Connecting..

Today was a fairly simple day, yet it is getting long. Main reason being; the travel home.
But before I get into that, I will quickly recount the remaining hours spent in Toronto;
Not much happenned. Dad and I divided to each finish our own shopping trips. I completed the Eaton Center in the hour and a half I had until we regrouped and headed to the airport.
Fairly uneventful, we subwayed and bussed to the airport, where we did the usual until our plane departed. On the plane, instead of sleeping the whole 4 or so hours to Edmonton, I watched 2 movies; Paper Boy (starring Emma Stone, pretty good flick, I'd reccommend it) and American Beauty (fairly dark drama, kept me watching until the end, regardless of the flight attendant telling me to turn it off >:] )
The most exciting part of Edmonton, was us spotting some fellow Saskatonians, who were catching the same homeward flight as us.
The 40 minutes between Edmonton and Saskatoon were filled by a chess game between Dad and I on my laptop. Neither of us are overly skilled players, the game really wasn't much and was never finished. We'll say that I was winning hahah
Going from a high of 26 in the T to 5C here, Saskatoon is a lvoely place to come home to.

Short n a lil sweet for once,
A/L

"the beauty of soup." - Paper Boy movie.

Inches of Pastrami

First stop this lovely morning was the French Embassy. Got into my interview early, and all went well. The road to France now has one less obstacle.
Jumping on the subway, Dad and I headed to the Hockey Hall of Fame. We toured around the displays, taking in all of the legends; Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux, Gordie Howe, and of course, The Great One; Wayne Gretzkey. The Stanley Cup itself was in the Grand Hall. The one you take a photo with was of course one of 2 replicas, the other one was travelling around the world. The REAL cup was encased in the vault. I bet you never knew that there have been numerous designs of the Cup. Ever since the mid 60s, the Stanley Cup has looked the way it does today.
Grabbing a nice veggie dog from a vendor, and dropping a mix of sauerkraut and mustard down my white shirt, we headed back underground to get to the ROM.
Now, you ask, "What is the ROM?".  Well.... Royal Ontario Museum. How's that? Not too bad.
The ROM is interesting right from its exterior. Obviously an old building, the museum recently went through an exterior addition of some very artistic architecture. Theres no way to describe it other than, Modern?
Once inside we tour through a couple exhibits of Egyptians, Greeks, Asia and the Middfle East. All fairly interesting, but if you've ever been to the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, the Asian Artifact exhibit they had was far better. Moving on to another floor, we explore European Style. Learning all about the how architecture, furniture and art are all inter-realated and can be disguinshed from one era to another. Medival, Gothic, Classical, Baroque, Renaissance, Neo-Classical and Modern were most of the eras. Finish up our tour, we spent some time in the natural history section. Originally looking for the Bat Cave, we came across a room full of birds. Birds galore, so many birds all I could think of was Teri Clark and how she'd be in heaven. Oh, and by the way, an Albatrosse is absolutely gigantic; minimum 8 foot wingspan. We some how went through the dino section and some fishes along the way, but in the end, the Bat Cave was incredibly... poorly done. Not impressed.
Walking being our transportation of choice, we walked back along Bloor Street to Yonge where we made it back to our hotel to rest our feet for about 10 minutes. We stopped in many shops along the way, but had no success.
Once we headed out for good this evening, we hit up every shoe store that we saw, which is about every third shop, and then most of the clothing stores on Yonge Street from Charles to the Eaton Center. Our purchases were minimal, but we enjoyed the walk. Pretty much the same walk as we did yesterday.
Around 9:30pm we stopped for a late supper at the Pickel Barrel. Walking in we were expecting a bar & grill setting, but continuing down their stairs, we soon did not know if we were indeed in a restaurant or in a small delicastisserie. The menu was absoltely HUGE, gigantic, monsterous. But we eventually enjoyed some Spanish Paella and some Kung Pao Stir Fry. 
Walking back we finally stopped in at the ice creame place we had seen yesterday. This place was similar to Jerry's, only they didn't have any "food" on their menu, just desserts involving ice cream and the like. I hadn't had a "smash in" in my icecream or a waffle cone in I don't know how long. I think this place may have topped Jerry's, although the fact that they did not have any gelato kind of makes them incomparable.
Its getting late, and that is all.
A/L

" You just wasted three minutes of my life!!!!" - Scalper.

One Step Closer

SO, its mid september and im still not in france. Why? WELL, getting a visa takes a bit longer than i thought; theres no filling out a form n sending it off, hoping to get a reply in 2 weeks or so. No, i had to wait for a month to get an interview, fly out to toronto for the interview, and wait up to 6 weeks for the processing time.
Right now, im sitting in my hotel room, with Dad, in Toronto.

Quick recap of today;
Fly out here on a 6am flight. Needless to say I slept the 3 hours.
Upon our arrival we bussed n subwayed our way to our hotel, the Comfort Inn, right off of Yonge Street.
Torontos pretty cool. Lotsa cars, lotsa people, ALOT of restaurants. We saw a walk for AIDS and all kindsa people. Very cool.
Ginger was the name of the restaurant we had our late lunch at. Dad had the Spicy Chicken on Rice and I have Fried Tofu on some kinda noodle. Very tasty. I'd give the restaurant a good rating for lunch. Not only was it very quick with getting us our food, waited 5 minutes for our food to be brought to us and it was alot of food. None of this half a plate fancy stuff, this was a full nearly overflowing large plate of food. Very impressive, and all for a price of 6 - 8$ a plate
Next stop was the CN Tower. I had no idea how tall it is. Tallest building in the world. Im skeptical of that one, but I guess they cant put something thats not true. Anyways, we went to all the levels; the observation deck, glass floor and the Sky Pod. Each level you could see farther and farther out. One a clear day you can see Niagra Falls and Rochester, NY. I THINK we saw those two, but i really didnt know what to look for. Something neat was that the SkyDome was open and we saw the Argos playing.
While trekking bac kto the hotel, we saw some attractions;
   - Hockey Hall of Fame. It was closed for a private event, so hopefully we'll make it back tomorrow.
   - Yonge Street in general. Walked all the way from the CN tower to our hotel. Quite a trek, but hey, what else are we gonna do?
   - Break dancers, they were ok. Ill upload vids on to either here or my facebook once I get home. I forgot my camera cord so yeah..patience my friends.
   - Hard Rock Cafe. I was excited when I found it. I had never been before, so we stopped in for a late supper. Saw a Bob Dylan display and some John Lennon stuff. Don't forget the Jim Morrison boots. Our waiter was super nice and was fairly interested in me going to France. (Although almost everyone that hears about it gets intruiged).
  - 1.52$ a slice pizza. Needless to say, we've got our lunch planned out for tomorrow.

Well, I've been up for a pretty long time now, so its time to call it a night. Hope yall enjoyed my first actual blog entry.
Please leave comments and questions about the trip; I lvoe to share, and dont really know what kinda things people like to hear about.