Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)

Tim and I have been super excited for the TIFF to come. Being the big movie buffs that we are I was sure that we were going to know so much about this festival. Clearly we are far from Film geeks compared to the thousands of Torontarians who can quote each Director and the movies they have directed plus all the awards they have won. There were people who had lined up at the stage door with Directors pictures in a laminated folder waiting for the Directors to come out and autograph. We were so out of our league.

I had applied to work at TIFF but as you can imagine it is very competitive and most people get positions including volunteer positions at the beginning of the year. So we were very late in our applications.

I guess we underestimated how big this festival was going to be! I had written down the movies that were of interest a few weeks ago and so we had it in our heads that we would make the most of the festival until we saw the cost. It is very expensive to watch these movies and now we know why.

We decided to go and see a movie called Conviction, which is a true story about a brother and sister who have a rough upbringing in and out of Foster Care and basically only have each other. Then in their adulthood the brother is accused of murdering a lady in the small town in which they live. The Sister believes her brother is innocent and sets about proving his innocence at the cost of her own family situation. It was directed by Tony Goldwyn and has an all star cast of Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver and Juliet Lewis. All my favourites and Minnie being Tim's little boy crush.

We didn't really expect to see too many celebs faces, we were just excited about the movie. So we arrived early to pick up our tickets and we could barely get through as the placed was mobbed with people and paparazzi. We had to climb past video cameras and reporters and photographers galore. They had a red carpet and it was cordoned off with photographers and press lining one side of the red carpet. It was then that it hit us that we might see some of these stars in the movie.

After we got our tickets we looked across the room and there lining the street opposite the theatre were people with paper and pens in hand ready to get autographs. We went across the road and spoke to some of the people who had Hilary Swank photos in their hand. A lady kindly gave us paper and a pen and told us Hilary would be attending the premier. We couldn't believe it.

It was time for us to go inside the theatre, there was no sign of any famous people yet. Tim wanted to wait to see but the ushers kept pushing us into the theatre. It certainly gave us a true idea of how fame must be so relentless for those who have to put up with this every day of their life. We were ushered to our wheelchair seating and just over to our right, two rows back were reserved seats we wondered who for?

It was like a wedding almost waiting there for the famous people to walk down the isle as if they were a bride. The lights went down and out came the Director who introduced some of the cast. And out came Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver and Juliet Lewis. We couldn't believe they were there so close to us. They spoke briefly about the film and then introduced the real lady Betty Anne Waters, that the movie was based on. It was pretty incredible not just seeing the Hollywood stars but to actually meet the person whose personality and life was so remarkable that somebody wanted to write about it and then make a movie of it. That has got to make you proud of your achievements, and such an honour for us to be in her company.

Anyway the more formal part of the premier was out of the way, the thank you's and dedications etc. and the stars started to make way to their seats, which were the reserved seats two rows behind us. It was pretty exciting to be that close to them. Then the movie started.

It was such a weird feeling to be sitting in a movie theatre, which put the Regent theatre (or Her Majesty's for the Perth people) to shame, with the stars that you were watching on screen. Tim and I wondered if it was weird for them as well to be sitting in this theatre watching the movie you have just performed in for the first time (for many of them) with a bunch of strangers and a movie that was shot almost two years ago. Such a strange heightened sensation.

Needless to say the movie was amazing and a must see for all those people who love true stories, especially about one person's determination and love. Of course it made it more emotional for the audience to know that real person was sitting in the audience as well. During the movie the audience clapped, cheered and cried and at the end there was a standing ovation.

Then there was a time for Q & A and again we got an up close and personal experience of the stars but also of the woman whom the film was about.

After the premier had ended we went around the back hoping to get an autograph from some of the celebs, well lets just say Tim wanted to meet Minnie, but the crowds were way to thick and we could only see from a distance. Still the premier was enough for us.

We left in high spirits feeling quite amazed at the experience we just had.

