I took several computer courses in 1998, the last computer course
which took me me to Toronto, Canada for a few days. I arrived at
Halifax airport about 45 minutes before my flight. I have a ticket
but guess what? No seat! That doesn't seem right somehow.
Anyway I have to wait and if I get bumped to the next flight I will be
given $100 cash or $300 travel voucher so part of me was actually hoping...
But I got on the flight as a standby. Thankfully I have one of those
carry on size bags with the wheels and pull up handle so I didn't have
to worry about my luggage not arriving with me. Those are a great
size for a short trip!
Toronto is bright, clear and sunny when I arrive around
4 p.m. local time. I found my way out of the terminal and got a taxi
to my hotel, the Delta Chelsea Inn downtown. Big hotel! They
put me on the ninth floor so I commented, Oh, a room with a view! Apparently
I did not have a view because the desk clerk offered to switch me to a
room *with* a view, did I want a quiet view or a city view? Oh, well!
City I guess. How noisy can it be on the ninth floor in winter when
the windows are shut? I find my room, two double beds and a little
balcony overlooking a small section of Yonge Street and beyond. There
didn't seem to be a lot of free floor space between the beds and chest
of drawers on which stood the tv but a bit of space on the window side
where the desk and small table and chairs stood. It didn't really
matter as I didn't see much of my room anyway over the course of the trip!
I made a phone call and headed out to wander down Yonge
Street towards the Eaton Center, just a few blocks away. I walked
through there a bit, not really doing any serious shopping and looked into
the Bay across the street as well. I was getting hungry by this time
so I walked back North on Yonge and past the Hard Rock Cafe. Hmm.
Well I had always wanted to eat there so why not? Oh, by the way
it is Halloween! All the staff at the restaurant were in costume.
I was greeted at the door by Elvira and shown to a table by Carrie (from
the Stephen King movie starring Sissy Spacek) complete with blood splatters
from head to toe! Other costumes included one or two hockey players,
a devil, the usual types of things. My waitress was in a punk outfit.
At least I think it was a costume. In downtown Toronto you never
quite know! The most disconcerting sight was that of a young man
in a hooded cloak over an Edvard Munsch (sp?) Scream mask serving
food to tables nearby. The costume with the best "Yuck" factor was
the bartender that had a real pumpkin on his head! I did see the
handles of a plastic carry bag sticking out the back of his neck though,
so I imagine his hair was protected!
Dinner was fine and I went back to my hotel, with a few
stops along the way for postcards and window shopping on the clear crisp
night.
On Sunday I got up fairly early and had breakfast in my
room. I had big plans for the day. An internet friend was picking
me up at 9:30 and my prime objective for the morning was an excursion up
the CN Tower, the tallest freestanding structure in the world. We
planned to maybe drive around the city after that for a bit and then head
towards North York, just north of Toronto proper for a gathering of like
minded internet friends, all fans of the British serial Coronation Street
which is very popular in Canada.
The CN Tower main observatory is 1136 feet in the
air, I think 114 storeys. Followers of my earlier adventures this
past summer will remember I have done the bird's eye view from Boston's
Hancock tower, the Empire State Building and the Peace Tower in Ottawa's
Parliament Buildings. This is the highest i've been
so far. There is also a 'skypod' another 33 storeys higher but we
didn't feel we wanted to pay the extra $4.00 to go up. The view was
great as expected and the day was clear and sunny so we could even see
across Lake Ontario to the U.S. in places. The CN Tower is right
down on the waterfront. On one floor of the observatory there is
a cafe, there is also a nice revolving restaurant and on another floor
there is an outdoor deck, all caged in, and a section where there is a
glass floor!!! Oh yes!!! There are slanted mirrors above it so you can
stand on the floor and look up to the mirror. If you have your picture
taken in the mirror image then the picture will show the glass floor below
you and right down to the ground! I found the courage to walk on
it, though was tempted to "walk the line" on the steel around the panes
of glass and found myself on tiptoe on the glass itself. What a weird
feeling, sort of like walking on thin ice though you know it's going to
hold you! There are even taped outlines of "bodies" on the glass
where you could lie down if you wanted. I went back on it a bit later
and had more confidence that time so I knelt down to have my picture taken.
