Cleveland, in pictures

These are some of my favourite shots from my recent trip to Cleveland, with one of my best friends, Christina.  Watch for our full trip recap over at Singles and Pairs, coming soon!

 

 

Lots more pictures are up here.

May 2011: Pittsburgh, PA

Back in May, I went on a road trip with my aunt & grandmother to visit some family in Pennsylvania.  While we were there, we went out to Pittsburgh (about 1 hour away from where we were) for the day to see a few of the sights.  This is what I saw:

More photos from my trip are right here.

LA - Part two... Disneyland!

So, I figured I better get this done before I leave for NYC tomorrow, and have another big blog entry to write.  LOL.  I'm just a travellin' girl (made a lot of stops, all over the world.... points to anyone who knows the song I'm referencing!)

Anyway. This entry won't be nearly as long as the others, and I'm not separating them by day... just a general overview of Disneyland... And I think I'll just post the link to the flickr photos, because I'm feeling lazy.

So, in a nutshell, it was awesome. It's actually separated into 3 areas: Disneyland, Downtown Disney, and California Adventure. If I had to compare to Disney World, I'd say land is most like Magic Kingdom, California Adventure is most like MGM (or I guess now it's Hollywood Studios), and there's a Downtown Disney in Orlando too. (Downtown Disney is all shopping, not an actual "park" and you don't have to pay admission to get in there... Orlando's is a little nicer than Anaheim's though)

Disneyland was great. The castle is not as big as Magic Kingdom's, but it's pink and pretty :) There's also a lot more Tinkerbell things floating around, I noticed. Many of the rides are the same as Orlando, which was good, because I knew what to expect. The parade was different than any other parade I've seen... and Tink was on the first float! That was super cool.
Errol and Krista wouldn't ride the teacups or dumbo the flying elephant with me... those are the only things I really kinda missed. LOL. Totally loved Toontown. That was one of my favourite places in Disneyland. I also really loved Tom Sawyer Island. We pretended we were pirates, exploring and looking for treasure LOL. We even met Captain Jack (who won't pose for pictures. grr!)

California Adventure was truly awesome. It was a lot like MGM, but a way cooler version of it. AND, there's Paradise Pier, which is unlike anything I've ever seen... huge roller coaster, ferris wheel... other Santa Monica-type things... it was just breathtaking. I actually REALLY loved California Adventure, I think moreso than Disneyland itself. I think it was also a little more "grown up" than Disneyland... in the rides, and in the people that were strolling around the grounds. The Pixar Play Parade was probably one of the best parade's I've ever seen in my life. Even Errol thought so, and he's a complete cynic. LOL. It was super interactive - all the different floats and people in the parade would squirt water at the crowd (I had to hide my lens every time someone came by! LOL)



On the last day there, Krista and Errol suggested (after seeing the dreamy look on my face LOL) that we have a 3-course sit-down meal at Ariel's Grotto with the princesses. It was so freaking awesome. We met Belle, Ariel, Jasmine, Cinderella AND the Fairy Godmother. And Errol got me a crown - which the two of them insisted that I had to wear for the rest of the day. It was a perfect end to a great trip :)



Anyway... here's a link to the pics... Enjoy!
California (a set) on Flickr


And now, I'm off to my happy place, New York City! Have a great weekend, everyone!

Michigan!

So, this weekend, I went down to Michigan to stay with Rebecca & visit with Jenny & Lori. It was such an awesome time.

The drive down was pretty awesome - the only "problems" were: the 30 minute line at Tim Horton's. Jeez... I think a tour bus must've gotten off right at the same time as I did. And then at the border, the customs agent asked me all kinds of questions, and made me pop my trunk and everything. I'm not sure why I always end up being questioned so intently whenever I travel alone (and rarely get questioned when I'm with my parents), but I've never had anything to hide, so it's always worked out okay. Hopefully I'll be fine travelling to LA, too. I always get so nervous when they ask me to open my bags.



Anyway... Drove north on the I-75 to get to Rebecca's... never done that before! It's usually I-75 south, all the way to Florida for me! My favourite was the exit I got off at: Exit 69. Big Beaver Road. No joke... That is so awesome. Haha. I tried to get a picture of the sign, but it was dark the next time we drove by that way, and it didn't really work out so well.


Got to Rebecca's around 2-ish. Rebecca is awesome - her personality is totally what I expected it to be, and we definitely jived well. Wish she lived closer!! Met her sister, Sarah, and Charlie, who is possibly the cutest dog ever. Then we headed out to White Castle to grab a bite. Mmmm! I wish we had White Castle in Canada - it would be such good drunk food! Then we went over to Jenny's place for a bit. Didn't stick around there too long, before we headed out to Woodward for the Dream Cruise. It was so awesome seeing all those cars. Things were so classy back in the 60s. I wish I could've lived then.

