Canada's New York

I made it to Toronto. A nice 6 hour drive with stops. Lol, I stopped at a rest-stop to eat lunch and was sitting in my car with the door open eating. There were like a million seagulls and whenever I’d throw a cracker they’d come from every corner, smashing into each other fighting over a single cracker. I didn’t think of it at the time but I really wish I’d taken video of it, cause it was pretty cool.

The 401 was awesome, as always. The pix and videos I’ve taken don’t do it any justice, it’s all about peripheral vision! When 18 lanes span your whole field of view, it’s quite awe inspiring, especially when it’s a sea of either sun reflecting off their roofs, or a current on white light oncoming on the left and red light travelling with you. Lol, after all the highway driving and metropolis driving I’ve done, Winnipeg is going to seem like a joke. Oooouu, route 90! Yikes! Lol, but then again Winnipeg has some of the worst streets and drivers I’ve seen, so maybe not.

Got to Toronto a bit early and Mike was in a meeting so I parked my car and went for a walk through the park behind his condo. It was really nice. Later on Mike told me it’s a pretty bad area and I shouldn’t walk through it alone... Oh well, I survived. Plus Mike is a cop so I wouldn’t be surprised if seeing the worst case scenario almost exclusively starts to jade your view of people and the city you live in.

Once Mike’s meeting was done we met up. He is a really cool guy and very funny. I met his boyfriend Mitch who was also very cool. It was late and dark so we didn’t see any sights the first night, just ordered some food and watched Robin Hood Men In Tights, lol. Though Mike being the head of the condo association thing was able to take me to the roof and get a cool view of the city. I could see the CN Tower in the distance.

The next day everyone slept in till almost 1:00pm (fortunately only noon Winnipeg time, so I didn’t feel too guilty about letting my sleeping pattern slip to its old ways). Mitch was doing a dragon-boat race at Niagara falls so he took off before I woke up and wouldn’t be back for the rest of the weekend. It was cool meeting him.

So eventually Mike took me to see the sights. While we were in the car I realized I’d forgotten my point and shoot camera in the car (so no videos of Toronto sadly), AND realized my battery for my good camera was dead! DISASTER! The plan was to park at the mall and take the subway downtown, so we looked around the mall a bit for a replacement battery or charger but no luck.

Took the subway. It was a real subway, not an el-train like in Chicago. That was kinda cool. When he arrived downtown there was a Black’s Photography and they let me charge my battery there while Mike and I went for food at a really nice restaurant.

Mike I talked about travel and self-discovery over lunch which was cool. He totally got what this trip was about. And as a police officer he has tons of interesting stories, plus he’s just really outgoing in general.

By the time we were done eating my battery was charged and we headed out. Downtown Toronto is cool. It feels like a newer, Canadian New York. We walked around and he pointed out all the important buildings and historical sites. Walked to the Much Music building. I’d wanted to get a picture of me in front of the Much Music building but sadly they were setting up for the MMVAs so there was scaffolding and stuff everywhere. Oh well. We went inside cause Mike knew the head of security and figured maybe he could get me a free tour but the guy was really busy setting up for the awards. I think some of the VJs walked right by me, but I confess I haven’t watched Much Music since I was a teenager so I wouldn’t even know.

We worked our way to the Sky Dome (Rogers Center...) and the CN Tower. Got to check that out and got some cool photos. The view is incredible! Your ears pop like 5 times on the way up, and at the top you can actually feel the tower swaying in the wind! At the glass floor Mike had me like down face up before actually looking down. He got a few photos of me and then told me to turn over and look down. That made my heart skip a beat, cause suddenly you’re staring straight down for over 100 stories! Eventually I was bold enough to jump as hard as I could on the glass, lol.After the CN tower Mike continued the tour downtown showing me points of interest. Got to see Yonge and Dundass, which is essentially Canada's Times Square.

Lol, all day he was telling me people kept checking me out, women and men. Toronto has a big gay scene, and Mike being a part of it has an eye for this. Lol, at one point 2 oolllddd guys walked by and Mike told me they were looking at me like I was meat! :-P But at one point we were walking down the street and this young girl, total drop-dead blonde nymph, walks up to us and asks me if what she’s wearing could work as a dress or if she should put on pants. The ‘dress’ was barely covering her ass, and it was see through so you could see her tiny black thong underneath. I had her do a little twirl and considered taking a photo, lol. She was all giggles and ran off with her friend, and I watched. That was the highlight of my road-trip.

It was getting dark and we could see constant lightning in the distance getting closer so we headed back to the subway to get back to the car. Sure enough, as soon as we got into the subway it started pouring, lightning thunder, the whole deal. We ordered pizza and watched some more TV and chatted. Good times.

Today we’re heading to Niagara falls in the afternoon and I’ll get some photos, then we’re going to see Sinbad live at the casino, lol. Mike has been paying for everything which is amazingly nice of him. So after Niagara falls and the show we’re coming back and I’ll be leaving the next morning.

The 3 day drive back will be interesting. No big destinations, long stints on the road with great scenery. I’ll really be able to reflect on the trip as a whole, get some thinking done. I start work on the 18^th which means I’ll get back just in time. I would have liked to have at least one day off before I go back to work, but not a big deal.

It’ll be really weird to be back in Winnipeg. I think I’ve changed a fair amount as a result of this trip, and it will be bizarre to be back in the old routine. But I’ve caught the bug, I am now a traveller. In August we’re doing a road trip with my family, and I’m already in the early stages of planning my next trip, either west or south. Now that I know what I’m capable of, it’s more just a question of what do I feel like doing?

P.S. Photos and video added to previous entry too!