This was before I noticed the mirrors though so my friend had to make sure
the floor could be seen in the camera and I also took a couple of pictures
down through the glass.
We looked around the souvenir shop which was actually not
too tacky as you might expect. There are other attractions in the
tower such as simulators for things like roller coaster rides or bungee
jumping off the tower, and there are video presentations. All of
which costs you more depending on what you want to see or do. The
basic ride, in elevators that have glass fronts to the outside and take
58 seconds to go to the 114 floor, costs 15 dollars plus taxes. If
you are going to the revolving restaurant the ride is free. If you
aren't afraid of heights, it's worth a look!
The next hour or two were spent driving around downtown
taking pictures of interesting buildings and churches such as St. Michael's
and St. James cathedral (Catholic and Anglican, respectively), the Flatiron
building, Massey Hall, the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Royal York hotel and
the provincial parliament buildings at Queen's park. We even went
to Casa Loma, a castle built by a turn of the century industrialist in
North Toronto. We didn't pay to go inside, we just took a few pictures
of the building and peeked in the conservatory window. Driving a
little further into the Eglinton and Forest Hill areas we saw some lovely
old brownstone houses. There were also a lot of houses with that
fake Tudor half timbered framework. We stopped at a cafe called Under
the Sun and had tea and a snack in the glass walled back section, decorated
with odd sculpture and silk palm trees. It was quite nice really.
Once we finished there it was off to the gathering at a pub on Yonge Street,
just north of the Sheppard subway station called the Frog and Firkin.
There were already a few people there and as the afternoon wore on, our
numbers reached about 20 I think. It was so wonderful to meet all
these people that I had been chatting to on the Coronation Street irc channels
and bulletin boards for the past 2 and a half years. One woman even
made the 2 hour drive around the lake from Buffalo! We passed the
afternoon getting to know one another, taking pictures, having lunch and
supping a pint or two. Many of the guests had met each other at other
Toronto area gatherings but a few had not.
My "chauffeur had to leave to pick up her husband
so I ended up taking the subway back downtown to my hotel around 7.
I stopped into the market style restaurant in the hotel and picked up a
few slices of pizza to take up to my room for a late supper.
The course started on Monday and I managed to navigate the
subway and find my way all right. Monday night, I was to meet one
of the group I had met the day before for dinner. She picked me up
and we went north to a very nice neighbourhood called Yorkville, centered
around Bloor Street. This is where you will find the designer and
upscale shops like Armani, Nine West shoes, Holt Renfrew (an upscale department
store), Roots, Gap, a Lalique boutique and a Godiva chocolate store as
well. We ate in a nice bistro sized Swiss chain restaurant called
Movenpick that also has a seafood restaurant in it's lower floor.
We had a lovely visit and chat and window shopped our way to and from the
restaurant to the parking facility. Tuesday night I did a bit more
window shopping along Bloor on my way to the Royal Ontario Museum, at Bloor
and University (I think).
The ROM is a huge museum in a historic old building.
It is also used for private functions as well and there is a smaller building
across the street that houses a ceramic and china collection. There
are three floors and the collections cover natural history including a
reconstructed bat cave and dinosaur exhibition, to collections from ancient
Rome, Egypt (including a few mummies) and Byzantium. I didn't have
enough time to see everything so I concentrated on the third floor European
section that had rooms of furniture and audio displays covering various
eras from Renaissance to Art Deco and post modernism. I love antiques
and reproductions so I spent most of my time reading the information on
society during those periods and reading about the individual pieces of
furniture and decorations. There is also an armour and arms collection
there. The other part of the third floor covered the ancient civilizations
up to the Romans and I had a quick walk through there. I also had
a look at the James Audobon exhibit, containing about 150 of his paintings
of feathered fowl of all sorts. I didn't realize he had lived in
the earlier part of the 18 th century. I had it in my mind he was
early 20c for some reason. I=m not really into nature oriented things
like this but they were very detailed and many or most of the birds in
the paintings were actually painted life sized. The collection is
traveling to various galleries across Canada for the next year. I'm
hoping to go back to Toronto in February and maybe get more time to explore
the ROM and possibly even visit the Art Gallery of Ontario where the paintings
are.
