Get ready for mayhem Mayhem MAYHEM!!

So, last week instead of going to see American Football we instead saw, in the same stadium, Monster Jam. A three hour event of monster trucks, quad biking, monster trucks and demolition derby.

A silly afternoon spent with very loud engines and lots of expensive looking monster trucks smashing themselves up to the delight of the crowds. Seems everyone was only there to see the crashes, I know I was. They flip. They roll. They land on their roofs. They break. They smash. They have to get towed off the arena by a digger. Still it was entertaining.

Lets play some FOOTBALL!!!!

So on Saturday last week we went to our first (American) football game over here. It was an American College Football game being held at the Rogers Centre for some reason or another. Anyway we'd never been to one, and since it's only about 150m from out front door it seemed rude not to. So we went.

Rutgers University was playing Ball State University (personally I didn't know the US had a Ball State, I'm pretty sure it's not one of the 50 I've learned about, I'll look it up and get back to you.) Due to the joys of random ticket allocated we were just off the centre line on the Ball State side, so I guess we were cheering for Ball State then. Note to self, don't sit on one teams side and cheer for the other, it just gets messy.

The universities certainly put on a large show. Each side has their own marching band and several sets of cheerleaders (spares I suppose in case they break one) plus their mascots running around the field (or at least freshman students dressed up as mascots in some kind of weird hazing initiation.) Probably about 200 people officially involved on each side due to that, plus all the fans that followed them up to the Great White North from the Land of the Free.


Anyway it was a fun enough game to watch, even though Ball State didn't know what to do with the ball most of the time. Either their quarterback forgot he should really get rid of the ball before five burly armoured mean people jump on him, or the receivers he was throwing to were scared of trying to catch it. Whichever happened Ball State lost 52-30.


It was a good day out anyway. We'd never been to a major sporting event before so it was a new experience every way.

Ice, Snow and Mount Sinai

So on Wednesday of last week I went for a walk to the west of downtown, towards the Exhibition area by the lake. It had snowed the day or two before, it was icy and cold. Bit windy as well. As you can see in the photo below, the temperature board reads as cold.

A fun walk, even if when I took my gloves off to change lenses on the camera it felt like a wind chill of -25 degrees C (which it was.) Still it was a good walk. Stretch the old legs, explore somewhere I've never been. I decided to go for the walk as I had an interview in the area the next day and wanted to find where the place I was going beforehand, just to ensure I knew how long it would take to get there.

I came across this Inukshuk as well. Inukshuk are markers left by the Inuit and other first people in the western and arctic regions of Canada to act as navigational markers and meeting places. Apparently it is very hard to orientate yourself when all you can see is ice and snow, or rolling plains. Obviously this Inukshuk isn't authentic and has just been made to look nice in a park, but there are still hundreds or thousands of real ones around Canada.

And what about the Mount Sinai section of the title you ask? Mount Sinai is the name of the closest hospital emergency room to us (we think.) It is where we had the joy of spending Friday night last week. Nothing terribly serious though. While at Ikea earlier in the day and loading a friends car I managed to somehow (I don't know how, I don't recall doing it) taking the top right off one of my knuckles. Anyway four and a half hours of pressure and ice later when it won't stop bleeding we decide it would be best to go to the emergency room (as told to by a nurse on a telehphone helpline.) So the ER on a Friday night, the usual assortment of people there under police escort, security guards with other people, and lots of genuinely sick people (which just made me hide my pathetic wound under my coat.) Still for a Friday night I was reasonably impressed that such a non-threatening injury got me seen in three hours, even if they did give me a tetanus shot as well. Aw well, such is life.

ROMmania

The Royal Ontario Museum (locally known as the ROM) is one of my favourite buildings in Toronto, a bold combination of old and modern. It is the largest museum in Canada and houses around six million items. Most of its recent attention has been due to it architectural additions however rather than the exhibits.
Since we've been coming to Toronto they've been wanting an extension to the building to give them more exhibit space. They also wanted something new and modern to dress up the older looking building. So what they now have is known as the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal. They haven't just added an extension to the building, they've turned it into a piece of modern art. Not everyone likes it however, in fact many hate it, but I like the combination of the old and the new.

