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...
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| 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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