Between Toronto and Ottawa...

...lies Kingston. Home to one of Canada's biggest penitentiaries. Also to one of the major Canadian military bases, as well as a military school. Add to this one of Canada's most renowned universities, Queens, and you get an interesting mix to this otherwise quaint city on the coast of Lake Ontario.

It was a busy time to be there. Labour day weekend meant the campsite was overflowing with families cramming in just one more trip before the kids return to school. Queens university was also gearing up for a new year, and throngs of students descended the Kingston streets, conducting frosh activities, marching like a mob one afternoon to the football stadium to cheer their team on against Guelph. Dressed in yellow, blue and red and drawing attention to themselves as only a mob of late teens/young adults can.

After a couple of days I carried on to Ottawa. I arrived in the nation's capital on Labour Day, listening to debates on CBC radio about the irony of Labour Day amongst the unemployed. But I had a destination, and immediately found my way to St. Paul's university campus to watch the premier of Carolynn's Otesha play.

The obvious draw to Ottawa is the Parliament Buildings. Along with its status as the Capital city of Canada, it was not unexpected to find that its a very clean, pretty city. It, too, had a bustling vibe of young professionals, old professionals, students and governmental types.

But the most pleasant discovery for me were the bike paths. Having heard it was a bike-friendly city, imagine my glee at the beginning of the day, upon discovering on of these familiar little Dutch markers as I set off to discover the city by bike.

I'll have to take part of what I said in my last blog about Canadian cities and their common conflict between cyclists and drivers, and urge other Canadian cities to look at Ottawa as an example. Yay! Real bike paths! A long one, called the Ottawa River Parkway Ottawa's side of the river. If you cross either the Alexandra bridge or the Portage bridge, you suddenly find yourself in Gatineau (Hull), Quebec, also lovely and obviously well cared for, and also with a long bike path, called Voyageur. There are paths along the canals to take you deeper into town, and even clear delineations on many regular streets.

Maybe the reason I enjoyed Ottawa so much was because I was allowed the freedom to discover it with Betty in a bike friendly place. Able to see and feel so much more of the city by bike than if stuck on foot or finding parking lots big enough to park the Jamboree. All this + the gorgeous weather = my idea of how to spend a blissful day.

And that about wraps it up for Ontario. Allons-y a Quebec!

Kingston-Ottawa album:

Kingston-Ottawa

The Centre of the Universe

The first thing the Jamboree and I did upon our arrival in Toronto was to get stuck in a ridiculous traffic jam. Welcome to the Big City.

I had to pee and so the second thing I did was to pull over in the shoulder along the eight-lane highway to flash the Jamboree's hazard lights and nip into the bathroom. One of the many reasons I love the Jamboree. I am often one who needs to pull over at most opportunities to pee, and I rarely pass them up even if I don't really have to go. But with the Jamboree, I can pull over whenever I need to, want to and the shoulder is wide enough to do so relatively safely.

When, relieved, I pulled back into the bumper-to-bumper rush hour, I resigned myself to an hour or so of inching my way slowly across the span of Toronto and its satellites. I turned up Jason Mraz, imagined myself strumming along, and sent a few overdue text messages.

I was planning to stay a couple of days with long-time family friends. If you look at Toronto on a map, they actually live just slightly left of the centre of the universe in a place called Mississauga. This place is full of suburbs and shopping malls, and it took Sabine (who's family it is I was going to but who lives in Calgary so wasn't there herself, unfortunately) SIX text messages to detail the directions from the main highway that I was stuck in traffic on to the house.

When I eventually made it to what I thought was one of the exits that I was to follow according to the directions I'd been texted, I manoevered the Jamboree and I into our third Big City adventure: taking a wrong turn and getting lost. Luckily, not terribly lost. Just a wrong turn over some overpasses that ended up in a big shopping mall, and which, luckily, had signs leading us back to the highway again. I like to think of it as a wee side-trip.

