Karaoke and Canada

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The rest of Tuesday was spent wandering Ann Arbor, seeing some interesting shops and art galleries. I bought a camping fuel can and now use it as a backup for Gretchen in case she runs out of gas. Alex, Christine's friend, asked the guy at Moosejaw why they had little bumper stickers saying "I'm moving back in with my Mom" and he launched into this whole story about how their company motto was "Mad About It" and how that's the way they live their lives. It was kinda funny that he'd use that as an explanation, but also kinda awesome that there's a company whose policy states "you must be cool". The Ann Arbor Art Center had an exhibit by a local, Margaret Parker, who used T-shirts as her medium. They were all cut up into strings and hung in various interesting ways. I took pictures but I'm on a dialup connection. Hopefully I'll hit an internet cafe tomorrow. Later on I went to the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and ate some avocado and bread and wrote a few postcards. I went for a few-mile hike around the trails and it was pretty but I was wearing a bright blue shirt and I think some bugs and butterflies thought I was a flower. Weird thing... on Plymouth Rd in front of the Pfizer building, I saw 2 car accidents on the way. One right in front of the other, like a block apart. Then today on my way out of town, same thing only it was one accident with three cars. Just fender benders but why there? And why just before I pass? Odd... so then I went in search of shampoo and earplugs because the road noise is pretty bad. I found both at KMart and felt like I was in a horror movie because the store was essentially deserted of customers and employees and the music was really low. Eerie. I sharpened Christine's knives and ate some pasta with garlic... yum... and we made plans to sing karaoke. Turns out the place she found was like an ACTUAL japanese karaoke place, so me her and Alex were in this little room singing and dancing our butts off. The karaoke hostess spoke in broken english and had a tiny white dog with green-dyed ears. I have pictures. Soooooo much fun and much different than the karaoke at a bar I'm used to. We ate at Tio's again, apparently it's the only place open late. And when I woke up I cleaned up my stuff, packed up Gretchen and went to the Farmers Market for about 2 minutes to buy 2 apple fritters for $1.25. Yum... but while I was there I got a parking ticket. Gah! I'm not paying it. Screw them.
Took off for Toronto finally after tracking down AAA Michigan for some new maps. Some foolish girl checked her blind spot after almost running me off the road and I got a real close look at a real horrified face. Luckily I was totally prepared for this situation. The drive took what seemed like forever and had me going through Detroit expressway, lakefront state road, farms, lakehouse towns with lots of party kids. I got gas at a Citgo that catered to both land and lake vehicles. Took the ferry across to Canada at Marine City for $4 and was amazed at how many people just commute across the border on a daily basis. Apparently it's cheaper to buy Labalt Blue in the US duty free store, because people were taking cases and cases of it back to CA. The customs girl gave me a bit of a scare but she didn't hassle too much and didn't seem to notice the many glaring legal faults with Gretchen (no turn signals, no front fender). I brought my passport for the Canada stamp but she didn't stamp it. WTF??? Once in Canada I realized I'd ferried over to nowhereland, except there was a huge Lambton oil refinery and free camping everywhere. FREE CAMPING! I took rt 80 across fields and fields reminiscent of central IL but with more trees. Ate another avocado/bread meal by the side of the road and kept on going. Took rt 2 through a bunch of towns with English names. Melbourne, London, Middlesex, etc. Then decided to make some time and hopped on the interstate. Gretchen doesn't like to go interstate speeds. However, I remedy this by cruising in the air envelope created by semis. This way I save gas and don't die of wind buffeting. Somewhere after the ferry crossing I realized that there was no way I'd make Niagara in time to see it and *then* ride to Toronto, so I skipped it and went straight to Toronto. Got some gas and Canadollars at an Esso oasis. Now I have to calculate my fuel mileage in liters per kilometer, and I just don't care enough. After another hour I almost succomed to Big Mac Craving, which always happens when I travel... but instead I went to Tim Horton's, a chain I didn't recognize and is obviously Canadian. I ordered a veggie sandwich and got a sandwich with lettuce tomato cucumber pepper oil and like a half inch thick of cream cheese. Everyone else there was ordering coffee with their meal, despite it being like 830pm, so I did too and it was delicious. Without the coffee I couldn't have handled all that cream cheese.
Outside I met my first fellow biker friend, Glen, who had a 2002 version of a bike designed by BMW before WWII. Apparently they just never stopped building them in Siberia. It had a sidecar and everything and was in beautiful shape, nothing to signify that it wasn't like a 1939 bike. Crazy. It wasn't called a BMW though, the name was like 4 letters beginning with a U. I didn't write it down.
I took the highway into Toronto past Missassauga and looked for the Ciba plant, a place we used to test eyedrop bottles and caps for at work, but I didn't see it from the road. Eventually I got off the highway and got turned around but finally found which way I needed to go and happened to take Yonge St all the way through the coolest parts of town. Saw all kinds of cool stuff. Toronto is a big city, and I can't wait to explore tomorrow. Turned down my couchsurfing hostess's street and wow... hookers! Like, several of them. Really obvious. Wow. And in front of her building, all these really shady looking characters were hanging out. Haha! Like Beloit only with hookers. wow. Tomorrow will be an interesting day for sure and I can't wait to get some pictures up.

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