Toronto, Canada

Toronto, Canada
Arrived in Toronto Friday night after a 4am start. Thank goodness again for the Tomtom, although it does get a bit confused amongst the tall city buildings. Hotel is right on Lake Ontario and we have an awesome view from our window. Sat we walked along the beautiful harbour front and up to CN Tower. It’s a bit like Centrepoint in Sydney only the elevators are glass and go up on the outside of the building ! It is also the tallest freestanding building. Toronto is a very different city to anything I had ever seen before, Steve thinks it looks a lot like Chicago (I have never been there). It’s very flat and spread out yet it is full of buildings. About four blocks on the harbour front are reclaimed and used to be all industrial (imagine Soutbank x 20). In the early 70s the lake was so polluted that the government had to move all the industrial business to other locations and made it illegal to dump toxic waste into the waterways. As a result many of the old buildings have been torn down or are abandoned leaving quite a lot of open space which looks very strange. There is and has been much redevelopment with hotels, shops and condos being constructed but there really is so much space that after 30 years much of it is still empty.
We then did a boat cruise on the harbour and sailed around the small islands that surround it. There is lots of wildlife, parks and recreation grounds. Many locals catch the ferry over or take their own boats and enjoy picnics and bbqs.

We then went out to the movies and saw Spiderman 3, how the Sandman is created was cool but the storyline was very lame. It was nice to see Peter Parker finally get some gonads instead of being a simpering wimp. The movie complex is awesome, you can get any type of food you want and take it into the theatre, I have no idea how you eat it in the dark though. We then had (another) lovely seafood dinner, no photos of this as per numerous requests.

I am so proud of Steve, we came back from dinner tonight and the internet wasn’t working. He called tech support for help and they told him that he brought down the internet for the entire hotel, they detected a file sharing program and had to shut off his connection. No more downloading from bit torrent for this trouble maker !

Today we drove down to St Catharines and met up with Cathy and Jim. I was so great to see them. They took us through the gorgeous historic area with huge old homes and sites relating to the Canada/American war. We visited the historic house of a women who is a war heroine, apparently she infiltrated through enemy lines to get a message to help the Canadians and prevented many deaths, Cathy used to work here as a girl with her parents so it was interesting for her as well. We then drove onto Niagara Falls, what an awesome site. There is still ice built up on the rocks around the horseshoe falls and a huge amount of water flowing over them. We saw more of the hydro power infrastructure and the general surrounds. There are lots of hotels, restaurants and casinos, Jim drove around all the cheesy attractions, although some of it looks really cool. We had a fantastic dinner overlooking the falls. Cathy owns a cruise travel business and was off to San Diego to review a new cruise the next day, poor thing.

We spent the next couple of days having a good look around Toronto, we visited some great historic buildings and saw some very cool architecture in the new ones. Toronto is not afraid to embrace new building design and the city always looks interesting and beautiful. We drove around a lot too, saw lots of parks and recreation areas on the lake. We went the baseball at Rogers Stadium, the roof opens up and it has an amazing atmosphere. The Toronto Blue Jays played the Boston Red Socks and got their butts kicked. We had a great time and our seats were excellent. As the ground is so small, as opposed to AFL or League, you get quite close to the players and can see the ball and the plays really well. We walked through the Eaton Centre which is a huge underground mall in the city. We drove north up to Barrie which is on Lake Simcoe, there are huge and I mean huge houses on the lake, the kind of places you see in movies. We also had dinner at the CN Tower in the revolving restaurant. We have also come across a few Indian and Caribbean people who follow the cricket so it has been great talking with them and getting to brag a bit !

