Could I have picked a worse day for moving? Actually, I could have done it a day later and dealt with the snow that’s now blanketing everything a week before May. But still, the constant rain while loading and unloading a moving van and the crappy weather for driving on the 401 meant for a real long day yesterday.
Despite being a significantly longer drive, the trip to Sudbury last week was a much more enjoyable experience. I got together with Eddy for a dim sum lunch (AJ couldn’t make it because of a meeting) and headed out of town around 1:30 last Friday afternoon. Once I got past the usual heavy traffic through Toronto and all the way up to Barrie, it was actually quite a nice drive: not much traffic, was able to set the cruise to a comfortable speed, listened to Hitchhiker’s CDs, and enjoyed some scenery you don’t get much of on the 401.
I made decent time to Sudbury, and found Kyle’s place without much trouble. He’s right in downtown, and the apartments in his building are overtop a jewelry store and a dress store. How convenient! Kyle has a nice sized apartment, and it reminds me a lot of the place he lived at in London on Adelaide, just more modern and with an extra bedroom.
We went out to dinner, a place called Respect is Burning (”Rural Italian tradition meets urban style”, nice!). It was kind of offbeat, but in a cool way, and the food was good – I can’t remember the kind of pizza I got, just that it was delicious. After dinner we made a quick tour of the mall around the corner from Kyle’s. Downtown Sudbury already gave me the impression of downtown London on a Sunday morning, and Kyle’s description of the mall as similar to Galleria only enforced that. Very, very accurate.
We took it easy that night and watched Clue, which I had never seen before. It had its moments, but it’s definitely a weird movie.
On Saturday we visited Science North. We built Lego cars for racing, did our best to do work equivalent to two horses, tested our reflexes, looked at layers of rocks, saw the effects of pollution, played with butterflies, watched as Elmo’s shaving cream brains oozed out of his head, spied on an exhibitionist beaver, tested out a bed of nails, and much more. We also test drove a Segway, and managed not to fall off unlike a certain leader of the free world.
After our learning expedition, we drove into “New Sudbury” to shop for a few essentials (junk food and used DVDs) and checked out the big mall in town. It didn’t exactly take a whole lot of time to cover that ground. Oh, there doesn’t appear to be any Darth Taters in Sudbury either at this time.
Needing to improve my cooking repertoire, Kyle agreed to show me a couple of dishes that weekend. Our first lesson was making some stuffed chicken breasts, with bacon and cheese. I took diligent notes (I’m lost without instructions, I don’t have the imagination or instincts for cooking), helped out a bit, and think I could reproduce the effort. They turned out well, and I’d definitely make them again.
Ali also happened to be in town that weekend, and she was visiting a friend who also lives in Kyle’s building. We hung out with them for a little while, and then tagged along to the bar right across the street. Ahh, that crazy Sudbury nightlife!
On Sunday I received an expanded tour of the Sudbury core area, including seeing a number of “regulars” whose company Kyle gets the regular pleasure of at the Beer Store. Being a Sunday, most things were closed, although there was a definite sense of gravitation towards Kyle’s work.
The recipe that evening was for some curried lamb … mmm, good stuff! Afterwards we hit up the theater in the nearby mall for a showing of House of Flying Daggers. It’s the second time I’ve seen it, and it’s still just as impressive. Zhang Ziyi has very nice shoulders.
Kyle and I also managed to fit in a fair amount of Super Smash Bros. and some Mario Party on the GameCube, and he introduced me to some Red Dwarf. All in all, it was definitely a good visit!
A couple of other notes on Sudbury:
- it’s rocky up north, and construction projects tend to require blasting. It’s disconcerting to see big piles of rocks just waiting to fall onto the adjacent traffic, and to see signs along the lines of “resume use of radio transmitters”
- the locals up north (in particular, those north of Barrie on the 400/69) have a fascination with building mini Inukshuks atop the rock formations along the side of the highway. Maybe the local teens are bored. Or it’s the local equivalent of graffiti. Or it’s just to confuse tourists. Maybe that’s what the original Inukshuks are all about.
- the misguided locals seem to have a preference for Pepsi over Coke!
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