toronto part II

when gianni was in town, the three of us drove to toronto for a long weekend. it was the second toronto trip for marie, but the first for gianni and me. the city doesn't have a good image for the montreal people, at least that's what we felt before leaving. but as soon as we arrived in our nice b&b (a whole floor for us only! great breakfasts with quiche and waffles!) we saw a charming side of toronto. especially queen street has a great vibe, with lots of nice bars, restaurants and shops. the fact there are some interesting music shops helps, too!

talking about music: in the evening gianni and me went to a concert of the montreal band miracle fortress. in fact it is a one man band who plays live with 3 other people. it all happened at an art gallery and the sound system was quite limited. it didn't do his well crafted debut album justice. the playing was too rough too. miracle fortress is best to be enjoyed on a couch with headphones.

the next day we saw the grandiose gay parade. the most intriguing thing we saw wasn't really part of the parade. it was a soul band that was busking in that street. 4 kids (going from young to very young) playing keyboards, drums, guitar and bass and a big brother or young dad who sang and entertained the audience. the older guy was having fun while the backing band looked like they wanted to play in the garden with their ball instead of doing soul covers in the heat on the main street of toronto. it was amazing how well they still played - they didn't miss a note of a groove - while showing a total lack of interest. we filmed it but the quality is a bit low so i don't know if you can catch the grim faces.

in the evening we took a boat to little known toronto island, only a couple of minutes away from the city. the short boat ride was pretty refreshing after spending the whole day in the city heat! we had to rush to get to the only food place open until 9 pm (torontonians seem to eat pretty early..). but finally we enjoyed a juicy cheeseburger at the island's marina, with a great view of the sunset and the cn tower, toronto's own eiffel tower-like symbol (you can see it on half the pics here - including growing out of gianni's head).

we also met up with sameer, friend of our friend stijn. we had met sameer in belgium a couple of years ago, and since he now lives in toronto it was a great opportunity to see him again. he showed us around in the pretty large chinatown and multicultural kensington market. sameer poses in front of the ontario college of art & design where he teaches. the architecture of the building is really interesting: a part of the building rests on big pencils.

here's a video report about our trip in toronto: you'll see the b&b, gay parade, skyline... and hear music by miracle fortress.