Feb 2007

Saturday
After a morning of recovery I spent the afternoon exploring Chicago. For some reason, within a few minutes of leaving Arvind’s apartment I knew I wanted to spend more time here. There was something about taking the 151 bus down Lake Shore on a crisp, clear winter’s day that just appealed to me. I instantly felt bad that I had slept in this morning and I had thus limited my time to sightsee.

So I went hell-for-leather down Michigan Ave, seeing as much as I could in the limited time before the museums closed. I visited the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP – part of Columbia College), the Chicago Institute of Art, Millennium Park and the Magnificent Mile.

The MoCP was a pleasant surprise, and largely defies explanation. I really didn’t know what to expect, and even though it was small, it made up for a distinct lack of photography in my previous travels. There’s something about photography that endears me to it, moreso than most other forms of art. Maybe it’s because I feel I learn something from every photo I see – a new angle, colour mode or perspective – or because I feel like I can replicate it, but there’s definitely something. The MoCP had exhibitions on Japanese love hotels, homes of the San Fernando valley and sex and food. I’m sensing a trend here. All three exhibitions merged into each other and none of them felt at all sexual. It was as if the sex was deliberately removed from each photo. The most pornographic were the San Fernando Valley shots (SFV is the location for 90% of pornographic films made in America. The owners of mansions in that region hire their houses out for the weekend or during the day to use as backdrops for pornos). However, even those were taken to deliberately miss the sex and nudity. The focus instead was on the small details of the rooms that one often misses – the placement of plants, towels, nick-nacks on shelves, that distinguish these from other locations. As odd as that sounds, I found it really interesting.

The Institute of Art is a Chicago institution and definitely did not disappoint. They also had an exhibition on photography (this time on travel photography), as well as an excellent collection of African and Asian art. By no means did I have time to do the museum justice, nor see 80% of what was on display, but I did see the small galleries that particularly interested me – namely the African, Latin American and Asian galleries. Of those, my favourite was the short display on Lunhan paintings. To understand what these are, it would be best to Google/Wiki them, but to me they resembled comic book strips of ancient Japanese warriors. They struck me, shown as they were amongst traditional Japanese art, as different and arresting. I’m definitely in the market for one now … which means some more traveling is in order!

After a quick stroll down a portion of the Magnificent Mile I headed to the John Hancock Tower for the sunset. Hancock is not the tallest building in Chicago (that honour belongs to the Sears Tower, still the tallest occupied building in the world), but it does offer unparalled views of the greater Chicago area and out to the Lake. Especially compared to the CN Tower, this is definitely worth a visit.

That evening we went so many different places it seems odd to recount it as all one continuous event, but it was so I will. We began at a really nice Italian restaurant, Bice, for some excellent pasta and wine. From there, a few of us headed to the famed Second City improv centre to watch a ‘cutting-edge’ amateur improv group strut their stuff. To be honest it wasn’t the funniest show I’ve ever seen, but the team had talent, they just need to work on delivery and continuity. Arvind is studying there as well so in a few years maybe I’ll come back and see him up on stage!

After Second City, we made a trip to Rock’n’Roll McDonalds (seriously, that’s what its called – Arvind said so in the cab!). This place has to be seen to be believed. It has leather couches, gelato, a history of the last 50 years through McDonalds toys and loads of photos on the history of America & Maccas. So much fun, even with all the pre-pubescents out on Valentine’s Day formals!

Our final destination was a hip bowling/pool place downtown. They had a cool out-of-the-way lounge area that we relaxed in before playing some pool. I finally had a chance to learn how to play and it was awesome. Definitely a skill that I’ll have to practice when I get home! Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to bowl as it was too expensive. Maybe next time, eh?

Sunday
After waking later than I had anticipated, I headed out for one last time to see the sights of Chicago. It turns out the weather wasn’t as great as I had hoped so the late wake-up wasn’t too much of a loss. I followed my intended route – Navy Pier & Millennium Park, but I found I had more spare time than expected so I continued onwards.

