Anything But The Poutine

Niagara-On-The-Lake is located almost due-South of Toronto, on the opposite side of Lake Ontario. The town borders the US state of New York to the East. The Canada/US border is marked by the Niagara River which flows South from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. Before it reaches Lake Erie, there is a large waterfall. You may have heard of Niagara Falls.

I visited Niagara-On-The-Lake for the day a couple of weeks ago. I’m slack at updating, I know. The area reminds me of the South of France with it’s vineyards and farm roads lined with red-faced old ladies selling fresh fruit from their back gardens.
We took a ride into the centre of the town and parked up for a walk around. The town has an old-fashioned British seaside resort feel to it, with it’s victorian buildings with bright modern paint jobs lining the main street. This is thanks to the Brits re-building the town after America invaded, captured and then destroyed it in The War Of 1812. Early settlers to the area were Loyalists escaping America, although previously the area was a native village known as Onghiara which the British probably invaded, captured and then destroyed.

These days, the area is popular with tourists and features numerous pubs and resturants. George Bernard Shaw, the Dublin born and London residing playwright, is popular in Niagara-On-The-Lake which hosts a statue of the man. There is an annual Shaw Festival held in the town.

We had a really tasty meal of fish and chips in a pub before taking a look around the town. We paid a visit to Ontario’s oldest pharmacy, more of a touristy museum, it really was like walking into a pre-WWII style shop in England. Not that I’m old enough to have walked into a pre-WWII style shop in England. Unfortunatly you couldn’t take photos in there without making a “donation” (and I couldn’t do it on the sly with my SLR camara). There are pictures on their official website here. There was a “British Store", which you find dotted around parts of Canada that have larger than average Brit ex-pat populations (including at the mall where I work). They sell British foods (potnoodle, walkers crisps, marmite, proper Cadbury’s instead of North American Cadbury’s which is less milky) and various cheesy badges and stuff - all of which is about 4 times the price as it is in Britain.

We took a ride out of the town and spent some time relaxing beside the Niagara River where it feeds from Lake Ontario. You can see Fort Niagara in America no more than a miles swim away where it sits on a piece of New York State land that juts out. Then we took a drive along the roads, on the outskirts of the town, which are all lined with vineyards. We visited the Peller Estate - a massive, elaborate building surrounded by lawns, trees and, of course, wine giving fruit. Inside we did a tasting of a red wine and a couple of ice wines. If you’ve never tried ice wine (and chances are, if you’re living in England, you haven’t) then you really should. An oak aged ice wine that we tried was amazing (as was the price - $90 for about 375ml!). Disclaimer: I know nothing about wine.

More photos here!

Bluffer’s Park is the name of, suprisingly, a park which contains bluffs (cliffs). Scarborough is famous for it’s bluffs. However, officially speaking, Scarborough doesn’t exist. Scarborough was swallowed up by the expansion of Toronto. Officially speaking, Bluffer’s Park is part of the Greater Toronto Area. However, in reality, everyone apart from the government calls the area Scarborough.

Anyway, Scarborough’s bluffs are similar in appearance to the limestone cliffs of the other Scarborough, in England. Hence the same name. John Graves Simcoe was First Lietenant Governor of Upper Canada. His wife wrote in her diary that “The [eastern] shore is extremely bold, and has the appearance of chalk cliffs, but I believe they are only white sand. They appeared so well that we talked of building a summer residence there and calling it Scarborough.".

I recently took a walk to Bluffer’s Park which is an area on the coast of Lake Ontario. It features walks, a beach and of course, the bluffs. There is also a private boat club and marina which holds lots of sailboats. There are numerous common garden birds that make the park their home.

Left: The sailboats at the marina
Center: Part of the Bluffs poking through the trees
Right: My toe being dipped into Lake Ontario

More Photos Here…

Just a brief entry… I’m currently quite busy with work and a project I’m working on (which will probably come to nothing, but you never know).
I recently visited Niagra-On-The Lake and London, Ontario… I hope to do updates soon….

I had a rare day off work and decided to make the most of my eye-wateringly expensive monthly subway pass (metropass) by going downtown and taking a stroll along the board walk. A metropass costs $109. A single ride on the subway costs $2.25. So it’s not actually that expensive if, for example, you use it for a fulltime job downtown. Unfortunatly, it costs me more to buy a metropass than individual tickets. The pass is more convenient than tickets, and that’s why I paid for one. You can hop on and off the transport. Something I thought I’d do but actually don’t. So it’ll be back to tickets for me next month. Boo.

Anyway, the trip from Kennedy Station (the subway stop nearest to me) to Union Station takes about an hour. Union Station is the closest station to the lakefront. It is also located closest to The CN Tower, Royal York Hotel, The Rogers Centre and is generally a good transport hub. It’s a connecting point for many Go Train routes and VIA Rail also operate out of Union Station. To briefly explain… The “TTC” (Toronto Transport Commision) operate the transport in the Greater Toronto Area (so, the subway, buses and trams), and just beyond. Go Trains are regional trains which can take you to nearby suburbs. Via Rail go much further a-field and can take you as far as Vancouver.

This is the approximate route that I took on the subway, except this route uses roads.

Various parts of Toronto are accesible via indoor walkways in order to avoid the cold winters or the occasionally opressive heat of the summer. One of these walkways is called the SkyWalk. It is an elevated glass walkway leading from Union Station to just outside The CN Tower. It also provides access to a large convention centre.

At the end of the skywalk is a path which leads down to the front of the CN Tower and The Rogers Centre.

A short walk South takes you to the board walk. There are numerous small well-manicured garden areas which are nice to chill out in on warm days. There are also numerous sail boats moored in harbours along the lake front.

On Queen’s Quay, the architecture of the “condo’s” has an almost continental style which differs from the reflective glass tower blocks closer to downtown.

There’s even a strip of sand surrounded by pavement which acts as a make-shift beach where people go to sunbathe.

Click here to see more photos

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…