Out East

So we've decided to sample the air out in the East coast of Canada.

A couple of days ago we picked up our Kiwi friends Annie and Chris from Toronto airport and gave them the whirlwind tour of Toronto - including a whirlwind ride around the roller coasters at Canada's Wonderland.

From Wonderland with Kiwis

Then after a brief glimpse of the CN Tower, they disappeard off on the train out to Ottawa.
A couple of days later we all met up again in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
We picked up a rental car and headed north west toward Truro, Moncton and our destination of Fredericton, but not without taking the scenic route and stopping off to see the flowerpot rocks at Hopewell cape.





So far we've been very kindly looked after by the parents of my Toronto workmate, who have showed us that New Brunswick hospitality.
Fredericton isn't a big town, we compare it in size to Taupo, maybe a little larger.
It's built straddling a wide river and is very picturesque.

Huh?

Where did the time go?
It's September already...

Road Trippin

So it's been a busy time with Ma and Pa taking us places we hadn't thought of.

A couple of weeks ago we rented a car and took Friday and Monday off work.



The 2008, V6 Buick Allure may not have been the best choice in times of high petrol prices, but it certainly helped when you had to accelerate to overtake a truck or two. Despite being an American car, it was ok to drive; it didn't like to take corners too well but softer suspension than a Japanese car helped a lot on the bumpy Canadian roads.

The weather had been really hot lately, and the lack of wind had caused pollution to rise and cause Toronto's first smog alerts of the year. Buses displayed messages alongside their route numbers "Smog advisory, take transit".
The smog really was bad, it was like a rainy haze on the horizon. The further we got from Toronto the more we expected it to clear, but it never did...

Our first stop on the trip was Kingston, a nice little town about the size of Taupo with a lot of limestone buildings about 200km East of Toronto.



We did a tour of the Town Hall and Mum sat in the Mayor's seat, then had some lunch at a local steakhouse and moved on.



Ottawa was only another 200km northeast now, the destination for our first overnight stop.
The weather really hit us on this leg of the journey, it went from hot and smoggy to a wicked storm with forked lightning and rain so strong I could barely see the road in front of me!
After 10 minutes the rain eased off a bit, and shortly after we pulled into Ottawa.
It didn't take us long to really like Ottawa. One walk across the canal, through the art gallery and past the amazing town hall was all it took.



We stayed two nights in Ottawa which gave us time to take a ride on the canal and see the light show where they used the town hall as a canvass for a huge light and sound show.



Just like NZ's capital, Ottawa is a place where you can see yourself staying. We really loved it, and would relish an opportunity to go back again.

On Sunday we moved on down the road into Montreal. Now Aimee and I have been to Montreal before, so kinda knew what to expect, and after the experience of Ottawa, there was no real excitement.
It didn't help that we were pretty tired but we still had a nice night out and got to see some of the area.

The drive home was pretty uneventful, total tally for the trip:
KM's driven - 1200
Night's in hotels - 3
Stops at Tim Hortons - 8
Iced Capp's purchased - 20ish
Stops at dairy Queen - 3

The dark night

So I'm now starting to play catchup with the blog here. I have photos that date back earlier in the month so the story is a little old.
Never mind dear reader, you don't mind being 15 days behind do you?

So, Mum and Dad have been here with me for 3 weeks now, we've been having a great time getting out and seeing things in Toronto we haven't seen before, and showing them the things we have enjoyed.
We have had at least 3 thunderstorms which have brought some exciting light shows.

Firstly, Batman.
HUGE movie, we haven't seen it yet because we're trying to see it on the massive downtown IMAX screen but tickets are selling out before we can get them. Soon my pretties, soon...




So, moving along.
Stay tuned for the story of our road trip out to Ottawa and Montreal,

coming soon

NZ on TV again

I saw this on comedy central the other night, just had to link to it.


Edit - So youtube took the video down because it breached somebody's copyright of intellectual property.
It was a funny dig at NZ because we are betterer that America.

We're coming home

...Continued from below.

After a nice rest in the sun we decided it was time to press on.
No bus was coming to pick us up, no helicopter ride back was organised, it was pedal power all the way.

As we descended down the riverside and approached the falls we again came under the direction of marshalls, who laughed when we told them we had just come from and were riding back to Toronto. It took some convincing to let them pass us straight through.

We went through some very nice little towns as the clouds cleared and my speedo indicated that I had reached the longest ride of my life. Only 130 more km to go...

