Pass the Wolfe - June 08
I woke up early, because, you know, the sun, and went into Walmart to buy a few things as a thank you for Walmart allowing me to sleep in their parking lots across Canada. Good on ya, Walmart. I then went to Starbucks to internet for a while. It was a good session. After I went back downtown to buy myself a growler of the Stone City Ale IPA and catch the ferry to Wolfe Island. After I got the growler, I decided against the trip to Wolfe Island because I only had one recommendation from a bartender the night before and I had never heard of it before that. So I resolved to start my trip to Toronto to meet up with Tessa and Jessie, two ladies I met in Sayulita at the end of the Mexico portion of the trip. So incredibly nice of them to want to hang out and both of them offered me a place to stay while I visit.
Just about three hours later and I found myself rummiging through Tessa’s mail to find the keys she left me. I moved some things into the apartment, parked my car in a more permanent, less ticket-y location, and did a bit more on the old computer. I figured out that the entire source of nutrition for my day was a tea, granola bar, sour jube jubes, two PB&Js, and an apple so I started searching for food in Toronto. Lucky for me, Tessa lives near a pretty cool section of town where there are lots of Asian and Latino restaurants! I found myself a Mexican place and got myself some quesadillas, in Spanish! I can still do it. The guy behind the counter told me he didn’t think I had an accent, I glowed internally. But I probably showed it in my face as well. Any time someone tells me that I feel super good about the way I’ve learned this dope language. Score one for me!
About an hour after I consumed the quesadillas, Tessa came home. Thankfully she called her cat and it appeared. At one point I was certain I had accidentally let it get out without me noticing. I was worried because Tessa had explicitly told me not to let the cat out. Dodged that bullet. We went and got some ramen and talked about life, language, and travel. Some of the best subjects to get to know a person, I’ve found. We took a walk around town as we came back to the apartment and chatted more in the kitchen splitting a few strawberries for dessert. Tessa is a genuine person and I’m lucky to have someone so nice to crash with while I’m here in Toronto. I’m excited to see what I can get up to in this city of the next few days.
Walking Tours, Radio Shows, Towers, and Peeps - June 09
On Thursday, Tessa and I did a little walking tour of the city. I love this part of my visit to a town because you get to see so much, especially when you’re with a local. I don’t remember specifically everything we saw but a few were Trinity-Bellwoods park, basically all of Queen Street, the CN Tower, a visit to Steam Whistle, city hall, Toronto letters, and others that will not be named because I can’t name them. We parted ways when Tessa had to get going to the Jays game and I had to get going to my taping session of Because News, a small comedic news game show where they invite Canadian comics to make fun of recent events.
The taping was funny. The only issue I had with it was that they didn’t ask the audience many questions and I felt like there was some more comedic potential in a lot of topics that went untouched. For example, when the host asked “Do you think Kalashnikov making a clothing line will somehow make owning an AK-47 cooler?” and nobody said that was a loaded question. Whatever. I should be a comedian, obviously. I had fun.
I walked around for a while after the taping thinking I would kill enough time before meeting up with Tessa and Jessie (the other Toronotonian that I met in Mexico) after the Jays game. Instead, I realized I had enough time to get up the CN Tower during the sunset. Good call, Jeff. After the tower I met up with basically all the nurses in Toronto, I swear. I’m just breaking so many barriers right now. We hung out in a condo for a bit then went to a club called Underground or something like that. I had a great time letting loose with that group of people.
Here are some photos from that day:
Also, a link to the episode of Because News that I attended.
Relax, Don’t Do It - June 10
On Saturday I spent a great amount of time just relaxing as I had no goals to go out and be active after the night out with the nurses. After a certain point, you realize what you’re doing and resolve to go out of the house and enjoy the city you’re visiting. So, I went out, go some street food for dinner and walked around until I found myself in Amsterdam Brewhouse. I took a seat at the bar and got a few flights of beer to taste everything they had to offer. It was good, then a large group of people, seemingly a familiy there to celebrate somebody’s wedding. Since I ended up sitting inbetween a few of the family members they politely asked me to move one seat over to which I happily obliged. Little did I know that the woman who asked was overly nice. She bought me a beer, we chatted for a while and I told her about my trip. When she was leaving, she gave me a gift card to the chain of restaurants she owns for $25! So cool!
That brought me to the end of my day, a stumble later and I was back at the house, watching Netflix. What a wonderous life I live at times.
Niagara - June 11
June, 11 2016, my trip to Niagara Falls. Did you know that’s how it is spelled? I think I honestly didn’t there was an ‘A’ between the ‘G’ and ‘R’. The more you know. The drive to Niagara Falls was a bit noisy because my car’s fan has decided to start hitting something while it spins. Since I use the AC quite a bit that meant I had to deal with the noise for basically the entire drive. Woo! I parked my car in an all you can eat joint and walked down to the falls. I pulled out my camera and quickly realized that I had, again, left my damn memory card in my laptop which means I could only take photos with my phone. I can’t believe it happened again. I’m supposed to be an expert traveler by now!
