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shannon_aTo Toronto! C. and I both scheduled late flights today, so that we could see a bit of Toronto before we left. The advantage of going west is that you can leave Toronto in the early evening and get home in the very late evening, even if you're transferring in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, you can get in six or so hours of sight seeing. As we approached Toronto proper, I knew immediately that I was going to like it more than Mississauga because as we passed over on the Humber River, I saw that off to the right was a huge pedestrian bridge over the water. I wished I could have walked it (but it was the wrong direction, especially since it led back toward Mississaga).
Walking Toronto. C. had a breakfast meeting, so we'd arranged that I'd get to walk Toronto some, and then we'd meet at AGO, the Art Gallery of Ontario. So he dropped me off in southwest Toronto and I walked along the waterfront for a bit. It felt very much like a beach, even with sand in some places, though it was pretty brisk out. There were beautiful pedestrian paths and also some nice bike paths, all segregated from the streets. As I saw bicyclists blasting along the latter, I grew increasingly jealous, and meanwhile I became increasingly uncertain that I'd make it to the AGO on time if I kept walking the meandering pedestrian paths.
Fortunately, Toronto has a bikeshare. By the time I saw the second dock, I decided to bike until the point I had to go inland. I didn't have a helmet, and I did have a shoulder bag, but I felt safe enough on the segregated bike paths. So after a payment of $3.25 Canadian for a 30-minute or less trip, I was off. It was a great ride. I'd already gotten to enjoy the details of the lakeshore for a while, and now I got to enjoy them at speed and to enjoy the bike-riding. (The Toronto shared bikes were pretty good quality.) I thought I might be able to go a little further along the lakeshore that I'd originally planned, but around the time that I hit the path that'd take me inland to the AGO, my 30 minutes were nearly up, so I redocked my bike, watched the little green light come up, and resumed my walking.
Hiking up to the AGO from the lakeshore was nice. Most of the buildings were pretty modern, but there was the occasional old brick building that was attractive. I walked right by the CN tower and enjoyed gawking up at it. There were also a few parks, the most exciting of which was the Grange park, just lakeside of the AGO. It's named for the Grange at its north end, which is apparently the 12th oldest building Toronto and the oldest brick building. The rest of the AGO looms over and really encompasses it, and that's quite a modern building, so it was a fun contrast.
Investigating the AGO. I got to the AGO at about 10am, after a bit more than an hour and a half of biking and walking. C's meeting let up just as I got there, and he'd Ubered over within 15 minutes. But then we had to wait fifteen minutes for the museum to open. (I had a similar problem with the awesome museum I went to in Boston; I forget when I'm on early work schedules that the rest of the world sometimes isn't.)
The first thing we saw in the AGO was a special exhibit about humanity's effects on the world. It was mainly photographs that showed mining and clearcutting and a very crowded village in Lagos and solar power panels and erosion-preventing structures. Some of the pictures were horrifying, some were beautiful in the geometric shapes they'd cut upon the natural landscape, but they were generally disturbing (well, except the good stuff like solar power and saving seashores).
The second thing we saw in the AGO was the first floor, which was the European collection. I think we went through all of it. My high point was (as usual) the impressionists, which were spread across three different rooms. There were three Monets, which were all nice, a few Pisarros that I also found notable, and a somewhat unremarkable Van Gogh. (There's basically nothing sadder than an unremarkable Van Gogh, except perhaps a cat that's figured out she's not getting wet food for the night.) There were also some Canadian impressionists who I didn't know the names of, but I enjoyed seeing. (I similarly enjoyed seeing some American impressionists at the Boston museum.)
The weird thing about the museum's impressionists was that the whole section was a mess. As I said they were in three rooms, and every one of the rooms randomly mixed impressionists with other artwork from the period. You could literally go down a wall and see impressionist, romantic, impressionist, cubist. Who does that!?
There were also some nice bits in the rest of the European galleries. There were some neat posters for Parisian art salons. They were on loan from collectors. There were apparently 43 of these salons, and the collectors had managed to find ... 42(!) of the posters. Everyone has their own Holy Grails.
When we traveled around to the middle ages, we saw a lot of carved diptychs that showed events from the Bible and were apparently used to teach those events to people who couldn't read. They were divided up into multiple panels, and I particularly liked one where Jesus was putting his foot down to stand on the Roman soldiers who did bad things to him. What was cool is that he was breaking the panel, putting the foot down out of his crucifixion panel down into that hell panel. That's a neat bit of art technique that I wouldn't have expected to see before the 20th century.
