Hall-OH MY GODD AAAAAAAAA -weekends.

Monday 29th October 2012 - 18.40pm

A week later and the spooky Halloween related antics are still in full force, this weekend we visited in infamous Halloweekends and indulged in a mid-week dress up with a excursion to downtown BG.

Wednesday night I was under the impression I would attend a happy little gathering at the Rec(reation) Centre dressed as a zombie taking part in Zumba, campfires and photos. Instead Meredith twisted my arm convincing me to don my slightly sexualised Ruby heels and 'party on down' - as the kids would say - in Bowling Green. Consequently, Mere and I visited Clazel in our pre and post zombie apocalypse Dorothy costumes and brought along Mitch as a trophy Toto.

With our first costume event over with, we eagerly awaited our trip to Halloweekends at Cedar Point, Sandusky. For the readers that are not familiar with Ohio (so probably most of you), it is home to Cedar Point - a renounced theme park that hold a month of scary activities and haunts during the lead up month to Halloween. Useless piece of trivia, it is also home to the second tallest coaster in the world. After a minor transportation hiccup, we arrived bundled up and excited for the days festivities at about 12pm meaning we had a further 12 hours in the park.

Being the thrill seeking teenagers we all are (excluding Old Man Mitch) we took great pleasure in scaring ourselves shitless on some violent coasters such as Marvick. There is a 95 degree drop with a twisted horseshoe roll followed by a 400 ft tunnel that carries a 70mph launch inside. This video such exhibit a vicarious experience of said feats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GK3uDRc7JU
We also rode Raptor which was similar to Alton's Air and a few more standard rides. However, what we were really there for was the Haunted Houses and the Fright Zones - all of which we hit. The titles of some of these exhibits included, Chamber of Wax, The Infirmary, CornStalkers, Club Blood, Fear Faire, Cut Throat Cove, Eden Musee, CarnEvil and Blood on the Bayou. I'll leave most of these to your imagination but briefly recap some of the most frightening elements.

CornStalkers included not only the commonplace actors dressed in costumes with coin shakers to scare but also people dressed as corn, who jumped out of the corn maze you are lost in!!!!!!! This personally strained my vascular organ more than it was comfortable with. As I was playing the 'big man' and generally wasn't too alarmed, during Eden Musee I thought very little of the fact I had dropped behind from the group and was wondering around curiously observing the scenery when all of a sudden OH MY GODDDDDD WHATTTT GET AWAY FROM ME AHHHHH!!! Once one spook had caught on that I was a tiny little bit petrified they all played up to the fact and collectively bullied me. I will happily admit I soiled my pants.

Being the overly-excitable, mildly artistic, photography enthusiast I am, I would have been inclined to capture the entire day with more photographs but alas the winds were high and the temperature low thus my poor digits were unable to decipher movement let alone comprehend the buttons of a bulky camera.

Our trip had come to an end and it was time to be homeward bound which was all well and good as I needed 40 or so winks so we bundled up into Mere's car and set off for BGSU once more. Interestingly this is not where the commotion concluded, I was so exhausted from the escapades I slept almost the whole way home which included a stop at McDonald's, a stop at the petrol station, Mere's tyre popping, us crawling 12 miles with a popped tyre, the AAA man coming to fix it, the sheriff checking her credentials and waiting for 2 hours in some creeping unlit wooded area.

Nevertheless we eventually arrived in one piece in BGSU - the same can't be sad for the slashed tyre though. I would like to end on a mildly humorous note and some beautiful landscapes. So the weather has been rather temperamental recently with sunny highs of 75°F/23°C and chilly windy days requiring maximum layerage. Today I was informed this has something to do with the intense hurricane a.k.a. Hurricane Sandy that is approaching from the Pacific and has merged with some feisty cold Canadian winds. For someone who spends so much time on the internet I am obtusely isolated to anything new related. So if  I seem to drop off the face of the planet in the near future, I love you all but my mangled body is probably lying amongst the shattered remains of BG. On a lighter note, this is the beautiful scenery surrounding us in Bowling Green and a confirmation of why Autumn is certainly in the run in for my favourite season.

Credit: Mitch Allford Photography

So I woke up with a headache and swollen knuckles, am I home?