Navy Pier, off downtown Chicago, is part amusement-park, part-museum, part-pier, and (on the day I visited) part-gymnastic competition. It’s far more substantial than I had expected, stretching for about (I’m guessing) 1-2kms. On it are rides, the obligatory Ferris wheel and a conference centre of sorts. It’s another of those ‘in the summer’ attractions although, despite the cold, it was pretty busy. That might have been more a product of the gymnastics and the fact that it was Sunday more than anything else, but ah well.

After a short bus ride back to Millennium Park I took the compulsory photos of myself under the bean – as you can see on my Facebook. The weather wasn’t as great as before, so I didn’t get quite as good a reflection as I had hoped, but hey, you can’t have everything. As mentioned above, I had some extra time, so I decided to do that quintessential Chicago thing – ride the Loop. The Loop (always in capitals it seems) rings the downtown area and makes for an interesting ride. It’s an elevated track so you ride at about the 3rd storey of all the buildings – great for perving! The trains and track are surprisingly old. Scrap that, almost disgracefully old. They are renovating them, but c’mon Chicago – 2nd city my arse!

From there I walked up State St to revisit Rock’n’Roll McDonalds and the Chicago Theatre and then back up the Magnificent Mile. Whilst walking I learned something about Chicagonians (or is it Chicagonites?) – they don’t put ketchup on their hot dogs. Come to think of it, do we? I think we (Sydneysiders) do, eh? Well, at least I do. Clearly mustard is the winner in the States!

And that was it – time to head back to DC! O’Hare lived up to its reputation as a big mess, successfully losing my luggage (ARGH!) and delaying the flight. Fair enough the weather was shite, but c’mon, this is Chicago – it’s hardly unexpected! United really need to get their act together on check in. They have moved to a self-service-only system and it just fails when there are more than 100 people queuing to check in. The solution is simple – hire more staff to collect the bags and then us customers won’t be left standing around unsure of what to do once we’ve got our boarding passes. Grrr!!

In the delay I did learn that the plane I was flying on supported the US troops. Now I don’t know about you, but was that really necessary? I don’t know if that is a good thing or not, although clearly a substantial portion of typical United flyers do, or they wouldn’t have it on the plane. In many ways it kinda makes me less likely to fly with them, although I can’t pinpoint why. It’s not the usual ‘makes us a bigger target’ nonsense, because I don’t buy that, or really care. As an Aussie, I’ll take what comes to me – I seriously doubt someone will target us anyway (one of the benefits of being so insignificant) and if they do, well it’s clearly my time to go. Thoughts anyone?

Due to the delay and the lost luggage I kept Jen waiting for an hour at Dulles, so I do apologise there. The important thing though is the luggage should arrive tomorrow morning. Should!

Today was another of those ‘commuting’ days. From Toronto (newly christened T-O) to Buffalo, NY to Chicago. The short story is I made it without any problems. Even at the US border I was waved through faster than anyone else on our bus. I had all my documents ready and I wasn’t even asked for them. Bugger, eh?!

I have to say though, in my limited knowledge of the place, Buffalo is a bit of a hole. Now that could have been because my experience is solely related to the bus terminal, but it just didn’t scream “visit me” like so many other cities have. It was dirty, unsafe and really cold!

Other than that, everywhere was pretty non-descript. Chicago’s O’Hare airport, reputedly the busiest in the world, definitely lived up to its reputation for being big, annoying and busy. This place is HUGE and the signage is limited. The problem stems from the fact that it has built up over time. This makes all the links between terminals and with the public mass transit system cumbersome and non-sensical.

Upon arrival at Arvinds' (another NUSer) place, however, I felt immediately at home. We went out immediately and hit two bars and a 24hr breakfast place (Golden Nugget) before crashing at 3am. I was so tired before arriving at Arvind’s that by the time I got there it was just nasty. The specific details of the evening are a bit hazy, but I do know that I had an awesome amount of fun, didn’t spend nearly enough money (Arvind! How dare you pay for all my drinks!! [Thanks though! ]), and met some cool people. I also remember that the portion for my 4-egg breakfast omelette-monstrosity was HUGE. This thing covered my 2am breakfast and my brunch the following day. I’m clearly back in the States!