We eventually decided to opt out of the rest of the museum. The second floor was partly dedicated to Canadian art, and though I had some interest, C. noted that Canadian art is actually mandated at a certain percentage in museums that receive Canadian funds. That percentage is higher than you'd expect if you were looking at the impact of the art, which means you might not see as much great stuff. We also avoided the top floors, because: modern art.
Walking the Town Again. Afterward, we walked around town a little bit more. C. took us up to the Kensington market, which was a little district just past Chinatown. It was apparently known for its food, and there were a ton of different sorts of restaurants. But what was really striking about the area was how counter-culture it was. Here was a pot dispensary, there was a juice bar with a pot-head's dream of a sitting area full of plants and couches, and there was a art car filled with dirt and plants.
From there we headed down to look at a street blocked off for Nuit Blanche, a big Toronto-wide art show, but it turned out to not be starting until sunset. Darn it! Then we circled City Hall, and tried to get in to see its famous stained glass windows, but we couldn't because it was Saturday. We talked about going up in the CN tower, but I didn't think there was enough time to get there go up, view, come down, and then get to the airport early enough. So we eventually decided to head up to the airpot with one small stop on the way.
Drive-By Tourism. That one stop was the Casa Loma, a castle built up on what constitutes a tall hill in Toronto (not very tall). It was beautiful, and I would have loved to walk the grounds and see a tour of the castle, but it was now 3pm and my flight was at 6pm, and I wanted to give myself plenty of time to deal with printing my boarding passes, going through security, going through customs, and getting to the gate.
Not Driving At All. Good thing! Partway to the airport and we hit a horrible traffic jam. Literally, everyone was diverted off of the highway we were driving on. I assume there was some big wreck or something. We were in bumper-to-bumper traffic that was barely moving as something like 7 or 8 lanes merged into 3 or 4 over the course of a few miles. I have no idea how long we were trapped in that hellscape, but I was getting a bit worried as the travel lengths cranked up and up in Google Maps. But eventually it broke and then we were able to get to airport quickly. I stepped up to a WestJet kiosk at about 4pm.
The Toronto Airport Experience. Toronto's boarding pass printing and security was quick. I was very disappointed to see that their security still obeys most of the USA's hideously stupid regulations, like having people take off their shoes, but at least they don't use Cheney's nude & radioactive scanners. So for once I didn't have to opt out. Customs was slow, but that was US people and not Canadian people (and I was grateful to do it in Canada, and would be even more grateful soon). I got to the gate and then got to listen to a child throwing a horrible fit for the next 40 or 50 minutes. As we lined up for the plane, a gray-haired woman in front of me turned back and said, "I wouldn't let a child act like that. They should put him in cargo." And I laughed and laughed, because I thought that only I said totally inappropriate stuff like that, and only to my wife (and I told her so).
The WestJet Plane Experience. My god, are there really two empty seats to my right? No, only one, as it turns out someone has the window but is quite late (she later tells me that she got to the airport at 5.20pm, 40 minutes before our flight, because of that same traffic mess). And her perfume immediately starts making my eyes water and my head throb. I don't know the last time I've had an empty seat next to me on a long flight. And when the air comes up after we take off, the perfume mostly dissipates. Meanwhile, the unruly child is about 20 rows back and the only other people problem is when the asshole across from me starts blasting his music. Like who the hell does that on a plane? I start yelling at him to turrn it off, and he literally can't hear me and then the guy in front of me gets in his face, and he finally stops and apologizes. But, seriously, WHO DOES THAT?
The non-people problem is that the plane is just on the edge of uncomfortably hot. it seems to be making one of the women in front of me almost sick, but when she complains she's told that the crew have no control over the temperature. (Really?)
Oh, and WestJet has a scam cart too, though they don't seem to care about it as much. They push it through the plane really fast in advance of the drink cart, offering people food, wine, and bottled water, before anyone's had the chance for free water. Too-hot lady in front of me tries to get some water from them, and she's told: "I'm the food cart, they're the drinks girls, so I can only sell you food." Thanks, WestJet.
The LAX Airport Experience. Sucks more each time I'm there. What I didn't realize when I was at LAX several days ago was that the constant lateness of every boarding probably meant that there were planes waiting to get to those gates. And that's exactly what happened to us. We got into LAX exactly on time, and the captain told us our gate was currently occupied and we'd have to wait 5 minutes. 30 minutes later, we pulled into our gate. I then had to do the whole stupid terminal-switch thing, which meant more waiting for their shuttle. By the time I got to my gate for my next flight, still super-crowded with standing room only at 9pm, I only had 10 minutes before my next flight boards. Good thing I gave myself an hour and a half total, else I could easily have missed my flight.
