We were taught the proper way to evaluate a wine, which I’d never really been through before and found quite helpful. I didn’t know you could actually “release” the flavours so much with so little effort, and that the first sip must be the one that cleanses your pallette, rather than the one by which you evaluate the flavour of the wine.

My favourite that I tasted all day and stays with me even now was a Shiraz at Jackson-Triggs. This surprised me, as I don’t usually like Shiraz. But this particular one was delicious – smooth, fruity and the after taste was delightful – like almond paste, also known as marzipan. I was in love; I bought a bottle and hope I can find it in The Wine Store at some point (they indicated how a lot of their wines aren’t available in the LCBO or The Wine Store).

I left with a greater understanding of wines and how to identify the varying flavours that can be found in them. I particularly liked the emphasis that, in the end, it really doesn’t matter what kind of wine you like – cheap or expensive. Whether you enjoy a wine or not depends entirely on you.

I’d love to go on another winery tour, particularly because many of the wines available through one aren’t available in the stores in Toronto. It’s the perfect opportunity to discover new wines I otherwise would never find.

In any case, I have many reviews of various events and locations I’ve attended lately, so expect a few posts to come.

I’ll start with my recent trip to Algonquin park over the August long weekend.

Nine of us went on this journey that lasted four days. We took only our canoes and our packs, and enough bare, dried out food to survive, and set out Friday evening.

The following is a summary of all the portaging and canoeing we did (ah, the numbers game) put together by our good friend Ilia (thank you!).

Day 1 (Aug 04) – Magnetawan Lake to Daisy Lake

Route Paddled: Magnetawan Lake (Access #3), Hambone Lake, Daisy Lake,
Departure Time: 7pm
Arrival at Campsite: 9pm
Distance Portaged: 135m + 55m + 420m = 610m
Distance total (aerial): 5.5km (that double portage makes it 6.5km)

Day 2 (Aug 05) – Daisy Lake to Misty Lake

Route Paddled: Daisy Lake, Petawawa River (West of Misty), Little Misty Lake, Misty Lake
Departure Time: 10:45am
Arrival at Campsite: 3pm
Distance Portaged: 135m + 450m + 935m = 1520m
Distance total (aerial): 17km

Day 3 (Aug 06) – Misty Lake to McIntosh Lake

Route Paddled: Misty Lake, Petawawa River (East of Misty), Mcintosh Creek, McIntosh Lake
Departure Time: 10:30am
Arrival at Campsite: 4pm
Distance Portaged: 850m + 155m + 195m + 160m + 80m + 200m + 745m + 510m = 2895m
Distance total (aerial): 19km

Day 4 (Aug 07) – McIntosh Lake to Magnetawan Lake

Route Paddled: McIntosh Lake, Timberwolf Lake, Misty Lake, Little Misty Lake, Petawawa River (West of Misty), Daisy Lake, Hambone Lake, Magnetawan Lake
Departure Time: 10am
Arrival at Exit: 6pm
Distance Portaged: 405m + 765m + 935m + 450m + 135m + 420m + 55m + 135m = 3300m
Distance total (aerial): 23km

Weights

Canoes: in the range of 45-55lbs each
Backpacks: ranging from 15-40 lb
Food Barrel: unknown; shrank daily

The trip was incredibly refreshing. Though it was often tough to keep rowing, I tried to focus on putting the paddle in the water just one more time, just one more time, and that’s what kept me going. You don’t focus on how you have to row for another three hours; you focus only on that next dip into the water.

It was beautiful, and serene, and loads of fun. We saw only one large animal; a moose right at the end of the trip. It must be quite used to people, as we came close and stayed a while as it drank from the lake and ate the talls weeds surrounding it.

All in all, a great trip, with lots of hard work and a great feeling of accomplishment at the end of it.

I will post some pictures later.

In any case, I’ve now formulated a few thoughts about the whole experience of that city, brief though it was.

New York City is huge. It’s heavy – massive – the skyline bears down on you as you move about the crowded streets. I could not believe the sheer amounts of people constantly moving throughout Times Square (although other areas of the city were much less crowded). Up on the 14th floor of the Random House building (I was there for a work meeting), I could look out across some of the city – what wasn’t blocked by even taller buildings surrounding the one I was in – and see miles and miles of high rises, many built with the same dark, stained stones/bricks.

I can’t quite describe how it all felt, seeing so many similar buildings. In Toronto, I suppose there is quite the variety of architectural stylings, but then I also suppose it didn’t build up as quickly as New York must have done, all in one go like that. It makes sense that there would be so much repetition, viewed in that light.

