camwyn: Me in a bomber jacket and jeans standing next to a green two-man North Andover Flight Academy helicopter. (Default)
[personal profile] camwyn
Okay, Amtrak lady didn't seem to think I needed proof of not being indigent, but I'm packin' my credit cards and not letting go of my return ticket unless they slice off my hand to get at it. ANd even then I'm lunging for the ticket, THEN applying direct pressure to the injury.

*ahem* Anyway. Leaving on 10 October, returning on 16 October; Newark to Penn to Niagara to CBN (I think this might be some kind of switchover point within Niagara itself or something, it's a 3-minute difference and they say this place only has ticketing machines, not facilities) to Toronto. Then back again. Need photo ID, birth cert, etc. For once I won't have to call the insurance company and get the Canadian Inter-Provincial Proof of Insurance 'cos I'm not taking a car; I'll be relying on the Canadian mass transit system. Yay.

I'll finally get to see the Bata Shoe Museum, which I meant to visit the first time. I'll get to go all the way up the CN Tower, I missed that due to lack of funds before. I know what's in the 'beef balls' at the scarily authentic dim sum place (my dining companion had been working in the pathology department of the local hospital and couldn't make an ID beyond 'it's not endocrine tissue'; turns out that's what beef looks like when it's in the grinder too long). I'll bring a proper camera and I'll definitely avoid the spawn of globalization - somewhere around here I have a photo of a McDonald's ad from my visit in April, with the slogan 'Resistance Is Futile' on it. Gonna eat local food, dammit. I'll be sharing a room with something like 8 other women, but so what? Did that in Tofino, didn't have problems...

This is gonna be cool. I like Canada. It's a pity I'll be missing one of my karate classes, one Bio-Informatics class and one Mandarin class (the third), but this is probably the best week I can get to travel since I won't be missing my Capstone class thanks to Columbus Day. No time like the present to start using the vacation days I never took.

Today's pulp survival tips are #3. Determine the prevailing mythos of your movie, and make sure at least two people in your party - preferably three - can both speak and read that mythos' language with a high degree of fluency. Also, #4. Try to pick up the language of their neighbours and/or slaves while you're at it. Even if all the cultures involved are currently extinct, it may still be useful.

Date: 2002-09-17 10:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lwood.livejournal.com
When you cross the Canadian border and stop in Niagara Falls, ON, only five miles from Niagara Falls, NY, they need to swap staff and supplies (VIA Rail operates the train in Canada) as well as have Customs sweep the train.

The schedule for the Maple Leaf (http://www.amtrak.com/trains/timetable/p63.pdf) has more border-crossing information on it, but expect Canadian customs to be swift and painless, and happening while the train is stopped in NF, ON. CBN is an acronym for some part of the customs circus; I forget which.

Oh! And take nothing on the train that will argue with tall flights of stairs; Union Station in Ontario is not, how you say, wheelchair-accessible, particularly from the platforms into the station.

-- Lorrie

Date: 2002-09-17 07:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lwood.livejournal.com
I can't imagine that Toronto would have two Union Stations -- but Union Station in Toronto is where the Amtrak lets you off...

-- Lorrie

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camwyn: Me in a bomber jacket and jeans standing next to a green two-man North Andover Flight Academy helicopter. (Default)
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