| Toronto. The 3 ½ day trip summarized and articulated Seth style. . Let’s begin, shall we, eh? Suppression #34: I wait in line to check-in at the KCI airport. There was 3 lines, two said “Chicago Only” (Hi Nish), and Denver Only (word up, Barton) and the other line. Well which one would you take? Turns out that line was for the baggage super duper metal detector line. So they sent me to “one of the other lines” – this makes about as much sense as a department store with an escalator going up but only stairs going down. Victory #33: Though I had the last seat on the plane, there was nobody next to me. It was the only empty seat on the flight. Redemption! Kiss my ass, first class flits! Suppression #35: The plane’s meal of choice: Roast Beef wraps. I guess they figured everyone in Kansas City were carnivores. Hey, they are! You don’t come to KC for its veggie burgers, now do you? Regardless – my thoughts: “Bastards!” Suppression #36: Turbulence. This is about as close to a roller coaster ride as I will ever come. It lasted about 2 minutes – one point we must have dropped 100 feet out of nowhere. I’m glad no one was next to me otherwise I would have grabbed them like a python on a jungle rat. Or something. I don’t know if jungles have rats – they have capybaras which are super-sized rodents in South America. Regardless… Toronto Suppression #45: My luggage getting lost fears almost came to reality. They mixed up all the flights luggage so you didn’t know where it was going to come out of. One half hour and a partial ulcer later, I accidentally came across my rolling armoire right before I went to the lost luggage of Hades desk. Luckily my travel partner in crime, BJ, was a bit behind with his flight and we met exactly as I went through customs. I still don’t know how he knew where to meet me at – we never really discussed a meeting point other than the airport which is a monster of a place. I don’t know if he had Low-Jack on my ass or something. Extra points to: The ticket counter guy who was playing techno while on the job. BJ thought he looked like Keith (our host in Toronto) but I didn’t think so. Hold the anchovies: On our bus from the airport into town, whomever sitting behind us needed a showering of Right Guard. BJ was not impressed. We arrive at Keith’s place – a 2 bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Chinatown and smack in the middle of the city. He had a huge freakin’ cat – a big fat ass named Desi. Sad to say, but Desi would be the only (ok – you know where I’m heading with this comment so I’ll let you figure it out). We headed into Chinatown and Keith arbitrarily picked a place that said “Gourmet Chinese Cuisine.” Don’t believe everything you read: Keith and BJ ordered soda’s and they were served from the can. Gourmet my ass! In honor of 59: The General’s Tso’s chicken was mighty fine! You can never go wrong with the General. Now the Colonel is a different story…he’s an ODB. We took a little tour and headed back. BJ was much better with directions than I was so I’m glad he paid more attention. Keith had to go to class so that left BJ and I up for a night on the town to explore and get lost on our own. We decided to get some drinks at Toronto’s finest pubs. Stop #1 – Bandidos: - I don’t know why we picked this place with the exception of it having an outdoor patio. The waitress/owner had only ONE beer on tap and it wasn’t even a Mexican beer! It turned out to be the worst drink we had all trip , some sort of Alexander Keith beer (no relation to our buddy Keith) which actually is one of the pride and joys of Canadian beers. We were not impressed with the beer nor the bill that went with it! Bandido’s hotty factor: 0. Zilch. None. Even the women walking by weren’t good – that’s bad karma. Random lesson learned: EXCHANGE your money at a bank, don’t bother with the ATM – the rate was pretty lousy as I learned when I got home. Bastard ATMs. Hollywood?: We tried to get into a studio of one of Canada’s biggest networks. The receptionist was a hotty. I did mention to the big brawly security guy who I needed to sleep with to get in – he was not amused. While watching the lively crowd from the North by Northeast music festival, we decided that sitting at a pseudo Mexican joint with child labor wasn’t going to give us much of the Ontario experience sooooooo Random lesson #2: A one dollar coin is called a “loonie” and a 2 dollar coin a “twoonie” – witty, right? Stop #2 - - We were originally looking for some touristy bar that was supposed to be the definitive Canadian experience however after heading searching out an ATM we couldn’t find the damn thing again…..so we ended up at this Nova Scotian place where they had a band playing with kilts and bagpipes called “Riverrun” BJ and I got pints of this Strongbow cider stuff that tasted like Motts Apple Juice. BJ really got into the band and starting clapping – next thing I know I was and other people started. We were loud and obnoxious. Hotty