friday: work work work etc. amanda eventually came home from her work, and we made preparations for heading out to toronto. amanda was going to attend the last two days of the society of teachers of family medicine while i was going to work and idly see some sights. we did some cleaning, packing, taking care of the piglet and the fishes, and headed out around 7pm. we were going to perhaps get something more substantial to eat, but since we started motoring late, we just stopped by tim hortons on the way and got a couple garden sandwiches with a couple of donuts.
we decided to take the rainbow bridge into canada in niagara falls, but that proved to be a poor choice. traffic on the bridge was heavy, and it took us an hour or more to make it across the bridge and through customs. as we crept along, we let a car in front of us who thanked us profusely because he “really really had to go to the bathroom.” tho, he could have just gotten out of the car and walked to the duty free shop; perhaps he did as i saw many people doing just that. unfortunately for another person who misjudged his bladder capacity nearer the canadian side, that was not really an option: “i need a bottle!” he cried out.
eventually we made it through niagara falls (both of them) and were on our way. toronto is quite close to buffalo — maybe 100 miles — so the trip was rather short. we stopped again at another tim hortons in hamilton because i was still hungry.
unlike our last trip, we did not stay at the fairmont york hotel because it was no longer off season and the place is freaking expensive normally; we had gotten a good deal before. the hotel where the conference was at (the weston harbour castle) was expensive as well. so we just stayed at the hostel . we were even able to get one of the few private rooms in the place, and it was only a little more expensive than staying in one of the dorm rooms.
we had a disaster when we found out one of amanda’s hair care products (“confixor”… i always loved that name for some reason) exploded in one of the bags. fortunately, the damage was minimal since we wisely packed extra clothing.
since it was rather late when we got into town and settled down, we just went to bed. amanda at least had to get out very early the next day to make it to the conference.
saturday: amanda got up early and left for the conference, while i slept a little longer, but eventually i got up at 7:45am and started working. at around 11am i decided to take a break and just wandered about downtown toronto for about three hours. i did not really go to any particular place; i mainly just kept walking and occasionally looked into some stores or sat down somewhere and people watched. the weather started looking ominous, so i headed back to the hostel and started working again at around 2:30pm. amanda returned a few hours later and got changed into non-networking clothes. we headed out to the chinatown area for dinner.
after walking about for a bit, we decided on a chinese vegetarian food place whose actual name i have already forgotten. it was a pleasure to eat at a place where we could eat everything on the menu (tho it is rarer for amanda than a fishytarian like myself). we ended up getting quite a lot of tasty food for very little money… perhaps enough for four people for only $40 canadian with a healthy tip. obviously we were very hungry. we had grandiose ideas for activities afterwards, but amanda was beat, so we just headed back to the hostel. we thought about watching a movie… i had brought some dvds to play on my notebook computer… but amanda ended up falling asleep. i worked a few more hours before calling it a night.
sunday: i could not stay in the room and work since we had to check out of the hostel, so we placked up and headed to the hotel where the conference was located. after bfast at a grocery across from the hotel, amanda vanished to attend conference-doings while i bummed around. the hotel was on the waterfront, so i walked about the waterfront and meditated. eventually, i started walking about downtown again. i surmised that the vast majority of people downtown on sunday were tourists or people who served tourists in some way; i imagine it looked quite different on work days. there was some sort of scavenger hunt thing going on tho. i saw pairs of people with maps and weird blue papers running about and talking on cells phones. i met up with amanda back at the conference hotel, and we took off for home at around 1pm.
actually, we stopped by mec to look around because i love the place. unfortunately, i do not have the time to do much hiking anymore, nor do i “need” anything, but looking about is always fun. i did want to look for some shorts, since i prefer ripstop nylon ones, and i only have one pair that i bought in 1991 or so (if you have ever seen any of my hiking pictures, if i am wearing shorts those are the pair). alas, i did not find a suitable pair, but i did pick up a couple of cheap noncotton shirts for hiking/running/other-aerobic-activity shirts. i also got a little case for our digital camera. amanda bought a couple of “ruggedly functional” packs that she will use as purses and an inexpensive fleece jacket. she had been wearing one of my old ones that did not fit me anymore but was still too big for her.
after the shopping trip, we tried to get a snack before leaving toronto, but we enter up just getting some miss vickies at a petro-cananda station. on our way out of town, we saw a bunch of people downtown trying to catch what looked like a hell of a lot of $20 bills flying about the road ($100s? $1000s? there were a lot). unfortunately, it was very windy, and many bills flew many stories up and away.
we were going to stop by the ikea in burlington to look about and get another djungelorm (i had given one to natalie for her nephew), but we spaced the exit and ended up just continuing on home.
we got caught again in a massive traffic jam going over the rainbow bridge (much worse than the one going into canada earlier). amanda vowed to anyways take the queenston-lewiston in the future, but i have seen that bridge backed up as well (as recently as our wine-tasting trip last weekend).
one other thing that happened was the corolla’s brakes automagically fixed themselves. the front left tire area had been making a wierd cycling noise like something was loose or caught in the wheel area. i did not see anything with a cursory inspection tho. we were going to take it back in to the shop in case something was up with the brake replacement (or remove the offending noisemaker). on main street right before we made it to the apartment, i accidently hit a big pothole and magically the noise stopped. cool, eh?
we made it home to our piglet. carlos and karen were having a bbq in the backyard, but we decided to lift instead and eat later. tho we actually spent some time cleaning before lifting. amanda, as usual, fell asleep on the couch while i worked more before going to bed.
monday: work, lifting, etc. etc. etc. . amanda came home at bit before six, but left after i reminded her that she should have been at a class meeting. she ended up only being twenty minutes late and slipped in craftily with none the wiser. i made dinner and did a bit more cleaning. the laundry is washed but still needs to be folded. perhaps i better get on it.