Sunday
After being consistently amazed by Ottawa (and surprisingly so), Toronto had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, it failed on many counts, not least because I missed its winter festival (known as Wintercity). Nonetheless, I really enjoyed it, although it definitely did not endear itself to me like Ottawa, Montreal & Quebec City did.

My first impression of Toronto will stick with me for a while. To me it symbolises what differentiates it from other cities around it. You arrive from Ottawa on a rapidly expanding highway, approaching 9 lanes in each direction about 45mins out of downtown. Nowhere else in Canada that I know of ever gets to this level and I can only dread to think about how bad the traffic is in rush hours.

Suffice to say, the scale alone shocked me, and it was clear from the onset that Toronto was a different bread of city – big, brash and very very business-focused. Not a lot of tourist sights here, unless of course, you are here in the summer months. Then, I’ve been told, it’s awesome. It’s just I wasn’t visiting then!

After meeting my 2nd cousins (I think that’s how we are related – Norm is my Dad’s cousin) at the bus terminal, we drove straight to Niagara Falls. After checking in (to the Embassy Suites no less!) we had drinks at the Manager’s Reception and I headed out in the blistering cold to the IMAX theatre. Despite the amazing view from our room (see the photos), the weather was overcast, so I decided to go watch a movie on Niagara in the summer. See it how it should be seen, I guess.

The movie ended up being on the history of the falls, and more particularly on how people have attempted baralleling over it in various contraptions. The movie documents the success stories and has some awesome footage of the falls themselves, as only IMAX can. It also tells the legend of the falls, which involve a First Nations woman who, upon being given to the oldest and wisest man in the village, decided to leave rather than deny the old man his gift (if that makes sense). Legend has it she kayaked to the falls and fell over, becoming the “Maid of the Mist”. That term has since been the name of the boat that goes right up to the falls in the summer months.

I think today ranks up there as one of the coldest so far – the high was -13 Celsius, which became -27 with wind chill. Buffalo, just across the border in the US was 3F today. Ouch!

But I digress. We eat dinner at the Keg restaurant which overlooks the Horseshoe Falls (on the Canadian side). The steak and salad were of Canadian proportions but incredibly juicy and delicious. And the brownie I had for desert was definitely a fudge brownie, and as rich and thick as one should be. I have been spoilt this trip!!

Following dinner, Norm and I headed to the nearby Fallsview Casino, which really didn’t impress me at all. If anything it gave me a chance to see just how bad gambling really is. There were absolutely no redeeming features here to entice me. It was just row after row of poor, desperate, predominantly superstitious (lots of rubbing the screen here) people eager to ‘beat’ the house. Look, it’s not going to happen, and you will waste your money and ruin all that you have worked so hard to achieve. Argh! It got me so worked up! At least I saw the end of the Superbowl, which the Indianapolis Colts won rather convincingly.

Monday
We awoke this morning to find the poor weather gone, revealing a bright blue, sunny sky and the falls shimmering in all their glory. The mist was down too on yesterday, revealing more of the Horseshoe falls. The photos speak for themselves really – it was an awesome sight, and really noisy!

Luckily for me, Norm and Anne had a car, so we drove past the falls towards Niagara-on-the-Lake, passing many vineyards and the hydro plants on the way. Niagara-on-the-lake is renowned for its ice wine, and after a false start (we stopped at the one winery that didn’t make it first!), I tried some and bought a bottle. It’s so sweet – a sugar rating of 18 (desert wine has a rating of 8) – but really quite good.

We stopped twice more on the way back to Toronto (or as Jane would call it ‘T-dot’). The first stop was a quaint little Scottish pub known as the Queen’s Head in stylish Oakville. There I had my first Scottish Meat Pie, which was the perfect antidote to the biting cold outside. The second stop was an outlet mall where luckily I was able to withdraw some Canadian dollars. Once again, Toronto outdoes all other Canadian cities with its many strip malls blighting the landscape. These places are so wasteful! Doesn’t anyone realize how inefficient it is to have each shop in a separate building, surrounded on all sides by a mammoth single-level car park? Argh!!

