[NON BLOG] What I Did on my Weekend
May. 7th, 2004 12:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldFriday, I left for a nice retreat in upstate New York with my friend J. from Toronto. We reached the campsite by the Finger Lakes driving, via Gananoque and Syracuse. It was interesting to see the American countryside, which looked similar in many ways to that of rural Ontario. In certain respects, though--particularly the state of the houses, often not in the best of trim--it seemed poorer. I was interested to notice that Syracuse bore a superficial resemblance to Richmond in the monumentality of its downtown's architecture. I noticed less of this driving west towards Canada via Buffalo--the Finger Lakes region seemed significantly richer, much closer to a stereotypical image of rich New England.
The retreat itself was very enjoyable. I met some nice people, and the setting was fantastic, in the middle of a mountainous landscape covered with deciduous trees in leaf already. And the weather! 25 degrees Celsius, sunny, and with a light breeze to keep things from getting too hot.
On my return to Canada on Sunday, I met up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
talktooloose who kindly put me up in his west-end downtown Toronto home for Sunday and Monday nights. It was great to finally get to know talktooloose--I'd missed him the last time I was in Toronto. Fortunately, he more than lived up to his persona in livejournal.
I spent Monday morning and afternoon wandering about Toronto, making some purchases (listed below) and visiting the ROM's Eternal Egypt exhibition. "Eternal Egypt" gave a good overview of Egyptian civilization, and the audioguide--recorded by the inimitable Rhys-Davies--was good. The labelling of the artifacts, though, didn't correspond very well with the audioguides; I had to search to find the artifacts in their proper order. Later, I met with James B. for dinner at Bistro 990, and then drinks with him and a couple of friends at Slack Alice.
I took Train 42 Tuesday morning at 9:30 east to Kingston. The train got in at a quarter to noon, and I split a cab with a fellow graduate student down to the JDUC. And now, here I am, back in Kingston ON.
The retreat itself was very enjoyable. I met some nice people, and the setting was fantastic, in the middle of a mountainous landscape covered with deciduous trees in leaf already. And the weather! 25 degrees Celsius, sunny, and with a light breeze to keep things from getting too hot.
On my return to Canada on Sunday, I met up with
talktooloose who kindly put me up in his west-end downtown Toronto home for Sunday and Monday nights. It was great to finally get to know talktooloose--I'd missed him the last time I was in Toronto. Fortunately, he more than lived up to his persona in livejournal. I spent Monday morning and afternoon wandering about Toronto, making some purchases (listed below) and visiting the ROM's Eternal Egypt exhibition. "Eternal Egypt" gave a good overview of Egyptian civilization, and the audioguide--recorded by the inimitable Rhys-Davies--was good. The labelling of the artifacts, though, didn't correspond very well with the audioguides; I had to search to find the artifacts in their proper order. Later, I met with James B. for dinner at Bistro 990, and then drinks with him and a couple of friends at Slack Alice.
I took Train 42 Tuesday morning at 9:30 east to Kingston. The train got in at a quarter to noon, and I split a cab with a fellow graduate student down to the JDUC. And now, here I am, back in Kingston ON.
