Toronto, Pt. 2: Episodes
The first night was basically spent settling into the creaky bunk beds at the Global Village Backpackers hostel. It’s not a bad place to stay, if you don’t mind dorm living, and all of it’s accompanying nuisances. But on the second day it was time to set out and explore.
It was also time to discover that calls don’t ring through on either of our phones while in Canada, and text messages don’t give alerts when they arrive either. Plans to meet up after Timm’s appointment at the school fell through due to a complete and total lack of ability to communicate. But that did allow me to explore a broad swath of the city on my own, on foot. I walked a several mile long, circuitous route around the center of the city, from the University, Westward down Bloor, then back East and down Yonge, around College, and back to Spadina (our mnemonic device: Spadina rhymes with Vagina), passing about a million interesting sights along the way. I also wore my feet out completely that day, not realizing yet how excellent the transit was, and how it could have saved my sorry ass some discomfort.
We finally met back up, and for entertainment that evening, stumbled across the Rivoli theater. I recognized the name, being an obsessive Kids in the Hall fan from back in the day, and we went in to check out some stand-up at the club that got that troupe it’s start. The first comic was terrible. We’re pretty sure he was on speed; his delivery was fast but tentative, and his material was uncomfortably self-deprecating and misogynistic. I was getting a little worried, but the rest of the night was well worth it. Out of a total of 8 comics, only the first was what I would call “bad,” and several of the other ones were excellent. At least one had me in tears. Interestingly, there were far more jokes about American politics than Canadian, despite a somewhat tumultuous recent election in Canada. There were also two comics from suburban Ontario who based their material on the favorite pastime of bored suburban males: getting drunk and picking fights on weekends. Interesting…
Tuesday comprised the bulk of what we dubbed our “Scott Pilgrimage”; we spent some time wandering around, scouting out real life Toronoto locations that appeared in the comic book series Scott Pilgrim, by Bryan Lee O’Malley. Yes, we realize this is incredibly nerdy, and no, we don’t care. We took in everything from the stark existential horror of Honest Ed’s, a discount retail behemoth like no other, and the stately gardens of Casa Loma, where we braved frigid rain and threats of snow before finding our way back to that quintessentially Canadian institution, Tim Horton’s, to warm up and rest our feet. The trip was bookended by stops at Sneaky Dee’s, possibly a favorite destination on this trip, for nachos in the early afternoon, and beers in the evening.
The bulk of Wednesday was spent at the Royal Ontario Museum, and it wasn’t even close to enough time. If I’d realized how amazing it was, I would planned on at least two days. As it was, we took the 1pm tour, which gave a good overview of all the assorted collections, then spent the next 5 hours crawling through the top two floors. We saw a special exhibition of current art focusing on urban China, ranging from fashion design to video installation; an excellent Egyptian collection; South Asian and Middle Eastern religious artifacts that were simply breath-taking; a gallery of textiles and costumes, including everything from a dress worn by Marie Antoinette to modern couture. We barely touched on the dinosaur exhibit, the massive Chinese art collection, the Canadian First People’s exhibit (though we did spend some time with the massive, 4 story totem poles that the main spiral staircases were built around), or any number of other fascinating displays. I highly recommend visiting if you’re ever in town. Come with a plan though. Don’t get caught off guard by closing time like we did.
Our search for a place to unwind with some coffee and spend time with our books/journals was assisted by the local alt-weekly, which had a feature on the best local coffee shops. The nearest one was Kindred, just a few blocks away off Yonge. A mention of a smoking patio made it the ideal candidate, though we didn’t realize until we got there exactly what that meant. We arrived at the converted townhouse, ordered coffee, and were asked if this was for upstairs or downstairs. When we replied upstairs, we were asked if we were members, or if we’d been referred. So the upstairs is apparently a different type of smoking patio! We got our coffee and settled in to the chairs downstairs, and listened to the staff try not to be too obvious about their operation around us “non-regulars”. Choice conversational snippets:
“Hey, do we have any coffee?” “Yeah, tons!” “No, I mean real coffee….like, coffee beans.”
“Can we order two milkshakes for upstairs?” “Sure, would you like the $15 or $20 milkshakes?”
“How can we run a coffee shop with no coffee?” “Let’s talk about this upstairs, we have non-members here…”
And so on.
Stay tuned for Toronto pt. 3: In which Timm becomes a target at the Cock & Tail on West Queen West; plus, what it sounds like when 12 musicians miss the point of Motorik entirely. Same Successless time, same Successless channel.