We walked over to Rebecca's friend, Laron's place, which was just off of Woodward, for a party. It was totally just us sitting on the stoop of his house with alcohol for a few hours. So awesome... things like that just don't happen up here. I was referred to as "Rebecca's quiet friend" - I think I was just overwhelmed with meeting a whole bunch of new people, plus having just done a 5 hour drive not too much earlier. I'm not normally that quiet, I promise ;)



Afterwards, Rebecca showed me some of downtown Royal Oak, and downtown Clawson, and we went for a bite to eat at a place called Moose Winooski's. I had an awesome chipotle chicken wrap - served with baked nacho chips and homemade salsa. Mmmm. Went back to Rebecca's place and watched some Olympics on TV (first Olympic events I've seen LOL... Michael Phelps ended up setting the record for most gold metals won by an Olympian in one year, which was impressive) ... then we called it a night.

The next day, Rebecca had to work for a few hours, so she dropped me off in a place called Birmingham, and I killed some time on my own. I totally had a blast just exploring and taking pictures, and sitting down with my Starbucks & book, and just reading on a bench. I ended up finding my way back to Woodward Ave too, where, even though the cruise was over, there were still some people (and their cars) hanging around. I bought a t-shirt from the event too, for $10, as compared to the $25 that they were selling them for the previous day. Haha.

Rebecca picked me up, and we headed to Target (possibly one of my favourite places on Earth!). I actually didn't buy very much though. One shirt for me, a super cute shirt each for both of my nieces, and a wicked pair of Converse (black suede with a shiny pink star) for me. And some random makeup and scrapbooking things. Only, when I got to the checkout, I realized that I had my wallet with Canadian money (and a few American dollars) in my bag, but had left the majority of my money back at Rebecca's house... which kinda sucked, because I had to put it on my credit card (which I was hoping to leave with no balance for my trip to LA - so I'll just write a cheque for more than what's due and mail it before I leave)

After that, we hit a Checkers drive thru (OMG, Checkers is my favourite American fast food - I make my parents go there every time we go to Florida!) and headed south to Lori's place in Newport, MI.

It took us about an hour to get there. Lori was awesome, and just how I expected her (and her husband, Kurt) to be! Lori, Rebecca and I went for a hike through Sterling State Park and took some pictures. I'm glad I wore a skirt, because it was SO hot that day. I was telling the girls that it was the most time I spent in nature pretty much all summer long. LOL. I even ended up with a tan! Who would've thought! Afterwards, we did some quick shopping (which just ended up being browsing), and then went back to pick up Kurt, and Lori's nephew, Kory, and we all went out to dinner. Lori & Kurt treated us to some awesome Mexican food (thank you, again!). Then we went back to her place, where she gave us a quick tour of the yard (including her awesome pond!), before Rebecca and I were off.

Rebecca got to witness my awful Guitar Hero skills that evening (I'm impressed at the number of songs I actually managed to finish, on easy mode - I think I made it to the end of like, at least 4 songs! haha) Called it a night kind of early, before midnight, because I had to be off in the morning.

The next morning, I got directions from Rebecca to get to the highway, and that all worked out perfectly... but then when I was actually in Detroit, near the border, there's all kinds of construction down there. I tried to follow all the signs that said "bridge to Canada" ... but I somehow ended up getting off on the 375. So I tried to get back on the I-75 South, but that exit was closed (damn construction!), so I got back on the North, and got off at the first exit, and stopped at a McDonald's for directions. The first lady that I asked looked at me like I was on crack, and then she sent me over to a manager. (I made sure to write down exactly what he said, instead of relying on my memory!) ... he told me a way to get there that was through city streets, rather than taking the highway. It was actually super cool, because the streets he told me to take put me right downtown, so I saw the Fox Theatre, the Fillmore, the new baseball field, etc. It was actually really pretty. I stopped to take a few pictures while I was there.
But then, the road he told me to take came to a dead end, and I had no idea which way to go to get to the bridge. I ended up seeing a sign that said "Tunnel to Canada" ... and, while tunnels kind of freak me out a bit, I figured I'd rather just take the tunnel since I was right there, because I had no idea where I was in relation to the bridge. The tunnel ended up being really cool, actually. There was way less traffic than taking the bridge, and the toll was actually a little bit cheaper than the bridge!

Crossing the border was super easy too, barely got asked any questions. And it took me through a part of Windsor that I had never seen before. However, I was following the signs that said "to all highways" ... and the route that it takes you on is definitely longer than it needs to be. I ended up taking city streets to the "EC ROW EXPRESSWAY" ... and then took that to some rural road, that took me through a bunch of corn fields in Tecumseh, Ontario.... and then finally met up with the 401 at Lakeshore, Ontario. That part of the drive took me about a half hour. And I had no idea where I was, because I had no map, I was totally just following the signs.

There's something to be said about that feeling though. It's like, total freedom. And it definitely reminded me of my favourite roadtrip song - Used To Be Alright by I Mother Earth. "Then you long for the days of trippin' down the long road. Just reading the signs that show you the way. To higher place, to meditate, to feel the quiet of the earth. Yeah that was back when we used to be alright"

(Oh, it was such a perfect moment on the drive to Michigan too - I was listening to my iPod through my FM transmitter, which I always do in the car, but the channel started to get fuzzy... so I flipped the switch to another station, and it just so happened that THAT song was on the radio right at that time! It was awesome)

Okay, now I have a whole lot of stuff to do before I leave for LA on Thursday... I haven't even made a LIST of the things I need to pack.

