Anything But The Poutine

I can’t believe that I’ve already spent six months living in Toronto. It’s getting to the point where it’s no longer impressive to people when I tell them how long I’ve been here. Once upon a time, whenever I met someone new and they were interested in my English accent, their minds would be blown when I told them I’d only been here for 2, 3 or 4 months. But now it’s 6 months. Luckily, if I tell them “I got here in December” instead of “I’ve been here for 6 months", it seems more recent to them and they remain suitibly impressed. The chicks dig it, I tells ya.

Thankfully, I still have my accent. Everyone wants to have an identity, and my accent gives me a clear identity which I plan to cling onto. The longer I’m here, the more I notice how much people like it. Friends have been telling me since I got here that I should milk my accent to it’s fullest potential.

Anyway, hopefully my accent won’t fade too much. In studies, people over a certain age (I think it was early 20’s) tend to not lose their accent as easily as people under this mythical age. I dunno, I read it somewhere. Also, people with a certain type of psychological makeup have a need to fit in and be accepted. This leads to them taking on a new accent more easily. Hopefully I’m not like that. Am I? …Mummy?

Having said all of this, my dialect has definatly changed. By ‘dialect’, I mean the words that I use, rather than the way I pronouce words. Elevator (not lift), Garbage (not rubbish or bin), Washroom (not toilet)…

I have a particularly hard time remembering what terms to use, sometimes. It can be a real effort. Especially when the North American version of a word has an existing or embarrasing meaning in Britain. Calling trousers ‘pants’, for example. “Look at his pants!” makes me feel like I’m looking at a guys underwear. I have to do bag inspections for my security job. Some people wear “bum bags", as they are known in Britain. I just cannot bring myself to call them by their North American name, “Fannhy bags” or “Fanny pouches".

The opposite is sometimes true. Canadians are more tolerant of British accents than they probably are in America. Even so, I have to be sure to call the things you use to remove pencil markings “Erasers” (not rubbers….)

You can get aware with using British words here… people will understand you with some delay. But you’ll soon get fed up with reapeting yourself all the time. When I got here, I became fed up with ordering ANYTHING at all. I had my girlfriend do it most of the time. I’ve moved on from then. Except with Taxi’s. I don’t know where the hell I’m going most of the time.

One thing I’ve noticed… I often have to give directions to people at The Rogers Centre (sports stadium), and the building is split into different sections. Each section has a numerical sign consisting of three digits. Often I have to tell people “Section Two Thirty-Five". EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. MISHEARS. I don’t know why this is, but they always here Fifty-Five instead of Thirty-Five. If any Canadian Anglophones ever had this problem, please let me know what I’m doing wrong. Thanks.

I’m hoping to at last do a decent bit of travelling in August. I’m off work from The Blue Jays while the baseball players ponce around doing their All-Star thing. Sara and I have the use of her Mum’s RV and we’re currently working out exactly where we want to go… we only have about 6 days, so we won’t be covering a vast amount of ground, but it’s a start.

Anyway, version one of the itinerary is very, very optimistic in terms of how much we want to cover.

Our main aim is to get out to Prince Edward Island (that’s in Canada) but the RV will be in the USA. We’ll be starting off getting a flight from Toronto to Maryland where we can pick up the RV. We’ll then travel through (but not be stopping in) the states of Pennsylvania, New York, and Conneticut. We want to stop in Boston, Massachusetts. Then we’ll continue through New Hampshire and Maine before we reach Canada. We’ll pay visits to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We particularly want to visit Cape Breton, NS. Then we’ll head on the PEI. On the way back to Maryland we’ll take a different route visiting Quebec City, Quebec. Then we’ll head South into the USA and Vermont. We’ll head West through New York state into Pennsylvania to visit Erie and Pittsburgh before heading back to Maryland to fly back to Toronto.

Click here for a map

Yes. Almost certainly too much to do in six days…

I’ve started a “Soup” page… it’s basically a page which aggregates updates I make across a variety of sites into one place. Everytime I update, for example, my Flickr photos page, the photos will also appear on my “Soup” page… same when I update my Twitter status and whenever I post to this blog. I can also post all kinds of crazy shit to the soup page… funny videos of cats being killed in elevators, or whatever.

Basically what I’m saying is… visit and possibly bookmark Stu Hall’s Soup

It won’t replace this blog, but it’s very handy as an irresistable means of stalking me.

P.s. If you’re reading this post as a note automatically imported into Facebook then you’re best off going to http://www.anythingbutthepoutine.com. It’s nice and shiney.

The Toronto Blue Jays are the only Canadian Major League Baseball team, and what’s more, they are the only baseball team that pays me money. That’s because I work there as a security guard/crowd management person/glorified steward - call it what you will.

Like most North American sports, the teams across North America are split into different leagues, based on their geographical location. The teams will play everyone else in their league and then a few from the other leagues. Exactly which teams from seperate leagues will play each other is decided in a random draw before the start of the season. Yes. Yes, you’re right. It’s a bit strange. But the teams are located far apart and the schedules are busy, so there.

There’s the National League and the American League. To make things infinatly harder to understand, the National League consists of three further leagues (East, Central and West) and so does the American League (American East, American Central and American West). The Toronto Blue Jays play in the American East. The other teams in this league, two of which you Englishers will have heard of, are The New York Yankees, The Boston Red Sox, The Baltimore Orioles and The Tampa Bay Rays.

The baseball season is pretty busy. Once it starts, there’s practically a game every day. In soccer, a team visits another team and they play one game and that’s it. In baseball, the teams will play three or more times during three or more days in a row. Then they might play another three or four games against another team. If they’re lucky, they might get a day off before they then travel to another stadium to play three or four games against someone else.

The Blue Jays play at The Rogers Centre. It was the first stadium in the World to feature a fully retractable roof.

The building has seven floors…
Basement: Parking. Ground: Field level, staff changing rooms, players rooms, “Bull pens” (where the players warm-up) maintenance/groundcrew etc… First Floor: The ‘100′ Level. Most expensive standard seating. Second Floor: The ‘200′ Level second most expensive seating, “HSBC Club” VIP area, Kids Zone. Third Floor: Private boxes, some media. Fourth Floor: Some media and boxes, staff offices etc… Fifth Floor: The ‘500′ Level. Cheapest seating.
The stadium also houses a Hard Rock Cafe and a Hotel. Visitors to either of these can see the field from the windows. Sadly, there’s no access in/out during games, due to people sneaking in without tickets and spoiling it for everyone.

The Blue Jays are a fairly decent side who have won the World Series twice, both times in the 1990’s. So far this year, they are a little way behind - but the season can change quickly with so many games taking place.

Tosser’s Guide To Baseball in no detail at all:
It’s the same as rounders. The end.
Okay, it’s slightly different. The bases are laid out differently. The bats are different. The ball is thrown overarm. There are 9 innings instead of 2. There are “strikes". I’ll probably explain the game in another post once I understand it myself.

There was a “photo day” at The Rogers Centre a few days ago. Since I was working, I forced my girlfriend to bring my camara and take pictures for me. You can see some of them at the usual place, on my Picasa Page

The Toronto Raptors are an NBA basketball team. They were established in 1995 and used to play at the Rogers Centre (then called the Sky Dome), but moved to The Air Canada Centre (where the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team play) in 1999.

They are the only Canadian NBA team. Incidentally, The Toronto Blue Jays are also the only Canadian MLB team. The Raptors have struggled in recent years, but have been rebuilding the team with signs of success.

Since I don’t like basketball, that’s about all I can tell you.

The end.