The story so far...
October 2, 2008
In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
With apologies to Douglas Adams.
I can’t believe I left only two weeks ago. It feels like two years. And already I’m leaving behind one country, two provinces, three cities and four new and old friends.
Canada was a good time. Three very contrasting cities. Despite the feel that they all share the same basic background culture, the country is so vast that it’s inevitable that its parts will diverge wildly.
Toronto was my first stop. Toronto is known among Canadians as being their own New York City, and not only because Toronto’s first name was York (the old York). The city is full of high rise buildings, busy streets and people running everywhere. No time, never any time. Except for me, the tourist out of time, walking peacefully around, wondering if I’ll run into something fun.
Of course, there is the usual touristy stuff to do, the foremost being to go up the CN tower, the world’s tallest man-made edifice. It was a little underwhelming from the altitude point of view, being completely enclosed just takes away the whole rush. I reckon that after a hundred meters or so, the human mind just stops caring, and just labels it “very high”.
Kensington market was much more fun. In some ways, it was reminiscent of San Francisco’s fisherman’s wharf. It was that kind of happy go lucky atmosphere, although Kensington Market was much more grassroots than anything I’ve seen in the bay. From humble clothes dealers to eco-terrorists selling stickers, the Market had it all.
Toronto also has Smokeless Joe’s. I do believe that it may just be the best bar I’ve ever been to. 250 kinds of beer from all over the world, friendly and knowledgeable barkeepers, and the best sandwich I’ve had in a long time (BLAST - Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, Salsa, Tomato).
The choice is admittedly overwhelming, but being able to try local microbrews with names as evocative as Devil’s Pale Ale (“The Devil made me brew it”, the back of the can parodies), or Durham Hop Addict (extremely hoppy finish, drink it for the taste, not freshness), well, you just can’t beat it. Of all of Toronto, the Market, the university district, the hostel - I’ll have to write up another post about youth hostels - I think that the atmosphere and surprises of Smokeless Joe’s are what I will miss most about Toronto.
A “car” in Kensington Market
Just a few days later, it was time to move on. A morning’s travelling away lay Montreal, jewel of Quebec, la Belle Province. Incidentally, it’s amusing to me how trains are managed in North America. You have to line up for boarding, show your ticket, get herded into the right carriage for your destination by a small army of aides, some trains have checked luggage… All in all, it felt more like taking a plane in the level of organization and crowd control that went on.
Toronto and Montreal could not be any more different. Where Toronto is Canada’s New York, Montreal could maybe be Canada’s Paris. Instead of building high, the city is sprawling as far as the eye can see, and while the streets retain the American scale, they feel like streets of a city a tenth of its size, homely and undemanding.
Montreal for me was a kind of holy grail, again for beery reasons. Just outside of the village-city lies Chambly, a delightful lakeside locale, the home of the Unibroue quebecois bewery. Sadly, the brewery itself was not open to visitors because of building work going on, and in any case, the commuter service assumes you live in Chambly, come to Montreal in early morning, and leave again in the evening. There was little to no provision for a tourist making a day trip.
The Unibroue collection
This is where my Canadian hero comes into play: webchick lives in Montreal, and out of the blue offered to drive us to Chambly for lunch at Fourquet Fourchette, a local restaurant intimately tied into Unibroue, and as close to a Mecca as you can get nowadays for the Unibroue beerie (how does one say “a person who appreciates good beers” in a single word? What is the word for a beer foodie? Beerie will have to do for now, but it sounds wrong).
Webchick, again, thank you. Until now, you were “just” this awesome person living in Canada, that I’d met a couple of times during SoCish do’s. Now, not only did I have a lot of fun talking about life, the universe and everything as we trundled around the city, but you are now my very own personal hero for leaping to my rescue and making my stay in Montreal that much better. Thank you. If you ever need a couch in Zurich (once I have a couch), my door is always open.
And if that wasn’t awesome enough, during my last day I met up with another SoCer, kyron. Again, discussions of life, the universe and everything, the value of education, ways to get our fix for low level hardware hacking. And that poutine galvaude was incredible. Rich food has made me feel like I was eating bricks before, but poutine is by far the most delightful brick food/comfort food/regional dish that I’ve come across thus far.
I did have a little problem of time displacement in Montreal: I was convinced that it was yesterday. Fortunately, I realized before missing my train, and before I had to pay penalties at the hostel for not checking out on time. But it’s strange how time seems less absolute when you’re on holiday.
Anyway, with just a few minutes to spare, I managed to board the train for Ottawa, capital city of this big and strange land of Canada. There, I stayed in jail. No, it’s not as bad as it sounds: the old gaol county jail was converted into a youth hostel many years ago, offering passing travellers a taste of sleeping in an early 20th century jailhouse. That was fun (although they should really get a decent internet connection, and my feet could design a better captive portal system than theirs).
Ottawa felt much more mellow than either of Toronto or Montreal. While it’s still a big city, it has a much calmer atmosphere, and a feeling of history about it. After a couple of days wandering through Byward Market and discovering the political and artistic landmarks of the city, I got a little bored and decided to try my hand at some Geocaching.
The Canadian parliament
For those who don’t know, Geocaching is a kind of modern day treasure hunt: you are given coordinates (latitude and longitude), sometimes in cryptic form, sometimes indirectly (i.e. you are sent to a first set of coordinates, and something there will provide missing parts of the final coordinates). You then use a GPS receiver to hunt around for the right spot, then endeavour to find a box or small container hidden thereabouts. It contains a logbook of past finds, and sometimes a trinket or two for trade. All in all, it’s a fun way to discover the city, since the side-effect of hunting for the cache is that you get to walk about a lot in areas you may not have gone to naturally.
So, I headed to a The Source store in the nearby shopping center, bought a GPS receiver, plugged in the locations of a couple of caches, and started hunting. This hunt took me on some very pleasant walks during my last two days in Ottawa, notably to the Canadian mint, and down along the Rideau canal. Out of five geocaches, I only managed to find two of them: another three were located in crowded areas (and one of the principles of geocaching is to not make the muggles suspicious), which prevented me from taking a decent look around after homing in on the spot. Oh well, it was still a good excuse to walk about, and I’m still thrilled that I found anything at all!
And, it turns out that the receiver I bought was not one that I particularly wanted. Specifically, it was a low-end device with a previous generation receiver chip (lacks precision), and it didn’t have an SD card slot, which basically prevents you from loading any significant extra maps into the device other than the provided North America basemap. Fortunately, The Source has a great exchange/return policy, so after establishing that they didn’t have the device that I wanted, I was able to get a full refund on the one I’d bought. No questions asked (though I volunteered the reasons, they didn’t seem necessary), and while doing the legwork to refund my credit card, the store assistant even recommended other places in the area where I might be able to find the one I wanted. Great service, much recommended.
And with that, it was time to train back to Toronto, just in time for a quick nap before flying out of moose country and into the land of Lady Liberty.
All in all, I’ve only barely scratched the surface of Canada, and I will be back. I have yet to backpack in Newfoundland, check out the west coast, and grab another pint or two at Smokeless Joe’s.
Next episode, the U.S.A.
Note: this post was actually completed during my flight out of the U.S.A. and into New Zealand. Yes, I am late on my writing, but I was busy seeing stuff :-)