Tuesday
After having re-checked my sightseeing guides to Toronto, I realized that there just wasn’t enough to see here to cover my three days if I proceeded at usual Tristan pace. So I gave myself loads of spare time to explore the city. This turned out to be most interesting, and led to some great times in Chinatown and in the PATH system.

My first stop, given the good weather I was blessed with, was CN Tower. Just to clear things up first off: CN is not CNN spelt incorrectly. Instead it stands for ‘Canadian National’ and refers to the railways company that operates Viarail and all intercity rail in Canada. It still stands as one of the tallest structures in the world, despite it being over 30 years old. The viewing platform that I reached was 346m above the ground!

To be honest, I don’t think its worth the exorbitant fee charged (C$22+). To start with, it’s such a symbol of Toronto that to take a photo from it defeats the purpose. You spend your whole time going ‘but where is the CN tower’ in all your photos. In addition, the ‘amazing’ glass floor doesn’t run the whole way along, but rather a very limited portion of the level, enabling you to see the concrete spire below and not much else. Being winter, the outdoor viewing deck was closed (a fact they failed to mention anywhere), so my pics were limited to those taken behind Perspex. Pity, because the view is amazing and the weather was perfect, if freezing.

From the CN Tower, I took the PATH underground city back to Union station and from there the subway to Museum. I emerged opposite the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), however I chose to leave that to another day and begin my walk back downtown. Starting along University Ave, I reached the Legislative Assembling buildings (otherwise known as the Provincial Parliament).

Some of you may be wondering, as I did, why the provincial government is in Toronto, but the national is in Ottawa. It’s all due to history, apparently. When the province (Ontario) was first colonized, it was done in Toronto, and so the legislative buildings all grew there. Ottawa as a national capital was added later (located where it is to appease the Quebecers & Ontarians).

The buildings themselves are well worth a visit, and I was lucky to have essentially a private guided tour. They have led an interesting history, having been burnt largely to the ground in 1909. Unlike the national Parliament, where the library was left intact, the library in Toronto was destroyed. Instead they were able to save the chamber, and it stands, partially restored, as a monument to colonial Canada.

From there I made the obligatory rest stop at Tim Hortons before making a brief visit to Old City Hall (now a large courthouse and subsequently mostly off-limits). I also stopped in the enormous Eaton Centre shopping complex, spending quite a bit of time lounging in Chapters and HMV. It was here that I caved in and bought the new Fall Out Boy album (early thoughts: nowhere near FUCT, but growing on me).

I knew I had to be opposite the MuchMusic studios for 6:30pm to meet Jane and her friends, so I made the most of the rapidly depleting sun and headed for Chinatown. I’m very glad I made that decision as Toronto’s Chinatown is the real deal. For starters, the majority language is Mandarin, not Cantonese, the markets are wet markets and the shops signs are all written in characters. This is my kind of place – for some bizarre reason it felt comforting, like home would. Odd, eh? I take it as a sign (if ever I needed one) that I’m a born ‘egg’ as always will be.

Think about it … what do eggs look like? White on the outside, yellow on the inside yeah? So … geddit? Ah forget it!

To continue the egg theme, I met with Jane and her friends (including another egg, Peter) for some Korean BBQ. We ate far too much and it was awesome. Great company, great food. What more could you want!? After nightcaps in Starbucks I headed home to watch some TV with Norm.

Wednesday
To my regret, a lot of my spare time in Toronto was wasted attempting to activate wireless internet in Norm & Anne’s apartment. I should have resigned myself from the outset that this was an unachievable goal and moved on. Instead I let it get to me and it came to define my time in Toronto. In the end I had to get my internet fix and did so at St Lawrence Market, but that wasn’t until Thursday. Before then, I bummed around the house watching BBC World. I guess there are worse things, eh?