We were joined by a couple of other hairshirt participants and for a while our group numbered seven. Shortly after we struck a steepish hill, and in a fit of power Jake managed to burst a spoke out of his back wheel. Given that his bike only has 16 spokes in each wheel this effectively ended his ride and the car was called in.

Our group split up, and I rode on with Greg and Adam as we approached 'death valley' or Fly road - a 30km stretch of relatively flat, straight blacktop which radiates the sun's heat back up at you. It's a long boring piece, and the mind wanders as you have little visual stimulation.
After over an hour of slogging along Fly road we began looking for our turn on Eleventh line. We had passed 14th, 12th, and then 34th. Certain we had missed it, a quick phone call revealed the others to be waiting for us just around the bend and we gladly stopped and re-filled water bottles.

Jake and Adam swapped places so that Jake who had been training for this ride was able to finish on Adam's bike.

We continued on further and the closer we got, the more comfortable I became that I was going to finish. With only 50km to go, we started passing through towns and the scenery and town names became more familiar to me.

We crossed the bridge at Burlington which was rather interesting. The main highway goes over a high bridge not unlike the Auckland harbour bridge.
We went over a much lower bridge, with a surface of sharp metal laid out like chicken wire and I felt very uneasy riding on it. I could have slipped or punctured at any second.
We were fortunate that there were no boats trying to get through either, as the whole bridge lifts up twenty metres or so and could have delayed us half an hour at worst. But the bridge was down so we rode on over into Burlington - Oakville and finally into Mississauga.
With the towers fast approaching Rob and I took off with whatever energy we had left, just to be done with this ride. The final 10km disappeared and suddenly there was our welcoming party waiting with big smiles of congratulations.

We had done it. 330km from Toronto to Niagara and back in only 14 hours total time.
Max speed 70kph, Average 27kph.

Where am I?

So it's been a while since the last post. The snow is long gone, as are any memories of winter. The summer has brought Toronto out of hibernation.

There are festivals, barbecue smells everywhere you go and lots of cyclists on the road.
That's where I fit in.
Yesterday was Sunday the 22nd of June; the day of the TNT Hairshirt.

The Hairshirt, a personal cycling challenge whose name comes from a medieval form of monasterial punishment and penance, in which monks wore shirts woven of very coarse horse hair, causing them to experience extreme discomfort. Founded in 1978 the Hairshirt pits the lonely rider and his/her bicycle against the road and the elements, and for this reason the organizers provide no support other than a map and encouragement.

We began at 6am from Square One Mall in Mississauga (Mississauga is to Toronto as the Hutt Valley is to Wellington).
If truth be told, we began by driving the 30km to the start line, so the day really started with breakfast at 4:30am to allow digestion time for preventing cramps.

Anyway, at about 18 degrees and cloudy, today wasn't going to be too hot so was shaping up to be a good ride. Aimee had jumped into a car, so she and Suzy (Wife, Mum and Aunt to my fellow riders to Rob, Jake, Greg and Adam) provided support by way of food, water and most importantly directions.



We headed off in search of some smooth roads, and were rewarded with some relatively quiet and smooth roads for the first 60km or so. It was overcast, so cooler temperatures meant hydration wasn't too much of a problem.
As I was the only rookie in our group, the boys replayed memories "remember that's where I punctured in '06"; "this is where I hit the wall last year" etc.
Since my preparation hadn't been exactly full of endurance efforts, I spent the first half of the race wondering if I was going to make it.
The longest ride I've done before coming to Canada was 160km around Taupo.
The longest distance I've ever covered was last weekend with a 180km effort out into the countryside and I arrived home in pretty bad shape, so setting out today in search of 320km would be really pushing it.

As we moved further west we also inched south. Due to the idea of the ride being a 'double century' or 200 miles, we weren't taking a direct route to Niagara. The wind was kind, and the pavement just seemed to melt away behind us.
The first missed turn happened as we pulled into a nice village, and we'd fished in our pockets for sustenance. I had to make a U-turn with a banana in my hand, while Greg did it holding his delicious strawberry granola bars, of their taste he reminded us of throughout the ride.

At one point after telling me all about how he had avoided the thin tyres this year and going for the cheaper thicker ones, Rob had a puncture.

Still we continued and passed through a 'tunnel' which the guys kept talking about and were excited by the descent into it. It turned out to be merely an underpass under a river, with 300m of a nice steady slope, not much to write home about since I come from Wellington! We know tunnels and hills.

