July is my birthday month and I had a nice celebratory evening out taking advantage of Toronto's Summerlicious event whereby local restaurants offer reduced price meals to entice diners to try their offerings. I also had an enjoyable day later that week as my department celebrated our achievements together with a day out to the Toronto Islands. The sun shone and we had a lovely Mexican barbecue at the Ward's Island Clubhouse.My Web Marketing course also came to an end this month and culminated in an exam...my first in years! I won't know the results for a while but have thoroughly enjoyed the course learning more about Social Media and using the online environment for business. It was enjoyable being a student again and a very stimulating course.
The weather has been great over the past month and was in fact, too hot, for a few days. Some of the highest temperatures for fifty years were reached and we all melted as the humidity peaked. It was so hot that my air conditioning struggled to cope and eventually packed in! Fortunately, the heatwave has now broken and although it's still hot, it's not quite so unbearable...and my air con is now fixed.
The hot weather has, however, made for great opportunities to enjoy the summer outdoor events in the city and surrounding areas such as a picnic in High Park followed by a performance of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale in the outdoor amphitheatre.
Some friends and I also headed out of the city to a place called Grand River, about two hours west of Toronto. We ended up on the Six Nations Reserve, home to the local Native community. We had a super day watching a Pow Wow celebration with Native American dancers from all over the continent. It was such a colourful event but how they coped with their heavy costumes in the heat, I have no idea!
Last weekend was a long weekend here in Canada so given the weak US dollar, my friend and I decided to go on a roadtrip into the States. We set off before dawn and headed for the border. Ten hours driving later we arrived in Philladelphia, the city of brotherly love. We hopped on a quick sightseeing tour of the city taking in the Liberty Bell, and then decided we need sustenance in the form of cocktails and a Philly Cheesesteak. I have to say this particular local delicacy was not the most sophisticated I've had in terms of regional cuisine but it tasted pretty good!
The next day, we had a super morning at the very impressive Philladelphia Museum of Art, which had both some super collections and stunning architecture. Perhaps you might know it as it is where the steps Sylvester Stallone ran up for exercise in the movie Rocky are? There is even a statue commemorating old Sly at the base of the steps!
In the afternoon, we headed West towards the Pennsylvania Dutch country and ended up in a town called Intercourse, which amused me highly! Intercourse was actually used as a location for the film Witness, starring Harrison Ford. Being a Sunday, it was fairly quiet as the local Amish stores were all closed but we saw a large group of their youth enjoying a very wholesome volleyball competition as we entered the town. Their horses and buggies were all lined up alongside the road. We went out for a ride in the fields ourselves and learned more about the Amish way of life before enjoying a shared-table traditional Amish meal, which was very tasty. I particularly liked the Shoo-fly Pie!
Later in the evening we went from one extreme to another when we hit the town of Hershey, named after the factory located there. Hershey is dubbed 'The Sweetest Place on Earth' and is now overrun by families with kids on a sugar-high who are going crazy for the chocolate Kisses and Hershey's Chocolate World theme park located there. It was sheer insanity but pure genius in terms of mass merchandising. We were there at 9:30pm at night so goodness knows what it's like in the middle of the day!On our last day we hit the outlet centres to take advantage of the low US dollar and then headed north through the middle of Pennsylvania and the state of New York before hitting the rather long line of traffic waiting to get back into Canada.
This weekend, I was lucky enough to get out on the water. I had a really enjoyable afternoon sailing on Lake Ontario. I feel summer is not complete unless I get at least one day's sailing in. I'd love to be out there more often. Hopefully, next year finances and time will permit this more.Anyway, in honour of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher (aka Princess Leia), who I also saw in her one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, this month: "May the force be with you!"
