Archive for May 29th, 2003

May 29 2003

Random Notes

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I haven’t been to Toronto for so long that it seems really weird to me. I don’t know where anything is, and it seems really grey and sprawly and the sky has that LA-like brown edging to it. The weather is still being even more capricious than Me, with showers like passing bad moods and bright sunshine, all within half an hour or so.

It also seems like such a big city to me. San Francisco is more like a collection of villages or small towns, but this is a big city with tall buildings and lots and lots of people and urban sprawl. It’s funny that I feel like such a bumpkin.

But I won’t let that stop me from criticizing a couple of things, at the risk of damaging Canadian-American relations to the point where Canadian bacon gets called Freedom bacon. Number one: they really blew it with the waterfront in Toronto. As far as I can see, there are nothing but highrises all along the lake, effectively blocking it from view from anyone who doesn’t live or work in one of those buildings, which seems a shame when the lake is clearly one of the city’s natural attributes.

Then there’s the cement wasteland of the Yonge-Dundas Square (I hope I got the name right). It’s so bleak and uninviting, even in a sunny moment on an early summer day, that I can’t imagine how dismal it will look in the dead of winter.

Someone told me that it’s supposed to be like Times Square in New York, but even without the hookers and dealers that populate the original, I can’t see the resemblance, other than those video monitors stuck on buildings. What are those all about? They mostly seem to have ads on them, so they’re sort of like commercials to annoy you while you’re walking down the street instead of watching TV. Why is this a good thing? You really shouldn’t be at the mercy of commercials when you’re outside (it’s bad enough having them in your own house, on TV and in magazines and telemarketers calling at dinner time), though having said that, I feel the same way about cell phones, and I know I’m in a teeny minority on that one.

However, the money is pretty, and different colo(u)rs – I got a $5 with a snowflake on it yesterday – though I don’t like the $1 and $2 coin thing. They get heavy fast and clutter up your wallet. Maybe it’s a Commonwealth thing, since England does it, too. They do spell things the same way and have the same Queen on their money, so there could be a connection here.

And finally – you knew this was coming – the whole Beer Store and Wine Store thing. The fact that you can’t just run out to the corner store for a bottle of wine just seems wrong to me.

On the bright side, I can apparently get back the Goods & Services tax on my hotel bill and any other item over $50 Canadian. Yay! If only I wasn’t sick of shopping.

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