Shortly after we were joining up with the cancer riders.
This same weekend as the hairshirt was the Princess Margaret ride to conquer cancer;
A 2 day ride from Toronto to Niagara with an overnight stop half way.
Still no mean feat and well done to the 2000 or so people who completed it, and each raised the minimum $2000 for charity.
The marshalls for that ride got rather concerned when we ignored their signals and shouted after us "NO, LEFT TURN - LEFT TURN!!!".
Before actually arriving at the falls, we stopped in a grassy area for a break and some lunch.
A few seconds later the car with Aimee and Suzy showed up with sandwiches, more water and even a picnic blanket.

We had an enjoyable rest in the sun while we mentally prepared for the ride home.

Toronto?

Toronto has changed.
Its gone all green; when we left there were snow piles and bare trees, yet now all the snow has gone and the trees have started to grow leaves again =)
It looks pretty good and can only get better.

I did hear that while we were away, all the snow that was piled up in the area melted and actually raised the level of the lake significantly enough to cause flooding in boatsheds and put some piers underwater.

For those of you worried about me now giving a weather forecast, don't worry. I'm not going to talk about how the temperatures here have been warmer than NZ, or about how when we arrived it suddenly got cold, just like it did when we when we got to Wellington.

My workmates were also kind enough to sell one of my monitors while I was away.
I arrived back to only one 19" LCD and a 19" square of cardboard with an error message written on it, and "Made in NZ" on the back...
Haha, funny guys

Today is May 24th which is Mayday. According to one of my neighbors, after the 24th you can safely plant flowers outside without fear of frosts. Now that's something I didn't know. In any case, flowers are suddenly on sale everywhere, and the shops have gone form advertising snow blowers to gardening supplies and outdoor hammocks.
All the tour operators are running full steam again too, downtown traffic now has large red or yellow tour buses, and of course the hippo. An amphibious tour bus that not only gives you a tour of the city, but also takes you on a tour of lake Ontario.
The beach community sprung up 70 volleyball nets and Toronto is coming alive with festivals.
No wonder people are so depressed in winter, there's so much that happens in summer it's hard to think about anything else.

Right, I'm off to do another lap of the city on my bike, will add to my first sunburn of the year that I got yesterday

Aimee and Chris back in Canada

So we're back.
We've actually been back a couple of weeks now, things are moving along like we'd never left.

Getting back to NZ was great, thank you to all the people with whom we were able to share dinners, lunches and even a brunch (although our tardiness made it lunch).

As most of you will know, flying around the world is very tiring. On the way back to NZ we had managed to score seats close to the front on all 4 legs of the trip, however coming back to Canada was a different story. Only four rows from the back of the plane meant we felt every flick and waggle of the 777's tail as we bumped our way across a turbulent pacific.
At one air pocket, people even screamed as the whole plane dropped a couple of feet. You could hear the pilots powering up the engines to pull the plane through and it was rather disconcerting.

As usual, American customs agents welcomed us with open arms, fingerprints, iris scans, metal detectors and having to re-check our bags even though we were transiting.
I think part of the problem there is LAX isn't designed for transit passengers. You have to clear customs because there's no link back to the outgoing planes. To get to departures you have to go outside and up a level; perhaps some internal stairs like at Sydney would help?

Whatever the design problems, transiting thru LAX was pretty painless, except for the lack of signage.

After finally arriving back in toronto, we were treated to a most excellent midnight feast and then safely transported back to our beds.

Aimee and Chris in NZ

So we're back!
NZ is just the same as we left it, but with a few changes.
Lambton Quay looks to have been under constant improvement, especially with the images of dead bodies on the street to encourage people to look BOTH WAYS before crossing the road.

I have had this fear for a while that i'm going to get run over here. After forcing myself to look left - right - left while in Canada, going back to right - left - right has been harder then I thought.
Still, switching back to driving correctly has been easy.

At the request of Precious, Kristen and Jaena, no more posts about the weather.
So now i'm going to do book reviews:

The current book i'm reading is called 'The Ruins', which is also a movie about to come out on the big screen soon. It gets off to a slow start, but it's actually getting pretty good now that people are starting to die.
The premise is of some kids who are in Cancun Mexico - instead of spending the whole time relaxing on the beach they one day decide to visit some ruins.
They then get stuck in the ruins and face their deaths in new and exciting ways.
Scared yet?

Me neither. But it's still a good read, and I've got 3 more books from the geniuses that host the BBC motoring show Top Gear to read before I go back to Toronto.

