Jody and I had plans to go see Monty Python’s Spamalot at the theatre in Toronto on August 12th, along with Alix, Matt, and Andrew Raven. The tickets were bought months ago, and the time was finally approaching. Well, rather than simply go see the show, Jody and I decided we’d make a long weekend of it and hit Paramount Canada’s Wonderland for some serious thrill-ride action! We took the Friday off, so we could hit the park outside of the crazy weekend window. I think it was a good plan. Even though we did end up waiting an hour for one of the rollercoasters at mid-day (Top Gun, if you’re interested), most of the waits were much more reasonable. We also got to do a lot of front seat rides, and multiple trips on our favourites. There are a lot of rides at the park. We had some faves, and some not so good. The thing that sucks on some of the rides is the beating your body takes. They have a new ‘flying’ coaster, called Tomb Raider, and we really didn’t enjoy the bone rattling that went with it. As usual, our favourite was the old-school woodies. Wooden Coasters are just more thrilling. Sure, they don’t do inverted loops or anything, but they feel rickety, and you only have a little lap bar holding you in while you whiz around at top speed! We like them so much that we capped off our visit with seven consecutive runs of the Wild Beast, without even getting off the coaster. It was pretty quiet late at night, so the ride attendants said we could just stay on. It was crazy! When we finally went to bed that night, I still felt like i was riding a coaster! If you’d like to check out some pictures of that day, check out the folder on Flickr.
The night before the park, we chose to stay at a dorm at Seneca College, since the price was cheap, and included breakfast. It’s a pretty good concept, but we both agreed that next time, we should spring the extra $10 or so for a real hotel. This place did give us a ‘suite-like’ room at least. We had two bedrooms, and a full kitchen with big fridge, and a bathroom. However, you didn’t get a couch or chairs, since you could use the dorm’s ‘lounge area’ for that. The price was right though. For $70 + tax, we had the room and breakfasts. With 4 people, you can get the same rooms for $80+tax, so if you’re ever heading to a wedding where they have these residences, you might want to look into it. There are locations all over, check out their website if you’re interested.
The second night of our TO weekend was spent at Matt’s folks place (thanks Carl and Irene!), where we met up with Al, Matt, and Andrew. We slept quite well that night, after having spend over 12 hours at the park in the sun. We didn’t even leave to eat, we had a cooler with food in the parking lot, and just snuck out there to grab food at lunch. I got up early the next morning to go for a nice 8-10k run in the rural beauty that is Sharon, Ontario, which is where Matt’s house was. Once we fuelled up our bellies, we hit the road for the big city, 40 minutes away. We parked the cars, and immediately found a brew-pub to have a bite and a few quick beers before the show. This place was pretty much a dive, reminding me of the place we ‘found’ in New York for Al’s birthday earlier this year. We loved it. Then off to the Canon Theatre (used to be the Pantages, where I saw Phantom of the Opera years ago) for Spamalot. What a hilarious show! We loved it. But don’t try taking pictures, they get irate. Hee hee.
After the show, we walked back to our hotel to send Andrew off on his bus back to Ottawa. He came just for the show, being a huge fan of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail. He even had a rock from the actual set of the movie with him during the show. Apparently it was from the cave where the killer bunny lived. Crazy! Next up was a leisurely evening stroll searching out food and drink. It came by way of The Black Bull, a place that’s been around a long time. The food was pub style, but quite good, and of course the beer was tasty! The post meal festivities were un-decided, so we wandrered around and picked up a paper. To get started we ducked into the Rex, a Jazz institution in Toronto. We liked it so much, we stayed there all night, front and centre. Of course, our delicious Amsterdam Blond helped keep us there too. We had several pitchers when all was said and done, before ambling off back to our hotel. I didn’t mention this, but we stayed at the Travelodge in Toronto on King Street. We don’t recommend it. ’nuff said. They were very irritating, and un-trusting of everything. However, with the World Aids Conference in Town, our options had been VERY limited.
The next day, Jody and I meandered our way back to Ottawa via back roads. Stopping in Peterborough, which we’d never been, and Smith’s Falls for some tasty chocolate to bring home. All in all, a great weekend, with lots of relaxing, good food, good drinks, and good company. We don’t do these things often enough I think!