And then it was just an hours flight, a walk through the Oakland airport (no luggage!), and a Lyft ride home. And Lyft from Oakland Airport continues to suck. This time the first driver who picked up my ride request immediately dropped it, then the second, who was 12 minutes out, spent an additional 5 minutes getting gas. But I was home by midnight.
Walking Toronto. C. had a breakfast meeting, so we'd arranged that I'd get to walk Toronto some, and then we'd meet at AGO, the Art Gallery of Ontario. So he dropped me off in southwest Toronto and I walked along the waterfront for a bit. It felt very much like a beach, even with sand in some places, though it was pretty brisk out. There were beautiful pedestrian paths and also some nice bike paths, all segregated from the streets. As I saw bicyclists blasting along the latter, I grew increasingly jealous, and meanwhile I became increasingly uncertain that I'd make it to the AGO on time if I kept walking the meandering pedestrian paths.
Fortunately, Toronto has a bikeshare. By the time I saw the second dock, I decided to bike until the point I had to go inland. I didn't have a helmet, and I did have a shoulder bag, but I felt safe enough on the segregated bike paths. So after a payment of $3.25 Canadian for a 30-minute or less trip, I was off. It was a great ride. I'd already gotten to enjoy the details of the lakeshore for a while, and now I got to enjoy them at speed and to enjoy the bike-riding. (The Toronto shared bikes were pretty good quality.) I thought I might be able to go a little further along the lakeshore that I'd originally planned, but around the time that I hit the path that'd take me inland to the AGO, my 30 minutes were nearly up, so I redocked my bike, watched the little green light come up, and resumed my walking.
Hiking up to the AGO from the lakeshore was nice. Most of the buildings were pretty modern, but there was the occasional old brick building that was attractive. I walked right by the CN tower and enjoyed gawking up at it. There were also a few parks, the most exciting of which was the Grange park, just lakeside of the AGO. It's named for the Grange at its north end, which is apparently the 12th oldest building Toronto and the oldest brick building. The rest of the AGO looms over and really encompasses it, and that's quite a modern building, so it was a fun contrast.
Investigating the AGO. I got to the AGO at about 10am, after a bit more than an hour and a half of biking and walking. C's meeting let up just as I got there, and he'd Ubered over within 15 minutes. But then we had to wait fifteen minutes for the museum to open. (I had a similar problem with the awesome museum I went to in Boston; I forget when I'm on early work schedules that the rest of the world sometimes isn't.)
The first thing we saw in the AGO was a special exhibit about humanity's effects on the world. It was mainly photographs that showed mining and clearcutting and a very crowded village in Lagos and solar power panels and erosion-preventing structures. Some of the pictures were horrifying, some were beautiful in the geometric shapes they'd cut upon the natural landscape, but they were generally disturbing (well, except the good stuff like solar power and saving seashores).
The second thing we saw in the AGO was the first floor, which was the European collection. I think we went through all of it. My high point was (as usual) the impressionists, which were spread across three different rooms. There were three Monets, which were all nice, a few Pisarros that I also found notable, and a somewhat unremarkable Van Gogh. (There's basically nothing sadder than an unremarkable Van Gogh, except perhaps a cat that's figured out she's not getting wet food for the night.) There were also some Canadian impressionists who I didn't know the names of, but I enjoyed seeing. (I similarly enjoyed seeing some American impressionists at the Boston museum.)
The weird thing about the museum's impressionists was that the whole section was a mess. As I said they were in three rooms, and every one of the rooms randomly mixed impressionists with other artwork from the period. You could literally go down a wall and see impressionist, romantic, impressionist, cubist. Who does that!?
There were also some nice bits in the rest of the European galleries. There were some neat posters for Parisian art salons. They were on loan from collectors. There were apparently 43 of these salons, and the collectors had managed to find ... 42(!) of the posters. Everyone has their own Holy Grails.
When we traveled around to the middle ages, we saw a lot of carved diptychs that showed events from the Bible and were apparently used to teach those events to people who couldn't read. They were divided up into multiple panels, and I particularly liked one where Jesus was putting his foot down to stand on the Roman soldiers who did bad things to him. What was cool is that he was breaking the panel, putting the foot down out of his crucifixion panel down into that hell panel. That's a neat bit of art technique that I wouldn't have expected to see before the 20th century.
We eventually decided to opt out of the rest of the museum. The second floor was partly dedicated to Canadian art, and though I had some interest, C. noted that Canadian art is actually mandated at a certain percentage in museums that receive Canadian funds. That percentage is higher than you'd expect if you were looking at the impact of the art, which means you might not see as much great stuff. We also avoided the top floors, because: modern art.
