Thanksgiving Week End (Part One)

Perhaps the reason that I'm feeling tired these days is that I'm trying to recover from the massive turkey coma, induced by the Canadian Thanksgiving Day holiday. Well, that and at least a good 18 hours of round-trip driving, 4am bedtimes, drinks, and other really delicious food and that pretty much sums up the past week for me.

It was amazing. Dev and I took off from Timmins around 7pm on Friday night, and proceeded to drive the 7 or 8 hours down to Toronto. Dev drove for the first little while, but after a few hours, we switched places at a little watering hole called The Watershed. It was here that I grabbed a can of Rockstar, a small bag of chips, and some chocolate and took over the drive. I love long drives - especially at night. I literally spent most of my time dancing in my seat, which is probably because the music that gets played on the radio stations down south from Timmins is just ... killer, and the fact that it was a Friday night most stations had on techno/rave music which kept me energized (along with the Rockstar) and I chair-danced all.night.long.

Once in Toronto, at about 3am, we checked in to our hotel - One King West. It's smack downtown Toronto and thanks to Travelocity, I managed to get us a really good rate. The hotel even offers valet parking, but by the time we got there the lot was full. We did manage to park in a lot just down the block which wasn't bad - it was a five minute walk underground from the hotel. We ended up having a corner suite, and when I looked out the window I had a view of the office building across the street and right next to us. It wasn't the most fantastic view I've ever seen but it was really cool, looking down and watching people in the morning as I drank a mug of coffee. The coffee in the hotel was abysmal, I will say that - so when I found Second Cup (and a Starbucks on every second block) I was in heaven. The coffee in Ottawa was especially gross.

The outside of the One King West Hotel. Taken from the hotel's website. Of all the pictures we took, it never once occurred to me to grab a couple of the hotel.

This is pretty much our exact room. The picture is slightly outdated, however as now the room is beginning to show signs of wear and tear and could use either new carpets or hardwood flooring. Other then that, no complaints!

By far, the most gorgeous hotel lobby I have ever seen! And the bar staff are great here! I had my first ever Cosmopolitan shot courtesy of the bartender and the best  calamari I have ever eaten in my life!

And this underground thing - the PATH- was amazing. We found a Second Cup coffee shop, where I got chai latte's every morning, plus tons of shopping (which we never really got to hit. Maybe next time) and a food court that had everything from Swiss Chalet to McDonalds to a bakery to this fresh organic outlet that was packed! On our first day there, we walked around Queen Street while we were waiting on the Dodge - we had put it in to a local garage for something very minor - and I snagged a few shots of some really pretty street art.

The neighborhood itself wasn't much to look it, but not only did we pass countless boutiques of designer labels, (I had never heard of some of them, so I can only assume them to be from designers who haven't hit it big with Fashion Week yet) a microbrewery, nail salons, a park, a community art project and even a few pickpockets I'm told. I was in my glee wandering around, sipping my latte and taking in the entire atmosphere of the place. Perhaps it's a result of being born and raised in a small town that I find big cities so amazing. The towering buildings, the little neighborhoods you would never know about unless you spent hours and hours roaming block after block after block. In the town where I grew up, the tallest building was the hospital and that was only about 4 or 5 stories high, so being in the middle of a downtown Toronto city block where the smallest building is bare minimum 20 stories ... it's just something amazing and beautiful and .. big!

So, we did some shopping - naturally. I had forgotten just how effing BIG the Eaton's Center is! We were there for a couple of hours and never even saw half of the place! So many stores, so little time. We also managed to snag some quality time with friends of our down there who just recently had a baby and Dev was utterly smitten with this little boy. He held him, and talked to him, and kissed him .. oh, it was just the sweetest thing ever, and I might have melted just a little bit. He was a little fussy - the baby, not Dev - so I didn't get quality baby snuggles, which was okay. The little guy is only about 6 weeks old and when we were there he was having a bad day. Normally I am all over babies, but I was afraid that I might either make the baby more upset or never give him back. I did a lot of staring at him though.

So, after two days in Toronto, we drove on over to Ottawa.

We'll leave the Ottawa details for another day. I have a bunch of pictures to share and we did some shopping and stuff too, and to stuff it all in to one post it would turn out to be huge. So, stay tuned and come back in a couple of days and I'll tell you all about Ottawa,