I flew home on Wednesday afternoon after sitting in
the plane for an hour while they worked on a computer problem! I
didn't see a whole lot of Toronto, and didn't have very much time to walk
around and explore some of the multicultural neighbourhoods like the Italian
section and Chinatown. I didn't get to see a play either and Toronto
has a very good cultural scene for plays and music. I found most
of the city fairly clean and felt fairly safe in the area I was staying
walking around in the night though it wasn't any later than 8 or 9 most
nights that I was out by myself. Toronto is a busy big city but not
quite so hectic as New York City. It has a lot to offer as well,
culture, first class shopping and dining, spectator sports (major
league teams in baseball, basketball, hockey and football), family entertainment
with the Toronto Zoo and Canada's Wonderland not far away. There
is also an African Safari park about an hour and a half away, west in Cambridge
that would have been interesting. I enjoyed my brief but busy stay
in Toronto. I might not be happy living in such a big city but it
is certainly a great place for a visit!
Another business trip took me to Ottawa at
the end of August. Ottawa, Canada's capital city, is situated on the border
between the provinces of Ontario and Quebec where the Rideau river meets
the Ottawa River. Ottawa has been Canada's capital city, the center
of the federal government since around 1877, 10 years after Canada officially
became a country. There are a lot of old stately Victorian buildings
still standing amid the glass office towers in the downtown core.
The city is primarily geared toward the federal government though there
are several universities in the city as well. The main drawback in
my opinion is that most of the attractions close at 5 p.m. other than one
night a week, usually Thursday, when closing time is 8 p.m. Not good for
me since I was in a classroom all day until at least 4 and sometimes as
late as 5:30 p.m.
I arrived in Ottawa on a Saturday night to a three woman
welcoming committee! I didn't mention that I have quite a few internet
friends in the Ottawa area. We all have one thing in common, we are
fans of the British serial, Coronation Street! They told me I would
be able to tell who they were and they were right. I saw three laughing
women scanning the crowd of arriving travellers. They were holding
4 pieces of children's coloured drawing paper, one page each for a letter
of my online nickname, TVOR, only they weren't standing in the right
order so it spelled out something like ROTV!!! S'ok, I figured it
out. :))
They drove me downtown to the Sheraton hotel where we met
another internet friend in the bar after I checked in and got sorted out.
My co-worker had already arrived on a different flight so I left a message
for him and he met us in the bar for a drink. He didn't stay, however,
and the five of us left the hotel, planning to walk the long route past
some of the sights on the way to a market area to find a place for dinner.
First stop, Canada's Parliament buildings, lit up as the sky began to darken.
The center block, the main parliament, was rebuilt after a devastating
fire destroyed most of the previous building in 1916, leaving only the
lovely library at the back standing, saved only because a night maintenance
man had closed the entry doors to it before leaving. You are now
supposed to touch both doors for good luck when entering that part of the
building.
We walked east past the government buildings for a view
of the spectacular Chateau Laurier hotel, built in 1912 by the Grand National
Railway, right across from the lovely square train station with it's wide
arches on each side, now used as a conference center. We walked across
a footbridge over the start of the Rideau Canal locks and past the Royal
Canadian Mint building, resembling a castle with battlement-like towers.
We wandered past the construction site of the new U.S. Embassy building,
a ponderously large glass edifice that seems out of place beside the lovely
old limestone and brick turn pre-WWI buildings in the area. A little
further on is Notre Dame Basilica, the modern monument to Canada's peacekeeping
forces and on to the 10 year old National Gallery (there has been a National
Gallery in Ottawa for most of this century, this is just a new modern home
for the 40,000 works). We doubled back and headed for the Byward
Market area which was the original market spot in Ottawa, originally called
Bytown. The Market today, in addition to a fruit, vegetable and flower
market, consists of several blocks of restaurants, pubs, cafes and shops.
On one side is the large department store, The Hudson's Bay Company, or
The Bay as is usually called and it's attached to a multilevel shopping
mall called the Rideau Center.
We passed by one particularly unusual stone building that
had the front of another older house attached to it's exterior about 20
feet up from the ground. The building now houses a brew pub called
Tin House. The facade of the attached building once belonged to a
tin merchant who decorated the front of his house, windows, doors, and
trimmings in tin to advertise his wares. The facade that is here
now was attached to this building about 20 years ago (not sure about that
time span though) by an artist who restored parts of it that were deteriorating.