Photos from the trip are up Right Here!


Oh, and I got my first lomography prints back. They definitely weren't what I expected. Only 3 shots actually came out, the rest of the negatives were all underexposed. I need some more practice with the camera, for sure. I had modified the camera, using a tutorial I found online, so that it could take 35mm film, and I used it at the State Park, so we'll see what those shots come out like (at least I can develop 35mm film a little more cost-effectively and it won't be such a big deal if I get a whole lot of crappy shots)

Blogging from LA

Just a quick one as it's 2:20am in Cali (5:20am in Toronto - thankfully, jetlag doesn't seem to have affected me so much on this trip!)
The morning got off to a bit of a rocky start... well, we didn't really wake up until almost afternoon. haha. Decided that we needed to rent a car after all, so we hit up the Budget in Anaheim.

The plan was to drive from Anaheim, to Mulholland Drive, then head down to Hollywood & the Chinese Theatre. Well... after getting lost in Burbank, we decided to screw Mulholland Drive... and eventually ended up at the theatre around 3 or 4 pm. Everyone told me that it was kinda gross and dirty down there, but I really didn't find that at all. I mean, there were pockets... but most of the strip was fairly clean and un-sketchy. Except for the Pirate that jumped into a picture with Errol, and then expected a tip for that - when we didn't even ask her to take her picture. (reminded me a bit of a bad experience I had in Paris actually)

Spent a good chunk of the afternoon/early evening there, then headed across Sunset Blvd.
Ate dinner at Mel's Diner (awesome!) then hit up the Sunset Strip. Did NOT like this area at all. It seemed so pretentious and plastic. All the so-called "cool" bars that you hear about - Whiskey A-Go-Go, Roxy, Viper Room, etc... every one of them seemed COMPLETELY lame. Then we decided to take a (very long) walk down to Santa Monica Blvd. Walked a lot of that strip (and overheard some very interesting conversations, as we were walking through the gay district LOL) ... tried to grab a drink at The Troubador, but the show was sold out, and you needed tix to get in (even into the bar area, which I find slightly odd) ... so then we started the long up-hill walk back to Sunset... tried to go to The Key Club, but the bouncer there was weird too.

So then we decided to buy liquor and bring it back to the hotel room... which is where we are now! A pretty big bottle of Malibu was only like, $12.99! It would be like, at least $5-10 more in Toronto, so I was pretty happy about that!

Peterborough.

So, on Sunday, I had a lovely day with my friend Pete.

We started out having brunch at Saving Grace... I had the most delicious waffles with fresh peaches & blueberry butter. I think I need to learn how to make blueberry butter, because it was incredible.



Then we ended up travelling about 2.5 hours north-east of Toronto, to Pete's cottage in Peterborough. Between the two of us, we had 6 cameras and 3 tripods. Pete is one of the best photographers I know. I can't wait to see his shots... In the meantime, here's mine!

Niagara Falls in the Winter (brrr!)

So, last weekend, in the midst of the biggest snowstorm of the year, I decided the best thing that I could possibly do was... drive to Buffalo! An area that was forecasted to get even MORE snow than Toronto!

I drove out on Friday night after work. At that point, it had started snowing, but there was lots of traffic, and it wasn't overly horrible, because all the cars were keeping the accumulation from building on the roads. I drove slower than usual, and it was fine. Until I got to the turnoff to Queenston-Lewiston. Because apparently NO ONE was taking that road, except for myself and one other car. Getting across the border was another issue in itself. And driving through New York state was a little difficult, just because I had never driven there before and I had to consult my mapquest directions at the same time. I finally got to my friends' place around 9pm (around 2 hours later than I would have in normal weather). It was so great to see them. We went midnight bowling and didn't go to sleep until 5am :) Wish I had taken more pictures in Buffalo, because it was absolutely beautiful with all the snow.

The next day, we left Buffalo late in the morning, to get out to Niagara Falls. We were lucky we left when we did, because later that day, there was a travel advisory, and people weren't allowed to be driving. It was mostly freezing rain when we left though, which wasn't horrible. Except that we managed to get lost for like, 2 hours. But... we saw Tonawanda, North Tonawanda and Wheatfield - not many people can say that! ;)
We finally found our way to the Falls, and picked a place to stay based on the fact that it was attached to a Denny's, and we had no intention of setting foot outside for the rest of the night. It's too bad though, would've been cool to see the Falls from the New York side with all the snow. Don't think I've ever seen that before.

Sunday, the weather did a complete turnaround. It was sunny and beautiful. That's when all the pictures below were taken. I couldn't believe how stunning & breathtaking the scenery was. The pictures don't even capture it.
I definitely recommend a trip to Niagara Falls in the winter - though, maybe not on the day of the worst snowfall of the year ;)
Here's the set, on Flickr