Two more weeks in this lovely country we call home and I need your help faithful reader.
Aimee has been rather slack in posting to this blog. She did a couple of posts when we were in San Francisco nine months ago, but hasn't written anymore.
I need lots of people to comment, asking, pleading, begging for her to write some more.
If you don't, i'm going to talk about the weather some more... now where did I put that book on tidal currents?

Airports

Toronto airport is actually quite nice.
We had only seen the arrival side, so sitting in the departure lounge i'm plugged into the free wireless internet and free power plugs so i'm happy.

There's an hour until we board our flight, it's going to be technically 48 hours until we get to see Wellington shores.
See, we leave Toronto at 8pm, Saturday, and arrive in Wellington 9pm Monday.
Then coming back, we arrive at the same time we left. No fair. We lose two days going home but only gain one on the way back.
Who can I sue for this lost day?

Aimee and I were talking before, and we have decided that along with the inflight entertainment package that you get from your seat, there should be an inflight exercise program.
I'm thinking some pedals or a treadmill under the seats that you can use while you watch the inflight movie.
They could even go so far as to use the energy you're creating in your workout to put power back into the plane in much the same way as some Gyms do with their exercise equipment.
I'm thinking of a readout above you of your original ticket price, and as you exercise the price goes down so you get a nice little bonus as you step off the plane.

We're just worried that the airlines will actually come to rely on the passengers to supply energy that they will make it mandatory to do a few km's or we start losing altitude!

Something to ponder as we sit for the next few hours trying to block out the noise of the engines.

Something

It's been a long time since my last post, so I need to say something.
SOMETHING!

Just watched the Toronto Maple Leafs play their final game of the season. Thanks guys, you really made it worthwile. 8-2 loss to Ottawa, good thing the tickets were already paid for.

Anyway, Aimee and I are going home on Saturday. We're both looking forward to it, three weeks at home enjoying seeing family again, breathing the fresh air and sipping a few Welly chino's.

I've been doing a bit of cycling in Toronto now that the weather is above freezing, here's a few things I learned:

1. it doesn't look that cold out there. But looks can be deceiving.
2. The air looks clean out there. See above.
3. Traffic looks pretty bad. Actually it's not that bad. Drivers are more than willing to give you more space on the road, probably due to the fact their insurance will go up if you hit them.
4. Repeat number 1.

We're in NZ for three weeks of April, so track us down and meet up with us. Those of you who are important will know who to talk to to find us, so do it!
We leave to come back to Canada on April 26th, the clock starts now...

And the winner is...

Adrienne!

She kinda had it in the bag anyway, as I owe her some RJ's licorice I gave her the head's up as soon as I posted.
Prize delivery may take some time, click here for status updates.

So here's the website where I got this map from:
http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/driving on the left.htm

Some interesting history for you:

Back in the old country (Britain), swordsmen preferred to keep their horses left in order to have their right sword arm nearer to an opponent.

Then in the 1700's as the American's began hauling loads with two horses wide, they sat on the left horse to allow their stronger right arm free to whip the horses. Therefore they drove the horses on the right to give them a better vision of oncoming traffic.

Before the French revolution in 1789 the aristocrats travelled on the left, forcing peasants over to the right. After the revolution, they preferred to keep a low profile and joined the rest of the French on the right side of the road.

Hitler ordered the Germans and Austrians to switch sides in 1938, and the mass export of American vehicles around this time caused much of the rest of the world to follow their lead.
Others simply wanted to alienate themselves from Mother England as much as possible so switched.
Unfortunately Japan was a bit too slow to get it's vehicle exports increased or we might have seen more countries still driving on the left.

Some countries who did want to change, but decided against it were:
Britain - the motion was defeated due to the immense cost and pride in their heritage.
Pakistan - They couldn't get the camels to understand the new system.

So anyway, well done Adrienne, and anybody else who had similar ideas but didn't voice them.
If you disagree with anything here, remember the old saying "I read it on the internet, it must be true".

What is this?

Some RJ's licorice goes to the first person who can explain what the orange countries do differently from the green ones.

I'll post the answer and the supporting website later in the week.

New photos posted

Not much has happened this week. Carmel left yesterday, but I'm sure she will be back. When we had another 10cm of snow on Friday we were worried about delays with the flights, but it stopped that evening and the airport was back on schedule Saturday morning.

The weather is supposed to be warming up, but we're not seeing it.
The amount of snow we have is still burying bikes, cars and as you can see a park bench!
The city has a $65 Million dollar budget to clear snow, and this year it's not been enough.
Every day trucks are moving snow out of the downtown core and out where there's a MASSIVE snow pile further north. I imagine it will take a few weeks of hot weather for that to all melt.

