(Once again, I realize that I could never be a travel writer. I've been back for a month, and now I post my travelogue?)
You're read the tweets, now here's the goods! My 2008 train trip!
This year for my vacation, I decided to head back east to Ottawa and check out the galleries that I wanted to see but couldn't the last time and some other stuff that piqued my interest.
I decided to try something new this time. Instead of flying direct to Ottawa from Calgary, I decided to make a stop in Toronto and fly from there on Porter Airlines. I've heard a lot of good things about this business-class airline since it launched a few years ago, and I've never been in a turboprop plane before so this would be a new experience.
The flight to Toronto was uneventful, Air Canada was being its usual self. I watched Batman Begins on the VOD for a reason that will be revealed later.
I arrived on time at Pearson Airport despite the pouring rain, and as planned, I had a couple hours to kill before my flight to Ottawa. A quick call to the hotel to tell them that I would be coming in late, then an early dinner at the Expedia.ca Cafe, and then caught the express bus to downtown Toronto. Porter runs a shuttle bus between the Royal York Hotel and the ferry to Toronto City Centre Airport so getting there would be no problem.
But once I arrived at the ferry dock, I saw that my problems were about to begin as the screens said my flight to Ottawa was delayed. And when I got to the airport proper and checked in, I found out that all of Porter's computers were down so everything had to be done manually. And by manually I mean by writing my boarding pass and baggage tag by hand, and by running lists of passenger names ahead to the gates. I was then bumped up to an earlier flight, which was also running late, and the only way they can tell when a plane arrived was to look out a window. But I settled in the lounge among lots of other people whose flights were delayed, and the humidity and screaming babies sure didn't help much. I wasn't getting a very good first impression, so I loaded up on as much free lukewarm Coke and wi-fi I could.
But my plane eventually arrived, and we all got to board one of Porter's Bombardier Q400s(nee Dash 8). I was genuinely surprised at how roomy the interior was, there was more than enough space for me and my freakishly long legs in my seat. And once we were airborne we all got free drinks and sandwiches from the flight attendants, who wear old-timey pillbox airline stewardess hats. After the slightly stressed pre-flight process, I gladly accepted a free beer. And yet, even though I paid extra for a window seat, I still got one but during the whole hour-long flight I had a magnificent view of the starboard engines. If I got the seat I paid for, I could've gotten some good shots of the Toronto skyline at night during takeoff.
But as I said, an hour later we landed at Ottawa International, only slightly behind my schedule. I hopped on the airport shuttle bus, and arrived at 11:00 PM at my hotel, the Novotel in downtown Ottawa. Flying Porter was a unique experience, but the next time I fly to Ottawa I'm going direct.
I picked this hotel instead of the one I was at last time because of it's central location among the stuff I wanted to see. Last time I was coming in by train, and the map made the Hampton Inn look like it's next to the station, but it wasn't until I arrived that I saw that the hotel was inaccessible by foot. Plus, there was at least a half-hour walk to a shopping mall which is where I had to go to catch the local public transit.
Not so this time. The Novotel is across the street from Rideau Centre, a huge shopping mall with lots of places to get on OC Transpo and that is what I needed for my first stop: the Canadian Museum of Civilization across the border in Gatineau, Quebec. (And any hotel chain that has genuine Kellogg's Froot Loops in the breakfast buffet is aces in my book.)
The museum was truly a fascinating place. The first level had the Grand Hall and the First Peoples Hall, with six replica BC coast Aboriginal houses and lots of artifacts from the earliest times to the present. The second level had the Canadian Postal Museum, where every Canadian stamp ever issued was on display and an exhibit showing the post office's place in pop culture.
Level 3 was the Canada Hall, with towering replicas of various parts of Canada covering the last thousand years of Canadian history, from viking ships to prairie towns to the Vancouver International Airport in 1960. Lots of stuff from CP Air was on display there, and I found that neat as that they flew the first airliner I was ever on. Or at least the first one I remember. After that, a quick hot dog and Coke at the Cafe Express and I was ready to move on.
Finally on Level 4 was the Canadian Personalities Hall covering the people that have shaped Canadian history. Lots of neat stuff here too, from Mordecai Richler's typewriter to John A. Macdonald's flask to the little vial that Pierre Trudeau kept in his jacket lapel for the flowers that he wore. It was an incredible place and I'm glad I went.
