Musings of an Honourary Canadian

Checked in for flight... check. (Stopover this year is at DTW.)
Sortie to IAH terminal A to familiarize myself with new-to-me terminal... check.
Rental car procured... check. (Thanks Priceline!)
2 nights hotel procured... check. (Tonawanda and Falconer)
Plans for Wednesday... check. (Lucy-Desi Museum, otherwise roaming around the Chautauqua area.)
Rendezvous with fapiece and ladycrim arranged... check. (Thursday noon.)
Canadian money in wallet... check. (Will get more at first sighting of a Scotiabank ABM.)
Shopping list... check. (Mostly DVDs, some books. Thank you, stimulus check.)

Look out, Toronto... here I come!

I am in Toronto, my adopted home. I cannot tell you how different it feels being up here. Besides the temperatures, the strong Canadian dollar ($1.02 US last time I checked), and the whole more relaxed nature of things, it feels like home. One day, I shall move here.

Wednesday: the flight from IAH-CLE was uneventful. The flight from CLE-BUF (35 minutes normally) was delayed leaving because the plane was late arriving from LOU. Then we were stuck on the runway in CLE for most of an hour because of a mechanical problem. We finally arrived in BUF an hour late. My Priceline'd rental car was supposed to be a full size. It was more than that -- I got a freakin' Ford Expedition for $30 for a one-day rental.

So I drove the behemoth to Niagara Falls NY for some sightseeing on the American side of the Falls. Pictures will ensue when I have access to a card reader.

I then drove down to Springville, a quiet small town about 20 miles south of Buffalo, and stayed the night.

Thursday: Got up and drove the backroads back to BUF, where fapiece and ladycrim were going to pick me up on their way up from where fapiece picked up ladycrim from her flight from SJO. I arrived at the designated pickup point just as they were pulling up. We crossed the border with no difficulties, ate at Harvey's, and stopped at an ABM for me to get my Canadian cash.

We made it to downtown Toronto in plenty of time for the 3:30 ticket line opening for Are You Smarter than a Canadian 5th Grader?, and met up with adc14 and ejumean at the CBC. Unfortunately, the previous taping was running long (and they had 500 kids in the audience!), and the crew had no idea when we would be let in to the studio, and no idea whether we would get to be in on an actual episode or just pickups (tapings of audience reactions etc.), so we were given options to see The Hour with George Stromboulopoulous or the Thursday rehearsal for Air Farce Live. We decided to stick with 5th Grader and went to the snack shop to snack, to the CBC Shop to shop, and the CBC Museum to muse.

Eventually back to the taping ticket line, where it had grown out the door onto Wellington Street. We did make it in to the studio, and it turns out we only got to do pickups. The kids look like a good bunch of Grade 5s. We got to see Colin briefly afterwards. I hadn't seen him in 9 years, and he looks awfully distinguished in a full suit and tie, with his now silver hair (and less of it!).

I told Colin he was one of my inspirations to get into improv. He said "I'm sorry." :)

Afterward, we had planned to go to the top of the CN Tower, but fog would have kept us from seeing anything. So it was off to adc14's for gabbiness and playing Scene It?.

Yesterday was spent hanging out, relaxing, and waiting for lynnita and jeffyb1. Dinner was at a fairly decent Mexican restaurant, The Willow, and the first show at the Bad Dog Theatre.

jaala will join us today at Eaton Centre, and we'll be off to go shopping in 90 minutes. I guess I should make sure everyone else is up.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be on my way to Toronto to meet up with the Whosers! See you all Thursday!