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Posted by Amy at 12:17 a.m. MST on
Mon, Jan 26th
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Tough Luck... |
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We're nearly recovered from our trip to Toronto last week. Man, what a time. We had a great time. We had an awful time. It was just another one of those instances where our typical luck followed us right on out of the country, lol. |
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We left for the airport at four in the morning. It was a sacrifice, but I was bound and determined to get a jump on things and have a full first day in Toronto. I didn't find out until much, much later that it was wasted effort. We made our flight without incident, but it all went downhill from there. |
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We got into Chicago a half an hour after we left by the clock, thanks to the time change. Due to icy weather conditions, they were rerouting planes both in the air and on the ground. When we landed there was already a plane in our gate, so we sat on the tarmac for thirty-six minutes. By the time we got to the gate and off the plane, we only had thirteen minutes to walk clear across O'hare airport. We ran as fast as we could with excess baggage, and bad mobility, and got to the gate with the sign still saying "boarding." When we asked if we could still get on though.. they said we had just missed it. Needless to say.. thirteen minutes wasn't enough time. We missed our connection. |
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We had to sit and wait almost three hours for the next flight going to Toronto. I was so upset. I could see my first full day aspirations evaporating before my eyes. While I was sitting there waiting, I got a text message that one of my very best friends from high school had been killed in an auto accident the night before, and I lost it. I was devastated, sitting there with nothing to do but wait, and think about him as the tears rolled down my cheeks. Every face that passed was his. As the realization settled in that I wouldn't be able to make the viewing or the funeral, and be there with my friends, or Travis's mom, I was in a pretty bad place. |
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We boarded the flight from Chicago to Toronto, and made it to Pearson International without too many problems, so I tried to shake off the sadness and stress and just focus on our vacation. I wasn't very successful at it when I learned that our bags had not accompanied us to Toronto. Not only were they taken off the first flight, (time, which in my opinion.. could have been much better spent letting us ON the plane), but they missed the second flight all-together too. I don't understand how they get can a bag off a plane in minutes before it leaves.. but not back on a plane in the three hours we sat baking in airport terminal juices. We sat beside the baggage carousel for another two and a half hours waiting for a THIRD flight with our bag on board. We couldn't leave, or we'd have to have our bag shipped to the hotel, and after seeing United at work all day thus far, there was no way I was risking that. Dave and I sat there with our travel-smashed muffins, and half bottle of water for the rest of the afternoon, and our day was officially lost. |
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It wasn't a very great start to the week, that's for sure. I tried to keep the faith that it couldn't help but get better from here. For the most part, it did, but we did have a fair bit of bad luck throughout the entire trip, lol. |
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Ahhhh, Toronto. Beautiful, isn't she? |
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Monday night, and every single morning of the week, we spent as much time as we possibly could with Dave's mother. We had lunch with her every day, took her shopping, and sat and talked the hours away. She did much better with Dave than I expected her too. She waited to be honest with her disappointment after Dave left the room to go to the bathroom.. which I appreciated. She's grateful that he's doing so well, of course, but she's not at all impressed with his speech, and somehow believes we could be working harder to do better. lol. It was nice to visit with her, but our nights in Toronto were so much more enjoyable. |
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I had to MAKE them smile. They both looked miserable.. Must have been the cold, lol. |
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Victor Avenue, (where Dave's mom lives), after three days of straight snow. |
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I had to have a picture with a snow drift nearly taller than I was. |
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Dave... just wanted to eat it.. lol. |
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Saturday was amazing. Dave's best friends from a past life, and I, planned for us all to go to a great Chinese buffet place, and glow in the dark miniature golfing. (This was to be a grand surprise for Dave, who'd been told that all of his friends had other plans, and wouldn't be seeing him tonight). Fortunately, this was an artfully crafted lie.. but unfortunately, those plans were changed completely as an icy blizzard blew into town. The roads weren't great, so we decided we needed to stick closer to home, and not risk the commute. We went to a great grill-house style restaurant called Montana's, and instead of the putt-putting the night away, we went glow in the dark, five pin bowling instead. |
