My first TR - Toronto, Memphis, Kansas City

[Febs]

After a slight prod from littl_flier, I decided to post up this e-mail I recently sent as my first trip report.

Week 1 - Toronto and Burlington, ON, Canada
We landed in Toronto last Saturday night, and within a few hours witnessed the biggest dump of powder I'd ever seen anywhere. In under an hour, the streets went from being clear, to covered in 10-15cm of fresh powder. Of course we did the Tourist thing, taking heaps of photos and generally looking like idiots.

On Sunday we drove down to Niagara Falls, then onto Buffalo, NY to pick up an iPhone (or two..maybe a few more ). Niagara Falls was OK, but you sort of get there, take a few photos, and that's about it. Definitely worth seeing though. The boats weren't operating and just being outside was freezing! We walked across the bridge to the US too, as they've built a lookout/bridge thing which makes for a better view than the Canadian side.

Spent the week working in Burlington (about 45min from Toronto), where the average temperature was about -7degC, and at one stage -17 with windchill. Beanies, gloves and scarves were an absolute must (and even then, it wasn't pleasant). Nice people though...really laid back and friendly. One of the guys from our client even offered me (without asking) a drive of his Mercedes Benz S550. They go for $280,000 in Australia, and the roads were icy. Crazy! Good fun though.

We drove back to Toronto on Fri night and checked out the CN Tower (world's tallest building until the Burj tower in Dubai overtook it this year). The lookout and glass floor were actually pretty lame, but the restaurant was fantastic! MUCH better than the restaurant on top of Centrepoint.

On Saturday we went ice skating in an outdoor rink, and I checked out an ice hockey game. Couldn't get tickets to an NHL game which was a shame, but the "AHL" (American Hockey League) game had plenty of seats available (maybe because the teams suck? haha). Plenty of fighting though, which was fun. Pretty funny seeing two players absolutely belting the crap out of each other, with the referees just standing around watching. It was only when the helmets started coming off the referees stepped in. Crowd seemed to love it!

That night we went to find a local nightclub. First we tried one which looked pretty dead, so we headed down the road to find one with a queue out the front, then another (much bigger) queue in a nearby carpark! Apparently the queue starts in the car park, then they take you down to the main queue in small groups...all the while, you're standing around in freezing temperatures. Insane. Anyway we decided that wasn't for us, so turned on the Aussie charm and skipped the queue no problems.

Inside it was like an amusement park - about 10 windows (each with a queue) to pay for entry, then this icy tunnel thing into the main nightclub, past a few "living windows", with actual actors dressed up in costume going about their business (one was dressed as a maid, baking cakes). Inside there were 4 floors (each one huge) with various "interactive art" displays, sculptures, more living windows (one guy was dressed up as the Grinch, watching a gold TV?!) and some really interesting bars. It was the craziest (and biggest) nightclub I've ever seen. Even after being there for an hour, we were still discovering more rooms and hidden areas. Awesome place. CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA CiRCA

So that was my Canadian adventure. Would I go back? Yeah, definitely (would love to check out Vancouver and Quebec too). Would I go back in December? Ummm....maybe.

Today we're off to Memphis, then back to Kansas City next week. It's fun over here, but I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to an Australian summer! When I heard it was 35+ there the other day, to say I was jealous would be an understatement.

All the best.

Cheers,
- Febs.

[littl_flier]

Great start Febs, enjoy Memphis!!!

[simongr]

Good stuff - you are having way too much fun for a business trip!

[turtlemichael]

Yes, much too much fun for a business trip! Keep up the good work

[NM]

Thanks for the report. You may like to revisit Niagara Fall at a time when the temp is positive (like at least +20 degrees ). I think you will find it a little different. I could not imagine being there at this time of the year .

[QF009]

Thanks for the TR - yes it does sound like a rather fun business trip. Enjoy Memphis and Kansas.

[Febs]

Thanks guys.

Yes we do tend to have a lot of fun on business trips. I usually tavel with great people, and that makes all the difference. We work hard during the week, but enjoy our time off.

It's not all fun though. Today we got up at 6am (after, for me, 2 hrs sleep), drove to YYZ, only to find out our grand plans of YUP'd YYZ-ORD-DFW-MEM had been canned, not due to weather, but due to an unserviceable aircraft.

So the new plan was YYZ-ORD-MEM. Oh well...there goes those extra SC's.

We sit through immigration at YYZ (no APEC queue ) only to find out the planned YYZ-ORD has been canned, this time due to weather.

Went straight to the Admirals' Club and decided in consultation with the desk clerk (but with plenty of my input/ideas) that YYZ-BOS-DFW-MEM would be the best bet. YYZ-BOS was a Y-only American Eagle flight, and unfortunately we were stuck in Y for BOS-DFW too, as F was full.

We had a good 3hr wait in DFW (luckily the Admirals' Club opposite C20 is quite pleasant), then headed to MEM in F. End result 120 SC's, so not too bad. Oh, and our luggage actually arrived in MEM! We thought all our Christmases had come at once.

Then we waited half an hour for the Budget minibus, picked up a Dodge Magnum (which stunk of cigarette smoke, but we were too tired to care) and made the 1.5hr drive to our hotel, arriving around 12:30am.

So there you go - not every day's fun. (We did stop for dinner in a very interesting restaurant though, with a fantastic live band.)

Cheers,
- Febs.

[Febs]

Oh, and as an interesting sidenote, we boarded the YYZ-BOS flight without boarding passes, and without properly issued tickets.

The AC desk clerk didn't have time to issue the tickets before the flight left, so asked the gate to "on us", and she'd sort out the paper work later.

[Shano]

Good to see you have the work / life balance sorted out pretty well Febs . Look forward to reading more.