mychai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day #7: Nicole realizes JP never passed the age of 12 Well, Toronto was nice, I suppose. It's a lot like an American city. Except for the weird-looking paper money, the use of coins for $1 or $2 bills (which the jury's still out if I like it or not), and the weird use of what they call the "metric system," you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Toronto and, say, Chicago. It's a pretty town. Clean. Easy to navigate. But I was hoping to feel like we were out of the country. I hear that will change when we go to Montreal and, to a larger extent, Quebec City. We leave for Montreal tomorrow morning at 8:30. Neither one of us has woken up before 10:00am for the entire time we have been in Toronto. This whole waking up early thing will not be any fun. Let's see... what did we do today and yesterday? We went to this place called the "Eaton Center" or some spelling thereof. It is a HUGE mall that goes way underground. They had just about every shop you could ever imagine except for a Victoria's Secret. Yes, I looked. Since I am on a huge budget here, I ended up spending very little. I bought a CD I have been wanting for quite a long time: John Prine's "In Spite of Ourselves." Look up the lyrics to the title track. They are great! Here is an excerpt: She thinks all my jokes are corny I also needed a new pen because my old one was very good at writing half-way down the page of my journal quite nicely, then changing over to writing terribly for the rest of the page. I've never seen a pen be so good consistantly pissing me off. Once I found a pen I liked, I unceremoniously tossed the old one in the trash. After the mall, Nicole and I came back to the hostel and piddled around for a while. I did some more writing in my journal as she made a few calls. I also did some reading. When 8:00 came, we headed downstairs. The hostel was hosting a pub crawl. Beer. Food. Heaven. We went to four or five pubs for the whole night. I thought it was just fine, but the Europeans kept preaching that a "proper" pub crawl consisted of at least fifteen pubs over a 1-2 hour period with everyone downing one pint of brew per pub. Yeah. I could just see little Nicole carrying me home. Nicole and I were the only Americans on the whole tour. I think that is most great. I got to converse in German with a military guy from Switzerland. I had bought a Cuban cigar earlier and ended up smoking that at an Irish pub we went to. The only thing Irish about the bar, though, was the name of the bar. Their juke box played "98 Degrees" and "Averil Lavign." Not so much Irish. We got back at the hostel at around midnight. I had a few beers over the night and was feeling well. I also had nachos and calamari. Yep: I had beer, nachos, and squid. What a great night! Nicky and I spent today at the Royal Ontario Museum. Or ROM, for short. I'll sum it up: Lots and lots and lots of pots. From every region of the world and from every millenia. It wasn't boring at all, but I did tire of seeing pots. There was also a mummy. That was neat. His toes looked just like juicy prunes. Mmmmm. There was also a presentation about the formation of the earth from gasses (I made farting sounds) and how the other planets formed around us (I made a "Uranus" joke). Museums would be so much better if I planned everything about them. Supposedly, Toronto has never heard of the idea of "spring." The thermometer read "Cold-Ass" when we got out of the museum. We were going to go find some interesting food in Asian town, but because of all of the construction going on downtown, we couldn't figure out the public transit situation, which had been altered. So, we came back to the hostel, bummed around a bit, then made dinner: Spaghetti... With prunes, in memory of the mummy. I kid, I kid. Remember when I was in Chicago and spent the evening with JR? And remember the picture I showed of him? One last thing: Remember his beard? Well, he made me realize that I only have 2 more months to grow facial hair. So, with Nicole's encouragement, I haven't used the razor I brought with me since well before I left for my trip. My progress? A la Nicole: "You have grown about as much as the average person grows in one day." It's been nearly two weeks. I think it will not be anything near a success. I'll have pictures, I'm sure. I got my picture today next to the bust of a naked marble chick. hehehehe I'm soooo 5th grade. PS. Nicole ran out of time on her Internet kiosk, hence her shortened and uncomplete entry. She's po. 11:11 p.m. - Mon., Mar. 24, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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