Road Trip to Toronto!
| On Saturday, April 16, seven of us headed to Toronto for a weekend road trip. Amy drove her car with Brad, Christina, and I, and Graham drove the TailBlazer with Russo and Chris. We left at 10am and drove up Rt. 79, which Christina and I have been seeing a lot of lately... |
| There was a small incident with a woman in a silver car who sat way back against her seat. She would NOT let Amy follow directly behind Graham and we were laughing SO hard when she kept cutting in front of us! We stopped in Meadville for a short rest stop at Sheetz where we bought drinks and 9 servings of Combos, which we ended up eating for two meals! Amy spotted a magazine with rental homes in Erie but figured we had no use for that... We arrived in Erie in record time and stopped for a short visit at Brad's parents' house. Next we headed to 26th Street to see Brad's friend Lou. Lou owns a business: |
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| The indoor flea market used to be an old movie theater and it smelled like the inside of an old person's house. I'm talking a person 175 years old because it was bad. I guess old things smell musty... |
| Next we traveled through Erie past the Children's Zoo (HI BON!) to Rt. 90. Graham needed gas. He missed the turn into the gas station, but we found a real gem of a place, the Tallyho-tel! Maybe we can stay there next time, though the pool was currently out of service. |
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| We got separated at one point and the guys told us to take "I-90 North" but we were already on 90 East. Apparently the 'I' was really a '1'! We continued on our way past Buffalo... |
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| Amy drove like a NASCAR driver on the QEW. Apparently when it says "Toronto 112" it doesn't mean miles, it means KILOMETERS! Everything in Canada is in French, including the street signs. How are we supposed to understand "Forbes Road," what is that? But we did make it to Toronto, how exciting... |
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| We found The Strathcona Hotel very easily, checked in, and arrived in our rooms, which turned out to be two SINGLE beds instead of two doubles! |
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| How funny is that. We headed out to find a place to eat by walking the streets of downtown Toronto. We looked for the Oyster Bar which doesn't sell oysters, then decided to try The Strip House, but Luigi approached us... Imagine a black Canadian man trying to talk with an Italian accent! He tried to lure us to another restaurant. We got away the first time, but when he followed us down the street, someone hesitated and we were sucked in! He promised us free appetizers and coffee. We were suckers. |
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| Mario Luigi's had a special deal, where you could order 'anything you want' even it it wasn't on the menu. However, 'anything you want' had to be what was cooking in the big pot, which was spaghetti with a single shrimp on top. Russo was staring down at his bowl saying, "But I ordered penne" and the server said, "well he gave you spaghetti." After I almost threw up after spotting ink in my glass, we 'paid our bill' = 'got ripped off' and headed back to the hotel. |
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| Since the room was designed for only two people, there were only two full-sized towels so I showered and used a hand towel! I think that started the hysterical laughter of the evening... That and Amy holding her boob. She also informed us that she's never shit in a club before. |
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| We moved to the other room when we were finished getting ready. I love this picture of the three guys: |
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| I wanted to make some room so I decided to close the ironing board. I do have problems with the one at home too! |
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| I called the front desk and they said they could exchange a limited amount of money for us. Chris went down and we asked him how it went. He replied, "They didn't like my banter--I thought it was witty!" Bradley, living it up at the Strathcona. |
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| We decided to play some cards and chose Asshole. Notice the overturned ottoman which we had to use as a card table! |
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| I was the president, as always (I rock at that game!) Chris then decided to make up his own card games for everyone else and cards were flying everywhere! |
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| These two girls' actual conversation: A: Where are you going? C: To piss. A: Christina has to piss. She just did 4 seconds ago. C: I know. I'm going to call the doctor! |
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| Next we piled into taxi's and headed to Govournment where we were on the VIP list. This is us right before we went in. |