Those falls are something else. I don’t think I truly understand how much water is actually going over those things every second. Just unbelievable. I took a long break under a tree to read a little, eat my PB&J sandwiches, and relax before heading back up to my car. Since I hadn’t spent much time at that point I decided a trip up to Niagara-on-the-Lake was in order. While there I read HP for about an hour and had had enough of the lake’s view. It’s kind of weird looking out across a lake and not being able to the land on the other side. Theses lakes are huge.
I spent the rest of my day walking about town, eating ice cream from a place called Bang Bang, recommend by a friend of mine, and reading more HP. The Prisoner of Azkaban is a fun read. I’m glad that I’m finally getting around to reading these books for some reason. Even though I am totally late to the game. It’s cool to read about the parts left out of the movies.
I’m just going to end here.
Jays Game, Unexpectedly Alright - June 12
Today was the day. I bought Jays a ticket for Sunday and I planned on using it. I left the house before 10am and walked around for a while trying to find a breakfast place to treat myself to some good food. I walked all the way until I found myself on Ossington again. Just around the corner on Queen I found a place called Frankie’s and had a good breakfast while I did some more reading. It’s funny that I still have this habit of getting into bouts of reading, even though I have so much time for it during my travel. Old habits die heard I suppose. After eating I went back into Trinity-Bellwoods Park and finished the book. I immediately switched it over to The Goblet of Fire and read a few chapters before realizing that it was time to start walking to the Jays game.
Here’s the summary for the game that I watched: Ridiculous first inning where the Jays demolished the Orioles for 5 runs, boring for the next few innings, Orioles with mutliple run home run to make things interesting, lots of pitcher changes for both teams, more home runs, and finally the last pitcher for the Jays striking out a batter in three pitches even though the crowd was shouting “Please thrown some strikes!” on the batter before. The game was actually much more fun to watch than I had expected, though I think I lucked out on the quality a little. I’m sure they’re not all that good. It was worth the sunburn that I got for sure.
I then walked down to The Distillery District, had some early dinner at Mill Street Brewing, I decided to go for a vegetarian meal because I always feel better after eating vegetarian than I do with some heavy meat meal. An interesting discovery I’ve made over the last few months. We’ll see how that all pans out when I get home and have to start cooking for myself again. The beer was pretty good too. I then headed way west to go to a CouchSurfing meetup that had been posted. Once I arrived I was met by a large group of culturally diverse and welcoming friends. There were people from Germany, Jordan, Japan, Toronto, America, Poland, and others that I don’t remember. I had a few beers with everyone and decided to call it a night because I getting sick and I don’t want to aggravate the problem. On the way home I got some shawarma in the form of a falafel wrap, again, veggie becuase why not continue the trend. I followed that up with some ice cream but whatever.
Early High School Reunions - June 13
Spent the morning buying food, eating it, talking to Tessa, and waiting for the time when I could leave the house and start my walk uptown to where my friend from high school and I were going to meet. The walk took almost 30 minutes, especially because I had to walked around the university due to a report of a “suspicious” person on campus that the police had responded to by shutting the entire place down. Fun.
Finally, though, I met up with Veronica, a awesome girl I haven’t seen in at least two years, and I think it is probably more like four. We had a nice one hour lunch, walk, and ice cream, near her work. It was great to catch up. I told her that she has to come to our ten year high school reunion even if I have to organize it. I love that shit.
After that I spent a good portion of the day just walking around from where Veronica left to go back to work. I went inside Honest Ed’s which was pretty cool and walked down Bathurst for a while before trying to go into a ServiceOntario office to work on my car stuff. The line was too long so I decided to defer that crap. I got back to the house and Tessa and I went for some grilled cheese sandwiches. We then went to her favourite bar for a few drinks. Topics varied, but the usuals definitely shone through. She’s a cool girl and I’m, again and as always, super lucky to have someone in a city that allows me to stay with them.
Thanks Tessa!
Straight Driving - June 14
In the morning I lolly-gagged a little and left the house a little after Tessa went to work. Here’s what I did until Sault Ste. Marie. I drove. Also, I saw the Wawa goose. Which is definitely a thing. So there you have it. That is all. Once I got to the town, I found the Walmart, set up and went to sleep with dreams of renewing my permit and insurance to further my Trans-Canada trip.
Look a goose!
Shit, Shit, Shit - June 15
In the morning I managed to find another ServiceOntario and walked in, all happy that I would get my new permit and insurance to continue on my journey across Canada. Little did I know, however, that they had another plan for me. They told me that they couldn’t even give me a special seven-day permit for me to drive the car home. Nothing, not even a sarcastic “good luck with that.” Jerks. This means that I have to either find a permit in the next few provinces, or drive all the way to BC and get the car properly registered and insured. Which would mean I back-track to Edmonton. Sweet.
I ripped on to Thunder Bay, had some disgusting McDonald’s for dinner, grabbed a coffee and some candy to keep me alert and powered on to good old Dryden, Ontario. Yeah, I’ve never heard of it either but it was the best location for the next Walmart before I figured I would need to get some rest. This drive went surprisingly well thanks to my strategic drinking of that large coffee (about 1/4 every hour) and some well chosen music. Thanks, Latin America, you’ve got some sweet sweet beats. I got to the Walmart, set up shop and wento sleep just after 10pm, thanks to the time change, and set the alarm for 5am. With that wake up time I would be able to make it to the Manitoba Public Insurance building right when they opened if my driving held up to Google Maps standards.