1.
London To Paris
It
was Saturday, May 8, and the Hot-Air Balloon flight we were expecting
to go on had been cancelled due to bad weather. So Kit and I went
to Slices for breakfast. Their All-day-breakfast-Special appealed
to me … 2 (poached) eggs, home-fried fries, fresh tomato slices,
polish sausage, 2 (wholemeal) toast and marmelade. All for only $3.29
+ tax (15%) and much better value than a McDonalds Breakfast Meal
at a higher price.
It had started raining,
but I drove anyway.
Kit had a novel idea. “How
long do you think it would take to drive from London to Paris?”
Well,
I didn’t know, but I was about to find out. The rain kept belting
down, and soon we were in London. No, not that London, the other London.
The one in Ontario, Canada. We called in to the London Tourist and
Information Centre to get brochures and a map of the area and find
out what was worth seeing while we were there. But nothing appealed
to us, except for the vault door. The vault was in the Medical Hall
of Fame which shared the same room as the Information Center and the
12 inch (30 cm) thick vault door, which was wide open, caught our
attention instantly. This 100 year old bank vault was still in use
by the TD (Toronto Dominion) Bank up to 3 years ago. But once the
bank closed down it just became a door to another display room. Talk
about over-kill!
Gee that vault
door was bloody heavy!
I needed to go to the toilet
(the Canadians say, “needed to use the washroom”) so I
ducked into the washroom next to the vault room. It was spotlessly
clean with only cubicles inside. Those urinals are always so hard
to keep clean! But the vending machines confused me. Why were they
selling towels and tampons instead of condoms? Oops! I was in the
ladies!
As I checked my watch and
returned the trip meter back to 000000, I felt a little like a racing
car driver. And I was about to drive to Paris. No, not that Paris,
the other Paris. The one in Ontario, Canada. So at 11.45 am, I left
London and casually drove along a wet and traffic-free road until
I arrived in Paris, 90 minutes and 77 kms (54 miles) later.
Paris
was a quaint little town. So much more interesting than the much larger
city of London. Our first stop was for a coffee at Aroma’s Café
On The Grand. The Grand River ran behind it, and even though it was
cold and most of the tables and chairs out back were wet from the
constant drizzle of rain, we braved those conditions until common
sense convinced us to move back indoors to a warmer and dryer setting.
Enjoying the
decor of Aroma’s Café On The Grand.
The café featured
2 wall clocks: time in Paris, Canada, and time in Paris, France. It
was 1.40 pm in Canada, but the France clock showed 9.05 am, which
couldn’t possibly be right. I expected an even number of hours
difference so I pointed this out to the young girl behind the counter.
“France is, like,
6 hours ahead or behind”, she said, sharing her ignorance with
us, “but the France clock broke and it’s been 9.05 for
the past month.”
The day had been so cold
and wet that everyone had been ordering soup, and now the kitchen
had run out. Not only that, but they didn’t have any honey for
our teas either. Apparently, the boss was away for the day, and we
couldn’t even make enquiries regarding the restaurant’s
décor, which was their best feature. Not such a classy café
after all!
But
the décor was very French. Brilliantly so! The walls and ceiling
were a rich, rusty colour. Mock Eiffel Tower girders spanned from
one wall to the other, with a painted image of the tower painted on
the ceiling connecting both girders together. The ceiling fans spun
slowly and the French paintings, which were all for sale, decorated
the walls.
Impersonating
Demosthenes from The Glory Of Athens.
On
our way to the café, I had noticed a large Godfathers wall
sign along the river. And now, as we were leaving the cafe, I decided
to take advantage of that sign. So I shot into the Dollar Shop and
bought a bag of marbles (for $1). Soon I was in front of that sign,
turning myself into the Demosthenes character from my play, The Glory
Of Athens, with my arms outstretched and my mouth full of marbles
and saying, “Come here my son”.
2. Cosmic
Bowling
On the way back to Kitchener
from Paris, we rang Nancy, Trevor, Olga and Joel to meet us at the
Brunswick Bowling Centre after 4pm.
We arrived in Kitchener
15 minutes earlier, so we took the time to post my excess luggage
back to Australia. The 10.25 kg parcel cost $89, but this included
$500 insurance, at $1.50/$100 cover. My last parcel had almost got
lost, so I wanted to make sure I was adequately covered this time,
so I would be well-compensated for any losses if they stuffed up again.
Nancy was already
at The Brunswick Bowling Centre when we got there. Half of their lanes
were booked for a children’s bowling tournament, and the other
16 lanes were being used for Cosmic Bowling. I’d never experienced
this before, so I was glad to give it a go.
Another strike
in the dark!
Cosmic Bowling is bowling
in the dark! Well, not pitch black, but with black lights. You know,
those lights which make your white clothes and teeth glow in the dark.
Fortunately there was still one lane free, so we grabbed Lane 16,
the very last lane in the row.
“Would you like the
gutter guards up or down?” we were asked. “Leave them
up,” we said. And so began a couple of hours of crazy in-the-dark
bowling.
Trevor, Olga and Joel arrived
a little later, but only Joel joined us for a couple more rounds.
All-in-all we played 5 games in the spooky Cosmic Bowling atmosphere.
As we bowled, video rock clips were played on a silver screen above
the lanes, while smoke was released from the ceiling, catching the
coloured lights from a single strobe globe spinning nearby.
My first round
was my best. I bowled 155, getting 29 points off my 10th bowl, with
2 strikes and a 9. This was achieved even though I was deliberately
striking the pins down by bouncing off the guard rails first. But
when we finally took the guard rails down, my game got much worse!
So maybe I was relying on those guard rails after all.
This
article is taken from the ebook,
400-Day LETS Odyssey
About
the book
|
James
Taris web sites
JamesTaris.com
LETS-Linkup.com
Rich-Bastards.com
Honey-BeeBooks.com
TheGloryOfAthens.com
TravelWithoutMoney.com
ChineseArt-ChineseArt.com
ShanghaiPhotoGuide.com
ShockProofMaterial.com
2pups.com
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