Ah, I think it comes out best like this: looking outward from wherever you stand in New York City, it feels like you are looking into mirrors reflecting mirrors. It’s that endless, that repetitive, and you feel that disoriented.

After a while looking up – trying to see a stretch of sky that could actually reveal a full cloud – became tiring, and I gave up attempting to assimilate the immensity of the place. Instead, I focused on the storefronts and the people – whatever was around me.

This was far more engaging and brought me more fully into the presence of the city and the people within. Although I found the people to very removed, probably overloaded with stimulus (the tourists like myself) or exhausted with the life there (the residents). Barely anyone made eye contact as they bustled through the crowds.

A walk through Central Park was a brief but welcome respite from the intensity of the cement world in which it is encased. Pretty, reminiscent of my experience of St. James park in London, I fully understood its significance within the NYC urban landscape – which is probably proportionate with the percentage of space it takes up on the island of Manhatten.

The whirlwind tour ended with dinner in 10×44, an interesting nook of a restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. Being in a new place made me bold and I ordered food I would never normally think of ordering: watermelon salad (two chunks of yellow and red watermelon with feta cheese and some tomatoes), and a lobster taco (salsa mixed with lobster and avocado with a soft shell). Both were delicious and I was all the more satisfied at having tried something new and actually liking it!

I had only one goal on my trip to New York this time. Fully aware of the lack of time I had on this particular trip to explore deserving landmarks as much as I would have liked, I focused on obtaining my first pairs of Fluevog shoes.

Check them out. I love them.

So, overall, a very interesting experience. I’ll definitely go back to explore it fully.

From one big city, to another: I wonder what it will be like? Two friends have been recently and they both said they felt much safer and more comfortable in Toronto than in New York: apparently the people there are really rude. Funny how that conflicts with the study done recently on most polite cities…

In any case, I will be staying in Hotel Casablanca, which sounds exciting. I’m also making it a mission of mine to visit the NYC John Fluevog store, and (less important) the Breakbeat Science store.

My, that’s a lot of “New Years” to celebrate! Looking back, it doesn’t make sense to look at each event as such – it seems more accurate to label them simply as the normal, to-be-expected, initiators of change they really are.

In any case, two of the more major ones for me have now ended: the beginning and ending of school years. As a side-effect, so has the end of school year trip. And, finally, my first year of not being in school since I was oh, about three years old, has just come to a close.

Now that I reflect on all this, I realise just how significant my trip to Thailand was last year at the end of school. What better way to end such an era of my life (the first quarter of it, if I should live to the ripeness of 100, as is the plan), spent studying, than to be swept off to some remote land? It was probably the biggest learning experience of my life compacted into a six-week period that I’d ever experienced up until then: I learned the ways of the pan-Asian pacific, picked up on morsels of a new language I never dreamed of learning, observed the extreme contrasts caused by a sharp divide between rich and poor, learned a lot about how I operate when yanked from my comfort zone, and came to a conclusion about how and what I wanted to do for the next little while, at least. All the while adjusting to the intense heat and food I’m not used to, seeing incredible beaches and getting to drive a motorcycle, to boot!

The entirety of the trip cannot be conveyed in words. Even now, a year of much digestion and deliberation later, I am still unable to properly convey all the thoughts and meaning the trip had for me. It was the most intense experience of my life, and thus the things that happened are so deeply ingrained in me that even now, at times I feel like I just arrived back in the country yesterday. Except that now my tan has faded and I’m back to my usual pale white British complexion.

When I came back with my parents last June, it was time for the Graduation ceremony. Standing amongst my fellow students, staring around at all the familiar faces I had come to recognize over the past four years, I was fascinated by the deep lines now marking their faces; the bags clearly underlining their eyes. This was a much more subdued, grown-up, and dare I say abused group than had entered the program in 2001.

I wonder what I looked like to them… if the six weeks spent on the beaches, in the intense heat, developing the sort of glow I’ve never had, of not worrying too much about what I was going to do next, of enjoying the life of riches in a poor country, had smoothed out my features so that i didn’t look quite so haggard. Or if none of that really mattered because the stresses of years of school can never really be erased from a person’s face. It’s just a part of you that tags along into the next stages of your life.

A lot of reflection here at the closing of the first year of my life (at least the part that counts – the part I remember) spent outside of school. That doesn’t mean, however, that my education has stopped. Indeed, I’ve learned so much about life in the past twelve months, I couldn’t possibly say that being out of school has halted my education.