The Urban Condition with B-Town

Day 1: Toronto

My 4:30 am Wakeup for a 7:00 am flight meant that I ran on 3 hours sleep today, as I was up late into the night looking for my passport (I couldnt find it so that was a wash anyway) and packing. WestJet instead of an in flight movie now has inflight TV with commercials. I don't have TV at home and spending the morning watching daytime TV on a plane didnt thrill me. Needless to say, I got some reading done on the plane.
I spent the Afternoon after I landed getting into Downtown. I noticed right off the bat that, even though Surrey is Surrey, Greater Vancouver hasn't been ravaged anywhere near as much as cities back east by freeways. Outside of the downtown is a wasteland of multilane car dominance. At least our suburban wasteland has some trees.

I still dont have the Transit system figured out here, and I got screwed on the transfer system twice. The operators and station attendants are really uncourteous. Uncourteous is being diplomatic. (They laughed at my mom for not being able to get herself and baggage through the turnstyles at Union Station and wouldnt give any advice on how to get uptown, or that we needed to get a transfer there at point of payment and not where it makes sense, like near the bus you want to get on.)

I tried for the life of me to find contact information for JP or Jessica-Karen, but it all is out of date, and for some reason I can not get into the clubhouse forum (where most of my friends update their contact info) because the link is Banned in the hotel.
If any of you guys can help with infos that would be great.
Today is another day in Toronto so I'll try not to look as happy as I did to be here as yesterday... I think they sense it and try to mess it up for you.

posted by B-Town @ 7:30 a.m. 2 comments

The City that Never Sleeps for the Guy who seldom does

I'll be gone for the next two weeks while I attend my cousins wedding in Ontario. It will prove to be interesting as she is 4 months pregnant and one of her bridesmaids got the bright idea to call life network. So yeah, I'll be on Reality TV as the kin from the West.

After the wedding, my mom and I are running off to New York for the 25th annual Mother-boy. Where we will compete with high society types for the coveted motherboy trophy.
Actually My momma and I have been wanting to go to the big apple together since before I was 10. We have similar adventursome tastes in food and art, so I'm pretty stoked.
As for my thesis this trip will provide adequate sustinence. I'll probably spend some time doing plenty of sketches of random places and buildings and a requisite cross sections of the Rockerfeller Centre, Bryant Park, and Palley Park.

So yeah, any ideas what else to do or look at would be appreciated.

posted by B-Town @ 9:35 a.m. 0 comments