Volume 6: Pete in Canada Part 8. Beaver Las Canada. 1 Continent, 2 Blokes, Infinite Weird Sh*t
Day 15 – Ottawa to Toronto
Today was a largely uneventful day, as we spent over 5 hours on the bus from Ottawa to Toronto. I drifted in and out of sleep on the bus, enough to watch some confusing movie about some Middle Eastern bloke who spent much of the movie being pissed off about some American bloke who owned a Mustang (the horse, not the car), at one stage threatening to cut off the Americans nuts because he’d look at his daughter.
Once off the bus at the Metro Toronto Coach Terminal, we lugged our bags a few blocks to the HI hostel. I had read up on this hostel in my Lonely Planet guide and they’d listed it as award winning. Well, if the award categories included coldest rooms with the wettest floors, then this hostel would win hands down. It also would have been a big show for the “Least animate lift award”, with the lift not working until they could get a mechanic with the required amount of butt cleavage out to fix it until after the weekend. Anyway, the walk to the hostel was enough to generate a thirst, so we asked the chick at the check in desk where the nearest liquor store was. After an exhaustive search based on the directions of the chick at the check in desk we found a liquor store (and reaffirmed why men don’t ask directions as they don’t help). Despite the fact we were only looking for a few cans, when the checkout chick said they were closing in 11 minutes I somehow felt urged to almost run to find those cans. We got our beers with at least 5 minutes to spare, leaving me both happy and bemused that such a huge city could have such few liquor stores. We headed back to the hostel and drunk our liquid gold on the hostels 5th floor rooftop deck. The beer tasted even better considering we had to walk the 5 floors. Once on the deck we had a chat with a POM (shall be forever remembered as that pommy bloke from Toronto as I forget his name). Naturally Brad and I steered the conversation towards cricket, but he said he didn’t know anything about cricket (yes, just like Nassair Hussein).
Happy that I’d forgotten yet another name, we headed out for a night on the town. Just like we’d struggled to find a liquor store, the quest to find a pub seemed equally challenging. Thankfully, 2 local chicks told us we needed to head to the “Entertainment District”, just a few blocks in the direction we were travelling. Once inside the “Entertainment District” (if you can call having 4 bars within 5 blocks an entertainment district) we settled for dinner at a fine establishment aimed at the more refined gentlemen: Hooters. It was a pleasant meal, with free entertainment coming from a chant started by all of the fine ladies employed for a gentleman on his buck’s night.
After dinner we kicked onto a bar called “Crocodile Rock”. It’s special characteristic was a dance floor that made it difficult for more that 3 people at any given time to be on, with some genius inspired by the theory that adding a mirror to a room makes it look bigger, so added a wall size mirror next to the dance floor. So Brad and I were both sucked in to the dance floor thinking we could get at least 6 people on it. The small dance floor, coupled with the fact it appeared to be over 28’s night didn’t float my boat so I think we would’ve been home before 1am.
Day 16 – Toronto
Today was to be just a chill out day, where we decided to check out the Toronto Islands, in particular Centre Island. It was so named Centre Island so as to help early American settlers know they had now reached Canadian soil after crossing Lake Ontario and were now in a country that still knew how to spell English words like “Centre”, “Tyre”, and “Colour” correctly (okay that may not be true, but good on Canada to avoid falling into the trap of their illiterate neighbours to the south). Centre Island, whilst baring little resemblance to other famous islands, such as Gilligan’s (only took 10 minutes by ferry, not 3 hours), was a nice little place to spend an overcast day. Centre Island had somehow found a way to squeeze the last of parent’s money not already taken by Christmas, Easter, and Birthdays, with a number of small rides and other games traditionally associated with dodgy carnival operators a common place (many times I was tempted to shout Shenanigans!). Given that mini golf cost $9 a round, this was a place you could only take your kids maybe once every 10 years or come to an agreement with your children that they would only be getting coal in their stocking this Christmas.
