Toronto - You've terragotta see it...

---

Thursday, July 8th
Our short stay in NY is over, Amy and Mike have the final tounches on their wedding to plan. Superb hosts, lovely place. Thanks again to both. We arose at 5am (about the same time as Wall Street Mike) to get the tube to Penn Station. I got chatting to some American sportswriter who passed on his views why Americans hate football. Sorry, soccer. Mostly it seemed to be about concentration span/lack of intelligence. He managed to squeeze in the standard "oh bloody 'ell" in a posh English accent. Why do they all do that?

Our Amtrak train was comfortable, housing all types including some Amish - never seen those before. They looked over with envy at my DS. I looked over in envy at thier crazy beards and old-timey hats. The view of the Hudson was pleasant but perhaps not the extra $50 paid for train tickets over bus ones. We'd heard someone was decapitated on the bus recently so were happy with the choice though.

At Canada everybody was ordered off with their suitcases. The Indian families (every one) had about a thousand cases each with no means to carry them. The queue took ages but customs was fairly relaxed, except in my case - full empty bag search. Only 2 of 300 people on the train got this treatment, must be special. The super-hot customs girl asked me twice if I did drugs, clearly not believing my first answer.
"I JUST LOOK F***ING TIRED OKAY?!!"
The guy next to him was visibly nervous and was asked why. His response of "so many cops" didn't really hold but they let it slide. Eventually the sight of my old, manky pants got me through to Hayley who had been shepherded outside into 35c heat.

Our ticket allowed 22 minutes for customs, it took 150. This is already a 12 hour train.

We arrived in Toronto to meet the lovely and heavily pregnant Sarah Mitchell. She taxi'd us back to hers and Andrew's flat overlooking Toronto's skyline on the doorstep of the baseball stadium and CN Tower. We've said it before - we are getting spoilt.

Early night but not until after we watched the circus show that was LeBron James picking who he would play for next year. An hour special! Ridiculous.

Friday, July 9th
Our first full day in Toronto started well. With rain. Since it was only a light drizzle (alright Snoop Dogg) we still decided to head out for a walking tour of our current home. With the impressive Rogers Centre virtually smacking us in the face as we left Mitch's building we bought ourselves some tickets for tomorrow afternoon's game versus the Red Sox. The CN Tower sits right behind but with it currently looking like 2 of Henry VIII's wives due to the clouds we passed over a trip up for another day.

The walk continued past Roy Thomson Hall, a concierto venue known for its acoustics. Outside was Canada's Hollywood Boulevard, pretty much a 'who-the-hell-are-you' Boulevard. Mario Lemieux (no idea if that's the right spelling) was about the only recognisable name. Perhaps we missed Mike Myers though. Further on to City Hall and a market selling local art where the central theme seemed to be just grey. Has prozac not made it across the border? We also walked through Queen's Park and the legislative building on our way to the Royal Ontario Museum.

So, our first impressions of Toronto (and by inference, Canada). It's like Phillip Neville to the USA's Gary. Under-appreciated and all-round less of a pr*ck. It feels clean (don't know about the Nevilles' hygiene but Gary with his bandolero goatee looks like a greasy f**k) and the people humble. Most definitely the forgotten, more-likeable son. Toronto has its share of large buildings but not so much as to be overbearing, such as with NY. The traffic is relaxed because no-one is in a rush. There's a large Asian population here - evident from our trip to the museum.

The museum; it is supposed to be a worthwhile visit in its own right but the current exhibition - The Chinese Terracotta Warriors - really drew us to it. A bargain at just $7 it chronicled the tomb of the first emperor of Qin (Chinese unified state). More death to spend our money on. Good. There were plenty of other artefacts mainly stemming from the belief that if you were buried with a plate you'd have something to eat off in the afterlife. So there were plates, instruments, weapons. The main exhibit, however, was the warriors themselves. Statues depicting a full army showed the next realm of power of the King. The level of detail was incredible down to the different face types and weapons. As always no photos. Ooh we must buy a guidebook. Damnit!!! They got us. Clever imperialists.

The rest of the ROM we raced through quickly enough. Level 4 was just a bunch of social-commentary cartoons in stick form, level 3 we sacked off as some sort of Pride and Prejudice period cr*p. Level 2 housed the best collection of rocks we've ever seen. All the colours of the gay rainbow. There were some fossils called pen*sworms. Also there were a ton of dinosaur bones. It was exhausting and half price after 4. The queue was huge on our way out; can't put a price on your child's education.

---

Photos

Terracotta Warriors
They won't let you photo them so this is all you get.

Geology rocks!!!
I think I heard that somewhere once.