May 29 2003
Random Notes
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.
9 Responses to “Random Notes”
I felt the same way the last time I went back to Ottawa. Weird.
The Beer Store. Jesus. Imagine if the Gov’t had a finger in every Canadian pie?
=The Food Store
=The Phone Store
=The Snack Foods With No Scientifically Proven Nutritional Value Store
=The Toilet Store
Um what exactly is the Beer Store and Wine Store thing?
Adrian, the way I understand it is that the government controls all the alcohol distribution (though it may be on a provincial basis rather than a federal one). So you can only buy beer at the Beer Store and all other booze at the Liquor Store or whatever they call it. No buying it at Safeway or the corner store, and if you run out partway through a dinner party and the govt outlet is closed, you’re out of luck.
BTW the guy at the Liquor Store sold me a really nice South African sauvignon blanc (Bouchard Finlayson from Walker Bay).
I totally agree with you on the waterfront, although I work in one of those buildings and get to see the water. Don’t even get me started on the beer/wine situation!
It’s provincial. It used to be you can only buy alcohol at The Liquor Store in Alberta, but now we have privately owned liquor stores on every corner, even Superstore has a liqour store. The only drawback is that it has to be in a separate building/section of the building in your grocer.
Some Safeways here have liquor stores, but most of them don’t. This is a fairly new thing, just in the last 8 or 9 years.
I hate Toronto (sorry to my fellow Canadians that love that city). I also hate Vancouver but I’d take Vancouver over Toronto. I find that I run into an abundance of overly rude people whenever I visit. Of course, lately, Calgary is starting to get that big city attitude as well.
Yea, the weather thing bothers me a little too. It’s nothing I couldn’t get over quickly, but it reminds me of Chicago. In Chicago, a lot of people say, “If you don’t like the weather, don’t worry… it’ll change!”
The Liquor store thing is a pain in the arse. But, as I understand it, they have studies every now and then and it seems controlling the sale of alcohol by the gov’t gives us more options at a cheaper rate than if things were privatized. Probably a bunch of gov’t propoganda, but it sounds good. 😉
I agree with you on the Waterfront thing. It’s why I love the Beach neighbourhood. No highrises on the beach. You can walk on the boardwalk forever before you get into the concrete jungle.
about the coins thing, I think that seems to be pretty standard everywhere except the US. euro coins are 2 euros, 1 euro, 50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents, 5 cents, 2 cents, 1 cent. the change purse fills up pretty quickly.
Canada is like the US but not as interesting, sorry. I went to Univeristy in Calgary, had a boyfreind in Toronto for two years, and never figured out why the hell Canadians think they are so “European”.
I currently live in Germany and do a lot of traveling for my job and I’ve never heard one person mention Calfifornian wine. People try so hard to think that everything American is second rate. The anti-Americanism in this world runs so deep as to dismiss anything good about the US. San Fran rules.