Kiley in Canada

New York, New York!

kiley — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:16:00 GMT

New York, New York! The city that never sleeps... unfortunately we had to, so that made for two and a half jam packed days. Our weekend began at 2am Saturday morning, yes – that’s right 2AM! After an hour and a half trip to Buffalo (including a stopover at the US border, which is actually quite a funny story because I was feeling like crap and looked like crap and had to try and face up to the border patrol without fainting. Needless to say I was getting the eye from them all, and was actually asked if I had been taking narcotics - I swear they all thought I was smuggling ingested drugs). Anyway our flight from Buffalo was delayed two hours which was fine by me because being as sick as I was I got another two hours sleep on the airport lounges. Classy.

Once we touched down in New York we managed to navigate our way out of the airport in Queens into Manhattan, out of Manhattan and over to Brooklyn (which is actually just south of Queens) to our hostel Crown Brownstone. Our neighbourhood was complete with stoop monkeys, black guys playing basketball at the local courts (as seen in every New York TV show) plus the privilege of being two of the only 6 white people we saw all weekend. Strangely enough, because you see that type of neighbourhood on TV so often i had this weird sense of de ja vu all weekend... I’ve seen all this before....

Our first day involved a stroll around lower Manhattan, checking out the New York Stock Exchange, missing the last ferry to the Statue of Liberty, waiting for an hour to get to the top of the Empire State Building for a disappointingly smoggy view and then enjoying a fantastic dinner atmosphere in Little Italy.

Day two was immediately better with me and the weather feeling better. After a makeshift brekky we began our day with an amazing walk over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. As you can see from the pics we were a bit snap happy. It was a beautiful old suspension bridge opened in 1883, with amazing views of Manhattan, the Manhattan Bridge and the Liberty statue. After that we headed uptown to Yankee stadium, soon to be torn down, to see the Toronto Blue Jays beat the pants off of the New York Yankees. Plus I got a picture with an NYPD cop! And he loves Australia! Go Blue Jays!

After the game, Times Square was next on the agenda for some shopping, a little bit of heaven at the M&M’s shop and a Brazilian festival. Dinner at the Heartland brewery and a taste of some pumpkin spice beer, followed by a trip to the top of the Rockefeller Centre for a spectacular night view of the city. It was a million times better than the Empire state, with fewer people and we enjoyed a relaxing hour taking in the lights and the balmy evening.

Day three was a rush – so many things to see still, so little time! On the road by 9am down to the ferry docks for the coast guard escorted trip to Liberty Island. The statue is HUGE! But at the same time i expected it to be bigger (thanks to the movies and trick cinematography). A generous gift from the French. Our ferry ride back included a stop at Ellis Island where previously all new immigrants were required to dock. A lot of interesting historical information, including the ‘quotas’ of people from the Northern and Southern hemispheres permitted during the early 1900’s to stem the flow of immigration, and an ‘Asiatic Barred Zone’, much like our infamous ‘White Australia Policy’.

After Ellis Island we sprinted up to the top of Central Park, by way of subway, and then power walked for two hours from the top of the park to the bottom, rapidly absorbing the peaceful greenness of the park in such a big city (and a lake where you are only permitted to run around it in an anti-clockwise direction!). At the bottom of Central Park was 5^th Avenue and we did some speed shopping at Abercrombie and other shops of that sort, before once again navigating cancelled subway routes, streets around our hostel (for five blocks) being blocked off for a festival and an unmarked taxi ride to the airport. Ah... made it.... Wait! What do you mean our plane has propellers?!

One final stop at the border for some duty free grog and the weekend came to an end...

Check out the pics!

Kiles xxx

Gallery: New York

kiley — Fri, 5 Sep 2008 19:22:00 GMT

Beer Fest Weekend...

kiley — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:19:00 GMT

Well, last weekend was an eventful one... After a short 4 day week and being reunited with my long lost brother who has been hiding out in Elora, our weekend began on Thursday night. I got to have my first visit to the Fairmont Royal York hotel where Kelly’s parents were staying. It was great to hear some more Aussie voices and see some familiar faces. Dave scored a free dessert while I scored a heap of free tea bags (see pic!). Sounds strange but I was excited to have real Fairmont tea!