The next day's target was the National Gallery of Canada. There was an exhibition there called The 1930s: The Making of "The New Man". It showcased how artists like Picasso and Dali reacted to that decade's events starting with the stock market crash and ending with World War II and all the nasty stuff Hitler and his bunch were up to and it was all wrapped up in the increasing knowledge of biology. Pretty harrowing stuff.
I then went and wandered around the other temporary exhibits and the permanent collections. There was landscapes from the Group of Seven, baroque and gothic paintings from Europe, Asian carvings, and some really whacked-out modern stuff like this. I know it cost over a million dollars when the Gallery bought it and it seemed stupid at the time, but I couldn't stop looking at it.
(Note to Dana: if you're reading this there was also a photography exhibit that I think you would have liked.)
After a full day at the Gallery, which was amazing, I went back to the hotel and then went on a quest to have pizza for dinner. It was listed on the hotel's room service menu, but I found out the night before that it wasn't on the hotel restaurant's. Remembering from the last time I was in Ottawa there was an East Side Mario's at St. Laurent Centre (because I had to walk there each day) I hopped on the Transitway and made my way to the mall. I had an ulterior motive as well, as that was how I had to get to the train station the next day so I had to time the ride.
So the next day I arrived at the train station, for my ride to Toronto on Via Rail. I know I'm starting to sound like a snob, but I was going first class again. The train ride was smooth and uneventful, except for a huge rainstorm around Kingston. Not much else planned after pulling into Union Station except dinner near my usual Toronto lodgings, the Strathcona Hotel. However, it looked like CTV was filming an episode of Flash Point around the Royal York that night as there were camera crews and lights and everything you'd associate with a TV shoot.
But I was in for a little shock when I arrived: my room wasn't ready yet! The door was left open, the bed wasn't made, and I think the mattress was missing. But the front desk got me into a corporate room on one of their newly-renovated floors instead so that was a pleasant surprise.
Thursday was my day for entertainment. I went to see The Dark Knight in Imax at the Scotiabank Theatre. Had a heck of a time finding the place, I guess I'm too used to all of Calgary's streets being numbered. DAMN good movie. See it in Imax if you can.
(On a side note, the subway platform at Union Station had every conceivable surface covered in Dark Knight graphics. On the walls, on the turnstiles, on the fronts of the stairs, it was as if the TTC turned the place into Batcave Toronto.)
After the movie, I milled around Toronto Eaton Centre, ogled all the new iPods at the Apple Store, and then went to Massey Hall for that night's main event: a Just For Laughs gala show of standup comedy hosted by Martin Short! Lots of fun, especially Shaun Majumder and Andre-Philippe Gagnon.
Friday morning I went to the Royal Ontario Museum. When I was last there a year ago, construction on the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal was just finished so I got to see what an empty museum looked like but now all the permanent exhibitions have moved in. And that means dinosaurs. A giant Quetzalcoatlus northropi now hovers above the museum's main court and the T. rex dominates the gallery.
There was also an exhibition on Charles Darwin that was getting a lot of local attention as creationists were protesting it when it opened. It covered Darwin's life, times, work, and impact. Lots of his personal stuff and notebooks were on display, and his research equipment and specimens. As an example, a Wedgwood vase was on display from elsewhere in the museum as Darwin was related to that family. There were also live Galápagos-type tortoises on display as well. One was really motoring around it's enclosure (by turtle standards) when I stopped to look at them. After that, a quick lunch at the eco-friendly Food Studio and then I went to see the stuff I didn't last time: the Egyptian, Aegean, Greek, and European galleries.
After all that culture, it was time for that evening's entertainment: a Blue Jays game! The Jays were hosting Seattle that night and it was "Flashback Friday" so the Jays were wearing retro powder blue uniforms from the 80s and famous former Jays players were in the stands. And it was a pretty tense game too, it had to go into extra innings but the Jays pulled it off 5 to 4. I'm not that much of a baseball fan, but that's what I paid to see. And besides, I've kind of wanted to see the Mariners play since they were bought by Nintendo.
And that's pretty much it. Nothing much else to say except that the flight home the next day was okay, but it was my first time on an Embraer E90 plane. Nice spacious seats there too, and no middle seats!
Well, as I write this my second week of vacation is just about up. This was my "do jack squat" week and all I've done is watch DVDs and play video games. I've got one more week of vacation next month, and I've got an idea for what to do. Someplace I've never gone before, and some things I've never done before.
To be concluded...