On the island were a number of beaches, one where we tried to charm the speedo’s off of 2 female life guards who weren’t doing much business on this overcast day, and another beach where clothing was optional (although it appeared the only option people were taking today was to not go to the beach). Lunch was spent ducking and weaving like a boxer as I tried to avoid the countless bee’s that decided to call Centre Island home.
Happy with not being stung, less happy not to have picked up the female lifeguards, we decided the afternoon would be better spent by visiting the Steam Whistle Brewery. The lure of free samples seemed a good way to spend the afternoon, but we were both pleasantly surprised when the girl serving the free samples behind the bar was offering to refill our glass without any prompting from us. Traditionally, the free sample is limited, sucking you in with the sweet taste of freshly brewed beer (like my tour of the Budweiser brewery in the US in which I only got 2 free beers, cheap multinational bastards!), only to get you hooked and force you into buying the freshly brewed nectar from the gods. But the bar chick kept offering to fill our glasses. When we reached the 4th beer it was almost me who felt obligated to tell her to say that’s enough, but hey, I was starting to get drunk, and what sort of fool listens to advice from a drunk?
For some reason we left, and decided to head back to the hostel. We decided we needed some more beer so we headed back to the liquor store we had found last night. As this was a Sunday, and this was the boring city that is Toronto, the liquor store had closed at 5pm. We had missed our chance to put back into the local economy by 23 minutes. Who would have there would be negatives to accepting free beer?
Back at the hostel we climbed the award winning hostel stairs to the 5th floor roof top balcony. It was there we bumped back into the future captain of the English cricket team (same POM from last night) and had a beer and barbeque dinner. We also got talking to a softly spoken German fellow who had just come from Western Canada where it appeared he spent much of his time being attacked by mosquitoes. It turned out he didn’t drink beer either, meaning that I had now met the only 2 Germans on the planet who didn’t drink beer, and that they were now living in Canada (no doubt expelled from the Fatherland for treason).
In keeping with the chill out feel of the day, Brad and I called it an early night.
Day 17 – Toronto
Today we decided to head out to the Paramount Wonderland theme park, a theme park that thankfully only shared its name (and not its lameness) with the now bankrupt Wonderland theme park in Sydney, as the Canadian version truly kicked ass.
The first ride of the day was the “XTREME(LEY) Crowded bus” proudly sponsored by Toronto’s GOTransit bus company. To get to Wonderland (amazingly its not as simple as just following your dreams) we caught the metro to Yorkdale station, and then managed to squeeze onto the GOTransit bus with 80 or so like minded individuals on a bus that was no doubt only licensed to carry about 40.
Once off the first ride of the day Brad flashed his HI membership card at the Wonderland ticket booth and asked if he could get a discount. The ticket booth bloke wasn’t aware of a HI membership discount (neither were Brad and I) but after he confirmed with Brad he was only going to the park for one day, the ticket booth bloke said bugger it and let us in with a discount. Good start to the day and confirmation we had truly found a Wonderland.
The first ride (inside the park) was the Top Gun roller coaster. To entertain the masses in queue (sorry I’m in North America, the masses in line) for the ride there was an Audio Visual feature on TV sets placed along the line. Today it was only operating as Audio (here’s hoping they maintain the rides better) which made the “Audio Visual” show somewhat confusing given that I was now standing out the front of the Top Gun ride and all I could hear was Ben Stiller’s voice. Was Ben Stiller in Top Gun was he? In a non-speaking, non-appearing role if memory serves correctly. To make the situation even more confusing, occasionally the song from Risky Business where Tom Cruise dances in his underwear would come on. It was now appearing that it was turning into the Audio Visual Crack pipe experience. As it turned out, after finding a TV later in the day in another part of the park that had both the audio and visual parts working, it turns out Ben Stiller was doing a spoof of a Tom Cruises stunt double, “Tom Crooze”. Tom Crooze had also been Tom Cruise’s stunt double in Risky Business, featuring a scene where Tom Crooze slammed his head into the doorway after sliding too far in his socks in the dancing underwear scene.
