Well, I'm not dead. I apologize for the bleak nature of the last few entries, but life in general looks pretty damn bleak when a migraine is introduced to it. Once again it was thoughts of Robert that finally guided me to sleep. Goddess bless the numbness that comes with sleep.
Catching up with yesterday: That really hurried entry was written in a pizza parlor called, unsurprisingly, Pizza Pizza. I had pepperoni pizza and a Mountain Dew. It was really good, but I eat pizza so infrequently that I generally think it's really good. So after that, we went skating and I humiliated myself. Yeah. Then the British guys and our Awesome Foursome went to the coffee shop, whose name I forget. That was a great time. Then we went to the pub, the Flatiron and Firkin. Good conversation, really good music ... but the smoke and the headache just swarmed me under.
I never did throw up. All I could manage was dry heaves. I started crying again in the bathroom out of sheer misery, and when I came out in that kind of condition, finally the others said good night and took me back to the hostel. Just getting out of the bar and into the air helped. After going so long without being exposed to so much cigarette smoke at once, I'd forgotten how sick it makes me. Then they dumped me off in the room and went back downstairs to the sitting area. Their British boys came back shortly thereafter anyway, and apparently, they sat up and talked until about one in the morning. So at least I didn't ruin their good time completely.
I apologized at least six thousand times. I had been having a really good time until the headache and nausea took over. I worry they might think I just pulled a stunt to get out the bar since I'm the only non-drinker in the group. I was really grateful, though, that there was no pressure on me to drink. That would have made me even pissier.
We spent the morning in Chinatown, which contains a lot of shops that are obviously run by Chinese (or Vietnamese) people for Chinese (or Vietnamese) people since the signs are all in those languages, and some shops that are very blatant tourist traps. We went into one of the blatantly tourist-trappy shops because it had cheap postcards (and cheap everything else, I might add), and the store owner followed us around the store. He didn't even make any pretense that he wasn't. As we left, Lindsay said really loudly, "As if we were going to steal any of THAT stuff." We wandered down a few back alleys and saw a lot of houses that had been converted into vintage clothing shops. I found an old tie-dyed shirt that said, "What a long, strange trip it's been" and considered buying it, but remembered that I have very little money just in time.
Karen has a route to the highway all plotted out. She just said, "This is going to be simple!"
To which Claire replied, "That was 'Famous Last Words' with Karen."
How prophetic that seems now. We're driving more or less in circles in an attempt to leave Toronto because there seems to be a vast conspiracy to prevent anyone from ever turning in the direction in which she needs to go, that is to say, left. (Your quote of the day: "F**k. I'm just going to turn. I don't give a s**t anymore." I think maybe Claire should take a break from driving.) Super fun. But we put in the special Canada CD that Claire made, which is full of morale-boosting songs. Trouble is, we still aren't very happy travelers, and we're still not out of Toronto. We're getting closer, but we just took the wrong exit. CRAP. But it's okay and now we're headed in the right direction.
We drove all over Toronto trying to get out of the city. We got to see Chinatown all over again, and some of the seamier side of town for the first time. It actually reassures me to see those sorts of "adult" stores there; it means it hasn't been forced underground and made darker, more menacing. At least I think that's how my logic on the matter runs. Yonge Street still floors me with not only its variety, but its sheer length. It makes Preston Highway back home look like nothing.
Money is tighter and tighter. At this point, it's inevitable that I'm going to have to dip into the emergency stash. Damn. It would have given me great pleasure to hand that money intact back to my parents. But it just doesn't look like that's going to happen.
Now I'm sitting in the car after a lunch at Subway, where I heard a new song by Tara MacLean on the radio (new to me, anyway). Then they played Sarah McLachlan's "Adia". GOD, I love Canadian radio. We're fueling up after taking up a collection that put an end to my Canadian money, except for the traveler's check with which I am paying for my room at the hostel in Niagara Falls. At Subway, they have the spiffy Hearty Italian bread that I quit being able to find at the Subways in the States. It's nice to have it again. Lindsay bought us cookies, too, except for Karen, who isn't feeling too well. Awwww. I really sympathize.
At the gas station, Lindsay discovered that they don't have Butterfingers in Canada. She said she was looking at the candy display to see what wrappers are different up here (Kit-Kats are definitely different), and suddenly she noticed the absence of her favorite candy bar. She asked the clerk if they had any, and the clerk, according to Lindsay, "looked at me like I was stupid or something." It's interesting what we miss up here.