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| We literally spent 8 minutes inside a huge, randomly populated room which had a blue light and techno music blaring from the speakers. Then we decided to leave. Amy, Brad, and Christina took the first taxi, while Graham, Russo, and I took the second. Chris decided not to come with us. There was nothing we could do, so we left him there. |
| At the next club, Money, Christina and Amy got into line. Brad says, "I'm not standing in this line, we're VIP and on the list." So they all go inside, then realize that the rest of us weren't there yet, but Amy reassures everyone that she talked to the bouncer and he'd let us in with no problems. When we got there, I don't even remember seeing a line, I must have been assuming the VIP attitude. The bouncers laughed at us. |
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| There was a stage area on the upper floor of Money that Christina got us up onto. It was a narrow space so I had to lean against the block of the next level up to anchor us in place. It didn't matter if we looked funny, we were already the most attractive people in the club. Also the most obnoxious and the most unlikely to follow rules (No drinks in the stairwell or restroom? What's that about? Even after we got yelled at, I wasn't leaving my drink anywhere!) We danced much more hardcore than those shuffling Canadians. |
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| Amy next to the largest bowl of lemons and limes I've ever seen in a bar. You can see the 'industrial' decor in the background. |
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| I always like to take pictures in the mirror in the restroom. This was take #4 and it was the best. I'm not sure why my friends were flipping off the camera though! **Update-they were angry at the woman yelling at us once again for bringing drinks into the restroom! It seemed like a good idea at the time. |
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| We left the club around 2:30am, when everything was starting to die down. Christina and I had on shoes that hurt our feet, and she was telling me to put my shoes back on because there was glass all over the ground. We walked to Uncle Ted's sausage stand where the guys got in line to order. We told them not to get ketchup unless it was Heinz, never get Hunts. I'm not sure how it happened, somehow the Canadians realized we were Americans (can't imagine how) and asked us where we were from. Brad then led us on chants of "Here we go Steelers, here we go!" So funny. We started to walk back to the hotel with Graham carrying my shoes, and everyone knows how good I am with directions... I was insisting that we were going the wrong way and stopped to ask a tow truck man where the intersection of York and Wellington was. He said it was about two blocks in the direction we were walking. I said, "Are you sure it's not 12 blocks the other direction?" He was sure. The Strathcona was indeed 2 blocks down, and Christina and I believed Russo when we walked into the lobby! |
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| Christina was really hungry for fries, and I went in search of them. Russo found a snack machine and had some Canadian coins, so when I got back I said, "I couldn't find fries but I brought you cheddar cheese Sun Chips!" It was an interesting night indeed. Luckily Chris showed up at 5am without any major damage. When asked where he was, he replied, "On the docks feeding swans with the homeless people!" We'll never truly know how Chris ended up with all of his money converted to Canadian dollars or why he drank about 5 cups of hot apple cider! He did return to the store for more cider and pies! Christina woke the next morning to what sounded like the entire city of Toronto powerwashing outside of her window from 8am on. We were all scattered throughout the rooms due to the single bed fiasco. |
| Amy and Brad headed to church, and the rest of us went to get something to eat. Apparently no one in Toronto eats before 11:30am so we had to wait a while to find an open restaurant. We ended up at the Chicago Diner which had red crushed velvet booths. The food was much better than Mario's House of Spaghetti and Shrimp though I'm sure we got ripped off again in some way. |
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| And so our time in the big city comes to an end. After an incident with the address being incorrect on the bill and Uncle Tom's Cabin, we got in the car to leave. Brad drove on the way back and we wouldn't let him turn on the music right away. We needed time to quietly reflect on the previous 24 hours. We stopped at the Duty Free store at the border where the guys found a good deal on vodka. Our car needed to stop for gas and the man at the tollbooth told us to take Exit 8. Well that landed us right in the middle of the Buffalo Projects where we walked in pairs and didn't leave the car unattended! Oh we also drove through Grand Island, home to the best car dealership on the east coast, partially owned by Bon's roommate Kerri's dad! Yeah Mr. Kanaley! We were going to stop but Godzilla told us that they weren't open. |
| We definitely plan to take more road trips because this one was GREAT. Maybe somewhere in the United States where the money and people are a bit more normal. |
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