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Here's the whole gang at Montana's Saturday night. |
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lol, Dave putting on his shoes, that glowed in the dark. Sweet... |
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Dave after his first strike. (His second and third strike looks exactly like this too, lol). |
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Dave had a super-secret surprise all planned out for Sunday. He had previously been refusing to tell me anything about what we were doing. Fortunately for me, I know him pretty well, and I know he knows what I like.. so I had a pretty good idea where we were going. And, I was right. We were a few minutes late, but we didn't miss much. I got to be royalty for an afternoon of Medieval Times fun. I was thrilled. I had only been wanting to go since the very first time I was in Toronto over ten years ago, and we finally made it. |
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We got to see amazing displays of horsie goodness. |
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Lady Kara and her falcon, Guinevere were there, which was very cool. |
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All the King's men broke out into intense battles at will during random intervals in the night. |
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Our knight was the Red and Yellow Knight, Lord Del Font, and he was awesome. |
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When Lord Del Font won a carnation from the princess for winning his jousting match, he gave it to me. I don't love this picture, but I DO love this memory. |
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Yellow Knight ended up winning the entire tournament, and the heart of the princess. =) |
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Sunday evening we made plans to go to Dave's nephew's house. Dave might be Raj's uncle, even though Raj is a couple years older than Dave. That's just so weird to me, lol. Raj, and his wife Loretta and their new princess Aliya, were gracious hosts, and we enjoyed our evening immensely. I got to spend a little time with my gorgeous Great Niece. I even brought her back a pony from Medieval Times. We were fast friends. |
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Aliya and Aunt Amy. |
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On Monday, I was beside myself with giddiness. We were in a hockey town, and by marriage, I had long ago inherited the love for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite being married to a born and raised Canadian though, I had never had the good fortune to go to a game.. until this trip. It was all planned perfectly, and I had hoped it would go as such. |
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Unfortunately, I forgot who I was for a minute, and Davy isn't any luckier than I am, as a general rule. We were in trouble from the beginning. We kicked the evening off with an Italian dinner fit for a Tuscan princess, made special by Davy's mom, (who is quite possibly the sweetest woman on Earth). I was quite content after lasagna and bread, but I didn't realize that was just getting us ready for the main course. I thought that WAS the main course. When we had polished off the salad and veal Parmesan, I was in Heaven but stuffed to the max. It turns out.. it was a good thing we had enough food in our bellies to fuel us through the night ahead. |
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We all piled into Davy's Oldsmobile Alero, because it was roomier than Tony's Cavalier, by far. We didn't get but two kilometers from the house though, when we all realized things weren't quite right. Davy couldn't accelerate past forty kilometers per hour, and when he slowed down to turn around and head back for Tony's car.. it couldn't manage to go past zero, or even start for that matter. You would think that bad luck me, plus bad luck Davy.. would cancel each other out, and we'd get happy neutral non-luck at least, but that was a little too much to hope for. |
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We're in the middle of a busy intersection in Toronto, a city of seven million, with a car that won't go. The guys needed all the pushing power they could get, so they needed me on steer detail. I did my part the best I could, but with my eyes closed most of the time. It was wickedly scary trying to get across that street watching the cars flying up on us with horror. We walked almost a mile through the blowing snow and sidewalk slush. I was NOT wearing shoes appropriate for such adventure. Naturally, I was much too interested in looking cute, to be bothered with function or practicality. To my credit, I wasn't expecting to be out on a mini-hike in the middle of Toronto in unusually frigid January, even by Canadian standards. The sidewalks were several inches thick with half melted snow, water, and ice.. and my socks were soaked through in seconds. My feet, consequently, froze in half that time. It wasn't pleasant. |
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We couldn't find a taxi for love, nor money, and ended up calling Tony's dad for a ride. By the time he picked us up, and we made it back to the house for Tony's car and got moving again, got gas, and got onto the freeway, we hit insane traffic, and got to "watch" the first period of my first hockey game from the car radio on the way there. We parked at the mall, and took the subway the rest of the way, for convenience, and made it shortly after the second period got under way. I was so disappointed. |
