece, works at the falls, and she was kind enough to give us of a book of tickets, so that we could do everything in the area… for FREE! Thanks again for that.

We started the day by picking up our rental car (which involved all kinds of needless hassles) we went to Strega, where Ann found us for lunch.

We then took a drive down to the Falls and used the first of our coupons to do the ‘Whirlpool’. This involves taking a cable car out over a sharp bend in the Niagara river, a fair bit down from the Falls while a bored 15 year old announces in her most glaze-eyed monotonous voice, the wonders and history of the Falls.  Hilarious, but hardly required as the view from the cable car is divine on its own . The currents in the bend cause a large whirlpool (and incidentally some of the more dangerous rapids around), between the steep walls of a canyon.

We followed this up with a drive down to the Falls actual and walked around at the top for a while. They really are incredible, powerful and majestic. One thing is that you can stand almost on the edge of the falls, while behind you, 20 or so meters, is a fairly busy road.

We used the second of our tickets to get down behind the falls. Given plastic raincoats, you are ushered down a long subterranean walkway, and pop out at a spot more than halfway down the falls and nearly underneath them. WOW is all I can say. They look so much bigger when you’re right under them like that.

That evening we headed to the Casino for a fun filled hour of low coin gambling.

The next morn we woke and headed back to the Falls again.. but our first stop was to sneak into the Department of  Transport(?) building to try surprise another university friend of Virginia’s, Tiffany, at work. This we finally did, after being sent from office to office, sneaking through secure doors as we went.

After visiting with her a bit we headed out to do “The Maid of the Mist” which is a ferry that takes a cruise along the river, and then stops in the mist of the Falls, right inside the horseshoe, so that you feel like you have waterfalls all around      , which you do. Once again, I felt speechless at the sheer power and majesty of the thing… it boomed.     

From there we took a walk up Clifton Hill, which is like walking through and open plan amusement park. There are lots of fun things, like haunted houses, the World Guinness Centre, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and rides, right out in the street (this was definitely another of those “as seen on TV moments for me”. We stopped at an arcade for a while, and eventually won ourselves a tot glass.

In the evening we stopped by at Ann’s house again for supper (which I’m pretty sure was hamburgers, or included pork of some kind).

Mom yoys Ty at Strega