Once I'd managed to find my way through confusing 12-lane traffic with my mobile phone in the palm of my hand, referring to Sabine's texted directions, I finally pulled up in front of Bernd and Ann's place. The Jamboree got a beautiful spot on the ample driveway to park and rest its weary wheels for a few days, and I ran into the welcoming house with outstretched arms: outstanding hospitality, good food and wine, the use of the laundry downstairs and the swimming pool in the backyard, and a bedroom.

I stayed five days. Under blue skies and summer temperatures, the pool in the backyard was a prime destination.

Other destinations included a Rotary club meeting with Bernd, which was interesting as I knew so little about Rotary prior to this visit. I'd thought it was an old boys' club, and while it sort of is, they do encourage younger people and women to participate nowadays. The Rotary brought Theresa, an exchange student from Austria, to Bernd and Ann's and the four of us made up a makeshift family unit for the week.

Together, we went to the Sound of Music musical now playing live in Toronto's theatres, and ate and drank in the old, and newly cool brewery district by the harbour. We made dinners at home accompanied by wine and schnapps, and wore funny hats. I like this family ;) .

I let the Jamboree rest when we took a day trip with Bernd's car to Niagara Falls. I'd always heard that the Canadian side of the falls is simply way better than the American side. I'm proud to report its all true. The American side is impressive in its own right, but is unfortunately placed right next to the Canadian side, which really does make it pale in comparison. It was a bright sunny day (of course) when we went to the falls, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the pictures we took while there. We look like drowned rats! The wind was blowing at a particular speed in a certain direction, I wouldn't say a strong breeze but enough to blow water falling over the falls into the air to land on the tourists along the walkway next to it like rain.

Fortunately when we went behind the falls, they handed out beautiful yellow raincoats. We were already soaked by that point, so, bad timing, but still appreciated. What I didn't know before I went was where all that water came from. I discovered it was from Lake Erie, which fell and then flowed down to fill up Lake Ontario. This lake then in turn flows down the St. Lawrence all the way out to the Atlantic. I am still curious about where Lake Erie gets filled up from. And so on. Awesome to think that all that water out there keeps moving and flowing enough to keep enormous oceans, lakes and waterways filled. That they don't empty like a bathtub when the plug is pulled.

We warmed up to a Timmies coffee and I felt satisfied with my visit to the falls. Tick. The day carried on to include a brisk tour of the Niagara wineries, and lunch in the quaint little town, Niagara on the Lake. Complete with a Niagara chardonnay, of course.

I was also able to participate in some more mundane activities during the week. I found my way, and was grudgingly forced to jog part of the way, to the YMCA for a workout. This has been a grand discovery as I cross the land. A member can visit any YMCA in the country, and I've done so in most cities. most recently this morning in Kingston. I spent an afternoon wandering around Toronto, including shopping at my favourite St. Lawrence market. Sadly, one afternoon by the pool I broke a string to my guitar while tuning it, so found a local guitar shop to repair it for me (for free! Ahem :) ).

A big debate erupted while I was in Toronto. One evening, a cyclist was killed by the driver of a car. When I put it that way, it sounds like the driver is a menace and the cyclist, an innocent victim. Much more came out over the course of the week to reveal that the cyclist was drunk, a bike courier, and very aggressive. That the driver was defending himself from the attack by the cyclist, and a bigwig in the Ontario legal world (he was touted to head up the Liberal party at some future point). This all raised the hair on the backs of both drivers and cyclists, pointing angry fingers at one another about who has more right to the road.

I am both a cyclist and a driver. What I see, from my Amsterdam eyes, is that there seems to be a growing endemic faceoff in many Canadian cities between these two groups, and that a big part of it is that there is very little delineation for cyclists on the roads. They can't ride on sidewalks for the danger of knocking over pedestrians, so they have to go on the road with the cars. Some roads mark off a lane for them, but only few. There are beligerent drivers and cyclists, all manoevering their vehicles around Canadian city streets shaking their fists at one another.

I know that when I cycle here, I am less confident that I am in Europe that the drivers are looking out for me. Maybe, because this tragedy – for both sides – occurred in Toronto, awareness will be raised, conversations will take place and all vehicles on the road will eventually merge into a place of tolerance among a variety of vehicles.

Hmmm. Kind of like Canada. And especially like Toronto, the biggest and most multicultural city in the nation.

