Ottawa to Toronto

Ottawa was over too quick. It was great to see Heather again, and here's hoping she comes back out west sometime before the fall, or we end up out east again by some miracle. But we had to keep moving on as the song goes. On to the centre of the world.

Toronto has always been something of an enigma for me. As a Vancouverite, I'm caught up in the anti-Toronto debate (hell, as a Canadian from somewhere other than TO I'm caught up in that debate . . .) I'd been there once as a kid, so it didn't really count, and I couldn't form any opinion on personal experience. And now having spent a few days, I wish I could stay longer. It's actually a cool city.

Yes, I'll give you that it's crawling with businessmen and women, and it's loud and busy and a lot like any other big city when you're standing on some street corner staring up at a maze of skyscrapers, taxis flying around, and people rushing by. But it's not dirty like New York, not really insane like London. I guess it's not yet so big as to overcome itself. It's just big for Canada. And you can take a wander down to the waterfront and suddenly it's all nice and peaceful. There's even an island with regular ferry service if you really want to get away from it all. Not that we made it that far. We took a quick break, checked out the view, and headed back into the fray.

Three days in any city or town is really not enough to do it justice. So attempting to do TO in that time felt ludicrous. Or worse, pointless. But we ended up exploring a sub-culture with wide-reaching influences. A sub-culture that touches celebrities, bikers, carnies, students, grandparents - even the endless businesspeople. We ended up in a tatoo parlor, where one of Neil's relatives works. We even got to film one lucky guy getting tattooed. I've never been one for tattoos or piercing - I had my ears done as a kid, and that was as much pain as I needed to inflict on myself. But after a day in there, I might have been convinced if I coulda figured out what design to get done. And the interviews were awesome. We even got a former mermaid who'd travelled with a carnival one summer.

And we also made a quick stop at the CBC to interview one of the executive producers. Arnold Amber has won three Geminis, is president of the CBC branch of the Canadian Media Guild, and Director of The Newspaper Guild Canada. Not only cause I'm hoping to try to sell the documentary to the CBC at some point, but mainly because I'm interested in media in a wider scope. This guy is part of the backbone of all media in Canada, and I wanted to know his opinion on how people are getting their news, what news they're getting, where it's coming from. It wasn't the usual interview, so I'm not too sure yet how it's going to fit in, but hopefully we'll find time to be self-reflective at some point.