Sunday 21th October 2012 - 12.28pm

Last night we graced Toledo with our presence and visited Terror Town. For those of you that have superfluous time on your hands and explored the link I posted last night: props to you. For those of you who did not, let me summarise.

Terror Town is formulated by a series of 3 different 'haunts'. There are two houses to be walked through and finally the experience can but concluded by a occult challenge or 'The Asylum' to the tune of $13. However there is the slight possibility that if you escape the challenge undefeated you can are fully reimbursed. The houses themselves didn't exactly strike fear into my heart. In spite of several clowns, some blood and a couple of pigs, I can say I successful absconded the fear. Some cogent demonstrations during the exhibition included  an temperamental elevator ride enclosed with a sinisterly dressed man and a masked fiend equipped with a chainsaw. Periodically the artificially constructed ghouls jumped out at you but they weren't legally allowed to touch you.

I feel this video summaries the experience very well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HjSuK8nvn3o 

Somehow I acquired the number of an Irish mummy on the way round...that was intriguing. But all in all I wasn't very scared and so entered The Asylum feeling undefeatable. Round one, do something. This entailed us moving a tarantala from one plastic box to another - simple enough really. Round two, consume something. This entailed us EATING 3 FREAKING MADAGASCAN HISSING COCKROACHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I took a stab at it, almost quite litereally by punching the box in order to kill them - cause I sure as hell did not want to eat that shit live. Needless to say I pussied out, but for those of you who are now judging me - please take a moment to watch the video below and re-evaluate life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abHQmRJWSMk&feature=related

What do urine samples and Canadian beer have in common? The taste

Friday 12th October -
Well actually Saturday 20th October - 17.06

Initially I began this post on Friday 12th October, here we are on Friday 19th October adorned in a Hello Kitty onesie with all my homework complete taking a second crack at it. You  can see how wild my Friday nights are at BG. So, post is a little overdue in lue of the influx of midterms I have been subject to recently. None the less I can affirm with a solid 83 and 70 under my belt and few immanent assignments upcoming I can dedicate a bit of time to the good ol' blog/use it as a procrastination mechanism to delay doing laundry...

Me in front of Ambassadors Bridge

So last Wednesday (3rd October) marked the beginning of Fall Break, American equivalent to half term. They only get Wed-Sun away from school premisis yet still insist upon making the journey home so while everyone follied with family Mitch, Freya and I ventured to America Junior aka Canada. We were all pretty elated by this idea as we could legally drink, a privileged stripped from me soon than I wanted.

6 or 7 o'clock rolls round so Mitch and his glamorous assistance hop into our rental mobile and drive into the night, quite literally. Comical value as added to the journey by yours truly when we all mistook an extra sparkly power plant for Detroit skyline then proceeded to add insult to injury by presuming Detroit and Michigan were two individual states. The five hour drive to the hotel was only intersected by a brief stop at a Canadian petrol station cause surprise surprise Mitch needed a wee and a fleeting inquisition from the Canadian border.

Rise and shine the following morning after we all hit the hay and off to central Toronto for a relaxed bus tour. Arriving very tardy, almost missing the bus as the traffic on the intersection was much greater than anticipated - as was locating a parking space and apparently exiting the building. I also forgot my camera this day so we all resorted to capturing photos on our phones. Freya and I struggled some what with our poor quality cameras, curses HTC and Blackberry. Mitch however roamed around with his iPhone. Technological superior.

Toronto itself gave of a very up and coming feel as it was littered with evergreens and construction. Our tour began at the harbour where our tour guide informed us the name Ontario comes from the aboriginal words for beautiful sparkly lake - which appeared pretty accurate.

The tour was extremely informative and covered a vast stretch of the city. We ascended Church street, a street holding over 5 churches hence its entitlement. Our route took us past several hospitals, one being a children's hospital. We  later enlightened that the first patient at the hospital was a 7 year old infant who was highly intoxicated and screamed bloody murder when he has is contraband tobacco products confiscated from him. An adjacent hospital, Toronto General Hospital, was the location for the first insulin inoculation given to Leonard Thompson, a diabetic adolescent in 1922. As we progressed a little further into our tour we circled Casa Lomo, the only castle in Toronto. 