Rock on Ice - Live at the CNE

Part of the CNE was a figure skating show. Now this has always been something I have wanted to watch live after all the years of watching it at the winter olympics with my sisters and mum. It is clearly a sport loved by females as Tim wasn't all that interested at first and I remember Dad and my brother never used to stay in the room when ever us gals were watching the amazing artists on ice.

In another life I would have loved to be a figure skater, they just seem to glide and make it all look so easy. However I think my balance issues would prevent me from that dream.

This show had a slight alternative slant to it. We ended up sitting at the base of the skating rink so we were very close. They had a live band playing all classic rock tributes to bands such as U2, ACDC, Guns and Roses, Metallica and more of the popular rock bands. Each of the skaters came out and did a routine to each of the songs. Some of them were solo skaters, some of them as a group and they also had some skaters and some artists performing stunts on the ice but not on skates, using different types of apparatus'. Tim enjoyed this as it gave it more of a cirque feel.

I was hoping to see a triple axel and I was in luck. A guy came out skating to a Metallica song and I could see he was working up to do an axel of some type and then, there it was, that moment that you watch so intently that you squint your eyes and hold your breath not knowing if they will land the jump and be able to steady themselves, and then that moment of absolute silence and pause before the audience has registered that the skater has made the jump successfully and then the deafening applause. I took some video of it as a keepsake.

The photos I took of the artists during this show did not come out so clearly as they were constantly moving and fast, but hopefully, you can make it out ok.

I thought of you Mum, Jules, Karen and Christine during this show, being my fellow figure skating fans!

Canadian National Exhibition CNE

We really have come to Toronto at the best time. In summer there are so many festivals and events. The word on the street was for us to go to The Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), which is pretty much the equivalent of the Royal Melbourne show but triple the size, minus the agricultural events like wood chopping or the led steer and heifer Best on show competitions.

There was an animal and farming section and I will write about that on another post. But 98% of this 'show' was made up of sideshow alleys one after the other. There were so many different ways you are able to win a prize with those carnies ready to take your money and give you 30 seconds of hope before they pull the wool over your eyes. We couldn't believe the kilometres of small little booths that were covered in giant toys and knickknacks where you could waste hundreds of dollars trying to win, (like that miniature motorbike that I never got as a kid...). As I knew Mel was a very good netball shooter, typical me was trying to find the perfect basketball game where I knew the ball could at least go through the ring and all she would have to do is sink a couple of shots and we would walk away with the giant panda. We eventually found one that was a pretty good deal, get 2 out of 4 in, WINNER. Dead eye Mel sidled up to the line, wiggled the backside, took aim and threw. My girl went all right. Not the 4 out of 4 and giant panda that we so desperately needed...but 2 in and now Roxy now has a fun little ball to play with in the backyard.

There were plenty of rides which unfortunately I was too small to go on, but Mel had a very short and very un-unerving ghost train ride. I tried to grab a photo of her going in (you can see her just popping over the entrance sign) and by the time I took my finger off the shutter button she was already back at the other side having finished the ride. Suffice to say that those rides are never the same as what they were when you were 10.


There were some other great attractions at the show. In the program Mel had seen there was a hypnotist show on one of the stages in the afternoon, so we went along to try and get a great seat only to find that it was pretty much packed out already with almost an hour to go. I quickly scooted around to see if I could find Mel a seat, unfortunately not on stage .. hehe, but was able to score one about three rows from the front. I have never seen a real live hypnotist comedy show, only the ones on TV like Hey Hey it's Saturday or Footy Show... what's his name, Shane St James, but Mel has seen one. So prior to seeing this I was a little bit sceptic about whether or not these people were real volunteers or set up actors. I was looking around the audience to see if I could see any suss members that look like planters, but everyone that got up on stage out of the audience seem like regular Joe's that were just up for an interesting experience.

Our favourite volunteer.

During the course of the show some people were obviously more easily manipulated by this hypnotist than others, and he knew just who was going to put on a good show for his audience. There was a gentleman who was there with his wife and child who this hypnotist made do some of the funniest things that Mel and I cried with laughter over. From impersonating Mick Jagger and Angus Young from AC/DC to acting as a laughter policeman that had to tell everyone to shut up in Chinese for laughing. He was our favourite & the entire show was hilarious. Whether or not it was set up or if they really were under some hypnosis it was very entertaining and it didn't really matter.


