Kates Journal

*Saw this and wanted it*

Niagara falls, obviously. The falls are big, quite definately; and wet, yes, definately some kind of wet theme going on there. And pretty, very very pretty.

My mum loves waterfalls, and so do I – although I’m less prone to leaping in them (probably for the best in this case, especially given the not entirely warm 4 degrees C it was in Niagara). So I got there, and I oohed, and aahed and mostly just stood watching the water tumble and fall, each droplet eating away at the falls, taking them further back up the river. Like millions and millions of tiny grains each rubbing away at the surface of the falls.

They are stunning.

One of the benefits of going very-off season is that it’s pretty much a given that not many people will be there. In total, there were probably in the low hundreds of visitors; so I got to wander around and stare at things, and generally be thoughtful and engaged in the beauty of the falling water. Rather than being shoved and nudged and trying to avoid large numbers of children.

Sadly though, it wasn’t exactly sunny. Not bitterly cold, nor peeing with rain, but not greatly sunny. Still, there are the obligatory photos in my flickr thingie; and *I* had a good time.

I visited Wales off season, and it was shut. Much the same was true of Niagara, most of the tours, most of the gift-emporiums, most of the eateries were shut. Eventually I found a Subway that was open and taking cards (handy, as their cashpoints didn’t want to give me money)… I also spent a while enjoying the solitude of the unlocked but very closed Maid of the Mist ‘market’.

The only, very slight disappointment is that I was unable to get a wax lion, smooshed face or otherwise, from the falls. Most distressing.

So, today I had a bit of a chilled out day – I’ve been doing an awful lot of walking – not being very sure of Subway and Streetcar routes, and the small nature of the centre of Toronto, and an absence of me needing to be anywhere, mean that quite often I’ve just walked it…

…Today I used the Subway more; I mooched around cafes, book shops, china town, and uh, yeah, spent some money I shouldn’t have. See, I’ve wanted a copy of infiltration magazine’s Access All Areas. And I noticed that they said it’s for sale at ‘This Ain’t The Rosedale Library’. Of course, if I’d've noticed that it was for sale *before* I found it the first time, that’d've helped.

So, I headed over there today – and while I was there took the time to check out Church street. I’m impressively bad at the whole gay thing – I found a mostly-inhabited-by-gay-men cafe; a mostly-inhabited-by-gay-men coffee shop, and a shop selling clothes… for… you guessed it, gay men. I need someone to lead me round and go *there*, ‘cos I don’t look at things before I walk in, at least, not that carefully. I need to actually look *before* I walk in the door and go… oops. That’s not to say I didn’t find some cool places, but yeah, felt a bit of a pilchard wandering into definately bloke-filled places.

Anyway, I’ve started to reliably be able to find places. Only big places, I know, but places. I can kinda find myself a street and turn around and get from where I am to where I want to be; which is quite nice. It is – to be fair – rather simpler than navigating London with it’s mishmash of random streets…

But it’s still quite nice to go ‘oh, I need to go to X’ and be able to get there without fishing out a map. Which is odd, because what I bought today was a map – but that’s ‘cos I’m heading to Niagara tomorrow. In a rented Ford Focus (or similar). In a country where they use a different unit of measurement for speed and distance and DRIVE ON THE OTHER FRACKING SIDE OF THE ROAD. Heh.

It’ll be fine.

I’m not nervous.

Okay, I am nervous, but it’ll still be fine. Yeah.

Somehow, today I’ve been a lot more thoughtful about the whole moving here thing – partly I guess ‘cos I took a wander through the Hospital District (although unlike Chinatown, Church and Wellesley, and the Entertainment District, it’s street signs don’t get a dinky ‘Sick District’ or ‘Lurgee District’ or even plain old ‘Hospital District’… I wonder why? ) – and started to wonder about working here. Living here. The bigger bits and the smaller bits.

Long streams of disjointed thoughts – leaving the UK – moving to a place where I barely understand how to buy stamps, let alone how to pay taxes. How do you get a licence plate for your car? How do you register with a doctor? How does recycling work for people at home? How do you find a decent auto shop? What are your rights as a consumer. Do I go with plan A and get a permi resident’s visa, or come over on a working visa and then apply? Can I really deal with throwing away or selling ‘most everything I own that isn’t a book, dvd or CD? Will I be able to leave my mum behind?

The why, the why, because now I know I love the country, and I can feel comfortable here, and I remain unhappy about what’s happening in the UK socially and politically. The Why now needs more flesh on it’s bones, needs to grow into a fully functioning reason. Because the bigness of it all hasn’t escaped me, and looking around today the bigness of it all settled around me and pooled like tar; sticking to every surface and grounding me. The bigness and darkness of it all filled the spaces around me and demanded of me the whys, the hows, the questions that I’ve answered lightheartedly to everyone else, but which have occupied my thoughts at a deeper level internally. Well, now I want those answers to be fully formed, a shield of shining clarity; I want to know not only why, but how – how am I going to achieve what I want to achieve?

So, today I did Kensington Market and the CN Tower – and am feeling more at home. Why? Well, getting to know the place, starting to be marginally less lost when I’m wandering around – and actually landing up where I expect to be when I’m wandering without having to consult a map….

That helps loads; looking the right way before I cross the road, that’s also good – and starting to understand when to cross the road (and that people actually seem to have to stop here). Actually, that’s an interesting thing; like Alaska – the road layouts are vastly simpler here. Which I guess is handy, because their road signs, again like AK are much more verbose. The UK signs are much more symbol based – like the whole of Europe. Here, signs tell you stuff in words; it’s quite odd.

But I’m starting to get used to it all. Yellow traffic lights? That’s fine too. Tell you what is odd. I keep hearing Elastica. I’d not heard *any* elastica for years before I came here; then I burned a CD to bring with me. And then I get here, and Jason puts it on, it’s played on the Radio one day and I walk into a bookshop (yes, I should *not* have gone in there) and *they* are playing elastica. It’s freaky.

It’s quite nice though; makes it feel more like home. Although I did wander down the road singing ‘Car Song’. I also tried out Tim Horton’s today; that was fun. The experience was made slightly more challenging by the fact that the woman taking my order was ?swiss (certainly northern european) and struggling to understand even the Canadians, who she was presumably fairly used to. The woman helping her, she was of indian descent – and had a fairly strong indian accent… and yeah, I had no idea what there would be options wise on my order. We got through it though :-)

And yeah, ’twas nice. Anyway, I headed on to the CN Tower.
So, the CN Tower. Expensive, great view… no-where to sit. I wanted to just sit there and soak in the view, eventually I found a perch up in the Sky Pod, but I really wanted somewhere I could just sit and read my book – with that view being absorbed by osmosis. Of course, I could have sat in the Cafe, but I kinda felt they’d had enough of my cash…

Afterward I sat in a Second Cup (see, watch me learn to be more Canadian); and read one of the books I picked up at “This Ain’t the Rosedale Library” – Code White (which I’d link to, but it’s a short run book and I can’t find a link to it without trying harder than I’d like). It’s a book written from the perspective of a queer femme manic-depressive in a locked mental health ward. It’s really very compelling to read; especially if, like me, you find mental health – or more loss or damage to your mental health incredibly interesting. I could never work on a mental health ward, but I do find it so interesting. Anyway, then I headed back to the expensive bookstore to buy books and things… Yes, between that and some of the other stores I visited today I think I’ve spent far too much, but I’ve also got most of my friends presents.

Of course, there’s more pics added to the photoset, another 20 today.