Karen seems to be amusing herself by spotting all the Tim Horton's that are cohabiting with American fast-food chains. She just spotted a Tim Horton's-Wendy's-Kentucky Fried Chicken combo. Nice. We're currently speculating whether we could get free food at a KFC by producing our Kentucky driver's licenses.
We drove over one of the Great Lakes. Lindsay commented that it looked like the ocean. She and Claire have just decided that the Great Lakes should be renamed the RFB lakes -- "Really F**king Big".
Oh, God. We're at the hostel, and it is not in the world's nicest part of town. Okay, so it's just around the corner from the Barely Legal Nightclub. From the outside, the hostel looks even "skeezier" (Karen's word) as did the last one. The inside, though, doesn't look so bad, but I refuse to believe in bird called Hope. Instead, I believe in the Phoenix ... [/end Salmon Days quoting]
I already had to dip into the emergency money, and far sooner than I had hoped. Damn. Damn. Damn. This rather blows. Now we're driving around town. Oh, look, there's a mini-CN Tower here. This place is so incredibly cheesy. Wax museums, the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum ... and all the tourist-trap shops one could want.
But to stand here and see the Falls, to hear the cries of gulls, to see the waves and feel the chill bite of the wind the Falls generate ... it is beyond my ability to state it. Dear God, how I thank You for all that You created. This is a religious experience in the word's truest sense. If I look out and forget the chatter and the clicking of cameras, I can almost feel myself being carried away in that enormous, inexorable current ... being incorporated gently into that roar ...
... and then I get tugged into a gift shop and watch humans find yet another way to pervert the awesomeness of my Goddess. It's so disheartening. All that beauty ... and it's all up for sale. I suppose I should find some kind of humor in it, but I just can't pluck up the irony.
They have more maple sugar candy here, but I can't bring myself to buy anything. I know that my silent boycott is ultimately meaningless ... but I carry the real souvenir here.
The water goes over the Falls so smoothly, giving itself up to spray so effortlessly and gracefully ... and from its dignified fall rises a rainbow. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
It has been total silly hour in the car. Random bursting into song, fun with accents (Karen keeps saying that we're talking like Paul), reading the signs on the shops, and generally being absolutely terrifying. Claire, frustrated at her inability to find any nice restaurants that are also open, pulled into an empty parking lot and started doing a series of donuts, cackling madly as she did so. I looked at Karen and said, "We're going to die, aren't we?"
"I think so," she replied.
"Shut up back there or I'll make a VERY SHARP LEFT!" Claire yelled. (The Falls being on our left, naturally.)
Claire hasn't yet killed us, but we're terribly turned around again. This nice man, who was laughing his ass off at us, helped us find our way out of the casino valet parking area. After all of that, we've managed to find our way into the line at the Rainforest Café. It's cold and we're completely cracky. There are four-year-olds who are being better-behaved than are we. Their mother just gave us a Look. But her husband has a mullet, so we can still feel superior. The guys behind us just got through accusing each other of sneaking peeks at each other's, erm, personal regions. Charming.
I wish this journal didn't attract so many questions. It's rather irksome after a while, especially when people ask for a reading. If I wanted everyone to know what I was observing, I would observe aloud. But I'm not Lindsay, so I don't. I'm really embarrassed of the other three right now; they're acting almost as dumb with the stuffed toys and animatronic tree as this little boy who was throwing coins at the animatronic crocodile in an effort to get it to open its mouth. *sigh*
The Rainforest Café is such an incredible visual treat. Oversized butterflies flap their wings, elephants blink and toss their heads, and the place is covered in greenery, except for an emergency exit, which has a beautiful painting of a zebra on it, the kitchen walls, which are stone, á la some temple, and a patch of ceiling, which reproduces the night sky as best it can, with lights fading in and out to simulate the shimmer of stars. There are gorillas across the room shaking their trees.
And now lights are flashing, the room is darkening, the animals are "acting" upset, and the room is filled with the sounds of thunder, which is then abruptly superseded by techno music. It's an altogether strange juxtaposition. I just noticed a giraffe's neck sticking out from the flora; it has some leaves in its mouth, its expression serene.
Apparently the hostess heard Lindsay talking about how she's going to turn 19 at midnight; she's written "Birthday" on the card for our table. Judging by what's going on around us, this means that a guy in the kitchen will yell "VOL-CA-NO!" in a huge booming deep voice, and then one of the waiters will bring out a huge chocolate dessert with a sparkler stuck in the top of it. [Note: Apparently this is just a regular dessert.] Lindsay has promised to share; after all, the dessert is definitely big enough for the four of us. Interestingly, she at first seemed like she was actually embarrassed and wanted to hide the card. Now it seems more like she's back to reveling in the attention.