We decided to have dinner in a theme restaurant, Casablanca.
The food is Moroccan and the decor consists of movie posters and lovely
ceramic dishes displayed. We had various dishes from salad to soup
to couscous and all was pronounced delicious, topped off by a tall silver
pot of fresh mint tea! Wandering back through the streets of the
market area, now buzzing with people in the pubs on a warm Saturday night,
we stopped for a look in the Hard Rock Cafe just to see what was in the
boutique (ok, ok but I didn't actually buy anything!). Back at the hotel,
nightcap in the hotel bar and call it a night.
The next day, Sunday, I got up early and had breakfast.
Yes, in the hotel restaurant. I was on an expense account, after
all LOL. My goal for the morning was a wander over much of the same
territory as the night before, a picture taking excursion while making
my way to the National Gallery. It was bright blue-skied sunny morning
as I wandered from Parliament Hill to the gallery examining the wonderful
architecture. The Rideau canal used to connect Ottawa with the city
of Kingston but even now stretches for miles. In winter if freezes
and becomes a 6 mile long skating rink. There are walking and biking
paths along both sides and canal boat cruises too.
The National Gallery has a nice collection of European paintings
and a small collection of Impressionist work including one Renoir, two
Monets and a few other assorted works including a few Picassos. I
missed the Picasso show by about a month, it seems and from what I heard
t was very successful. There wasn't time to see it all of course,
not if I wanted to appreciate it properly so I focused on the European
and the section that contained the Canadian "Group of Seven" artists.
Now don't ask me who all of them were now, I remember Tom Thompson, A.Y. Jackson, Lismer, MacDonald.... That's it from the top of my head.
They all painted mostly between the two world wars and focused on Canadian wilderness scenery.
I think I preferred for the most part, works by Lismer and Jackson for
their use of colour. I had only planned to spend a couple of hours
there so was walking through another Canadian/Quebec display when one particular
painting stopped me, a large one featuring a harbour and some sailing ships.
No wonder, the painting was titled Halifax Circa 1820. (I'm from
Halifax)!
My time was limited because I was spending the afternoon
in the Clocktower Winery and Brew pub on Bank Street with several dozen
Coronation Street internet fans who hold gatherings on a regular basis.
In fact many cities in Canada and the UK have seen gatherings of local
fans who get together to chat about their favourite show and play trivia
games. It's really fun to put faces to the names you know via email
and chat room! That pretty much took up the rest of the day.
The day capped with a drink at an Irish pub closer to the hotel for three
of us. Darcy MacGee's is on the corner of the Sparks Street Mall
and Elgin Street. That mall is an outdoor pedestrian mall stretching
over 4 blocks of Sparks Street. Fountains, cafes, benches and shops
here. At one end, on Bank Street there is a large upscale department
store, Holt Renfrew.
So ok, most of the rest of the week was spent in class.
One evening four of us headed back to the Market for dinner in an Irish
pub, but not before I dragged them around trying to find the Tin House
again so I could take a picture of it. At my description of what
I was searching for, they decided I must have been hallucinating the night
before, but they humoured me and I found it! LOL We had a nice pub
dinner and had a drink in the hotel bar afterward with the instructor who
was also staying at the hotel. Another night we walked up Elgin Street,
which runs parallel to but not right alongside the Rideau Canal.
We found a lovely Italian restaurant called Bravo Bravo that I highly recommend.
The decor was, at least to me, enchanting! One wall was open to the
street, one wall was full of framed posters of Italy and things Italian
including Fellini movies. One wall displayed ceramic plates and wares
and the wall dividing the restaurant from the back and bar, had stone arches
above which hung brightly coloured ceramic Venetian masks. The tables were
square and painted with brightly coloured glazes; red, blue, yellow, orange
etc and matching wooden chairs. Large ceramic dishes for the pasta
and salads and the house red wine was pretty good too, if a little expensive.
The food prices were slightly high but not unreasonable and the cranberry
vinagrette dressing on my spinach salad was wonderful not to mention the
rich and tasty pasta carbonara.
The only other touristy thing I did was on Friday afternoon
after the course finished early. I went over to the Parliament buildings
and joined a free tour (Every 15 minutes in either French or English).