My trainer for my bike has arrived and so far I've put about 65km on it. My aim is to partake in the double century ride to Niagara called 'The Hairshirt' - info here:

The Hairshirt, a personal cycling challenge whose name comes from a medieval form of monasterial punishment and penance, in which monks wore shirts woven of very coarse horse hair, causing them to experience extreme discomfort. Founded in 1978 the Hairshirt pits the lonely rider and his/her bicycle against the road and the elements, and for this reason the organizers provide no support other than a map and encouragement.

So yeah, that's what i'm working towards. I have until June 22 to go from being a winter couch potato to a lean mean cycling machine.
Recently I picked up

Lance Armstrong's War: One Man's Battle Against Fate, Fame, Love, Death, Scandal, and a Few Other Rivals on the Road to the Tour de France
by Daniel Coyle

It was in the bargain bin at a local book store, so hopefully can provide me some motivation in my preparation.
Preparation that will be challenged somewhat by a month off in April.
For those of you who aren't aware, Aimee and I are returning to NZ on the 7th of April.

We'll be home for about 3 weeks, enough time to hug the family, smell the fresh air, see some friends and remember what home feels like. Save some of your summer for us eh?!

Anyway, as the head of this post reads, we've posted some of our recent photos in the usual place to show you it's not all work work work...
http://picasaweb.google.com/aimee.carbonell

Chris OUT!

Just when you thought winter was over...

Bleh...

The problems with firefighting in Winter

Big news this week is a 6 alarm fire that happened just 3 blocks North West of my office.
Here's a little lesson:

How Big Is A 6-Alarm Fire?

They're thankfully very rare but they do happen and they force crews to throw everything at them. Here's a look at the varying degrees of a fire.

1st Alarm

2 pumpers, 1 aerial truck, and 1 district chief

If it's downtown or involves a highrise building, a highrise truck is used. If it's a working fire an air supply truck, which provides breathing cylinders, and a heavy rescue squad are called.

2nd Alarm

5 pumpers, 2 aerials, 1 squad, 1 hazardous materials truck, 2 district chiefs, 1 platoon chief, 1 air supply vehicle, and 1 incident command vehicle.

3rd Alarm

8 pumpers, 3 aerials, 1 squad, 3 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 air lights, 1 hazard, 1 command vehicle, 1 division commander,

4th Alarm

11 pumpers, 4 aerials, 1 squad, 4 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 air supply vehicle, 1 hazardous materials truck, 1 command vehicle, 1 division commander

5th Alarm

14 pumpers, 5 aerials, 2 squads, 5 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 division commander, 1 command vehicles, 2 air supply trucks, 1 hazardous materials vehicles, other support staff if needed.

6th Alarm

17 pumpers, 6 aerials, 2 squads, 6 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 division commander, 1command vehicle, 2 air supply truck, 1 hazardous materials truck.

7th Alarm

20 pumpers, 7 aerials, 2 squads, 7 district chiefs, 1 platoon, 1 division commander, 1 command vehicle, 2 air supply trucks, 1 hazardous materials.

So now you know that it was a big deal, here's the problem. Water + Cold = Ice.
150 firefighters sprayed water onto the blaze, and in the cold temperatures, some of it came down as snow and the rest of it froze on power lines and the firefighters it landed on.
Once the fire was out, work began to pump out the water before it froze and turned the street into a skating rink.
Interestingly I heard on the radio this morning that one of the people saved from the flames hadn't been paying attention during fire drill. He was waving from a window as he could not get out the emergency exits. So when rescuers put the ladder up to his balcony, he handed them a laptop and then ran inside for his stereo!
He was dragged out and carried down the ladder.

I pity the fool!

Toronto

I've been meaning to write something for a while now, but I keep thinking that not much has happened that's worth writing about.
Well, looking back it's been a pretty good start to the year.
Toronto for example has had quite a few things happen to it:
- The price of gas (petrol) has risen to $1.05 per litre and everybody is complaining!
- There's been 8 shooting related deaths in Toronto this year. Mostly in other neighbourhoods but there was one just one subway stop up from us!
- There's been 2 train derailments. One in the subway system out east which shut the line down for about 36 hours. Affected about a million people trying to get into work and home again.
- There's been a lot of snow, not record levels but February has been a cold snowy month. Just when we thought the winter was over and all the snow had melted, we had lots and lots come back down. Temps this week are back in the -6 region.

