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.