I ran into a couple of other service dog's and owners. We were comparing how much weight our dogs will have put on after the amount of food they have secretly snuffled up on the floor of the Showgrounds. I turned around one stage to see half a corndog hanging out of Roxy's mouth. She must have thought it was Christmas.



It was the 150th anniversary for the Canadian Armed Forces and they had a massive exhibit including their version of a Beefeater standing out the front, the cockpit of an FA 18 fighter jet and some cool all terrain tank that dwarfed me.

One of the highlights of the CNE was a show on ice which was performed at the Ricoh Coliseum, which is where the Toronto Marlies hockey team plays. It was a half-hour rock 'n' roll show with ice skaters, acrobats and a live band. I will write about this on another post as we have many photos.

All in all it was a fantastic day and we could probably have spread it out over two it was that that big. We slept very well on the subway on the way home.

BuskerFest

Earlier in our blogs Mel had mentioned a great little area downtown called the St Lawrence markets. Every year they have the buskers festival where they close off many streets in this little suburb and invite buskers from all over the world to come and entertain tens of thousands of people over three days. It is a major fundraiser for the epilepsy foundation here in Toronto.

As well as buskers there are stalls full of arts and crafts as well as every type of food from every different culture. It's like a big Pako Festa with much more street entertainment.

I did look into the possibility of being able to busk there myself but the applications had to be in long before we arrived here, so it was nice to stroll the streets with Mel on a beautiful warm day checking out the sights, tastes & smells of BuskerFest.

As for the buskers themselves, on the whole there were some very entertaining acts. There were some amazing installations from troops and organisations that had been invited to present some kind of act and then and there were your regular street performers juggling three spinning basketballs.

The first act that we came across was a human birdcage where brightly coloured, leotard wearing bird looking performers slinkied their way around the birdcage making all kinds of contortioned movements to a music track that was playing in the background.

Further along the festival crowds of people had gathered around a very loud male building up his big finale. He and his partner spent a good part of 20 minutes describing what they were roughly going to do and that's if they were able to pull it off then everyone was watching should pay them for the entertainment. And that is so true. Unlike an official performance in a venue where you have to pay for a ticket first before you see the show, a busker has to perform first before the audience decides whether or not it was worthy of some monetary compensation. Some buskers are very good at just leaving it up to the audience to make the gesture, others love to boast about how it is a living and that it would be offensive not to pay after watching the whole act. Unfortunately these performers were the latter. The grand finale itself was very impressive, with the lady standing on top of the gentlemans shoulders as they both played a classical duet with violins with their bows on fire while turning 360°. It was a sight. But unfortunately it was ruined a little bit because as I mentioned they spent over 20 minutes telling us in their own words " if you are going to watch the grand finale and not pay afterwards, then you can just imagine us doing this act and you can walk away now". We were a bit taken aback by this demand and thought that was a bit presumptuous. The act itself was definitely worth paying, the lecture beforehand wasn't.

We were soon reminded though of how humble artists can be, especially when they are from down under. As we came out of one street we heard this music over to one corner that sounded like a mix of John Butler Trio, Xavier Rudd & Cat Empire. When we pulled up close to the act we were amazed to see a young scruffy blonde headed kid, the typical Queenslander surfer look, playing the guitar, harmonica, foot drum and singing all at the same time. And he was really rockn'. He had a crowd of around 100 around him clapping their hands and tapping their feet. There was nothing fancy about him, it was like he was just playing down on the beach around the fire with his mates, and you could really tell that he just loved being there and sharing his music with an appreciative crowd. All the way through his act people were going over to where the money hat was and were dropping in coins left right and centre, as well as purchasing CDs that he had strategically placed in the same spot. We bought one ourselves and felt very proud of our fellow Aussie and enjoy listening to his music at dinner nearly every night.