I concede that's maybe me being naieve. Its a busy city, for sure, and pulsing and lively. Especially concerning its status among Canadians across the land as the Centre of the Universe, a moniker I apply with tongue in cheek, as no matter all the other qualifications that can be given to it, it still feels truly Canadian.

Unedited Toronto Album (sorry for any repeats that I haven't yet had a chance to delete):

Toronto

A weekend at the cottage

I lay on the wooden dock, my eyes closed, floating with it in the gently lapping waves along the shore of Stony Lake. Welcoming the sun. A motoroboat off in the distance, getting louder the further away it drives. Another one passes by, the driver, according to custom, waves a greeting. A power tool, maybe for cutting hedges – or is simply a lawn mower? - at one of the cottages nearby. I can't see many of them, tucked up in bays, on hills surrounded by trees, each with their own private perspective out on the lake.

Its the last day of August and the sun is shining bright in a clear blue sky. The ground was wet with late summer dew this morning, so it will take a few hours to warm it all up. I am looking forward to a swim then.

This is a little lake when compared to the likes of Superior and Huron where I made my camps last week. I can see the other side quite clearly. This is cottage country, a wee bit north from Peterborough, somewhere between Toronto and Ottawa. A weekend at the cottage is the essential Ontario experience, and so I'm glad for my friend Kristin, who lives in Ottawa and has this one and graciously had us there for the weekend.

Not only a weekend at the cottage, but also a reunion of sorts with Fran and Dan and Carolynn and Kristin. The last time most of us were together was exactly two months ago, June 29, in Amsterdam, a day we all saw fit to get drunk on a canal boat and jump into the Amstel River. Suitable that we'd come back together now, in our gorgeous native land, for another weekend before getting on with our new Canadian lives. And on a weekend like this there's bound to be somebody new to meet, and her name was, also, Jen.

The weather was not great. From Friday to Sunday, the sky was an unpredictable collection of cloud, sun and rain, and it was necessary to wear a sweater most of the time. When the sun did deign to come out and play for a bit on Saturday afternoon, we transformed quickly into bathing suits for a silly dip in the water.

The cottage really feels like a cottage, with a cottagey wooden interior. Wooden chairs and tables and cupboards that seem like they sprouted from the walls spontaneously one day a long time ago and have been witnessing the comings and goings through the cottage ever since. Old comfy sofas and two of those deep round chairs that you curl up and get lost in while reading and napping away an afternoon. A bookshelf teeming with books and movies on VHS tapes. A variety of board games and card games scattered across surfaces and in crevaces where they were probably placed after the last time they’d been played, waiting to be chosen again for a drizzly afternoon’s entertainment. Folding accordion doors like you might otherwise find in front of closets, open up to reveal bedrooms and a bathroom. A telephone. A TV. An old record player with a small collection of random records, and, on the other side of the room, a little “ghettoblaster” style stereo with a pile of cassette tapes and a few CDs next to it; equally random and long abandonded since they had gone out of style. Photographs of the family that grew up in this cottage, who have been coming to it for summers as far back as they can remember. Old knick knacks lining the fireplace. Trashy magazines lying everywhere, waiting to be devoured. And they were.

Windows overlooking the grass outside, leading down to the lake. A few lawn chairs strewn across the grass, facing out to the water. A dock floating quietly just ahead. Outside beyond the edge where the grass meets the water, you can see across the lake. Motorboats whizzing by, canoes quietly slicing through the water. Small boat houses backing out onto the water. A bacci set.

We played bacci, settlers, train ride, scattergories and charades. We took boats and floatation beds out on the water. We cooked scrumptious breakfasts and dinners, we drank quite an impressive amount of beer and wine. We napped. We read books and cooking magazines and got caught up on famous people fashions and gossip. We watched the rain fall and the clouds change. Dan caught a few little fish with a fishing rod off the dock.

And on the day they left me there by myself, the sun went down in a blaze of glory, the stars came out at night and the following day I layed on the dock in the sun. And I felt very relaxed.

Some illustrations of the weekend:

Stony Lake Cottage