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I didn't have time to be glum for long. As I walked up the steps to the arena, and the people blurred, and the ice came into focus.. the sound of slap-shots greeted me. I was exhilarated from that moment on.. and well on into the final period. Sadly, I must say my Leafs let me down. I wasn't counting on them to win for me, but I WAS counting on them to at least score. They didn't. Thanks Fellas. They did pretty terribly, and lost to the Carolina Hurricanes 2-0. I'm not mad at em. Next time, I know they'll do better. (And hopefully, next time,.. the fates will have a little mercy on us, and at least let us get to the game on time). |
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Center Ice. *happy sigh* |
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Carlton, The Leafs polar bear mascot. |
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Davy and Tony at the game... |
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Dave and I at the game... |
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After the game, Dave and I bought the group a fantastic street-dog from the cart vendor waiting outside. Street-dog consumption is always one of those memories from home that are so consistently amazing, it makes Dave's "must do" list every single time we go back. |
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I wish I could write a proper phrase to justify how awesome these hotdogs, but words just can't contain their yumness. |
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I got a new hat at the game, and Davy bought me a t-shirt for our belated Christmas in January. *loves* |
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Tuesday was a little more.. low key. Our vacation was winding down, and I'm already settling into full-on sulk mode, because I hate goodbyes so much, I start getting sad the day before they happen. We finally made it to the Mandarin, the Chinese buffet place we'd wanted to go to a few days before. It was amazing, and most definitely the largest, prettiest Chinese place I had ever seen. There were in-door cherry blossom trees, blazing paper lanterns, and floor to ceiling rock fountains with koi ponds beneath them. It was surreal. I tried a plate full of sushi for the first time in my life, and was surprised to find out that it wasn't half bad. |
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After dinner, we went to the Colossus Theater to catch a show. I wish I would have taken a picture of the theater, because it's somewhere Dave and I go every trip. It's just that neat. They do movie theaters a little differently in Toronto. They're huge, multiple levels, arcades, bars, and dance floors.. fast food strips, and more, all under one roof, lit up like a year-round Christmas tree. It's incredible. The 20 viewing screens are just a happy bonus. We went to see The Wrestler. After the movie we headed back for burger king whoppers and poutine.. the latter of which Americans are sorely missing out on here. The whole gang watched a movie at Davy's place over our midnight snack, and happily chatted the night away. You know, we didn't make it to bed before five am a single night we were there.. which made nine am wake up calls, (so we could make it Dave's mom's house by ten), even tougher, lol. But I wouldn't have changed anything for the world. Even the bad luck.. just made me appreciate the good parts all the more. |
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My only regret... was not being able to skillfully, successfully steal Peppa and bring her home with me. I tried.. lol. |
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Tony and Davy, and Dave and I had lunch at Harvey's, a hamburger joint, on Wednesday afternoon before we headed off to the airport. I was beside myself with misery at having to leave. It doesn't matter how long we stay.. I never want to leave. The flight back went so much smoother than the flight up there, thank God for that.. and Mom was so happy to see us when she picked us up from the airport. I took almost two hundred pictures in six day's time, and loved well over a hundred of them. I apologise for picking out so many favorites for the blog, but I couldn't seem to narrow them down anymore than I did, lol. For anyone who has me on your facebook account, please feel free to look at ALL my favorites over there, spanning three separate fully-stocked albums... |
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I've been sulking pretty intensely the last few days since we've been home. For whatever reason, our goodbyes hit me even harder than they normally do when we're there, and I just find myself wishing we were back there again. I try to rationalize in my mind why being there means so much to me. The only thing I've been able to come up with.. is acceptance. Being around our friends.. Tony, and Avtar, and Davy, and Davy's family, his brothers and their girlfriends, his mom, nephew.. even his cat, lol.. there's something so wonderful there, that it's palpable. It's loud, and it's funny. It's warm and inviting and special. I love Italian kisses. I crave being surrounded, immersed and swallowed up by it. I never get tired of it, and I never want to leave. When I do.. I'm punished with a long and lasting emptiness that takes much too long to muddle through. I suppose if there's any kind of pain to endure.. it's the pain of love, and friendship, and all the aching, longing bitter-sweet heartbreak that comes along with it. I'm so grateful to be a part of something so special. |
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Until next time Toronto.. Much Love, Many Hugs, and Good Night to You All.... |
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