Ha ha just messing

Come on that was funny…well I thought so anyway!

OK I’m loving Toronto, the change to summer is taking a while but after last year’s summer I’m OK waiting. The roads are super wide over here, after Europe is seems to  take an age just to cross even small side streets plus even the smallest of roads have these massive grass verges between the road and pavement with massive deciduous tree planted in them. The effect (Apart from boring all my readers with civil planning notes) is  that from winter to summer my view goes from a fairly grey cityscape to a very green landscape with Mississauga in the background. Unfortunately it’s raining today so I can’t take a photo & prove it.

Plus the Canadians (I’ve stopped calling them Can-a-dee-ins as people don’t get the joke over here & just look at me funny) are uba friendly. I kind of had an idea that they were after all the great Canadians I’ve meet in my travels, but after Ireland I thought they were going  to have a tough act to follow, I needn’t of worry, these people are great. Oh and that thing that I thought was a urban legend about North American girls being very impressed by your accent while you’re just ordering a pint…It’s ture, I love it!!!

On the down side a semi decent steak is going to cost you $20…oh that’s from the Supermarket not a restaurant. To combat that they do have Twinkies and more importantly Wendy’s, not to mention Quizmos, Harvey’s & A&W. Oww oww don’t forget Taco Bell or Popeyes or Cinnabon. Also I should now mention Tim Hortons. TH is the Canadian answer to Starbucks but without feeling like you are paying Satan money for the honour of eating your soul when buying a coffee. Now I personally don’t think a std double, double coffee (Milk & sugar are put in by the servers so a double, double is 2 milk, 2 sugar) actually tastes like coffee, it’s more like some kind of awesome coffee flavoured drink. I repeat if you want a coffee do not go to TH (Or Starbucks or Coffee Time for that matter) but if you want a delicious hot drink that will quell your morning caffeine craving and whose taste is somewhat similar to coffee you can’t go too wrong with one of these. An annoying food thing is that some of the cable channels on TV are broadcast from either Buffalo or New York State so you get adverts for US food chains with specials for huge meal deals, get all excited & then find out that particular restaurant isn’t in Toronto…I’m looking to get a law pasted so these adverts have warnings on them.

Another weird Canadian thing is that they call singlets jerseys. It took ages for me to explain that I liked the Raptors special St Paddies Day jersey.

Speaking of the Raptors, Russ & I went and checked out Raptors Vs LA Clippers back at the end of March. The Air Canada centre is also where the Maple leaf’s play (They are Toronto’s ice hockey team) so they have a banner hanging from  the roof for every year the leaf’s won the Stanley Cup… those 13 banners look quite impressive, until you realise the last one is from 1967. If you want to drink at a Raptors game remember to take your wallet, 2 pints cost over $20…before tip (Don’t get me started on tipping for pouring a beer). I do like the sippy cup lid though. It was a great game with the Raptors taking it 100-76 but by far the biggest cheer of the day was for the 100^th point since if the Raptors get 100 points or more in a home game you can take your ticket to Pizza-Pizza (Another great fast food chain) the next day for a free slice of…you guessed it pizza. But what American - sorry, I know I’m in Canada- NORTH American  sporting event would not be complete without Cheerleaders. Chicks jumping around in short skirts…I’m a fan. To be honest I’m not sure how some of them made it into the squad, but they did have t-shirt guns so that was very cool.

One of the first excursions I did when I got to Toronto was to the Royal Ontario Museum. On the way there I bumped into the first of many Tamil Tigers protest rallies. Toronto has one of the largest Tamil populations and for most of first  half of this year we have had to put up with constant disruption. As most of you know I’m all for civil liberties and most defiantly the right to protest & the  1^st time I bumped into them I was just interested in what their issues were….that and the police horses, I dig police horses except Toronto Police (Or Mounted Mounties) horses don’t wear visors like the cool Millwall Gee gees. Anyway The Tamil protestors seemed to go out of their way to disrupt every day Torontorians. I’m still not sure what the protesters had against the Canadian public but after 2 months of protest marches & candle light vigils outside the US consulate they decided they would block off Collage & University Ave (One of the biggest roads in town) for a few days…That started annoying people. Then when frustrating people in a city that has no power over Sri Lanka wasn’t working they came up with the brilliant idea of marching onto the Gardnier Expressway & shutting down an 8 lane motorway for over 6 hours…At this point eggings of their protests dramatically increased.

Now where was I…Oh yeah the ROM. Wicked Wicked  building with the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal as the front facade that houses the spirit hall inside, a  multilevel gallery also at crystal like angles  with catwalks  crisscrossing it.

Like any kid I loved the dinosaur bones, especially the  huge turtle chasing the massive 10ft long snapper & my childhood favourite the triceratops. But near the end the Dino people seem to have gotten lazy as one of the displays was just a pile of bones?

 

The NZ display was a bit sad, just a wee shelf  tucked away in the corner of the Pacific gallery (No drawing of similarities please) if anything it was smaller than the Tongan or Samoan displays. But I still say our Marae wall carving kicks the Canadian Totem pole.

 

This girl was cool…can’t remember what part of the museum she was in maybe Blue man Group meets fertility idol.

Also there is an awesome European section (Maybe postmodern I don’t know) with some very funky art deco furniture & appliances.

 

Then near the end when I was trying to find myself after being lost for quite some time I stumbled onto this wall of horns…weird.

Another fairly decent Gallery is the AGO, uba awesome when my mate Jess shows us around. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take photos inside & when you have a curator walking around with you it’s extra tricky to break the rules. Highly recommend it, some very cool modern pieces & again the architecture is wicked (Canada has produced some of the best in the world I’ve been told….several times) with its ships ribs front & floating staircase. 

Also something I haven’t done since leaving NZ (Apart from that one time in Sydney) is the classic kegger. I’ve been to a couple over here now, each time I  get all excited looking forward to having the red plastic cups with white insides that are in every Hollywood movie involving a party, each time I get  disappointed by clear plastic cups. The hosts of these shindigs, seeing my disappointment and being good host types will normally try to lessen my sorrow by offering me a funnel (If you don’t know what a funnel is, ask ya Dad…If you are a parent & don’t know what a funnel is…ask ya kids) Now when the first one was offered to me I must admit I was a little nervous, the last time I had  played with a funnel was well over 6 years ago if not more & I really didn’t want to make an arse of myself, but what choice did I have, I had to represent NZ didn’t I?… I needn’t have worried it turns out funnels are similar to riding a bike & you never forget how to do them. Then I went to a normal house party the other weekend…and guess what I found (I apologise for the pants N95 & Iphone blurry photos – it’s the camera’s fault…honest)

Pretty much hand in hand with kegger is the late night toddle around Toronto, always fun no matter where you are, but even better with “Street Meat”. On one such adventure I came across some extremely trusting chap who had left his DB9 just parked in the open with  not a soul around for miles asking to be stolen…poor form.

With summer coming on the scene the “BBQ” is getting a workout. BBQ is in  quotation marks because due to some bylaw, apartments are only allowed ELECTRIC BBQs; don’t look at me I didn’t make the law I just have to live with it! Also they have turned on the fountain on in front of my building, why they couldn’t do that when it was -15 outside I don’t know! But the real way you know it summer? Baseball! Sorry people but Baseball wins over Cricket by a country mile (NFL beating Rugby? You must be having a laugh son!) It may have something to do with me hitting the ball out of the park on my first hit in a real game.

OK then that should do for now…will try to be more regular with the updates in future.