And so it was that I found myself at midday in Starbucks on Bloor St, peoplewatching. To be honest, I love people-watching. It’s like stalking without the creepiness. Well, without most of the creepiness. You never know their names or occupations, but it’s always interesting to think about where they’re going, or what compelled them to dress the way they did. But I digress …

The aim today was visit some of Toronto’s museums. The first stop was the aforementioned Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). This place is destined to be huge, once the additions are finished (in the summer, obviously!), but in the meantime it’s a great venue to see Asian art – in particular Chinese and Japanese – and the history of Europe through art. From the ROM I made my way south to the CBC Museum. CBC is Canada’s version of ABC or BBC (hence the acronym), and is surprisingly good. It is seemingly well-funded and produces some excellent documentaries. Plus it hosts the Hour and Rick Mercer. With those two shows alone I’d watch it!

However, the museum was small, and lacked anything to make it stand out. It focused too much on the technical improvements in broadcasting, and less on what makes CBC important, interesting or historically engaging. A pity because it could have been so much better!

I also headed to MEC (Mountain Equip Co-op) to check out the day bags (mine is just a little worn!), but I completely forgot that you need membership to buy anything. Bugger. Another thing to add to my Vancouver to-do list.

Wednesday evening was destined to be a highlight of my time in Toronto due to one thing – the NBA! Norm bought us tickets a few weeks ago and so I’d been really looking forward to it for some time. The game, between the Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic was wicked fun and pretty close. Neither team played their best, but it took me back to primary school and collecting NBA cards. Back in the day! The final score was 113-103 to Toronto! We won!!

Oh, I almost forgot – for dinner we went to this little Japanese place in their apartment building. Great food and clearly Norm & Anne are regulars – we were treated like royalty! I even tried Sushi Pizza, which is raw salmon on crusty rice. Good stuff!

Thursday
As I mentioned earlier, today was the big day: I got internet again! And had a really nice mocha to boot! I started the day at St Lawrence Market – an old-style food market, similar to Eastern Market in DC or possibly a small version of Flemington Market in Sydney. The downstairs part has given way to a large number of tourist-style shops, but the upper level still feels like a proper weekend food market. It was definitely another side to Toronto, which was great as in a city of 5 million people I was beginning to feel it was all just commuters, businesspeople and work.

At St Lawrence I picked up my pride and joy, a Tim Hortons tshirt. Well, not a real one, but one that I think is even better! It says “As long as I get my Timmys no one gets hurt!”. Gotta love that, eh?!

After a brief stop at Pizza Pizza (What would Toronto be without Pizza Pizza?!), I met Carol at Union Station. Carol and I studied together in Singapore, and it was great to see her again. Within a few minutes it was like we’d never left and in this cold weather it made me smile. Somehow talking about Singapore made me feel warm! Odd, eh?

Later on we met up with Jane and Ira (also ex-NUS exchangies) at Starbucks and went hunting for some Moroccan cuisine. The place, called 93-Harbord or something similar to that (my memory is a little hazy!), served Moroccan fusion cuisine and did it very well. I think the place was far more ‘nice’ than we had expected, but the food was amazing and the service (especially for Ira!) was great. Jane’s friend Louise also joined us and made sure we didn’t talk about Singapore the whole night!

We had our nightcap and said our farewells at (where else) Tim Hortons. There’s nothing like a double-double (my first one!) and TimBits to warm you up! And that was it! I was back at Norm and Anne’s for one final night. Luckily Norm was awake and we got to have a good chat about politics, Canada and everything in between. Despite all I’ve said against Toronto, it does have its charm, and in a city this big it is always the people that make or break a city. For me, it was the people that were its savings grace. Thanks guys!

Lorali very kindly picked me up from the train station and, after a short trip on the Queensway to her house, we rapidly fell back into our usual ways. For those who don’t know how we know each other: we met on the Gecko’s tour around Central America. Us Canadians (have I been there long enough to claim honourary citizenship?) tend to stick together, tied by our anti-Americanism and wicked black humour. Can I interest anyone in a small Guatemalan child? Some Pringles maybe?!

Thursday
Lorali had to work on Thursday, so I had the day to myself to go exploring Ottawa. Lorali, being the awesome host that she was/is, had gathered some promotional material on the sights and events, and I spent some time this morning reading through them. To be honest, I had no idea Canada’s capital could be so interesting. There’s definitely something about capital cities that makes them targets for awesome museums and events. Must have something to do with national pride, I guess.