Friday night was the long awaited Toronto Beer Festival at Fort York. An incredible selection of beer from around Canada and overseas. I picked up a couple of new favourites and definitely found a few to stay away from. Our night started fairly civilized sampling a range of beers, a one dollar token for a four oz. glass. But as the night wore on and 10pm was approaching we were counting our remaining tokens and realising some serious drinking was needed to recoup our money. And so the civility slowly declined... I lost count of how many beers I had in the last 20mins but I do remember running out of tokens and someone (Angela!) thrusting tokens into my hands for more beer. Oh the bloating! Somewhere in the last half hour Eric’s friends managed to steal a sign for David, actually it’s more like a giant banner. After the beer fest we headed to a friend’s house and Dave headed out for another adventure with Eric’s friends. Needless to say we were all feeling a little worse for wear the next day... most of which was spent in bed!

Saturday night was Drew and Jenn’s going away party – they’re moving up north to teach for a year. There is one classic picture from that night – and that is of the still hung-over David’s plate where he forgot to remove the serviette before he piled it high with food. Good job bro!

Sunday we were feeling much better so we headed out to the Taste of the Danforth Festival, which is a Greek food tasting street festival. Ah the food! Lamb chops, chicken skewers, gyros, quail – yep, sampled some of the quail, very gamey. We had fun despite the rain... more pics from Dave’s cam coming soon.

Dave’s off in Montreal this week, returning on the weekend to attempt the Behemoth rollercoaster at Canada’s Wonderland amusement park. I’ll be safely on the ground watching!

Kiles xx

Gallery: Beer Fest Weekend

kiley — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:33:00 GMT

The last six weeks... in a nutshell...

kiley — Wed, 6 Aug 2008 12:54:00 GMT

So it’s been a long six weeks since i last updated this blog... and a lot has happened since then...

The last week of June and first week of July Dad and David were here visiting – and Dave is still here! It was great having them here, showing them where I’ve been living for the last year and a half. But when I first saw them both at the airport it was like I’d only just seen them the week before. After the energy of the first night and the unpacking of all the chocolate brought over for me (and there was heaps!), we spent the first three days touring around Toronto. Check out the pics for more detail, but we visited historic Fort York which helped in the 7 Year Battle to ward of an American invasion, the CN Tower – previously the tallest structure in the world until the Saudi’s out-built them by 300m, the Distillery District for a micro-brew beer and some Bison burgers, a stroll along Yonge street – the longest street in the world (they still hold at least one record!), Niagara Falls – the Canadian (better) side of course, and a Blue Jay’s baseball game after a feed at Eric’s favourite restaurant The Spaghetti Factory.

Those three packed days were followed by a trip to Elora to see the Gorge and watch Carolyn play in her Celtic band. David was whisked off to an Estonian festival with Matt and we didn’t see him for two days... Although we found out he managed to get kicked out of the quarry... There was also a visit to the St Jacob’s market to have a good sticky beak at the Mennonites and their hotted up buggy’s (see pics). Plus a day trip to a historic Indian settlement discovered in the last 20 years, but dating back to hundreds of years ago (I’ve forgotten the exact details...). They had replica long houses, and the lake nearby where they did carbon dating sampling from the bottom of the lake and discovered the settlement had farmed corn in the area. Amazing stuff...

After that we all headed to Colin and Carolyn’s cottage for a week of relaxation and waaay too much eating! Six days of early morning dips in the cold lake, bear spotting at the dump, an overnight canoe/camping trip, plenty of board games, knee boarding, water skiing, plus plenty of BBQing including a beer can chicken (funny photo) and lots of grog. Couldn’t get much better than that...

The two weeks flew by and before I knew it we were back at the airport saying good bye to Dad, but holding on to Dave (yay!).

Since then I’ve been kept busy during the week teaching a group of amazing young learners from Mexico and taking part in all their touristy activities. They were great students, from a bilingual school in the mountains in Mexico, with a great sense of humour and they were lots of fun. I didn’t want them to leave... I’m back teaching adults now. But my registration the Ontario teacher’s board has finally been approved!

Eric and I have been making the most of the good summer weather and went for a massive 30km bike ride two weekends ago. We rode from his cousins house to the downtown ferry terminal, took the ferry’s across to the Toronto Islands, from one side of the Islands to the other (with a picnic lunch in between), back on the ferry and home again. We were exhausted! Especially cos we had a head wind coming home... sooo exhausted! So now we’ve start spinning classes once a week to improve our endurance. Our next big ride is to The Beaches on the other side of the city.

