Travelling Around Canada/USATorontoWe landed in Toronto, which is already cool because its in Canada and people keep their doors unlocked, as in
Bowling For Columbine. My brother inquired about how i found room in my rucksack for a sleeping bag and i replied 'What sleeping bag?' We were
camping you see.
Hence the first night was probably the worst nights sleep i've ever had. The campsite was like the Great Canadian
wilderness transported to Greater Toronto. Insects chirping, pick ups rumbling by, headlights beaming, bears growling, well, they might as well have been and it was
freezing. The towel that i was lying on did nothing to provide comfort and my
hoodie was a crap pillow. So in the end I stayed awake in the car.
The next day we went up the CN Tower and ate in the revolving restaurant (you can actually see it going round!), drank at a gritty punker pub and watched the Toronto
Bluejays lose to the Oakland Athletics at
baseball. Now, this is a strange game. People sit around eating overpriced junk food, occasionally cheering, but only when prompted by a man dressed as a giant furry animal or the loud speaker. The teams come out then swap round, people miss the ball, the scoreboard bares no resemblence to the game and yet no one takes the piss out of the man in the
silly mask. The big screen was playing some MTV fodder so this kept me amused.
Torontonians are a
friendly bunch but i guess wherever you go in the western world you still get shopping centres, parking problems, one way systems, trendy bars, British people, local listing guides and tramps, although there doesn't seem to be a
ghetto in this city. I'll take it.
Niagra Falls that is. We drove for several hours to the Canadian side of this marvellous
spectacle (its right on the border you see). When we went on the Maid of the Mist, a boat ride around the falls, we had
blue waterproofs where as the American side had rather sickly
yellow ones. I took this as a good sign and then got promptly drenched by the force of umpteen gallons of water falling over a hundred feet. Despite this spectacle I still couldn't find any film for my
polaroid so we ate and spilt.
Detroit The Motor City. Motown. MC5. Soul. Ford Car Dynasty.
The Stooges. Techno. Riots. Protests. The Supremes. Factories. Museums. Garage Rock Renaissance. So why is it shut????
Its a
ghost town. We drove into the city centre at 6pm on a Friday and we had the whole road to ourselves. It was like tumble weed was gonna roll out across the next pedestrian crossing any minute. There were boarded up
skysrapers, thats right not buildings, SKYSCRAPERS, and tall with broken windows. Parking was easy so we wondered round aimlessly. It appears as if all the white people have moved to the mall-
ridden suburbs and taken their money with them.
But it had its charms. We visited the African-American History Museum and the Ford Automobile Museum but the best was the Science museum which had lots of
interactive installations involving light and sound and magnets and stuff. Also we met some locals who seemed to be quite amazed by the fact that we were there. We ended up staying an extra day because we thought a band was playing the next night whose
drummer we knew. Turned out to be a misprint. We could've been in Chicago by now.
