Friday, 8 June 2012
What's that Mr Squishy? You're bored and want to go on another adventure?
Wednesday, 6 June 2012
Hotel Art, Toronto... well sorta....
So I made it to Toronto okay, unfortunately my hotel doesn't have any art. I'm staying at the same place that I stayed last time and they've done some nice renovations to the hotel without jacking up the prices to boot. But there was this billboard at Dundas Square that cracked me up. It's for the latest Sasha Baron Cohen movie The Dictator so it'll be the token Toronto art :)
I don't have much more to post about Toronto as I headed home to sort out some stuff. And here I am. Home. :)
Vanvouver to Toronto by train pt 4
We had a stop somewhere at 1am and I opened the blinds to see that it was snowing! Great big fat puffy snowflakes. It was a bit mesmerising and I actually got to lay down and watch the snow for a while until we pulled out of the station and I went back to sleep. The bottom bunk was a dream, I think it's slightly more expensive than the top but I understand why now. A) you get the window which is nice and 2) you don't rock as much as the bed is flat. If I ever do the trip again I bags the bottom bunk!
When I woke up the next morning it was still snowing for the most part. There was only really time to have breakie before we hit Toronto. I had breakie with the British girl who'd lived in Oz and also a girl who had gotten on at the 1am stop. She'd arrived from a holiday in Cuba and had next to no winter clothes (and it was chilly on the train) and had had some baggage nightmares to share. Pretty funny girl. So scoffed down my breakie and managed to take a few more pics before we arrived at Toronto. Unfortunately the snow turned to rain the closer we got to the city. But the place is still as awesome as I remember it.
When I woke up the next morning it was still snowing for the most part. There was only really time to have breakie before we hit Toronto. I had breakie with the British girl who'd lived in Oz and also a girl who had gotten on at the 1am stop. She'd arrived from a holiday in Cuba and had next to no winter clothes (and it was chilly on the train) and had had some baggage nightmares to share. Pretty funny girl. So scoffed down my breakie and managed to take a few more pics before we arrived at Toronto. Unfortunately the snow turned to rain the closer we got to the city. But the place is still as awesome as I remember it.
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| SNOW! |
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| civilisation!! Hellloooo Toronto! |
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| I love that golden building, just gorgeous |
Vancouver to Toronto by train pt 3
Waking up on the second day I looked out to vastly different scenery. I'd gone to sleep in the Rockies and work up in the plains. Still very beautiful though. By the second day I'd met quite a few people at the different meals so as they were walking back from the dining car or going through the cabin to the skycar people would stop in to chat so it was like a big family by the end. Very nice. Some of the interesting people I met - Met a British couple who had just spent 6 weeks touring Australia and they loved it and were slowly heading home. Met another British girl who had spent the last 2 years living in Sydney working in finance or something. She was really nice and around my age, had a couple of meals with her. The youngest two in First class were these two law students (who looked about 19 and didn't look like law students) heading toward Halifax, they were pretty funny. Also at that meal with the law students there was an older guy from Vancouver who gave me an awesome Vancouver pin and also caught up with me later to give me a magnetic photoframe of his favourite hockey team which we'd been talking about at the lunch. Another one of the young ones was Raif, a guy traveling home somewhere Montrealish but I really liked his name - Irish parents.
Met this fantastic woman and her hubby from Washington. A real ballsy lady full of fun. I'd kinda met her earlier when her and her hubby were passing through the cabin and were stopped by some other woman wanting to know where the crew director was because of a recent announcement about the scenery which according to the lady they had got it wrong so she was going to go up there to correct them. When the 'corrector' lady left Washington turned to me and said "who gives a shit really" which cracked me up. There was a really large man and his companion who shuffled through a couple times and I overheard him complaining to the crew director after the last breakfast because he was refused a refill of his cranberry juice - apparently the waitress had said that he had "had his fill" which spoiled his meal. There was a couple from Wasawgua who were really lovely, she was the brunette equivalent of a blonde and I mean that in the nicest way possible, she was really sweet. And of course my bunkee George who appointed himself as my official Canadian tour guide and kept me informed of the stuff coming up and history of the place. Before he worked as a logger he also worked on the railroad and had traveled this train a lot so he knew the ropes.
At the Jasper stop after I went for my walk we got our 3rd passenger for our cabin area. His name escapes me right now (I'll call him dood) but he was another retiree from the railroad. George had worked on the railroad as had his Dad and they swapped a bunch of names of people who had worked and this station or that and dood remembered George's dad from way back in the 50's. When George got off at Horne Payne dood got off as well to go and meet George's dad and have a reminisce. Funny how small the world is. Even funnier is that dood thought that George and I were a couple and that we didn't want to sit together at meals!! ACK because George was in his mid 50's or something. HELLO!
