Photos!! [September 12]

Allright, y'all, here they are.

9-12-09:

My morning view of the falls

A close-up of the edge of the falls

The funny-looking Canadian walk signal (Zoom In)

Canadian maple-leaf that appears on every major US chain logo

[Toronto] The Distillery, where we ate dinner before Cirque

Cirque Tent (It's quite big on the inside)

The OVO sign

Cirque Du Soleil OVO: In depth

This post is specially for anyone with deeper interest in what OVO was like.



The beginning of OVO started out with a blue-insect costumed acrobat. He slid up a curving bar and then balanced on one arm at the top. He spun around on only one hand hand off a pedestal several feet above the ground, then switched hands while he spun his whole body. This guy had some serious arm strength.
The next act that I can remember started out where 6 pink acrobats came our on stage, laid down and began spinning objects that looked like slices of a kiwi on there feet rapidly. They then kicked them between each other, with the kiwis still spinning. Later, they broke up into three groups, where one person would lay down and balance the second on her feet, and the second would be spinning the kiwi. Amazingly, the top kiwi spinners would be kicked between their ‘pedestal’ partners, all while spinning the kiwi. They were very impressive.
After this amazing act, there were two white acrobats who spun on a piece of winding fabric that was suspended from the ceiling. Imagine a yard swing, made of cloth without the seat, and then imagine winding yourself up in it and spinning back and forth, all while moving away or towards the ground. Not for acrophobes!
The next one that I remember was where several spider-costumed acrobats climbed up to three pedestals, each about 35 feet up in the air. About 25 feet below it was suspended a spider ‘web’ (which to me looked more like a safety net). They then performed several amazing trapeze acts, like swinging on a trapeze, flying 20+ feet through the air and then being caught, all suspended up a significant distance. It made you want to squirm every time one of them flew through the air!
The last act (that I remember distinctly, as there were several more), was the front-flipping, wall-climbing trampoline jumpers. They were dressed somewhat liked grasshoppers and they scaled a wall by jumping repeatedly on a trampoline. They would then jumped off the wall and do triple back flips as they landed. Talk about daring!
I hope that this satisfies anybody’s curiosity about the Cirque! If it ever plays near you, see it.

Burnt Crumpets!! (Day 7) 9/15/09

This morning, Greta, Dad and I woke up to a freezing cold tent and two ears that felt like they were about 10 degrees. Kelvin.
Unfortunately, late the previous night (On the Crazy Chipmunk day) the warning lights turned back on in the car when we were driving to the bathrooms. This meant we had to visit Toyota again.

But first, we needed some good ol' sustenance! We toasted Raisin Bread and something called Crumpets on our camp stove with a little toaster gadget that essentially props up 4 slices over a metal plate. However, when dad was flipping them, one fell over into the stove and began combusting rapidly (Yes, that means it burnt). By the time we saved it, half of the crumpet was burnt to the stove and the other half tasted like metal. We ate the other Crumpets which were not burnt and much tastier. They reminded me of waffles.

The car made it out of Algonquin and we stopped at a Wi-Fi restauarant called the Mad Musher to steal their internet. Being the good person I am (Wink, Wink), I insisted to Dad that we give them some business and order some food. 'Some food' turned into a hobbit-style big, delicous, second breakfast. Filled to the Gills, we waddled away from the restaurant and left for Renfrew Toyota. If you ever pass through Whitney Ontario on your way to/from Algonquin, be sure to stop there.

After several hours of Pimsleur spanish and War of the Worlds on tape (Do they *ever* beat the aliens?), we arrived at Renfrew, Ontario. Dad turned the car in and Greta and he sat down on the chairs. I, on the other hand, got to sit on an 8-inch kiddie stool for the half hour we waited. (To be honest, I took the kiddie chair willfully.)

Our 2nd diagnosis ended up saying that the 'Center airbag center on the bumper is faulty.' Fortunately, our car is still under transient warranty, so we were free of charge. Dad decided that because the fix for this issue would take several days, we would leave Canada and continue on our adventure as planned (I think we might send in the car to get fixed in Hartford or Poughkeepsie)

During the last of the day, we drove back into New York. The US border control is a lot stricter than the Canadian border control. It took us about 25 seconds to get into Canada and nearly several minutes to get back into the US.
We then drove to the laundromat in Saranac Lake through the beautiful Adirondack State Park. I am now writing this blog in Lake Placid.



Picture Notice: I have indeed taken more pictures in the last several days. However, I have not uploaded them. I will hopefully post them tomorrow morning with separate tags.

Crazy Canadian Chipmunk!! (Day 6) 9/14/09

Dad awoke us on September 14th 2009 AD at approximately 6:37 AM with the news that he was taking the car in to the dealer. We were to stay at the hotel in Toronto and try to get some work done. So, he left out to get the car fixed and I ate a bagel (Like A Boss! for all of you who get that.)
I decided to work on Spanish. I had finished my weekly homework, and wasted nearly an hour determinedly trying to connect to the hotel internet so I could send it in. Didn't work D=.

