Toronto

(writing on brick is from the asylum and it says born to be murdered)

1. So I got in to Toronto a week ago and it has been nonstop exploring, reading, writing, and partying. We are staying at the new college of the University of Toronto and I have a decent single room (with incredible AC). The University of Toronto (UofT) is in the heart of downtown toronto and there are trees everywhere - its amazing how much greenery there is on the campus, and on the all the streets. There are so many residential streets right in the heart of downtown with neat little houses which is cool. Anyhow we read a book called the Skin of a Lion which was pretty baller to kick things off - and we had our classes out in this little outdoor enclave on the campus which was neat. The book was really good - all about early 1900s toronto but really interesting because it was written in the 80s. Been watching all the nfl and nhl games here (people go nuts for nhl up here).
So some highlights - went to the hockey hall of fame and got to shoot on a virtual goalie and also be a goalie against virtual players, also take pics of a stanley cup replica and visit the predators little display case which was cool. They had a ton of old stanley cup footage on tvs everywhere which was wild. Also goalies didn't used to have masks - crazy! Also played hockey foosball which was tight.
Read a bestselling mystery thriller set in toronto called the killing circle by a guy named andrew pyper who met with us and showed us all the places people die in his book and stuff which was cool. Also talked about how popular fiction is excluded in the academy and how thats kind of/ but not always/ lame.
A guy who runs a premiere book/publishing blog called bookninja met with us and talked about how publishing is changing (not dying) and the advent of e-books and how he hates drm and big book companies that really screw over little independent stores. He was pretty funny.
Last weekend was an event called doors open toronto where they open up all the government (and some other) buildings to the public for 2 days. We went to an old fire station (got to hold a haligan and some pick axes and shit which was tight) the toronto archives which was just like the final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, a castle, an REI type place with a green roof that was like 11k square feet of beautiful grass on top of the building, and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health which used to be an insane asylum and was built by patient labor and they etched interesting stuff into the walls.
More to come here are some pics.