Tingle in Toronto

On the weekend of August 15, we took a trip to Toronto for a tingle. I hadn't been there since I was a child, and many of my friends have raved about what a great city it is and how nice Canadians are, so I was pretty interested in seeing the town. I was also to get the chance to meet a bunch of alt.society.generation-x-er that I hadn't previously had the opportunity to meet IRL.

The drive up was generally uneventful. The border crossing was a breeze. We had a problem finding a hotel room, and we wound up at an Econolodge in Niagara Falls rather than in Buffalo, where we had intended to stay. The Erie County Fair was that week, and the hotels were all full. This hotel room featured the world's smallest shower stall, so much so that it was truly a challenge to wash in there.

There are the slightest differences with food there, mainly with things that involve high fructose corn syrup in the US. They use sugar in Coke, ketchup and pretty much everything else that the US uses HFCS for. The Coca-cola is far superior, as is the ketchup. We brought home quite a bit of both since we had the option. Also, diner coffee is better. Denny's food was better there, most notably the bread. The waitstaff was nicer than here, but Niagara was all full of tourists, so it wasn't really like being in Canada. While touring the parking lot at the Falls themselves, the accelerator pedal on my car broke. This is hard to explain, but the top part of the pedal presses a lever that opens the actual throttle snapped off. It still works, but it's, like, lower or something. This is something that shouldn't break, IMHO

We arrived at Emily and Dave's in the middle of the afternoon on Friday. We went grocery shopping, and then experienced that bit of Canadian culture that is the Beer Store. Also, by this point, I had determined that if Canadians were more polite, it was NOT evident in their driving. It was just as bad as here, and the vast majority of folks in Toronto had Ontario plates, so it can't be blamed on the tourists. My opinion on this did not change, and, in fact, worsened on Sunday when we were nearly broadsided by someone that tried to pass us on the left while we were making a left turn and signalling as such.

We attended a party on Friday night. It was pleasant and undemanding, and that was a good thing. On Saturday, we went to the Canadian National Exhibition. It's like a county fair for all of Canada, except it seems to concentrate on Ontario. Certainly, the French were not present. The food sure beat the hell out of fairs in the states, but other than that, it wasn't that spectacular. A group of us attended a American Saddlebred show and got to impress all my friends with my vast knowledge of horses. Many of the exposition buildings that looked interesting turned out to contain booths of various corporations and were really just public image sort of things and thus information-free. I did get to pet a lamb and a piglet though, and that was nice. Watching Emily bond with the wool was really cute. There was another party that night, but, unfortunately, we were too tired to stay very long or enjoy ourselves at all.

As long as I've got the jumping off point to link to some of my net-friends, here's some of the folks that were in attendence at the tingle.

Marco Anglesio
(whose presence is merely a rumor. I never saw the boy.)
David Broudy
Tino D'Amico
Paul Johnson
Kathryn Kent
Chris Lyons
Rob Myers
Stephen Perelgut
Rob Piltz
Ed Poe
Amber Raggie
Emily Way
Beverley "Wednesday" White
Austin "Fantome" Ziegler

As the pictures from the tingle appear, I'll put up links to them. I didn't take any, so there won't be any locally.

The drive home wasn't too interesting either. Of course we stopped at Ikea. It was pretty much like the Ikea stires in the US, but now Tino can add that to his list. He's been in Ikea stores all over the world, and I suppose he couldn't leave the Canadian stone unturned.

There was a little fun at the border. The U.S. customs agent asked us if we bought anything in Canada, and we said "Coke." Oops. We meant Coca-Cola. Luckily, while she was still picking her jaw up off the floor, Tino had launched into his speech about how he's allergic to corn products and the Canadian Coke is a different formula, and then she realized what we meant and saved us from having our car ripped apart.

There was an outlet mall on the way home, Grove City in Mercer County, PA. Of course we had to stop there. I'm quite amazed that they don't have a web site, but I searched all over the place, and the Mercer Chamber of Commerce even mentions them without a link to them, so...