Last weekend was a long weekend, so we headed up to Eric’s friend Jen’s cottage at Wasaga Beach, about an hour north of Toronto. Another great cottage weekend of over indulgence, swimming and lots of game, plus Drew’s famous rum punch (amazing!). We also saw Jack Johnson at Burls Creek, about 45mins from Wasaga in a big open paddock. We were spoilt with great weather but punished with a ridiculous 3 hour traffic jam after the concert (picture six people, 12 pm and stuck in line just to get out of the car park, needless to say we all slept in line with one person keeping watch if the line moved). But the concert was great! He played a lot of the old favourites and some new stuff, but his encore was the best. The weekend ended with a fast paced, hardcore game of Monopoly which saw the leaders crushed and the underdogs become top dogs. Unfortunately Eric and I were not the top dogs, and that’s all I’m going to say.

Dave is back in Toronto this week and we’re looking forward to another packed weekend of the Beer Fest (ideally located at historic Fort York), the Greek cultural festival ‘Taste of the Danforth’, and Drew and Jenn’s going away party...

Hope you are all having fun!

Kiles xxx

Gallery: Wasaga

kiley — Wed, 6 Aug 2008 11:59:00 GMT

Gallery: Dad'n'Dave

kiley — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:37:00 GMT

Gallery: Storm

kiley — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:09:00 GMT

REM and Rain

kiley — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:11:00 GMT

Last Sunday I went to the Molson Ampitheatre for the first time to see REM. We had chosen lawn seating a few weeks ago in the hope that the weather would be fine. Of course the morning forecast was predicting rain. But we weren't deterred. Armed with Eric's HUGE ironworkers unbrella that served as a mini tent (much to the annoyance of those behind us) and a couple of tarps, we stayed dry as a bone while laughing at those around us who believed a cotton scarf would save them from the downpour! At one point the wind picked up and the umbrella blew inside out and although those around us were snickering we had the last laugh because the umbrella had plastic spokes that just popped back into place. And so we were dry again.

The concert was great, although I must admit I only knew about 5 of the songs they played, which were their older ones. But it was worth it just to hear them sing 'Losing my Religion' (and seeing the underagers getting busted for drinking and the pot smokers having their joints ripped up by security). We'll be back there next Wednesday to see The Dave Matthews Band, so hopefully it'll be just as entertaining!

Last night we had an amazing storm that woke me up and made the house shake. I put up a couple of pics that I got from some footage I took from my bedroom window. I haven't seen a thunderstorm like that for years - it was great!

It's my last week teaching at LSI and convieniently my students are sitting their Cambridge exams so i dont have to teach in the mornings (hence the reason I am writing this now). Next week I start at International House with my CELTA tutor and some other teachers that made the switch. There is more stability there and more opportunities for career development - I'm looking forward to it!

Hope all is well on your side of the world,

Kiles xx

Tiptoe through the Tulips...

kiley — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:29:00 GMT

Last weekend was the Canadian Tulip Festival in Ottawa, which was also a long weekend for Victoria Day. So Eric and I went up for the weekend to check it out and some other sights around the nation’s capital.

The origins of the Tulip Festival began in 1945, when Ottawa was presented with a gift of 100,000 tulip bulbs from Princess Juliana of the Netherlands. The gift was in appreciation of Canada’s involvement in the liberation of the Netherlands and for offering sanctuary to members of the Dutch Royal family. The Netherlands continue to give the gift every year and Ottawa has held the festival around the city ever since the first festival in 1953. There were so many beautiful tulips, not just the standard red and yellow ones – but you can see them all in my pics!

At Major’s Hill Park in Ottawa they had an International Tent, with different countries promoting their food, culture and tourism. Disappointed that there was no Aussie booth, but there was an Indonesian tent – so I plucked up the courage to have a conversation with one of the Indonesian guys (in Indonesian of course!). It was great! I was a bit rusty and I haven’t spoken Indonesian for about two years, but he was nice enough to say that I was doing fine!

The weather has definitely improved which has been great! We’ve just had a beautiful weekend here and been walking through High Park and along the lake front. And I bought a bike helmet today (I’m borrowing Eric’s sisters bike) – the first time I had one since I was about 10! So we’re all set to get some biking done this summer.

Eric and I bought a Nintendo Wii today so were just about to set that up and play some bowling! Strike!

Gallery: Ottawa

kiley — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:23:00 GMT

Tulips

Maple Tapping

kiley — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:04:00 GMT

So I did get to go to a Sugar Bush/Maple Syup festival on Sunday. It was at the Purple Woods Conservation Area east of the city. The bush area basically looked like a area of deciduous trees, but when you get up close each one has a tap and then a tube connecting them all together. The sap is carried to a shed or mini-factory where it is boiled down to create the super sweet maple syrup. Only Sugar Maples are used for this, and it takes about 40-50 buckets of sap to make one bottle of maple syrup. But the maple syrup is SO good!

