Toronto Wrap Up

I have no idea how I’m awake and functioning this “early” in the morning. Billie finished downloading Mean Girls last night at about 1:30, and we started playing it to make sure it worked and to check out the quality. In terms of watchability we found no problems, since we ended up sitting through the whole thing and trying our best to keep the laughter down; Kyle and Ryan were sleeping. I’d heard good things about the movie, and it’s definitely much better than you’d expect from typical teen flicks. Very, very funny and definitely recommended.

Speaking of movies, I forgot to mention that I caught a great one called Garden State last Wednesday while in Toronto. Written and directed by Zach Braff of Scrubs fame, it stars him and Natalie Portman. It’s wryly funny, but also serious about the whole twenty-something angst scene. It also has a sort of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vibe going at times, although the movies aren’t really comparable beyond that tenuous description. It’s a very appropriate film to watch if you’re in a contemplative mood, and I really enjoyed it.

On Thursday in Toronto I did some more wandering in the downtown area. One of my stops was Silver Snail Comics, and I was blown away by their selection of merchandise. From my earlier action figure collection days, I know how painful it is to track down items in Canadian stores. Retail chains are so hit and miss, particularly because of greedy collectors hoarding all the sought-after items. The small number of local comic and hobby stores usually gets some of the stuff, but often gouge the customer in terms of price. Silver Snail had a huge inventory of action figures from countless lines, and the prices were somewhat reasonable. They also had a lot more in terms of limited edition and hard to find items. I found a lot of cool stuff, but mainly for browsing purposes.

I did make a couple of purchases: an Asajj Ventress action figure from the Clone Wars animated series and a Beta Female Safari with Jungle Cat. The latter is from a cool line of action figures called Stikfas, which are highly articulate and just plain cool. Jen has the same set and I just had to get one for myself, mainly for the awesome jungle cat.

That evening I visited Amy and Joanne at their apartment, which was a lot of fun. Amy had some unexpected visitors in the form of her cousin from BC, as well as her mom & sister who I’ve met previously from when Amy, Rob, Mike & I shared a place. Although our plans changed and we ended up staying in that evening, we were treated to a great home-cooked meal from Amy’s mom. I’ll have to come and visit more often if this is what I can look forward to! We just hung out, played cards, and chatted … I particularly liked sitting out on the balcony, with the great view of the CN Tower, SkyDome, and the lake. Their place is like a block or two north of the Dome.

My TTC token purchases worked out perfectly, as I used my last one a little after midnight to take the subway back to where I was staying.

The next morning I met up early with Jen to go to breakfast. I packed up all my stuff and checked out, as I was heading to the bus station afterwards. We ate at a place called Fran’s on College St, which is a pretty decent diner-style restaurant. Most importantly, they have a big breakfast menu and the food was good!

So, that about does it for my Toronto vacation and I had a hell of a lot of fun. It was nice to visit Jen for a few days, see Amy & Joanne for the first time in months, explore many different areas of the city to really get a feel for the place, and to just relax even though the entire summer up to this point had been pretty leisurely. I’ve come to realize that I have some regret in not taking a coop job in Toronto, because I’ve never really had the chance to spent significant time in the city. Usually a visit to TO involves crazy traffic scenarios and some short, chaotic event. I’ve always been comfortable in big cities, by my limited exposure to Toronto made me a little intimidated of the place. But that’s no longer the case, and I’ll feel much more comfortable if I happen to be searching for a job and place to live in the area next year. Of course, job prospects in my field are more likely to be in outlying regions, like Mississauga or something like that, but the possibility is still there of landing in a position associated with U of T or one of the hospitals.

In any case, I will definitely have to try and visit my friends there more often.