Toronto Road Trip

A few weeks ago, I took a Saturday road trip to Toronto with my friend Ari. We really didn't have a specific reason for going other than a) Toronto is the 5th largest city in North America, b) there is an IKEA there, c) I have only been there once and I don't remember it because I was too young, and d) we both just wanted an adventure!

Ari modeling some IKEA
fashion wear

We headed out at 7 am, crossed the border in Niagara Falls (slightly nerve wracking), and stopped at IKEA (after getting slightly lost trying to find it) before heading into the city. I am a huge fan of furniture from IKEA. I have a few pieces from there (courtesy of my parents and the store in Philly) that look super classy but are affordable at the same time. We ate breakfast in the cafeteria (who knew that existed!) because we were famished, then enjoyed walking through the show room (except where some kid puked in the children's area and it smelled disgusting). Ari bought a few things; I (surprisingly) bought nothing, and we exited ~2 hours later to head into the city.

Traffic heading into the city wasn't bad at all, and we found a parking spot in a garage by the CN Tower. The garage was probably the scariest part of the drive, because it had construction going on, and the ramp was running traffic 2-ways, sometimes with a temporary traffic light, sometimes without. People are idiots and we almost got taken out in there!

We headed up the CN Tower, checked out the 360 view, walked on the glass floor (I did, Ari didn't!), and walked around the revolving restaurant.

view of the city from the tower

Fun Toronto fact - if it's a clear day, you can actually see Rochester on the other side of Lake Ontario! Unfortunately, it was too hazy the day we were there. :(

playing in some fun chairs in the Distillery District

pretty Christmas tree in the Distillery District

Then we spent some time walking around, checking out the public market, eating delicious pastries, and exploring the Distillery District. We eventually got hungry and headed off to this vegetarian restaurant that I had found online: Hibiscus. It was blocks and blocks away from where we were down by the water, so we walked for probably a good 45 minutes before we found the street that it was on. As we headed up the street, away from the busy part of the city, it grew more sketchy. The townhouses looked unkempt, with their window treatments skewed across the windows, people in the homes tapping on the windows at us, and no one on the street. We hurried up down the street which then came to a dead end. WHAT? (Because we couldn't use our cell phones, we were working off of a map of Toronto and an address I had written down at home). We took a left and got the hell out of that neighborhood, only to be relieved to see the lights of restaurants up ahead. We then found the street again (apparently, it ended and then started up again on the other side of a more "main" street) and after walking 10 more minutes, we found the restaurant, which, of course, was closing. Frustrated and starving, we backtracked to another vegetarian restaurant and ate some pretty good food! This whole neighborhood was very hippie, I kind of liked it! We rounded out the meal with churros for dessert and headed back to the car. It was a long walk and my legs were KILLING me (sheesh.. I can do an Ironman but I can't walk around for a day??).

my horn can pierce the sky!
(outside the market)

CN Tower at night

The drive home was much worse - I was soooo tired, but I managed and I think I made it home at 10:30 or so after dropping Ari off. It was a fun trip! One thing I noticed was the high amount of attractive, well-dressed, in shape men. Compare that with the guys you see walking around Rochester or even NYC, and it was a HUGE improvement. Good job, men of Canada! Keep it up and I will continue to cross the border and stimulate your economy just to stare at you. :)

blame Canada

So first things first, a big congrats to Coach Mary for a 4:59 and a great race at Pumpkinman half-ironman in Maine. Also, to Mark O. for a 12:57 at the full Rev3 Cedar Point in his first iron distance race! And there was a big sigh of relief because although Mary's husband Curt crashed into a guardrail during the Pumpkinman sprint and broke his fork, he walked away from the crash totally fine (after a nice trip to the hospital)!

Syracuse 70.3 is in 6 days. I finally had a good run yesterday! It only took 7 weeks for me to work up the motivation to do some tempo work. The athlete guide is posted, waves are posted! My bib # is 1021 and I am going off in wave 13 at 7:48 am in a light pink swim cap. Last week I didn't care about the race. I didn't care how I did. I didn't care about a Clearwater spot. I didn't even want to do it. Of course that didn't last. I still want to do well. I guess I should have made that decision 7 weeks ago and then maybe I wouldn't have half-assed my training since Placid. Oh well!

So I have been absent from blog-land for a whole bunch of days. I was invited to go camping this weekend in the 1000 Islands by Adam to meet up with 2 of his friends from Ottawa that he met while in Italy (the kid gets around apparently). Now, I like to camp. I don't love it. I have a tent and a sleeping bag, but no other camp accessories. I forgot a flashlight. I don't have an air mattress. We had to sleep on the hard dirt ground - there wasn't even grass! His friends from Ottawa were much better equipped. They had a propane stove thing, and silverware, and a whole bunch of other useful stuff.

I don't do so well with camping because it mostly involves drinking, and I am not a good drinker. If I drink fast enough to get drunk, I pass out super early. If I drink slowly, I get a headache and then I want to go to bed early because I'm tired. I just cannot stay up late. But this was fun. I learned lots of trivia about Canada! I exemplified the Canadian stereotype of Americans as idiots who know nothing about the rest of the world.

After assembling our campsite and cooking/eating dinner, we were drinking some beers/wine/Johnny Bootlegger and chatting around the campfire. And this is where I realized that I am just not interesting if you take away the whole triathlon/Ironman thing (which had to be done in this case because I was there with Adam who does much crazier races than Ironman). I am just the girl with the job that is so hard to explain that people fall asleep while I try. I am the girl who watches her favorite TV shows over and over. I am the girl who talks about her cat too much. I am the girl who does the same race that thousands of people do, and the wimpier version of other races. And yes I am loud and excitable and sort of quirky and yes I hate SUVs (which I get called out on), but have I done anything crazy? No. Have I been arrested? No. I haven't even gone anywhere interesting since 2003 when I went to Ireland.

I'm not saying that I want to get arrested..

But most of my stories are lame. I try to stay out of trouble. I like to go to bed early. I'm pretty introverted. I like structure in my life.

My most recent "story" was:

I went to Kim's house last weekend to hang out and watch a movie and we were so busy chatting that we forgot to eat dinner.

WOW I FORGOT TO EAT! OMG.. so crazy. Oh wait, no. Forgetting dinner was probably the best thing I could have done for my pre-race taper. Haha!

Anyways - I am on a mission. Look for me in the back of a police car.