To make the day safe for the whole family and to ensure grandpa doesn’t go home in a body bag or get the chance to experience the defibrillator (sounds like a good name for a ride doesn’t it?), each ride is rated by Wonderland. Rating from:
1 – Mild Ride
2 – Mild Thrill Ride
3 – Intermediate Thrill Ride
4 – High Thrill Ride
It is only on the rating 2, mild thrill ride, that it is explicitly suggested “not intended for unaccompanied toddlers or very young children”. So for any other ride type, feel free to let little Timmy and his 6 week old sister enjoy the thrill of riding inverted on a rollercoaster doing just under 100 clicks.
From Top Gun ride we headed to the Pysclone, a ride that threw the patrons upside down whilst sitting in a rotating disc. What surprised me most about the ride was not the heights it reached, but the lack of loose change falling out of people’s pockets. I know I’d accumulated a small fortune in change courtesy of the “plus tax” custom, which surely should now have been bombarding the people below the ride. That wasn’t the case, so I put it down to everyone in Canada getting on board something to do with U2’s Bono and him trying to make poverty history in Africa (here’s a tip for the Africans trying to save some cash, become an Irish entertainer because they don’t pay tax).
In between rides Brad partook in a carnival game where they could either guess your age or your weight or how many bad relationships you’d been in. Brad was confident he could win and expressed with great pride how people always underestimated his size (I think he was talking about his body weight). As it turns out, Brad was correct with the carny bloke underestimating Brad’s weight leading to Brad winning a small stuffed dog and thus preventing me from shouting Shenanigans.
Other unique rides in the park included the Tomb Raider rollercoaster, where you lay down, and the SkyRider in which you ride the rollercoaster standing up. I think it was some time after riding the SkyRider Brad suggested we find a shady place (a phrase coined by Brad some time ago meaning let’s find a beer). We found the shady place, and given the temperature was 30+ on this day the 3 beers tasted all that much better.
Relaxed, it was time to get the blood pressure up again so we rode a number of the various rides. It was at the Drop Zone ride, a ride where they tow you to the top of a large structure and then drop you 230 feet allowing you to experience negative g’s as you fall at over 100kph (a ride that is now legal requirement of any theme park) that I noticed an interesting safety sign. It warned that those with implants should avoid the ride due to it’s sudden braking. You just know they put that sign up because some woman is now walking around with her breast implants now on her shoulders making her look like an American Football player who has just put on their shoulder pads. You can just picture the woman at the unveiling of the safety sign saying “If I save just 1 person from looking like a linebacker…”.
For me, the most memorable ride for the rest of the day was the Italian Job Stunt Track. Thankfully, the ride is very original, unlike the screen play of the remake. The ride shoots you off with awesome acceleration and involves indoor and outdoor excitement.
Towards the end of the day Brad and I each got some hot dogs that helped remind you that you were truly in a land of Wonder. These hot dogs were so long you could punch a hole in them and use them as a belt. The first time I’d every eaten a hot dog long enough to serve as a limb for a small child. Huge. All funned out, we left the park and then spent the next half hour trying to find the GOTransit bus stop. Back at the Yorkdale station it was simple to find our way home, but I could see how anyone without a metro map could get confused using the Toronto metro. As the Yonge-University-Spadina line is a giant U shape it means you can take an uptown train to get downtown. Or alternatively you can start on a downtown train that becomes an uptown train (yes it does appear I had a lot of time to ponder the Toronto subway system along the 16 stop journey that is from Yorkdale to Queen station).
As we were now 17 days into the adventure, and that we’d each probably worn our underwear enough times for you to think “that can’t be healthy”, we decided to do some washing. The washing didn’t take long, it was the drying that proved the killer. We kicked off the washing at 10pm, and some time around 1am the dryer finally removed all moisture. At which time I had no problems in drifting off into a sleep that my body had recommended I start 2 hours earlier.
Comments