I had decided to do the ‘Big-4’ today: Canadian War Museum, Museum of Civilisation, the Petra exhibit and an IMAX film. Surprisingly enough, I managed to do all 4 in the one day, although I did rely quite substantially on the late-night closing of the Museum of Civilisation to do so.

The newly-opened Canadian War Museum (CWM) lives up to all its hype. Well, in my mind at least. It’s housed in an architecturally interesting building, reminding me somewhat of a bunker. I’m not convinced that was the intention, but regardless, that’s what I see. The exhibits focus on all conflicts Canada has ever been involved in – starting with First Nations civil conflicts, moving through to the omnipresent Franco-English skirmishes, to more organized warfare like WW1 & 2, and then the post-WW2 conflicts of Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and UN Peacekeeping. After being bombarded (bad word choice, I know) with WW1 & 2 information in high school and University, I found the exhibits a bit repetitive. But that can hardly be blamed on the museum. What most interested me was the Peacekeeping exhibit, and of the two and a half hours I spent there, almost half was in this final section. If anything, it strengthened my resolve to work in that field at some point in the future, possibly right out of college. Who knows where such a decision will take me, but that is largely the point!

What also struck me the most about the CWM was the similarities with our own (Australian) Armed Forces. In WW1, for example, our involvement was almost identical. The battles of Hill 70, Vimy Ridge, Beaumont-Hamel and Passchendale are as important to Canadian military identity as there are to the Aussies. It brought back memories of our 2001 Battlefields tour and generally made me more aware of the similarities between our two nations.

This afternoon was spent almost exclusively in the Museum of Civilisation (CMC). This place is huge and deserves a few hours to do it justice. My first stop was the special exhibit, currently on the Stone City of Petra, in Jordan. You know the one, in Indiana Jones, carved out of the rock face. Given my knowledge on the region was pretty much limited to Mr Jones, it was really interesting to see/hear and read about the city’s extensive influence and power. It was built in an easily fortified location at trading crossroads, and survived for many decades before finally a series of earthquakes rendered it unliveable. Like so many ancient cities, it managed to maintain an ample supply of water using a complex array of pumps, aqueducts and tunnels. It was only after the earthquakes destroyed much of the infrastructure that the city couldn’t continue to exist. Knowing this makes me feel quite sad that we are no longer able to think outside the box to best maintain our environment.

Following my visit to Petra, I continued around the museum, visiting the First Nations Hall (which is awesome btw, with loads of artifacts. Uber-PC though, which gets a bit tedious at times) and the Canadian history exhibit. Both exhibits go step-by-step, exploring themes and issues in Canada’s history, from traditions to inventions, people and places. Although much of it I had heard before (the importance of the railroad for example), it was still really well presented.

My final stop in the CMC was the IMAX Theatre to watch the film Fighter Pilot. I had actually originally planned to see this at the Air & Space Museum near Dulles airport, but circumstances denied me from doing so. As it turns out, it was more convenient and cheaper to do so here! The film itself follows one pilot and his crew in training sessions conducted near Las Vegas, Nevada. The shots are awesome, and do what IMAX does best: show us a world we would otherwise never see. At times stomach-churning, this film was well worth going to see.

By now it was well past night-fall, and I made my way (losing my Greyhound bus ticket on the way, and losing my direction majorly twice!) to Tim Hortons to see Jana & Laurie. I had ‘worked’ with Jana & Laurie on Ko Phi Phi, Thailand in July 2005 and it was only through a bizarre twist of fate (and Facebook) that we had stayed in touch and were able to meet in Ottawa. It was awesome reminiscing about the good ol’ (warm) times in Thailand, and it looks like I’ll see them again at Winterlude! Yay!

Friday
After a late start, Lorali and I made tracks for Cora’s. Cora’s is an institution in Ottawa, known for its substantial breakfasts served all-day. I had a fruit custard crepe, and it was huge and oh-so-good. I’m not entirely convinced by its supposed nutritional value, but mmmm…. Custard has a tendency to make me forget silly mundane things like eating properly!