As for us, the last 9 days were pretty exciting. We purchased a city pass, which is a discount ticket book which gives entry into 7 of Toronto's attractions.

So last weekend we went to the Royal Ontario Museum and saw the dinosaurs.
After that we tried to go up the CN Tower but it was snowing and cloudy so not really worth it.



The next day we woke up early and the skies were blue. After a nice warm brunch at a local cafe, we headed into town, but the clouds had come back. So to pass the time we used the next ticket in our book and went to the Hockey Hall of Fame. A very cool place with memorabilia from Canada's rich hockey history. I even got to stand next to the coveted Stanley Cup. It has more history than the America's cup, and has been through more iterations too, the shape of the cup has changed about 4 times since it was first created.



After learning about hockey, we looked outside and the clouds had cleared. We fought our way through the freezing cold to the base of the CN Tower, only to be informed that it was too windy and the top section was closed! Hah, as Wellingtonians we laugh in the face of high winds, but were unable to do anything about today's problem.

The rest of the week passed in the way any other working week does, but we had the resolve to get back up the CN Tower.

So when saturday rolled around, the weather was beautiful and we headed into town.
After getting lost driving around the mall parking lot looking for a park (that's a whole other story) we caught the subway into town to take one last stab at getting up the CN Tower.
After a short wait in the lines, we were scanned for bombs and allowed up in the glass elevator.
It travelled vertically at 55kmh for 58 seconds to ascend to the first viewing level of the tower.
We had a quick look around the main level, jumped on the glass floor as you do, then went up to the sky pod.
This is what we came for; another hundred metres up and with a full and unobstructed view of Toronto. On a clear day you can see all the way to Niagara Falls.

Snow snow snow

Now I know what you're going to say,
"Come on Chris, not another blog post about the weather".

But this is great. We had a really warm few weeks at the end of January - warm being relative; temps from 2 - 8 degrees some days. So that melted all the snow and took us just back to a cold green Toronto.
But since the weekend things have totally changed.
We had that big snowstorm while we were up snowboarding which dropped 30cm on the city, then last night the snow began again and it's put another 20cm on the city, making it the largest 24 hour snowfall in 30 years according to the TV.

That all comes on the back of people back home telling me that NZ's having their warmest Summer in 10 years. Hah, vote in the poll on the right of our blog and judge for yourself what is better - warm or cold.

I have to say, while the snow is very nice, when it melts it does cause a bit of a problem.
To help you summer ones understand what we're going through, imagine you're baking a really big cake. You need a lot of flour. You spill enough to leave a 30cm high pile on the floor.
You invite the rest of the neighbourhood to walk around in it for a while, then add in some water, salt and dirt.
Then have a few cars splash it around on your cupboard doors and all up your pants.
Then before it gets all sticky push it all up in a pile in front of your fridge so you have to step over it every time you want something.

That's nothing like what we're going through, but was fun to write =)

And the best bit, it's costing the city MILLIONS to clean it up. This snowfall from today is costing the city of Toronto $4 Million to clean up.
There's more predicted for the rest of the week, and still people continue to ride their bikes to work =)

Skiing - in January

The winter does have something good, snow!
We travelled north of Toronto for an hour and a half to the Horseshoe Valley to stay at a very nice lodge with a very well stocked fridge.



With the temperatures dropping we ventured into town for some additional clothing, and hit the slopes ready to party!



The ski hill at Horseshoe valley was only a hill, and the lodge was nearly at the top. You actually had to drive down a hill to get the the base of the 'mountain'.
It was still a great day, and we have the bruises to prove it.



The next day we headed out to Mount St. Louis which was much more of a ski area, but the snow was coming down in buckets at a time. Driving was the most difficult I've ever had to, and after only 6 hours in the parking lot we had to dig the car out.

The storm then came in later on friday and pushed back our return trip home, but at least there was time for one more game of scrabble...

Monster Trucks

It was a cold day, so we decided to go into town, where the action was hot, and the engines LOUD!



We had to sit waaay up in the 'nosebleeds', but it was still noisy



There was some big air



and some big damage

Filler

Saw this the other day while surfing friends profiles in Facebook.
Hi Todd!



I'm sure a few people out there can relate...

NYC: Day 4 - Bye bye

The final day.
And some might say the best day.