If you look closely at it it appears that the new addition is just haphazardly added to it. Windows are partially covered by the new structure, there are gaps here and there that look like they should have been avoided. From the inside you can see areas where it joins the old building where it cuts across large doorways and creates small rooms of weird angels that don't appear to be of any use. While in the museum the other day we noticed a window that has been blocked over by the crystal but leaving a foot gap to the outside world that was full of snow.
The addition has just been completed, and when we went on Thursday it was to see the dinosaur exhibition that's just re-opened inside the crystal. Lots of dinosaurs.

Last month an art group got several hundred people together outside the building and staged a mass light sabre fight up and down the street. In one newspaper a writer said it was probably a suitable location since it looks like a star destroyer has crashed into the building.

Worst storm in recent history

Or so they tell us at least. If this is the worst that Toronto gets, then it's fine with us.

So Saturday/Sunday we had a major storm front come across north east North America. It dumped a lot of snow across north easter United States and eastern Canada. Generally in Toronto it amounts to about 25-30 cm, but due to the strong winds it is generally in drifts much deeper.

They do a decent job of keeping the main roads plowed, but all the plows do is push the snow to the side of the road. This is great for cars, but pedestrians have to break out of their fort of snow and push through or climb over the 4 foot piles of snow to cross the road. I should have bought some rope and crampons. The drifts mean some places there is only a couple of cm of snow, which makes it easy enough to get around on the major routes, but it can be many feet deep in some places as we found out on our little walk about. Incidentally in the photo below our building is the one in the middle of the photo, to the left of the Rogers Centre.
The quays by the lake are starting to freeze over now with large bits of ice making its way into the harbour area. The ducks love it as it gives them somewhere to sit while on the water, but I don't think the local sailing club is going anywhere. In the second photo below that is one the Toronto Marine Fire Stations in the background with the fire boat moored alongside (not the little one, but the larger one behind it.)

One the lakefront there is a large outdoor ice-skating rink, though I may have mentioned that before. Anyway, they had to clear off a lot of snow to get access to the benches.

Land of the Mole People: Part II

The PATH system is mainly maintained by the management of the buildings it goes under, as technically it is mainly retail space in their towers. By and large though the system is very well maintained and in some places becomes quite rich looking as the large companies try to show their wealth. For example below is an example of the food court and a bit of the retail area below BCE Place in the Financial District.

And another area below the Scotiabank Plaza building where they carry on the red stone construction of their main tower.

It does seem quite strange down there sometimes, especially coming from the UK. When I took these photos it was a Saturday afternoon, but most retail outlets in the PATH system were closed. Under the Financial District they mainly cater for the banks and associated office tower and as a result the area is extremely busy weekday lunchtimes, and dead the rest of the time. As you can see from the photo there aren't even shutters on most of the areas, anyone could clamber into the stores at any time, but they don't.

Another example of this odd openness on the PATH system is this bank that is within it. It's a branch of the TD bank, that anyone could walk into at any time. It's completely open, and while I'm sure there are security cameras around, you don't see many guards except in the main foyers of the buildings. Also note that the banking staff aren't behind glass panels separated from the public.

Land of the Mole People: Part I

So as it's colder now (it's currently a rare day if it reaches 0 degrees), people tend to spend a bit more time indoors while travelling around. Thankfully in Toronto you can do this. It is possible to travel a long way around downtown via the PATH system, a network of underground tunnels in the downtown core. 27 km of tunnels connect the major buildings of downtown with pedestrian access throughout the area.

Our closest entrance is just beside the CN Tower and from there we can get to the Atrium on Bay north of Dundas Street on Yonge just over a kilometre away in a straight line. This works out to be about two kilometres by foot through the PATH system.

It's not just a series of bland tunnels though, every km of the system has shops, dental surgeries, food courts, post offices and all manner of services. In fact it qualifies as the largest underground shopping complex in the world. The majority of it is open 24 hours a day (the section through The Bay closes late at night due to the fact it goes right through the heart of the department store.) There are six subways stations, one mainline station, two concert halls, a convention centre, sports stadium, at least four major hotels, the headquarters of all of Canada's major banks and the City Hall connected to the system. You walk through office buildings that you wouldn't normally consider entering, though that is quite commonplace in Canada as most office buildings have public access facilities on the ground floor (and sometimes elsewhere.)