After a brief visit to the police station (it was going to happen at least once on this trip, eh?) to report my lost Greyhound ticket, we headed to Chapters to buy a book that Lorali had been raving about for the past few days. I haven’t really looked at it much since, given time constraints, but it concerns the Canadian general (Romeo Delaire) who led the UN Peacekeeping force in Rwanda and his (in)ability to act when it was most needed. Should make for interesting (and disturbing) reading.

From there we made the trip downtown to visit Parliament Hill and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We took a tour of Parliament Hill just after 3pm and both found it fascinating. No matter how many parliamentary buildings I visit this trip, I don’t think I’ll ever become bored – they all differ so much in their style, substance and supposed power. Ottawa’s Parliament Hill is very traditional, modeled substantially on traditional English buildings.

Unfortunately the Photo museum was closed, so we made our way to By Ward Market to sample Ottawa’s most famous export – Beavertails. Now I’ll leave it up to you to work out whether I mean actual beavers tails or something different (the photos should tell you the answer!), but suffice to say they were awesome. Everything I’d expected and more. Truth be told I’d eaten one in Montreal a few days ago, but this time I changed toppings to Maple Butter and Nutella. It went EVERYWHERE and was soooo good!

A quick trip through the Rideau Centre reignited our travel plans as we stopped to grab brochures on the Trans-Mongolian railway and started to look at just how feasible the whole idea was. To our surprise, it looks like we could fit everything into 4 months. It will be a pretty intense four months, but definitely worth it. So far the plan entails flying to Germany, taking the train from Moscow to Beijing, heading south through China to Tibet, India and Sri Lanka, then onwards to South East Asia. It’s predicted to take about 4 months (throughout the northern summer) and cost about A$10,000. So far I have no money at all, nor any idea of really where I’ll be in 2009, but it’s a plan, and that’s a start. Something to look forward to in any case.

After a brief dinner of pesto pasta (my first one in months, and very much needed!), Lorali and I left the house for her friend Shari’s place. After a few pre-drinks, an attempt to fix their broken computer and some awkward comments made in front of Shari’s 12-yr old son (not by me!), we left for an even-more-bizarre cab ride downtown. Let’s just say I’ll never think of partitions in taxis the same way again! It was a pretty good night, all told, although I’m torn between the Anchor & Crown’s attitude and Bar 101’s fights for most interesting ‘scene’! It all ended well with pizza and laughing over slightly tipsy people falling over on the ice outside.

Saturday
After picking up Shari and her son Steven, Lorali and I drove downtown to Winterlude – Ottawa’s winter festival. As I’ve said before, winter festivals such as this bring cities alive. It makes winter worth looking forward to, and gives people purpose in the bitterly cold months.

Unfortunately the Rideau Canal was packed (today was the first day the whole thing had been open – a product of a particularly mild winter), so I never got a chance to skate on it. I did, however walk on it, so that’s part of the way there, isn’t it??

My particular highlight was eating poutine (chips, gravy, cheese – heart attack in a cup) then Taffy on snow (maple syrup frozen on ice) whilst watching all the ice sculptures being, well, sculpted. Some of them were simply amazing, and the photos don’t really do them justice (clear ice on white isn’t the best combination!). I will never cease to be amazed by chainsaws used to carve intricate details on ice.

We spent the afternoon re-visiting the Parliament for its open day. We walked all through the buildings and up to the Peace Tower, with its unparalleled view of downtown Ottawa and Gatineau. After a fire destroyed most of the building in 1916, only the library remained. The photos I’ve posted show the difference in architecture and explain why there are so many statues relating to WW1 throughout the building. Definitely worth a visit.

Following that, Lorali, Shari and Steven headed back, and I met up with Jana for a leisurely stroll through the Crystal Garden (with the ice sculptures). All too soon it was time to head back and continue my adventure through Eastern Canada. But not before Lorali and I had dinner at Baan Thai. This place was pretty authentic and served a mean duck curry. Lorali and I, both of whom have been to Thailand, were very impressed, and it was an excellent way to end an awesome few days.