We woke up early with the intention of doing everything we haven't had a chance to do yet.
Hah! Ok, we'll try and cover a few more things anyway. As my parents say, it's nice to have a few things left undone so that you have an excuse to come back. =)

We checked out of the hotel, and went to continue our 48 hour tour.
As they had been closed yesterday, we went up to one of the sellers, who went and got the boss, and we were told that our tickets were still valid, and if anybody asks "just tell 'em Bobby sent ya!"

So today's tour was uptown. The tour would take us up the West side, around central park, through Harlem and back down the east side.
It was the best part of the tour because it was the real New York. Realistic living environments, and a very interesting part of town.
Interestingly dog walkers make $25 per dog per walk on the west side, compared to $15 per dog on the more affluent east side.



Anyway, as Aimee and I shivered away in the near freezing temperatures on top of the double decker, we had a great time laughing at the guide's jokes, and ducking as traffic lights passed very close overhead.

Harlem was nowhere near as scary as people make it sound. It looked very nice, and according to our guide, all the people who back in the 80's were making a living mugging are now in the lucrative market downtown of selling fake Prada and Gucci to tourists.

As the tour continued around central park, Aimee and I got off at the MET. The Metropolitan Museum of art.
Very cool museum with lots of fancy sculptures and paintings, we even met Napoleon Bonepart.



After 2 hours in here carrying all our luggage, I was ready to leave and we made the very lovely walk across central park to the the Museum of Natural History - as seen in the movie 'Night at the Museum'.

I was very impressed with all the pieces on display, but disappointed not to recognize any scenes from the movie. None at all!
It looks like hollywood struck again, a fake museum was created then torn down once shooting was finished.
We did see the dinosaur skeleton which was in the entrance in the movie, now up in the dino wing on the 3rd floor.



Great museum; well worth the visit.
Now it was time to go home, so we flagged down a yellow cab from outside, and after a comfortable trip to the airport we were waiting with the other passengers for our flight back to Canada.

The weather in canada had laid out a lot of snow on new years day, so the flight in front of us was still waiting for their plane.
Fortunately ours was on it's way, and with only a 30 minute delay, we were back home in Toronto and in bed ready for a full day's work tomorrow.

NYC: Day 3 - new years day

Happy New YEAR!

We had a bit of a sleep-in, as today was going to be a slightly relaxing day. Not a lot of things will be open, so we need to find our own entertainment.

The first stop was the subway, and a ride downtown.
Our impressions of the New York subways have improved now, although still markedly different to the Canadian trains.
As we passed through ground zero, the outside became light as the subterranean tunnel was momentarily in the open air; then back into the dimness.

When we got off, we walked back to the world trade centre site, and stood in quiet respect as we tried to imagine what it must have been like with those massive towering buildings standing there.



The area was mostly tourists, so we carried on southwards to the bottom of Manhattan. As we passed tunnels and bridges, we realised that the Americans seem to always want to build a city on an island or on a river, just so that they can come up with ways to get over or under it. There are so many bridges and tunnels going onto Manhattan.

We soon came across Battery park, and the long line of tourists wanting to get onto Liberty Island.
We looked at the line, and spoke to a guide who said it was about 30 minutes to get tickets, and another hour to get onto the boat.



As the day was quickly moving on, we took a photo in front of an artwork that was in one of the collapsed towers and moved on.



The next stop was the port where the ferry leaves to Statten Island.
Again with time limited, and wanting to have a good look around if we did go there, we watched one of the ferries unload it's mass of people, and continued walking up the eastern edge of Manhattan.

We found Wall st, and the NYSE before heading back to the South Street Seaport.
Kind of like Auckland's waterfront bar area, there were some 100 shops in here and a large foodcourt. We found a restaurant to have dinner at and for the first time in a long time, Aimee was asked for ID when ordering a drink with her meal!



After a photo of Aimee and the famous Brooklyn bridge, we were on our way back to Wall st, and the Wall St subway stop.
While studying the map as I regularly do, we actually met a real New Yorker! He kindly asked if we were ok, as he had also been lost in other cities of the world.
We got talking to him, and sadly he didn't actually work on Wall st but back up in Times Square.
We caught an express train back to times square, and decided to walk around a bit more.

We went to the Rockerfeller centre a few blocks east, and saw the big christmas tree and the ice skating rink.



Again the lines were over an hour long and skates $18 to hire, plus paying for ice time so photos were enough.

After a quick walk back, and a nosy in through the M&M gift shop, we were soundly asleep.

NYC: Day 2 - New Years eve

Monday dawned to the sounds of traffic outside our window, and the maid doing the rounds of the rooms on our floor.