We had pancakes with fresh maple syrup and had a horse and wagon ride through the sugarbush (i was hoping for a sleigh ride, but surprisingly there wasn't enough snow!). We also got to see them boiling down the maple sap, and see the 'maple sand' which is a byproduct of minerals and other non-syrup friendly stuff (like wood, sand, and gravel that the tree has sucked up). Plus we got to buy some of the produce too! I've added some pics from the day...

Gallery: Maple Tapping

kiley — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:47:00 GMT

First day of Spring!

kiley — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:25:00 GMT

Yesterday was officially the first day of spring in Canada, but you wouldn’t know it! The temperature yesterday was -1, and with the wind chill factor it felt like -8. Not exactly the spring weather I’m used to. Summer will eventually get here, but let me recap the past few months of winter life in Toronto.

This past winter (I can officially say ‘past’ now, despite the -10 temp outside today) has been Toronto’s worst winter since the 1930’s, with almost record snow fall. Locals are saying they’ve never seen a winter like this before and it’s the equivalent of six winter’s snow fall all in one season. Skiers and snowboarders rejoice! Warm-weather loving Australian girl, bundle up! And that’s what I’ve been doing, gloves, scarves, insulated snow boots, beanies (or toques (pron: two-ks) as they call them here) and lots and lots of moisturizer because it gets really dry.

The snow has definitely been fun, and I have to admit to being in class and just staring out the window mesmerised by the snow falling when I should’ve actually been teaching. The good thing is most of my students are from warm weather climates too, so they find it just as exciting as me. Snow storms (and we’ve had at least 6 that I can remember) are also exciting. People go into this crazy frenzy (helped along by the media) and think they’re going to be trapped inside for days so everyone rushes to the ‘grocery store’ to stock up like it’s Y2K again. But by the next morning the snow plows have been out, the salt is laid on the footpaths and everyone is able to go out ( some will have to shovel their cars out). By law everyone has about 12 hours after a snow fall to shovel their footpath or they get fined. You can see some of my pics in the ‘Snow’ photo gallery.

Eric and I were lucky enough to escape the snow, wind and cold for a week when we went to Cuba for some much needed sunshine and warmth. Most Canadians will usually have a holiday around Feb/Mar or during spring break to get away from the cold, and generally head to Florida or somewhere in the Caribbean or Mexico. The oldies, which are called ‘Snow Birds’ and left long before Christmas and headed south are sometimes ‘collected’ by their families at this time of year and brought back to the milder weather up north. Anyway back to Cuba...

We had a week in Varadero, at an all inclusive resort on the beach and it was GREAT! It was like a warm blanket had been wrapped around us but without the bulky jackets, just shorts, t’shirts and bathers. I had forgotten what warm weather was like! We had a day in Habana (or Havana) City and saw some amazing old 1950’s American cars, Spanish style crumbling buildings, and pictures of Che Guevara everywhere. Of course we had to stop and buy Cuban cigars and rum! We also went snorkelling, Eric swam with dolphins, went on a jeep safari around the Cuban countryside, swam in a fresh water cave and spent many hours in or beside the pool – and at the swim up bar in the pool! The people of Cuba were very friendly and happy, and had only great things to say about their socialist government and the free healthcare, dental care and schooling despite their living conditions. Although, I have heard on more than one occasion that the Cubans in Miami paint a different picture of life in Cuba. Anyway, plenty of pics in the ‘Cuba’ gallery.

As you know it’s Easter weekend and that means TURKEY! Eric’s family has turkey three times a years and this is one of them. So Sunday is the big Easter dinner, my second here in Canada. It’s also Maple tapping season here, so I’m hoping to catch one of the festivals going on around the province over the weekend and enjoy some sugary goodness! Hope you all have or had a great Easter weekend and there’ll be more posts to come...

All bundled up,

Kiley

Gallery: Snow

kiley — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:18:00 GMT

Gallery: Eastern Canada

kiley — Sat, 8 Mar 2008 09:22:00 GMT

One year down...

kiley — Fri, 7 Mar 2008 11:36:00 GMT

Welcome! More to come... soon... i promise

Gallery: Christmas 07

kiley — Fri, 7 Mar 2008 10:49:00 GMT

My first white Xmas

Gallery: Cuba!

kiley — Fri, 7 Mar 2008 10:25:00 GMT

Sun, Sand and Saltwater!