The Rainforest Café is very much a Hard Rock Café or Planet Hollywood sort of restaurant: one goes there less for the food (which is okay but overpriced) than for the atmosphere. It's gorgeous bordering on visually exhausting in here; even the tables all have very busy patterns. One almost wants to stare at the blank page for a moment of visual solace.
I had the Planet Earth Pasta (in honor of Planet Earth and other tourist traps?); it was penne pasta in tomato sauce with accompanying garlic bread. Ice water to drink, as I am trying not to run up an enormous bill. I am, still, after all, now surviving on emergency money. Finances on vacation absolutely blow. I wish I had a credit card.
And a working camera. It really depresses me that my camera's batteries decided to crap out. At least I have the memories of how the swirling water looked like it had thin white threads dancing just below the surface ... dancing their way toward oblivion so that a rainbow might form and cameras might click and small American tourists like me might stare in total awe.
Lindsay didn't get her birthday VOL-CA-NO. She's mad. [Note: As noted above, it's just a regular dessert and she got all mad for nothing. I still don't know why they wrote "Birthday" on the card, though, if they weren't going to do anything. So I still think the waiter screwed up on that.] We're actually considering stiffing the waiter, who has been terrible -- argumentative, even. Okay, yeah, we did leave him a tip, but it wasn't a very good tip.
Now we're sitting in the TV room of the hostel, which is much less skeezy on the inside, even though it is run by extremely spacey people (potheads, according to my fellow travellers) who gave me a sheet that was still wet. I suppose I should probably have given it back to them and asked for a dry one, but they also gave me a very nice, dry, warm quilt, so I didn't see any reason to expend the effort when I could throw the wet sheet at Lindsay instead. The walls are very brightly painted, with designs on the walls and everything. I like it a lot better than the other hostel. There are two guys down here; one's Irish and the other is from Belgium (Antwerp, he's just elaborated).
The Irish guy can only be described as garrulous. The Belgian guy talks an awful lot less and seems at once bored and yet also slightly interested in watching the dynamics of our group. He seems slightly preoccupied, partly because he really wants to watch a movie (rentals available at the desk), and partly because of how very much younger we are then he. At one point, he remarked, "I remember 17 ... 18 ... 19 ..."
The Belgian guy's name is Sven; the Irish guy's, Sean Patrick Harvey. Once again, we're sitting around talking about nothing, but now we're going to watch The Matrix. I haven't seen it, so I'm going to stop writing and watch.
My God, I've been trying to catch up near-perpetually since 10.30 this morning, and I still have so very much to say.
Now we've got another fellow in here, one of the hostel staff, whose name is Kevin Nichol, but he didn't stay very long at all. We're still talking. Sean is 25 and from a town 50 miles from Belfast; I missed the actual name of it.
It is 2.30 in the Goddess-blest morning and we're still awake. The recurring thread in the conversation is that the globe on the shelf beside one of the loveseats is going to fall and hit Karen in the head.
Claire and Lindsay both went to bed hours ago. They'd have a fit if they knew we were still up. Wow. I forget how much I can talk when I've got just a few people to talk to. My voice is almost rusty from so much use after so much disuse.
Oh, God, we are going to be toast in the morning. Absolute, total toast. We just finished with lying on the floor and coloring pictures. I actually drew this journal. Sort of pathetic, eh? It's rather taken over my life. I like having something solid like this, even though typing it up will take forever.
Some people like the sound of their own voices. I apparently like the sight of my own handwriting.
It's interesting to hear the Canadian coverage of the NCAA tournament, which is so huge in the USA -- they just talk about how the Canadian players are doing down there and then go back to hockey. I rather like it. Oh, geez, they just talked about a hockey player named Brian Fogerty who died at 32 last week, apparently from complications of alcoholism. I think someone is trying to tell me that it's perfectly all right that I've chosen to avoid alcohol, no matter what Lindsay insists.
Karen and Sean are asleep on the couch on each other. It's really cute. I wish I had Robert here so I could fall asleep on him that way. I miss him so much.
Hell. I'm sleepy. It's 4.30 AM. Bed.
Ahead to Day Six.
Back to Stuff I Wrote.
© Cynthia 2002.