There is a tour of just the grounds or a tour of the main building, the
Center Block where the House of Commons, Senate, committee rooms, library
and Peace Tower are. You can only go in the building alone if you
are going up inside the tower. Otherwise you must be with a tour
for security reasons and all visitors must pass through an airport-like
metal detector. As I said before, the present buildings were erected
after a fire, completed in 1922. The structure is very similar to
the building that existed on the site previously, built in 1865.
The Peace Tower was built in 1927 as a war memorial. The interior
floors are Quebec marble and many of the walls are Manitoba limestone and
you can even find fossils in the limestone! Parts of the building
are ordinary halls and offices but some have lovely stone arches, stained
glass ceilings and paintings of the Governors General and Speakers of the
House line several halls as well.
The House of Commons currently seats the 301 Members of
Parliament. We saw the massive ceremonial mace that must be on the
speaker's table when Parliament is in session but currently is in a glass
display case. Parliament officially opens later in September for
the fall session. The carpet here is green to represent the common
folk whom the members represent.
The foyer in front of the Senate is again full of arches
and paintings of monarchs back to Victoria. That particular painting
has an interesting history. This painting was rescued from fire in
all of the previous 3 capitol buildings she was hung in, Kinston, Montreal
and the old Ottawa building. Is this lucky? Or unlucky since
all of her former homes burned down? The other paintings were reproductions
of the originals. The Senate is predominately red representing royalty
and it is here in the throne behind the Speaker's Chair where Queen Elizabeth
II would sit with Prince Philip were she to be present at the opening of
Parliament. Otherwise, the Governor General and spouse, as the Queen's
representatives, sit there instead. The walls contain murals and
there are two huge chandeliers that are said to weigh over 2 tons each
hanging from either end of the room. There are only 104 Senators
here and they debate bills that are too controversial for the House of
Commons. The Senators are appointed, not elected so they don't fear
reprisal from the electorate. The House, Senate and committee rooms
contain electronic devices for translation into French and English for
the members sitting and participating.
We were taken to a modern committee room and had a quick
peek into the library, the one that survived the fire. It's round
with a vaulted ceiling. The shelves around the room on these two
levels have intricately carved woodwork. There are plenty of windows
so it's bright and sunny and the room is dominated by a statue of Queen
Victoria in classical dress. There are several rooms below this containing
more important and older documents in a humidity and temperature controlled
atmosphere. This is the only place in the building where photographs
are not allowed in any form as it disturbs people using the library for
work. The modern age has arrived here too with computer terminals
on many of the desks.
At the end of the tour I took the 8-person elevator to the
top of the Peace Tower. The observation deck is under the clock which
chimes with up to 52 bells of varying sizes every 15 minutes. You
can see the bells through a little window as the elevator rises!
There is a display room near the elevator on the bottom floor too, with
several displays on the buildings and on Canada and Ottawa. The view
from the inside observation area is lovely on a sunny day and you can see
quite a way up and down the Ottawa River and across the river to the Quebec
city of Hull where the new Museum of Civilization sits.
I flew back to Halifax on Friday, three days after the Air
Canada pilots' strike and two days after the SwissAir 111 plane crash off
the coast of Nova Scotia! I managed to get my ticket changed but
flew standby on an earlier flight that was scheduled to leave Ottawa at
6 p.m. but was delayed until 8:30 EST! The later flight that I was
previously confirmed on after rearranging my schedule, was to leave at
10:30 p.m. landing in Halifax, with the one hour time change, in the wee
hours. As it was I didn't get home until midnight. There were
a lot of people taking some odd routes to get where they were going, including
one man that had to get to Calgary from Ottawa via Yellowknife (in the
Yukon, Alaska's neighbour) and Edmonton, Alberta so I could have been worse
off!
There are many popular attractions to see in Ottawa besides
the ones I had time to see. The Museum of Civilization, the Science
Museum, the Mint, Currency Museum, Postal Museum, a tulip festival in the
spring and a big popular Winter festival in February. Canada Day
on Parliament hill draws thousands for a concert and fireworks. There
is also a changing of the guard on the hill in the mornings (weekdays I
think) and a National Arts Center. There is an NHL hockey team in
residence and a CFL football team. From what I hear the nightlife
is even hotter across the river in Hull on the Quebec side, for those that
like it! Ottawa is a pretty city and very safe and worth a few days'
exploration!
