Windsor Recap

Toronto's Union Station

GReunion: Mark, Janna, and Vince

Mark experiencing some Canadian culture

More pictures

Now that I have pictures as evidence, I can post about my trip to Windsor.

As I mentioned already, I took the train. The whole travel experience was quite enjoyable. It started off in Toronto's train station. I don't know why train stations have to be so extravagent and have such high ceilings, but it was a nice feeling. It took me back to a more quaint and innocent time. The whole train experience is so much nicer than the airport. Getting my ticket was a 30 second affair. No security checks. No id checks. Just get on the train and take a seat. Train wasn't too full so I took a window seat and used the aisle seat for my bag. No restrictions on when your seat has to be in its upright position or when I can have the tray table down or when I can use my electronics. I didn't check if I could get it in comfort class, but I know that first class had wireless Internet. More legroom than a plane. I had a comfortable sleep. It was about a 4 hour train each way, a bit longer than my booking said it was supposed to be, but whatever, I was sleeping :p

Had lunch at the university with Janna and Michelle (Janna's rommate). The talk went well. The only hiccup was that my laser pointer ran out of battery like 5 min. into my talk, but I made do. My talk was taped, so that'll be interesting to see if I can get a hold of it. Weird moment of the talk was when one of the guys in the audience took a picture of me. I was like wtf??? He wasn't like part of the student society or anything, I guess my talk was just that impressive :). Funny moment of the talk was when I had a slide that said "Vote for Janna!"

At the end of the talk one of the student society people gave me a free pen (a nice one). After, Janna, Michelle, Jake, and I went to one of the pubs for some dessert and drinks. Then, it came up that Ann Arbor was like 45 min. away... MARK!!! I fire off an e-mail to Mark and leave a message on his voice mail. He calls back. I thought it was going to be a tough sell to get him to come visit us, but coincidentally, he was going to be driving in our direction anyways! He was dropping off Emine at the Detroit airport, which meant that he was like half way to Windsor and without plans.

He meets us at Janna's apartment and we chill there for a bit before going to Casey's for dinner. We drop the car off at my hotel and drop stuff off there, and then start walking the town. Windsor is a sketchy place. All these sketchy looking bars (with people on street corners telling you to go in) and "massage parlours". We walked to the casino. I wanted to do what I usually did in a casino, which is to get rid of all the coins in my wallet, but their slot machines didn't take coins! It was weird. You had to like use tokens, bills, or a card thingy. It was Mark and Janna's first time in a casino, so we looked all around, but we left without dropping any money.

The best was when we overheard this (obviously American) girl say: "My phone says 'Telus', is that a Canadian word?"

We make it back to the hotel and then introduce Mark to the fine Canadian establishment known as Tim Horton's. It was like 11ish and it was bustling. People watching was interesting. There were several couples finishing their evenings at this place. One "couple" was particularly intriguing. There was a mis-match. The guy was totally out of his league. He had a freakin' sweater vest. Then a group of like 4 guys sat in the table next to them. Next thing you know, the girl is like surrounded by these guys chatting her up like crazy. It was pretty funny. Mark takes off to go home after we leave and I go home as I was pretty tired.

Janna and I met up for breakfast at Lumberjack's and then played Gamecube in her apartment until I had to catch the train. The train ride back was uneventful, which is always a good thing while travelling, and that pretty much sums up my trip.

It was really good seeing you guys again! I'm still impressed that Mark managed to meet up with us. That was completely unexpected :). Throughout the whole planning of the trip, it didn't even come up b/c I didn't think that Ann Arbor was that close and that it would be feasible, but it's awesome that it worked out. I think I'm still in California withdrawal :p.