factor: 2, but they were taken, eh? Stop #3 - - This was more like the college scene bar. We ordered some Algonqian Red pints which were very good. There was some live music going on and we were chilling on the patio. Some guy named Jeremy tried selling us a CD of a band we never heard of. He was pretty persistent but still friendly. BJ seemed to be entertained by him and kept feeding him questions. Hotty factor: 4, a few here and there. During this long night walking all over the city, we made it up to the Toronto harbor and marked our territory ceremoniously off a bridge in the dock area. That would have sucked getting deported for that! Found: A unused ticket for the Bluejays/Tampa baseball game. Both teams suck so it wasn’t surprising. We returned back to Keiths to recount the tale of our night. Morning would?: Keith’s roommate and sister is introduced to me in the morning – and there I am in my boxers. Lucky I didn’t have any crazy morning sex dreams…ok, I lied, I did but still. Suppression #28: We miss the Niagara Falls bus tour by about 15 minutes. So we decided to hit the Art Gallery of Ontario and there I witnessed the coolest multimedia video installation of my natural born life. BJ had entered this room which was pitch dark. About 2 minutes later I did as well and when I walked in , I swore I saw a couple making out – I saw BJ in the background and I tried to get his attention to the hot’n’heavy couple. I’m all giddy about this. BJ seemed unfazed and I couldn’t understand why. Then I looked on the backwall and there was the couple again covering the wall screen – I then realized it was a hologram. Of course after checking it out, there was another person in the room – or so I thought. So just when I was going to reach out and push it to see if it was real, it moved – so that was kinda freaky. There was more to this than I can describe – it was a amazing visual experience and perhaps one of the ultimate places for potential nook. Worth my loonies. We rushed through the art gallery and saw what each of us wanted to. We then went to find a place to eat and went to another “Gourmet cuisine” type place at 3PM. The food here was much better and we sat outside again to dine. Lesson learned: A chicken burger is really a chicken patty, but it was still damn good. Lesson learned: Their ketchup packets had hardly anything in them – it took like a dozen of these things for our meal. We headed over to dinner at a place called Fran’s – an upscale 24 hour dinner. Just imagine Denny’s with some class and no lushes. They serve tortilla chips instead of fries if you want. We liked it. Keith took us out on the town to the part of the city we must have walked right by – it was a total nightclub and bar district and it was pretty lively. We went to a place called Fez’s which had a little bit of an older crowd. It was a pretty nice place playing some nice trance music. I was determined to talk to my first Canadian woman who wasn’t a bar tender or server. The hunt did not go well until about the last 20 minutes when we went out to the patio area and two girls whom I kinda stalked were now outside. I asked in my charming American accent if they minded if I set my drink on the table and they agreed. Say youre from Melbourne, Australia, mate!: I got them into small talk and they thought that maybe I was from Ireland. This was a new first for me. After several other way off guesses, I said I was from Florida. I mean – hey, that’s a money line! Florida! While they were impressed, the hotty of the two, Emma, informed me that Australia was much cooler than Florida as was Ireland. I learned a new lesson there. Melbourne, ya wallabys! While small talk was successful, we did not get far with our Canadian beauties. Keith had us stop over at what I will rank as a top 5 place to eat after an night at the bar. Amazingly big slices of pizza and open till like 4AM. These were king kong pizza’s – I don’t even think Art the pizza disposal could get down a piece without taking a break. Many things are open late which I appreciate. We salute late nights, Toronto!!!!! Keith and I made a video – here’s a novel idea: Place a video recorder in a booth and then let drunken idiots film themselves and show it on TV Sunday night. I don’t know if Keith and I were going to be featured, but we think we were certainly shoe-ins cause we had a good act and we rambled about our lesson learned about faking from Australia vs Florida among other rants. Damn, we were funny. BJ didn’t join us – I think her thought we were going to get mugged by these two tweakers standing outside the booth. I can’t blame him on that. The morning after: BJ got me up to go buy tickets on Saturday for the Niagara trip – he was determined to go. The place where we supposed to get tickets was closed on Saturday! What the hell! We had a back-up plan which was with another tour company but that place required 24 hour advance registration and was booked. BJ was quit