Bit of a highlight stopping at Saskatoon which is in Saskatchewan! That was awesome although the station was a bit cruddy cuz it's really out in the middle of nowhere, not much to see but I did get a pic of the station sign :)
I got to sleep on the bottom bunk on the last night as George left in the afternoon and it made such a big difference with the rocking. I actually slept pretty well that night thanks to Wendy, our new personal attendant. They swapped crews at the Winnipeg stop which was about 10:30pm the previous night. . Anyway...here's some plains pics. Click the pics to enlarge.
Met this fantastic woman and her hubby from Washington. A real ballsy lady full of fun. I'd kinda met her earlier when her and her hubby were passing through the cabin and were stopped by some other woman wanting to know where the crew director was because of a recent announcement about the scenery which according to the lady they had got it wrong so she was going to go up there to correct them. When the 'corrector' lady left Washington turned to me and said "who gives a shit really" which cracked me up. There was a really large man and his companion who shuffled through a couple times and I overheard him complaining to the crew director after the last breakfast because he was refused a refill of his cranberry juice - apparently the waitress had said that he had "had his fill" which spoiled his meal. There was a couple from Wasawgua who were really lovely, she was the brunette equivalent of a blonde and I mean that in the nicest way possible, she was really sweet. And of course my bunkee George who appointed himself as my official Canadian tour guide and kept me informed of the stuff coming up and history of the place. Before he worked as a logger he also worked on the railroad and had traveled this train a lot so he knew the ropes.
At the Jasper stop after I went for my walk we got our 3rd passenger for our cabin area. His name escapes me right now (I'll call him dood) but he was another retiree from the railroad. George had worked on the railroad as had his Dad and they swapped a bunch of names of people who had worked and this station or that and dood remembered George's dad from way back in the 50's. When George got off at Horne Payne dood got off as well to go and meet George's dad and have a reminisce. Funny how small the world is. Even funnier is that dood thought that George and I were a couple and that we didn't want to sit together at meals!! ACK because George was in his mid 50's or something. HELLO!
Bit of a highlight stopping at Saskatoon which is in Saskatchewan! That was awesome although the station was a bit cruddy cuz it's really out in the middle of nowhere, not much to see but I did get a pic of the station sign :)
I got to sleep on the bottom bunk on the last night as George left in the afternoon and it made such a big difference with the rocking. I actually slept pretty well that night thanks to Wendy, our new personal attendant. They swapped crews at the Winnipeg stop which was about 10:30pm the previous night. . Anyway...here's some plains pics. Click the pics to enlarge.
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| the plains |
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| Saskatoon! in Saskatchewan! yay! |
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| flock of birds on the plain |
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| a hitchhiker! |
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| George was telling me about the telephone poles in that back in the day the trains had to latch on to the poles to be able to communicate but these days its all done through the rails. There's miles and miles of unused poles and wires out there now. No one could be bothered collecting it all. |
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| Here's the bunks all made up for sleeping. The sitting spot is off to the right. If we had of had anyone else in our cabin we wouldn't have been allowed to keep the bunks down as they usually put them up after breakie. |
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| top bunk stowed away |
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| The bottom bun ready for me to sleep in! |
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| I had the ladies loo all to myself and it was pretty spacious and actually had art in it so I guess that qualifies at Hotel Art! |
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| fuzzy sunset on the last night. |
Vanvouver to Toronto by train pt2.1
This post is kinda part 2 of day 1 as it's more shots of the Rockies area. There was an hour long stop at Jasper where they changed over the train engine. I got off and had a wander round the shops and bought some souvenirs n stuff.The scenery really started to change after Jasper as we headed closer to the plains. There was a giant frozen lake which I think was called Moose Lake. If I wasn't so lazy I'd crack out the map and have a look but I'm sure if you really want to know you can look for yourself haha. So all aboard for some more photos: (you can click them to enlarge)
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| If I remember correctly this is Moose Lake which is a ginormous frozen lake |
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| Moose Lake |
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| Moose Lake |
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| Moose Lake |
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| Moose Lake |
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| Hopefully not where someone fell in the ice at Moose Lake |
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| we stopped here for some time so I managed to get a good shot but it had me wondering about it.... |
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| Trees buried in snow by the river |
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| Jasper station and our train, you can see the skycar there with the bump in the roof |
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| Our trusty steed |
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| This First Nations totem pole was outside the Jasper station |
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| the shops at Jasper |
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| Rolling out of Jasper, I just loved the monotone colours of this mountain, very interesting. Have a click to view it large |
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| scenery starting to change heading out of Jasper |
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