I took the liberty of including a short history, as I'm too apathetic to reword it.

"The History of Casa LomaSir Henry Pellatt, the dreamer behind Toronto's famous landmark, Casa Loma, was born in Kingston, Ontario on January 6, 1859 to British parents. By the age of 23 he became a full partner in his father's stock brokerage firm, and married Mary Dodgeson.
Even as a young man, Henry Pellatt embraced the spirit of the family motto "Devant Si Je Puis" - "Foremost if I can." When he met his bride-to-be, Sir Henry had already achieved local renown in 1879 for beating the U. S. amateur champion in the running of the mile. Travels in Europe gave him the love for fine art and architecture which would spur his vision of Casa Loma, his "house on the hill." This romantic side was uniquely juxtaposed by his other lifelong passion: his involvement with the military, specifically the Queen's Own Rifles.
Casa Loma took three years and $3.5 million to build. Sir Henry filled Casa Loma with artwork from Canada and around the world. Casa Loma stood as a monument to its creator - it surpassed any other private home in North America. With its soaring battlements and secret passageways, it paid homage to the castles and knights of days gone by.
Today, Casa Loma is one of Toronto's premier tourist attractions and is visited by tourists, year-round.An unabashed romantic, Sir Henry engaged the noted architect E.J. Lennox to help him realize a life-long dream - the creation of a "medieval" castle on the brow of a hill overlooking Toronto. Begun in 1911, it took 300 men nearly 3 years to complete and cost $3,500,000 at that time."

Day 2 was entertained with a boat tour by a fellow Brit, which was comforting to hear for the first time in 3 months. She informed us of all there is to know about the 14 islands across the lake from Toronto. For instance, there is a 15 year waiting list attached to the lease of ownership for the land, the lease is given out by the government therefore no-one on the islands actually owns the land, nor a car for that matter. There is a nature reserve, a private boat club and a nudest beach. Finally, there are bridges connecting all of the islands pictured above.

We completed our time in Toronto on a Ghost Tour of the city. It kind of lacked history and fear factor as it is only around 200 years old. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting tour, we burnt some calories and heard some mildly spooky stories such as the rebels cornering the political party: Family Compact and the stairwell giving way due to the weight causing the party to fall through the floor and end their journey on the hooks of the butchers below and an illiterate man who was hanged for someone elses crime.

Toronto is a fairly new city, only established on top of boggy marsh land in the 1800's. It was formerly known as the town of York, I believe this was something to do with the colonies. Evenso, it is thoroughly multi-cultural with its own China Town, Little Italy, Korea, Portugal, India and several others. An observation we made was that Toronto was a very naturally beautiful city as it was populated with trees and flowers and greenery which was very lovely and picturesque, especially as we visited in Fall and so got to experience landscapes such as this. However, we also noted that Toronto is stunning and colourful even in it's architecture. For instance, there is a bank in Toronto that was built with shards of 24 caret gold infused in the windows, which not only gives it a gorgeous shine, but makes it one of the most expensive buildings in the city.

Birdseye View of the Colourful City from the top of CN Tower

Saturday was spent soaked at Niagara falls. Once we had processed the crappy attractions surrounding one of the Great Natural Wonders of the World we rode the Maid in the Mist in stylish ponchos which was an experience to say the least. Drenched, we returned to our hotel to freshen up and prepare for the Ice Hockey match we thought we possessed tickets for. Turns out that was a lie and the game had been cancelled. And so we returned to Niagara for a night time view. They had employed multicoloured lights to brighten the falls at night, personally I found this tacky and was not half as impressed as I was during daylight hours.

Finally, Sunday was spent making the return trip to BG through New England. Though 5 hours in the passenger seat seems dull, it was actually spectacular. I wanted to include a photo but my camera just couldn't do it justice. And so concludes Fall Break.

Now for an update on life as it stands. Many of you are still under the impression I am coming home on 21th December 2012 however after careful revision, discussion with Mommy and a couple of urgent status on Facebook I decided to stay until 15th January 2013. I have included a map of my extra month in American with all the destinations I hope to visit. One is Disneyland - holy fuck.

Well I'm off to Terror Town tonight. I'll probably update you on that tomorrow. But for now here's the link for anyone who is interested: www.terrortown.com