Toronto, The Weekend, and other happenings.

My trip to Canada was good. Just good. I have always enjoyed taking trips by myself because it lets me clear my head, relax, and give my vocal cords a rest, but this time my trip was uneventful. It is all my fault, I know, I am usually very anal about planning my trips down to the last detail but this time I decided to just figure it out when I got there which was a big mistake. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the city and what it had to offer.
Before I left I kept monitoring the weather in CA and it was always in the 40’s and low 50’s so I was ready with my coat and lots and lots of sweaters. When I get to the airport I noticed that everyone is wearing shorts and t-shirts so I knew my coat was probably a bit overboard. Although for me 50 is still cold, apparently in CA 50 is great weather. When I get to CA the weather is beautiful and I was kind of disappointed because I was looking forward to wearing my scarf that doubles as a shawl, it even matched my coat and everything. Perhaps I will get to use my scarf next winter.
When I first got to Toronto my first impression was of a NYC pre Gulianni. Do you remember NYC when it was full of graffiti and dirty? That is what Toronto reminds me of, although it isn’t as bad and it is a lot safer that was my first impression. I really didn’t do anything on Friday because I got in kind of late and I was really tired. Saturday was spent walking through the different neighborhoods and relaxing in many of the public squares they have in Toronto. I did all of the typical touristy stuff like going to CN Tower, Rogers Center (?), China Tow, The Gay Village, Greek Town, some sort of market, etc. I had the BEST Dim Sum, EVER!!! I went to this little place in China Town off of Padina and it was amazing, the best dim sum I have ever had by far. That night I met up with Carlos and Kim and they took me to one of their favorite restaurants where Kim ordered all of our food in Cantonese for the three of us without asking what we want to eat. I was a little disturbed by that, I LOVE food and I like to have a say in what I am going to eat. Soon after, the staff was bringing lots of food to the table, by a lot I mean 8 different dishes. 8…….there were only three of us. Needless to say we hardly made a dent in the food but it was good.
After dinner we went out to the gay bars in Toronto. Have you ever seen the show Queer as Folk? Have you noticed how gay, crowded, and lively their gay neighborhood is? Toronto is nothing like that. I have seen the show once or twice before and I thought the gay district looked very big and so full of people. Well, when we got there the hood is only 2 city blocks. I was a little disappointed but the clubs were good. They played good music and they are very small so they don’t let a lot of people in at the same time. I think they must bus people in from the surrounding cities when they film the show because there was hardly anyone there. I met some people from Dallas that night and it seems a lot of us fled the DFW area for the weekend. We exchanged numbers so we could get together when we got back to town but I already misplaced their numbers. Maybe they will call me.

I was suppose to go to Niagara Falls on Sunday with a tour from the hotel I was staying at but I did something I don’t normally do, I slept in. I forgot to ask the hotel for a wake up call so I didn’t wake up on time. So instead of Niagara Falls, which I was really looking forward to going to, I walked around the city and did some more shopping (see previous entry).
On Sunday there was a protest in front of my hotel, it seems protesters like to follow me wherever I go, so I walked over to the group to find out what they were protesting and it turns out that it was the Falum Dong school of thought from China. Recently, Wade has become a big follower of their philosophies and has started practicing but he has never been able to explain the philosophies to me in a manner in which I can understand so I sat through a little lecture and a meditation session that helped me get a better idea of what they are all about. I still don’t understand all of their ideas and philosophies but I have a better grasp of the whole thing.


I really didn’t get to do much after the conference started because I had to try to get some work done in the afternoons while I was in Canada. I had to switch hotels to be closer to the conference and it would have cost me CAD50 to get to downtown Toronto so I decided to stick around the hotel area. There really wasn’t much to do in the afternoons around the hotel so we all (including my new love) hanged out in the hotel and drank. A lot. The conference had a social hour immediately following the conference and we all took advantage of the free drink opportunities. It was great, I love drinking with compliance people, they get so passionate about compliance issues that it is kind of funny. They had raffles every afternoon and I won twice but I had to pass on the opportunity because of the luggage situation. Next time I am going to pack an extra bag just in case.

That is really all I have to report. I met some interesting people and I learned a lot about what is going on in the industry.