As we started to leave the festival we passed many statue performers. There was a great Silver Elvis who robotically moved to his Elvis tunes and we were able to get our photo taken with a porcelain doll like figure who must have been sweating like crazy underneath her dress in the 34° temperature.

Roxy even got to meet a fellow busker ........

Toronto Zoo

A perfect day to go to the Toronto Zoo. Not to hot and just sunny enough. We were eager and anxious to go to the zoo. Eager because we just love Zoo's and anxious because we could are not allowed to take Roxy and it was the first day we were leaving her alone all by herself and it would be a long day.

So we head off, gave Roxy some treats to keep her amused, but as we exited the back gate we heard those heart crushing sounds of half bark half cry from her, that almost sound like her actually asking us why are we leaving her. I nearly didn't want to go but Tim kept reassuring me that she would be ok, and of course she was and it was a good thing we didn't take her, with the amount of the cheetahs and cougars were eyeballing Tim in this weird moving contraption that they couldn't work out. But more on that later.

So we enter in the Zoo and it all starts looking quite similar to the entrance of Perth Zoo. I really wanted to see a Tarantula, Polar bears and Hippos. Tim wanted to see everything but the birds. (he has a fear of birds and no wonder, especially given that he was pood on by one this week. Missed his open mouth but a millimeter. hehe)

So we start out and we soon realise that this zoo is incredibly spaced out like a golf course and you almost have to walk over a kilometer to get to each exhibit. The best thing about this Zoo is that if you feel you cannot walk the distance they do provide a train and a bus to get around and it is all accessible (but we didn't, that was our exercise for the day). I also believe in winter when there is a lot of snow on the ground, you can ski through the Zoo which is very cool.

So I got to see my Tarantula not long into our visit. It does just look like our Huntsmen's only more furry and colourful, surprisingly not as big as I thought. Tim being petrified of Spiders couldn't bring himself to look at them.

I was surprised to see the Orangutan enclosures were very basic and not at all natural like their habitat. Those of you that know me well, know that I am a huge Primate lover, especially Orangutans and almost considered becoming a Primate Zoologist, I did a course at the Zoo and everything. Just love them, they fascinate me. They only had two which is really uncommon for big Zoo's as they usually like to have quite a large number to keep breeding them due to the extinction rate. And they only had one Gorilla. I was very disappointed in that, however they had huge numbers of other primates such as Gibbons, Baboons, Marmosets and Tamarins.

For a Canadian Zoo we thought they would have had a lot more Canadian native animals such as bears. So we walked to the bear enclosure which the sign told us would take us an hour to walk there and back, so off we went and on the way was a Cougar (Oh the jokes that came flooding to mind, Rosie), well the Cougar who was laying on this platform that was about my head height was very disinterested in the world around him until his eye caught the motion of Tim's wheelchair and he became fixated on Tim. His head would move in the direction of Tim's movements and he started crouching like he was going to attack. At this point I was glad there was no Roxy!

We moved on pretty quick and finally reached the bears or should I say ... bear. There was only one Grizzly bear and he was fast asleep and you couldn't really see him. It was so annoying to have walked all that way for this. You would think that a Canadian Zoo would at least have black gears, Sun bears and Grizzly bears. Australian Zoo's have more bears than Toronto did. Very disappointing!

We continued to make our way around the Zoo. One thing that was different with this Zoo was that unlike other Zoo's they did not group the animals according to Species but to Continent of Origin. So there were 4 tigers in total but 2 in the African section, and 2 in the Asian section.

We did a quick walk through the Australiana section and were pleasantly surprised at the amount of Australian animals they had. Possibly half of what we would have in our Zoo. The funniest thing though was that while in that enclosed section we just missed stepping on a couple of chipmunks that ran right out in front of us. Tim and I looked at each other and just laughed as clearly Chipmunks do not belong in the Australian section.

The best thing about this Zoo is the Native History, The Polar Bears, which were so cute and looked like a cross between Roxy and our cat jasper, and the Flamingo's who were an amazing pinky peach colour.

I think we will go back in Winter and see what the place is like covered in Snow, who knows I might be able to ski by then!