Walking the Town Again. Afterward, we walked around town a little bit more. C. took us up to the Kensington market, which was a little district just past Chinatown. It was apparently known for its food, and there were a ton of different sorts of restaurants. But what was really striking about the area was how counter-culture it was. Here was a pot dispensary, there was a juice bar with a pot-head's dream of a sitting area full of plants and couches, and there was a art car filled with dirt and plants.
From there we headed down to look at a street blocked off for Nuit Blanche, a big Toronto-wide art show, but it turned out to not be starting until sunset. Darn it! Then we circled City Hall, and tried to get in to see its famous stained glass windows, but we couldn't because it was Saturday. We talked about going up in the CN tower, but I didn't think there was enough time to get there go up, view, come down, and then get to the airport early enough. So we eventually decided to head up to the airpot with one small stop on the way.
Drive-By Tourism. That one stop was the Casa Loma, a castle built up on what constitutes a tall hill in Toronto (not very tall). It was beautiful, and I would have loved to walk the grounds and see a tour of the castle, but it was now 3pm and my flight was at 6pm, and I wanted to give myself plenty of time to deal with printing my boarding passes, going through security, going through customs, and getting to the gate.
Not Driving At All. Good thing! Partway to the airport and we hit a horrible traffic jam. Literally, everyone was diverted off of the highway we were driving on. I assume there was some big wreck or something. We were in bumper-to-bumper traffic that was barely moving as something like 7 or 8 lanes merged into 3 or 4 over the course of a few miles. I have no idea how long we were trapped in that hellscape, but I was getting a bit worried as the travel lengths cranked up and up in Google Maps. But eventually it broke and then we were able to get to airport quickly. I stepped up to a WestJet kiosk at about 4pm.
The Toronto Airport Experience. Toronto's boarding pass printing and security was quick. I was very disappointed to see that their security still obeys most of the USA's hideously stupid regulations, like having people take off their shoes, but at least they don't use Cheney's nude & radioactive scanners. So for once I didn't have to opt out. Customs was slow, but that was US people and not Canadian people (and I was grateful to do it in Canada, and would be even more grateful soon). I got to the gate and then got to listen to a child throwing a horrible fit for the next 40 or 50 minutes. As we lined up for the plane, a gray-haired woman in front of me turned back and said, "I wouldn't let a child act like that. They should put him in cargo." And I laughed and laughed, because I thought that only I said totally inappropriate stuff like that, and only to my wife (and I told her so).
The WestJet Plane Experience. My god, are there really two empty seats to my right? No, only one, as it turns out someone has the window but is quite late (she later tells me that she got to the airport at 5.20pm, 40 minutes before our flight, because of that same traffic mess). And her perfume immediately starts making my eyes water and my head throb. I don't know the last time I've had an empty seat next to me on a long flight. And when the air comes up after we take off, the perfume mostly dissipates. Meanwhile, the unruly child is about 20 rows back and the only other people problem is when the asshole across from me starts blasting his music. Like who the hell does that on a plane? I start yelling at him to turrn it off, and he literally can't hear me and then the guy in front of me gets in his face, and he finally stops and apologizes. But, seriously, WHO DOES THAT?
The non-people problem is that the plane is just on the edge of uncomfortably hot. it seems to be making one of the women in front of me almost sick, but when she complains she's told that the crew have no control over the temperature. (Really?)
Oh, and WestJet has a scam cart too, though they don't seem to care about it as much. They push it through the plane really fast in advance of the drink cart, offering people food, wine, and bottled water, before anyone's had the chance for free water. Too-hot lady in front of me tries to get some water from them, and she's told: "I'm the food cart, they're the drinks girls, so I can only sell you food." Thanks, WestJet.
The LAX Airport Experience. Sucks more each time I'm there. What I didn't realize when I was at LAX several days ago was that the constant lateness of every boarding probably meant that there were planes waiting to get to those gates. And that's exactly what happened to us. We got into LAX exactly on time, and the captain told us our gate was currently occupied and we'd have to wait 5 minutes. 30 minutes later, we pulled into our gate. I then had to do the whole stupid terminal-switch thing, which meant more waiting for their shuttle. By the time I got to my gate for my next flight, still super-crowded with standing room only at 9pm, I only had 10 minutes before my next flight boards. Good thing I gave myself an hour and a half total, else I could easily have missed my flight.
And then it was just an hours flight, a walk through the Oakland airport (no luggage!), and a Lyft ride home. And Lyft from Oakland Airport continues to suck. This time the first driver who picked up my ride request immediately dropped it, then the second, who was 12 minutes out, spent an additional 5 minutes getting gas. But I was home by midnight.