Dad returned at 8:30 with the good news that our car was not in fact as completely destroyed as we thought. Apparently, our airbag sensor had either been incorrectly triggered or had a delayed reaction from another small collision (perhaps the Niagara Falls Valet, hmmm?) They reset the sensor and drove it around a bit (the light didn’t come back on) , and let us go with the diagnosis of a faulty trigger.
Seeing as our car now appeared OK, we decided to head on the ~3 hour trip to Algonquin Provincial Park. En Route, we stopped for our first Tim Horton’s donuts. Tim Horton’s is a very large Canada-only breakfast/donut chain that is similar to Dunkin Donut’s in the US. Except, it is *so* much more delicious. I haven’t had a donut since we moved to Chapel Hill in 2005, so eating a one was like a small epiphany to me. Mmmmmm….
We made it to Algonquin safely and saw our first ‘moose danger’ sign. Moose are apparently incredibly dumb and weigh a whole lot. They are known to be so lacking in common sense that there is a story of one hearing a car and running into the street to evade it. Wow.
We checked into our campsite after recieving several bear avoidance papers, and set up camp. While eating a late lunch, we made our first acquaintance with a deranged Canadian chipmunk. It walked right up to Greta's feet and stared at her, and then jumped right onto the table and began eating a corner of Dad’s sandwich. I shooed it away, and it re-appeared within a minute. This time, I decided to feint kicking it, trying to make it realize not all human's feed wild animals.

After this encounter, Dad decided that we should go for a hike with our few remaining hours of daylight. We went on the Peck Lake trail, which had periodic markers with sections in a pamphlet to read. They were posted at about every 120 feet, and always had some amazing views. By about 6:00, we finished the trail and went back for dinner.

The original dinner plan had been beans and sausage, but since we brought one small can of beans and a nearly two foot long sausage, it ended up being more of sausage with the occasional bean. Once we finished dinner, the dishes were cleaned very thoroughly and Greta and I played around with mosquito spray and fire. Kids, don’t try this at home. Or while you’re at a campsite. Or ever. (We didnt actually spray it in the fire, for those out there worrying. We just played around with it. Still not a good idea, kiddies.)
We went to bed with *anything* that could possibly have the scent of food on it in the car, and fell fast asleep.

Car Breakdown!! (Day 5) 9/13/09

Sunday September the 13th, 2009 AD, started out as a normal morning. We ate breakfast, came upstairs and cleaned up a bit, and left in the car towards downtown to see the CN Tower. We made it about 3/4s of the way there, and as we were obliviously driving down a straight part of the expressway, the unexpected happened...

Most of our car's warning lights and the master warning signal suddenly turned on, a buzzer sounded and the main Hybrid system screen began quickly switching between 3 warning screens for the VSC, SRS airbags and Hybrid system, each instructing us to pull over immediately and contact a dealer. All of course, on a Sunday.

We took the next exit and pulled the car over to the shoulder, which happened to be a junction in the Terry Fox Cancer Research Run. I quickly jumped out of the car to look under the car for something like a boulder stuck to the transmission. Not the case. We looked through the vehicle manual and learned that the VSC system is Vehicle Stability Control, how to mount the car to a Tow truck and about 2 dozen reasons to stop driving if any of these warning lights turned on. So, of course, we drove the car across Toronto to our hotel.

With a stroke of luck, we made it safely back to the hotel and extended our reservations (we were scheduled to leave that day for Algonquin Provincial Park) We located a Toyota dealership, after all, we were in the biggest city in Canada. It was fortunately only a couple kilometres (yes, kilometres) from our hotel, but it was closed on Sundays so we had to kill a day.

Since our car was inaccessible, we decided to use the Toronto Subway (yes, the underground train, not the sandwich chain) to commute downtown to do our touristy things. We went to the CN Tower (Pictures up later) and took the slightly ominous elevator up the building that was the largest in the world for decades. Up at the middle observatory, we took a couple pix and pranced around the glass floor. We then prepared for the Skypod, which does not play music.

The CN Tower Skypod is apparently the world's tallest observatory, at ~447 metres. We took a cramped elevator (roughly 4' x 8' and with about 10 people in it) up, and gasped at the view. The amazing thing about this observatory is that you can see both straight out over Lake Ontario, and straight down below you, giving it a very dizzying effect. We took several photos, and then got back in line for the elevator down. (Dad began to get queasy from the swaying, which tops out at 1 meter at 120 mph winds.)

We walked back to the Subway, took it back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day primarily doing Spanish and looking for a coffee place that is open past 5:00 on a Sunday.

Ketchup Lays!! (Day 4) 9/12/09

Today we arose to the beautiful view of Niagara falls. Our hotel has a really good view of it. You just pop open the curtains and, oh, there it is. Niagara Falls. 1.5 Million Bathtubs full of water go over it every minute. Wow.

We left the hotel at about 12:00, after I went to buy a drink and got my first Canadian Money. It's like most other currencies in the world: colorfull and has a thin silver stripe down it (I guess to prove it's not a forgery.) We drove to Toronto (Pronounced like tur -ON-oh by the locals, which my dad had a hard time getting.) About 3/4s of the way there, we stopped for Gas and our first, *drumroll*, KETCHUP LAY'S!!

(For all of those who are confused, Ketchup flavored Lays are only available in Canada. Durrrr...)

They taste very similar to BBQ lays, except they are reddish-purple and have a stale ketchup taste to them. I liked them, but Dad thought they smelled like month-old french fries that had been sitting in a bag covered in cheap ketchup. Such an optimist.

We arrived at our Novotel at about 3:00 after many confused directions. Of course, the road it was on is not on our map, so we had to buy another map just for Toronto because nobody seemed to know where Park Home ave was. When we got there, it was a major street with many buildings near it. Grrr...

We left to go to the CN Tower at 4:00, just to find out that the traffic in Toronto on a Saturday night is nearly as bad as Chicago. We got to the area around 5:30, and decided to skip the CN Tower until tomorrow and went straight to dinner. We went to a nice restaurant in a district called the Distillery. The bathroom was the first I had every gone into that had a tv displaying solely advertisements on top of the toilet. Interesting.

At about 6:45, we left the restaurant to leave for OVO, which is a Cirque du Soleil show. Like all Cirque du Soleil's, it was amazing. Undescribeably amazing. We left at 10:30, took the Expressway back to our hotel (much, *much* faster) and plopped into bed and fell fast asleep.