We headed out for breakfast, and went to buy some tickets for a tour of the city.
Most of the tours don't actually have an office where you line up, they just have a bunch of people in red jackets roaming the street with mobile eftpos terminals.
They push the hard sell on everybody walking past, so fortunately I had done some investigation from brochures picked up, and already decided on the tour we wanted. However the ticket seller reccomended an upgrade, and after some quick calculations we picked up a 2 day pass to New York, including double decker bus tours downtown, uptown, harbour tour and tickets to the Empire State Building.



The first stop on the tour was the empire state building. While our tour ticket included a pre-paid voucher, we still had to line up to collect our tickets. It was a 30 minute wait on the street to get inside, then another lineup for 20 minutes to go through security, then another 5 minute line to get the tickets and then 30 minutes wait to get into the elevator! Once on the 80th floor, we skipped the 10 minute line for the final elevator, and took the stairs with some breathless tourists up to the 86th floor viewing deck.



New York looks much nicer from upon high, we took some photos and enjoyed the views before heading down back to street level.

Once on the street, we had some time for a bit of holiday bargain hunting in Banana Republic, then jumped back on the double decker tour bus.
As we moved downtown, we saw Greenwich village and the first sign that Manhattan supports the growing of real trees. Also Christopher st - for those who don't want the straight route.
SOHO was a heavy bustle of people on the sidewalks and lots of shopping and honking of horns.
We got off the bus in Chinatown, and were surrounded by people selling DVD's, prada and rolex for cheap cheap cheap!

We found some dinner in a local Chinese restaurant, and went to get back on the bus. We waited for 30 minutes where it dropped us off, but no buses appeared. Because it is new years eve, the buses stopped early, fortunately Aimee and I are subway savvy, so we grabbed a coffee and headed back to our hotel.

When we got off at the 42nd st stop, Times square had been shut down. Police had closed the subway stops and all streets going into Times Square. This allows them to control the number of people in the area, however keeps out unknowing tourists like us.
Aimee and I could not believe that we had come all this way only to be stuck on a side street... so close but so far away.
On advice from the police we began to walk uptown to the streets where they were still letting people in... From 46th, we tried 49th, 55th, 57th and finally headed in with an ever increasing crowd at 59th st.
[Sarcastic] Yay, the only view we had was a big screen 6 blocks away replaying the action.

Feeling pretty let down, we decided that even if we couldn't see it, we could at least hear the celebrations by waiting at 46th street by our hotel.
After telling our sob story to a few officers and getting shoo'd away, one kind rookie must have seen the tears welling in Aimee's eyes, and escorted us into the celebrations!



So here's a tip for those travelling to times square for a new years party; get to times square by 6pm before they close the streets, and stay there.
That way you can avoid the disappointment of possibly missing out, and won't have to beg and plead to get let in.

So the party in times square was amazing, 1 million people partying, lights and music everywhere, and of course the continually increasing number of people, without actually being squashed in.

Our view was fantastic, we were right in the middle of the X shaped square, being on 45th st and the ball dropping from on top of a building on 42nd st.
The music stages we're right behind us on 47th st, and MTV had a stage only meters from where we stood.



At the top of every hour, we had a 'practice' countdown which turned out to be the stroke of midnight in another timezone. When the ball dropped for the new York midnight, the crowd went wild, the fireworks exploded and masses of confetti rained from the sky.



After midnight, most people went away soon after 12, and by 20 past the cleanup crews were in full swing; according to the news 1 metric tonne of confetti was cleaned off the street the next day.

After breathing in the last of the atmosphere, Aimee and I took the short walk back to our hotel, only to find that the lobby had become a VIP only party, and about 30 guests were crowding the doors trying to get up to their rooms.
Being held back while party goers entered unopposed made some guests rather angry, especially after hearing feeble excuses as management tried to delay our entry while they made preparations to ensure we didn't enter or damage the mood of the party...

So while people were yelling at the bouncer, they got progressively more angry, until eventually a few were let in. One older lady was separated from her group as the bouncer stopped too many people from going in, and her daughter pulled her through. Another British guy was left behind from his wife, and swore angrily at the big guy as only the brits know how, pushing his way past.
By this point the bouncer was pretty upset, declaring 'I've had enough of this!' And tore out his earpiece, going after the British guy. Fortunately the wife and the night manager stepped in, and balance was restored before and punches were swung, and the rest of the crowd was ushered in; much to our relief.

Once in our room, sleep soon took over.