It's a really strange place, a little tricky to find your way around, but we're getting there. Just on Thursday night we were trying to find a restaurant connected to the system in BCE Place, and ended up walking about a kilometer and a half when if we'd taken a different turning straight out of Union Station it was only a block away. It's all part of the learning process.

Freak weather

Okay, we've had cold snaps and snow on and off for a couple of weeks now, but on Tuesday we had the most bizarre weather I've ever seen. Looking out the window of the lounge it was relatively clear and you could see right the way around the lake. A couple of minutes later a massive set of grey clouds rolled in. There was a giant curtain of grey air that just blanketed the view. Imagine something out of a science fiction movie where a giant curtain of weather just rolls forward.

Anyway this curtain of sleet and snow just rolled in from the west, you could see it advancing quite rapidly and clearly. It was solid and as it moved in it just devoured buildings as it came. Really bizarre watching condo towers just disappear into this band of murk that was coming forward at a great pace.

Then it hit us. Massive sleet for several minutes, the side window of the lounge just completely sleeted up solid and you couldn't see a thing. Then it was gone, and three minutes later we had blinding sunlight.

Never seen anything like it, very bizarre. It was like something was travelling along just eating up the city as it came.

Well now we're down to snow squalls at irregular intervals and it's -9 outside at the minute. This proved unfortunate for the film crew outside filming Jude Law's new film at the tower opposite last night, but what do they expect doing filming in Toronto in November?

Three months

It's been three months now since we got off the plane in Canada. We've been in this condo for the majority of that time. I think that now barring getting jobs sorted (and I'm working on that one) we're pretty much settled in over here. I'm finding that not having a car isn't something to be missed, though it could be handy for trip to Ikea.

The temperature has changed a little as well. When we landed we were getting days of 32 degrees pretty much constantly, and we were still getting such temperatures second week of October. The last few days however have changed all that.

We had our first real snowfall of the season in Toronto on Tuesday night, and it continued through Wednesday morning. I know in the UK you've been having some snow as well, but it's fun to have our first snowfall. Temperatures were at -6 to -8 during the day on Thursday, but button up properly and it's fine (though I now have a stupid hat.) Despite the temperatures being below zero outside we still haven't turned the heating system on. I guess we're getting enough heat from the units surrounding us to not need it. In fact we've still got the windows open.

Around our building is a little chaotic at the moment, the Canadian Football Grey Cup is being held at the Rogers Centre. The street running past the complex has been closed to traffic for the last few days and there are open air concerts, stalls, events and games set up all over the place. News vans, reporters, caterers, advertisers and anyone else who stands to make some money from the event. The place is full of people from Winnipeg and Saskatchewan wandering around in their shorts and T-shirts complaining that Torontonians are weather wusses and that where they're from these temperatures are just balmy spring days. In fact some have been bemoaning the fact that the Rogers Centre has a roof to keep the weather out, back home their teams play in the ice and snow.

Still we managed to avoid that on Saturday night while the final game was on by going to the Roy Thompson concert hall for a Japanese drumming concert that was very good.

Toronto by Night

Last night was a lovely clear night so I went out for a short walk round the corner, with my camera. The CN Tower was being very odd, I've never seen it like it before. It was lighting up multi-coloured, not just solid blocks but different areas in different colours. Sometimes it was pulsing up and down in a variety of colours, sometimes it was illuminated in red and white, or other specific patterns of colour. On Remembrance Sunday it was illuminated solely in red, which was nice.


They take Remembrance Day quite seriously over here, possibly even more so than in London. On the Friday the banks and government offices were closed half day, and closed all day on Monday. It gets considerable TV coverage and there was a flypast by the Canadian Air Force.

My walk also took me slight further towards the financial centre, and I had to get a night shot of the buildings there. So I did. The city looks even better at night that during the day I think, and I like it (well some of it) during the day. Like everywhere it has its dodgier areas, such as Church and Jarvis after dark.