Category: Photography

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 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.

Today I spent nearly all of the day on the Toronto Islands. My god it’s so pretty there. Do I keep saying it’s pretty? Well it is pretty. So, let’s start with the morning… I ran a bit late this morning and so made a fairly quick trip to get to the train… which just to demonstrate that my opinion of toronto’s public transport was somewhat biased toward the positive side was late… It’s still CLEAN though :-)

Anyway, having got into Toronto I headed down to the waterfront with my Second Cup pumpkin spice latte (how could I miss that on the menu?!). Before heading down and missing the Ferry out to the islands. It was such a gorgeous day though, I couldn’t miss the chance to go out onto the islands today; so I wandered off, bought some post cards and then headed back catching the next ferry a mere hour later… And headed out to the islands. To be honest I had little idea what to expect – and was stunned by what was there.

It is just *gorgeous*. Completely separate from Toronto and completely different. It is beautiful… So I walked…and walked…and walked. I did the whole of the island from Ward’s Island ferry to Hanlan’s Point Ferry, and then back on the other side of the island. Along the way I took… photos. Yes, of course. Sorry. There’s quite a few…

The other weirder thing that happened, as I was taking a photo of the spit of land from the boardwalk I met a guy from Toronto Island’s Fire Dept – who invited me into the fire dept on my way *back* from my loop of the island. So I headed off, down the island. It was about the point I passed the oh-so-closed refreshment place which I think is at Avenue of the Islands that I started to regret not eating lunch or bringing anything to drink. The water-fountains are off this time of year too… But pretty quickly I was back to looking at the scenery and had forgotten my hunger. Eventually I made it back to the fire-station, but sadly blokie bloke was busy with work – so I chatted to one of the other firemen (‘he said there was some strange English girl who was going to drop in’) for a bit before deciding I should probably head toward the ferry… not least because my feet were *killing* me.

So I made it back to the ferry and headed back across the water to Toronto, arriving at the station to find something which can probably be described as moderate chaos; there was a signal failure at Mimico (sound familiar?!) but fortunately, although the train before mine hadn’t left even when mine did; mine still left on time. Raaar. And now I’m knackered, and my knees hurt.

Yesterday (which didn’t get a post due to the fact I fell asleep at Jason and Yuka’s and then fell asleep again on the train – I blame this on my body’s continued desire to wake me at stupid-o-clock and on the (relatively) vast quantity of Alcohol and good food consumed) I headed into Toronto again (are we all seeing the pattern?) with Rochelle, meeting up with Jason in the city for the Markets and West End tour.

And some excellent sandwiches.

And a shiny shiny kitchen shop. (more…)

So, yesterday we headed down to Dorset (Bournmouth, specifically) to watch the Arrogant Worms. Unless you’re an avid watcher of the LJ ‘what music am I listening to’ thing, know me personally and thus have had it inflicted on you, or are Canadian, then you quite possibly haven’t heard of the Arrogant Worms. They are fantastic, okay, and you should get some stuff and listen and uh, yeah. I’m a bit tired right now, incidentally (yeah, yeah, shut up) for reasons that’ll become apparent.

So, we took the scenic route to Bournemouth, me, Chrissy and Lauren in the Mog and John, Kate and Nikki in the Honda, them leading, me following, Me, Nikki and Kate in my design of teeshirt, and with my little GPS going ‘WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING?!’. The route TomTom 5 had was somewhat different to the route that TomTom 3 believed in, not aided by us traveling through ‘The Void’ for a while (new roads built since my GPS’s map data was created…).  We stopped off in an exLittle Thief for lunch (better than a little thief) and finally rolled into Bournemouth around 1530. We mooched, making it to ‘ShakeAway’ (see Liz, I’ve tried them both now, and you’re right, it is better) – who do an absolutely stunning Strawberry Cheesecake / Oreo / Flake / Marshmallow milkshake that is just so unhealthy as to warrant an entire new foodgroup.

(I’m getting to the gig, okay?). Then we mooched, definately mooched, down to the seashore / beach (incidentally, what’s with Bournemouth; where’s the faded glory? British beach town == Faded glory. It was all ‘nice’ and ‘clean’ and ‘pleasant’. It’s not right); where John / Lauren / Chrissy headed down the pier and Kate / Nikki / Me went seashell hunting on the beach, Nikki discovered that she’d not brought a spare film for her camera and I discovered that my rechargable batteries were flat.

Woot.

So a quick run to a beachfront store and we headed up to the pub next to the club where they were performing. Me with a new pack of Duracell and Nikki with a roll of film. Pubsnacks, chatting to other Arrogant Worms fans, and generally chilling out. We nipped out to check, the doors were open at the club so we headed in and got the best table ever ever ever ever. We weren’t just close to the stage, we were virtually on it. Right in the centre. Rarrrrr.

Then they came out to do a soundcheck, complimented us on our teeshirts (or were they scared? It’s hard to say), we chatted to a nice lass from Canada (Halifax, Nova Scotia – see, I do have a memory) and I set my camera to pretend it had extremely fast film in it. We kicked back and relaxed, the room filled and Lauren and Chrissy arrived (having visited the oceanarium). Before the Arrogant Worms the were the front-people of a group called Djambo; who were excellent. Sadly they don’t make it over Brizzle way, but I shall be buying their CD.

Anyway, I’m not going to talk about them, ‘cos though they were very good it’s late and I need to get ready for work, and I shouldn’t be writing this now, I should be doing my dissertation. Ha.

So, then the Arrogant Worms came on. I’ve never seen them live (what with this being their first UK tour) and I have no words for how excellent they are live. I’m sure the small venue / intimate atmosphere helped, but they were wickedly funny, and the whole evening was spent laughing and doing Rippy the Alligator actions, and singing along with the Mounted Animal Nature Trail.

It was so good I squee’d. I don’t often Squee and bounce around like an overexhuberant 6 year old, but I did. I Arr’d and clapped and cheered and… just had a truly *awesome* time. Now, I know, I suck at writing up gigs, I suck at reviewing things, that’s because all the excitement and fun just washes over me and I want to say *IT WAS FUCKING EXCELLENT*. And that’s all I have to say, generally.

So I got their new CD (Beige) (I was wearing Beige, specially); I got the Christmas Turkey album too; got beige signed, took (blurry, very red tinted) photos of the gig and the band (discovered what my camera thinks of normal Alkaline batteries (not a lot; the ones that ended up working through the whole night, apart from brief breaks were the NiMH ones which said they were flat)), generally had an awesome time and then came out to find my car wouldn’t start. Half an hour later the AA came, bashed the startermotor (which’d stuck, which is what I thought, but I’d not considered bashing it) and we headed home – using Lauren navigation as for about 70% of the route my GPS was going ‘all the satellites are in a line. I cannot calculate my position. Damn them’.

All in all I had an *excellent* evening….