I went on a little trip to Canada last week for a conference. And since I’ve been home since Wednesday afternoon and still can’t quite get the cobwebs out of my brain, here’s the trip in pictures and captions.
Before I even packed, I discovered that my last trip had damaged my suitcase enough that I doubted it would make it through 4 different flights/planes without having my underpants strewn all over the tarmac, so Mindy lent me her giant orange bag/suitcase
So as I stopped to pick it up from her house, I got Simon to sit next to me long enough for a picture. (Riley was just excited that he had full reign of the house for an extra two hours.)
Upon arrival, we all headed to dinner, where I found this larger-than-people-sized ninja cat. It was outside some pet museum or something (I was still delirious from two planes, two trips through security, and feeling like I had been transported to Chicago’s Midway airport when we were, in fact, in New York. Because yes, we flew to NY to then hop another plane to Toronto.(on a related note – there should really be a warning when the runway is built right on the edge of water so that I know ahead of time that IT’S TOTALLY NORMAL and that we aren’t going to land IN the water.))
On Sunday, I had some time in the morning before I had any conference stuff to do, so I headed to Kensington Market and stopped in the smallest yarn shop ever. There was also the Garden Car pictured above. I wound up getting a bit turned around, and even though it was fairly easy to figure out where I was with the map, it turned out that I walked 12 miles that day. My feet were so sore. On the plus side, I stopped at a Chinese bakery and picked up lunch for less than $2. I should have gotten a pile of baked goods with which to feed myself the rest of the time I was there, but I didn’t.
The conference was actually held in the convention center right next to the CN Tower. So I looked up and went “holy crap is that thing tall!” Captain Obvious at your service. I chickened out and didn’t go up in it.
Monday was a big conference day, including our poster session.
Obviously, CN Tower amidst construction. This is part of the reason I didn’t wind up heading out to the other yarn shop I wanted to visit – there was construction EVERYWHERE, including on the transit lines, which made it even harder to navigate.
On Monday we had dinner at Harbour Sixty. The burratta was delicious and the grilled tomatoes were one of the best things I have ever tasted. There are other fuzzy iphone pictures of the meal on flickr (I didn’t want to be the person in the fancy restaurant taking pictures with a flash, so I used the phone).
On the last day there, I finally got some poutine – this one was with lamb. Oh, it was delicious. I will miss you, lamb poutine.
There was a reception at the Hockey Hall of Fame on Tuesday night, so when the opportunity to hug the Stanley Cup presented itself…
…I took it. There were a lot of people taking pictures with the cup & one of the employees mentioned that they could touch it. So, I looked at him & said “So…can I lick it?” He just shrugged and said “Well, you probably aren’t the first.” Not quite the reaction I expected, but I guess crazy hockey fans have done weirder things. I did not lick the Stanley Cup, though.
Overall, it was a good trip. The flights were a little bumpy, but I survived. I wish I’d had more time to find my way around and check things out, but that just means I’ll have to go back another time. And, thanks to this trip, I get to cross off “Go to Canada” on my life list (though I still want to go to Vancouver at some point).
(There are more pictures in my Toronto set on flickr, for those interested.)
