canada: oshawa and toronto

finally! its been a while coming but its been a crazy few weeks. crazy nice though, so i am not complaining.

so where were we? ah yes, oshawa. we had a lovely couple of days. after a bit of insanity arriving late and just, just meeting jeremy (my very talented cousin: hes arranged for and directed shakespeare in the park annually for the past, what, 15 years? and they are AMAZING... go if you can. i try and hang out with him in the hopes that some, just some, creative genius will rub off on me...for any of you who dont know him) at the bus stop, we managed to get our stuff to uncle howies place and have a much needed nap.

then uncle howie took us on a mini-tour of his city. oshawa is a peaceful city which wields a big stick since it is the home of a huge general motors plant. its history is intertwined with that of one robert samuel mclaughlin who started a car company in 1907. eventually it became general motors of canada. seems like he was a kind chap - he donated more than 200 million dollars to various places including the royal ontario museum, more on which shortly.

so we went to his house. in case it looks familiar, its been used in many movies, including xaviers school for gifted children in x-men.

its a beautiful house, and even more beautiful are its gardens. this is just a small small part.

then went and picked up auntie barb from work (she gave us the grand tour of her office block, very nice!) and out for dinner. the next day we were off to toronto to meet up with jeremy and his delightful wife tabitha. then we all went to the ROM. i was really looking forward to this, because i have read about this building and i really really wanted to see it. i think ive used the word 'really' too much there, but i really....you get the picture.

apart from being an all round top-notch museum, it recently had a radical addition to its old school style buildings (done in 1933). its been designed to look like some sort of alien crystal growing out of the existing building. its an example of deconstructivism architecture. i cant pretend that i understand what that means so correct me if i am wrong here, but as far as i can understand of what i read, it started out as a rebellion to the boring concrete boxes of the 80s, when architects started to say, 'who says form has to follow function? why cant form be function??' i dont get it but i love the buildings that result. another one is the guggenheim museum in bilbao in spain which i hope one day to see...

sorry, got a bit carried away - heres the rom...you all can judge for yourselves.

the whole thing from the front...

once inside, turn left and have a look at the spectacular rotunda ceiling, installed in 1933. its made of millions of pieces of imported venetian glass and took 8 months. i lay on the floor to get this shot - click on it and see it in detail - its an awesome ceiling. 'that all men may know his work' is from job 37:7 a rather fitting quote for a museum, dont you think?

you guys think my lying on the floor is funny?

one of the parts of the museum that i loved was the mineral section. who knew that a bunch of rocks could be so beautiful. i took hundreds of pics of different minerals, in all colors of the rainbow and no two are even remotely alike. so i had to pick one - cerussite, 896 carats. it disperses light more intensely than a diamond and looks awesome (dont get vinegar on it though, it dissolves - maybe not such a good idea for a ring)

this is the staircase inside the crystal part of the rom. looks like something out of a very very strange dream. unfortunately time was up and we were on the way out.

i am not sure if i should really feature some dude wearing only green underwear on my blog....what the hey. this guy was a street performer and he was hilarious. across the road some corporate guys were doing a show that was maybe 1/10 in comparison to his and he kept on making fun of them :) this is the grand climax of the show - juggling machetes on a 3 meter high tricycle wearing only his underwear. (he also juggled a chainsaw)

trademark jeremy photographic position - on the streets of toronto! thanks guys for such a great time in toronto and oshawa!

sadly, all good things come to an end and thus our trip had to end. sad goodbyes were said at the airport, our final two pictures were taken of gracious u. dave and tanja who picked us up and dropped us off at inumerable airports, bus and train stations (even the scary ones). we had a great time, we cannot thank you enough and you are all welcome to revenge and come and visit us here in kenya.