disappointed. We went to wallow a bit at a place called “Fabulous” for breakfast which was quite good. I recommend the Grand Marnier French Toast. We pondered our options, including taking the Greyhound, renting a car (like we’d figure out kilometers!) and the last but certainly shady option – the gambling tour bus. You can imagine what we chose. For almost ¼ of the cost of the touristy tours we took the Gambling bus – straight out of Chinatown. It was crazy – everyone was Chinese except for 4 guys from South America, a couple from Argentina, some random European and us. BJ really stood out as I think he was the only blonde aboard. It’s a lie, Dr Jones: Who ever said Chinese were quiet are liars. These two guys behind us did not shut up for the entire two hour trip. Sleep I did not! We arrive at Niagara and receive our Preferred Gambler’s Cards. After taking a leak in the nicest port-o-potty of my life, we headed for the Falls, skipping the casino. The Falls were majestic and powerful. BJ wouldn’t jump over for 3 twoonies but that’s ok. We had our worst meal at this place that overlooked the falls. It sure ain’t Broadway: We were subjected to a childrens music skit promoting the Falls tourist attractions, sponsored by Nestle. The furry mascot names were atrocious as was the real life dancers, though the women were cute. Regardless – we were that much stupider for seeing this. ID, buckaroo: I get carded and specially stamped (you only needed to be 19 to enter). Vegas, baby, Vegas!: I cash in 15 bucks for the slots. I have never actually been in a casino and was excited about the notion of “getting comped free shit” – Swingers. This of course never happened to us high rollers. BJ lost all his money though I ended up only losing about 75 cents worth. It’s all a conspiracy – camera’s everywhere and people watching people watching people. We returned home on the Shanghai Express to meet up with Keith. We went to dinner at this swanky place called Tony Balloni’s. There were only a handful of tables and reservations were required. There we drank a bottle of wine (the menu’s cheapest of course, but it was still good) and ate like we hadn’t eaten since Clinton was in office. It was a great dining experience and Keith redeemed himself from his earlier choice in Chinatown. We walked back to the club/bar district and that’s where we fell victim to propaganda – free cover passes. The first place, Mad Bar, we went to had more girls than guys and was nice yet horrid service and a tiny tiny dance floor filled with little vixens. Nothing wrong with vixens, but it was like hip-hop night and you know I wasn’t real keen on that. After downing our beers we left for this place called Helium. It was freakin far away in the middle of nowhere. I could have taken a plane to get there. “Hey frisky!” – I got a FULL pat down here and they even made me open my wallet! This was really shady!! Redemption: Hot naked pictures of women in the mens “washroom” Why ask why?: You couldn’t bring your drinks in the bathroom. Well slap me silly: When we got there, this place was massive and playing some dance techno. About 5 minutes later………..back to hip hop!!!! And this DJ dropped tunes from like 1990! Nobody knew half the words and I never heard of half the recent songs. I was pretty surprised by the reaction of “Take your shirts off” – in Florida the clowns be waving their shirts but not here – guess that fad hasn’t been picked up. While we danced most of the night – no real good stories came of it. I found the Canadians to be a little less reserved and less “hoochie” than our women. We took the cab ride from death home, making it back in what seemed like two minutes. I guess cabbies are the same everywhere – psychotic! Random lesson learned: Public TV late night is like Cinemax after dark. We were pleasantly surprised! The next morning BJ heads out for breakfast while I of course sleep in. We went downtown to eat at a pretty good Irish place called MacCools. Keith had some version of a Bloody Mary which BJ and I certainly didn’t like. Again another good meal outdoors. We then went back to Keith’s after stopping outside the Hockey Hall of Fame to take a tasteless picture or two. Our bus back to the airport was late and I’m not sure BJ even made his flight. I stepped into the line from far below and it was just the beginning of lines….and it sucked!! Immigration and customs was brutal. Once a Beta, always a Beta: I met a Beta in-line after totally not finding the Beta house at the University of Toronto campus – figures! More airline suppression and another reason not to sit in the last row: They ran out of food except ham and cheese sandwiches. Is this some sort of cruel joke? I actually traded up for the chicken salad sandwich from some woman. I arrived home with some great memories and experiences. BJ was a great travel partner and Keith the host of the year. There will be photo’s coming to my website in the next few weeks. So visit Toronto!!! |