Monroe, Louisiana

Louisiana 1 May to 4 May
We arrived in Monroe, Louisiana and picked up our hire car from the airport. We went for a drive around the East and North parts of Monroe. Living standards are quite diverse, some streets looked a lot like the Caribbean while others looked a lot like Australia. There are vast areas of Bayou and hence lots of woodlands and national parks, it’s very beautiful. Wed we drove to Vicksburg which is a town on the Mississippi and also has much civil war history. There is the famous siege of Vicksburg where the Union solders, led by Grant, tried numerous times to take heavily fortified Vicksburg without success. He then put the town under siege. The Confederates and townsfolk were basically starved out and surrended after only 6 weeks. We visited the National Military Park where we drove around and could see where the battles took place, including preserved trenches and tunnels. There are monuments everywhere for both sides and the confederate and union battle lines are also clearly marked, some only feet apart. There is also an ironclad battleship on display. It was very moving and I learned a lot of civil war history.
We met up with Jerry and Phyllis and had a lovely catfish and shrimp dinner and a restaurant overlooking the river. Jerry invitied us back to their house and I drove !!! It was cool. Jerry is really into technology and loves tv and related gagets, he has a tv in just about every room of their home! Steve was envious. I also drove back to the hotel. I am so pleased I purchased the USA map for our TomTom, it as been brilliant.
Thurs we drove around the West and South sides of Monroe and were able to get close to Lake Cheniere (pronounced Shenny) and did a bit of off road driving. There are lots of farms all through the state and we saw mainly corn crops. We met Jerry and Paul at Bayou Internet and did a tour. There is a radio station next door, well actually about 10 stations all transmit out of the one building, each has their own booth but all the audio is held in a small server room managed by the guys. Bayou is a typical ISP, tech gear everywhere with grotty tech support staff and harassed looking sales people.
We met with them again for dinner at the Cheniere Shack. They are famous for crawfish, Paul and Steve ordered a 10lb platter and Paul had a great time teaching Steve how to eat it. Steve had a great time eating. Steve also got to try some local beer. I got to drive back to the motel. We really enjoyed Louisiana and great Southern hospitality.

Cricket Final Barbados

Dominica 27 April 07
Quiet day, day a lovely walk through Roseau which was closed last time we visited. There were lots of stalls and a great produce market open. We tried some plantain which looks like a cross between a banana and a corn cob and tastes a bit like a sweet potato. They cook them slowly over coals. We had some local fish and chicken with fresh vegetables for lunch, very nice. We were going to go to the beach but it has been raining pretty much all day. We also bought some local artwork depicting local Caribbean life, better than a fridge magnet made in China. We are having a quiet night as we have to be up at 5.30am to pass through customs in Barbados and we don’t want to be late and miss the start of the cricket final !

Barbados
Final Australia vs Sri Lanka
Fantastic tremendous day !!!!!
Our seats were ok, we were in the stand next to the score board area and thankfully we were under cover for most of the day, handy for the 3 hour rain delay in the morning and then we suffered the afternoon sun about 3pm. We were also near a great group of Sri Lankans so we were giving each other a hard time throughout the day, they were heaps of fun. I’m glad that Australia got to bat first and they went all out, awesome innings by Gilly and the Queenslanders were happy Roy got a go too. What a fiasco at the end, we were cheering and clapping, the stands etc came out for the presentations, then the field is cleared and the cricket is back on……….in the dark. It looks much brighter on tv, believe me it was dark. It kind of spoiled the atmosphere, of course we didn’t really know what was happening until later but we thought it was rubbish and someone stuffed up, we were all still upset at the reduced overs due to the rain. Anyway Aussies never let a stupid decision ruin their fun and we won regardless and much partying was had by all.










Barbados Last Day
We got up this morning around 11, there were still bodies strewn across the pool deck and other people staggering back on the boat. We took a taxi down to the southern end of Barbados and had a good look around, it’s very different from the north, lots of big houses, it almost looks like suburbia. There is still a Caribbean quality, some homes aren’t painted or even rendered and only a few are fully finished off with a garden. We stopped back at St Lawrences Gap, quite a western area full of hotels, bars and restaurants, it’s on the sea but there aren’t many beaches here. We had lunch at the Flying Fish, it’s in a hotel with great views over the ocean. There is a wall built on the sea cliff edge and the local crabs crawl around the floor for awhile then jump back into the sea. We then stopped back at the Boat Yard where quite a few of us met up for a final drink in Barbados.




Sea Day
Had a final match briefing with Kerry and Merv. Merv usually is quite non committal in regards to players, well anything really, due to his selector duties but he was disgusted with how things ended. Kerry was dismayed that it would overshadow Gilly’s outstanding performance. We caught up with everyone and said our goodbyes, I packed and Steve enjoyed a few more beers.

Depart Galaxy at San Juan, fly to Monroe, Louisiana
Disembarkation wasn’t too horrific, we ignored most of the procedures and just left the ship with our luggage, they have our credit card, what more needs to happen. We made it through immigration and customs in about 20 minutes and jumped in a taxi to the airport. Got our laptops with movies etc to watch to wile away the time.