Festival Fever in Toronto

Since the day I arrived, its pretty much been a socialising "meet and greet" experience. I've found it very easy here in TO as there's so many events to go to in the summer time. Every weekend there's something going on, normally too much choice that you can't decide what to actually do! 
Downtown south at the harbour front, I found out about the weekend free festivals that happened every weekend. Whether it was Music, Dance, Visual Arts, Food, Caribbean Tales - the list goes on... whatever your flavour, they have it all. Myself, I'm a music and dance girl! In total I think I attended about 5 different music festivals, all of which enjoyable and all very unique. 
My top 5 favourites are listed below... 
BuskerFest had many performing artists from rappers, to jazz bands, and performing fire artists. All very entertaining, especially when I heard the Lemon Bucket Orkestra for the first time. What an amazing band with such great energy - the audience's attention was captured, as was mine! The event was to raise money for Epilepsy, I found that there were many fund-raising events in the city. 

Fire on the Water was a fun all day event. During the day many people were swimming in the Lake Ontario, whilst at night time we were dancing at the dance floor. Various DJs played through the night, showing off their mixes - I managed to speak to one of the DJs who was Brazilian. Throughout the evening there were a few performing arts shows, installations (including an ice room and a feather room), and live performances - all at Sunnyside Beach. 

The Beaches International Jazz Festival was the perfect festival for a Couch Surfing meeting... 25 of us in total met at "The Beaches" which is an area of shops, cafes, and bars of TO down by (to state the obvious) the beaches :o) Here we listened to the various jazz music artist's stands. Around 11pm when the street festival was over (yes, many events close early in Canada), we all headed to the pub and then onto the beach for some group games; football, slap tennis, and frisbee. All in all, it was a fun day with excellent music and a variety of cultured company. This festival was also raising money for a good cause - Ontario's Fire Service (hence my picture of 3 strapping fireman)! The other photo below shows about 1/2 the group of Couch surfers for the day's event. 

Hispanic Fiesta Festival was an interesting festival to see the different cultures of Latin America, perfect taste for my Central America trip... I went to this festive with Jasmine and friends Nikos & Garo. Here they showed a variety of dances from all Hispanic countries (my favourite was the Peruvian). Each country was competing for gold, I'm not sure what they won - but it was a competition! We didn't stay for long as there were other festivals that day to see and dance to!

Last but not least, The Ashkenaz Festival. I really wanted to go to this festival as I heard that the Lemon Bucket Orkestra were playing again. I really do think that they are such an awesome band that has great music and character. They really know how to get the audience involved, and from what I could see - they also get involved with the audience ;o) They're a gypsy band with approx. 13-15 members, all members are from different country descendants and play different instruments, the perfect ingredients for an interesting collaboration. Oh and here I got to dance my first ever Hora!!! Shalom :o)

Québec - Montreal and Québec City...

What happens in Québec, Stays in Québec!

x 2 Beautiful Cites

+

x 2 25th Birthday Parties 

+

x 3 Gatecrashed Bachelor Parties

+ 

x 3 Lovely Ladies

+ 

x 4 Nights

=

 A weekend to remember & enough said. 

Lights, Camera, Action!

I started the day off by another planned tour of the NYC sights. I wanted to head downtown to visit the Meatpacking District, Ground Zero, and the new World Trade Centre buildings. I also wanted to take the Staten Island Ferry across to Staten Island so I could get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. All these sights were all walking distance from one another, and besides - I love to walk when exploring places. 

When on the Staten Island Ferry I started talking to two girls, an Aussie and an English girl... the girls kindly took pity on me being solo and suggested taking me to Magnolia Bakery which was on the corner of Bleecker Street. This was the start to the craziest day ever, it felt like I was in Hollywood, not NYC! Magnolia Bakery is a bakery known for it's cupcakes, however for me I mostly knew it from the staring scenes of The Devil Wears Prada & Sex and the City (I was pretty excited!) - the cupcakes were also delicious! After this I was pretty inspired, I was on a mission. After a quick search on my friend Google, I located the actual address of the apartment where Carrie Bradshaw's home was filmed... for those fellow fans out there, it's on 66 Perry St and Bleecker St. *Ok, this is a little irrelevant to my day out, however I just Google Street viewed the apartment - they've actually taken the efforts to blur out the building - (you can see my printscreen below)!* Anyhow, this was very exciting for me, and probably the best sight of NYC, I'm sure not everyone will agree with me, but these are my opinions :o) Outside the apartment steps had a chain across the front with a no access sign, to the right was another sign with a description of a charity and a donation box - I thought the donation box was a nice idea! 

After all this excitement I decided I'd take it easy and go for a light salad lunch and a coffee. I saw a cute little restaurant called Cafe Minerva on 4th West Street. When sipping my cappuccino a very interesting man came and sat at the table next to me. A quick introduction later I found myself talking to David Russell. I asked what he did and with an innocent smile he said he was a small time director. I sneakily noted his name down on my iPod notes section to research later - TBC...  When leaving the restaurant I thought I'd go to the Meatpacking District. With my music on full volume, I was oblivious to my surroundings. I was suddenly stopped by a man with a clipboard, he said that where I walked past a shop window, they were filming a scene for Person Of Interest (a U.S. crime drama which I've never heard of). He explained to me that they were filming one of the main characters shopping inside, and ask if I would sign an authorisation form. Of course I said yes, but sadly I forgot to ask if I could be paid :o) Anyway, I then had to walk past the shop with the same crowd of extras over and over (about 6-8 times), so they could "capture the shot". To be, or not to be?... THEN to finalise my day after a hair cut downtown, on my way home through Times Square I walked past 2 familiar faces; Jim's dad from American Pie and Thomas Andrews from Titanic, (IMDB Search - Eugene Levy & Victor Garber). I LOVE this city ♥ When I got home, (again with the help of my friend Google) I researched David Russell. I found out he was not such a small director! In fact he directed Three Kings and The Fighter, pretty cool I thought. 

If you can make out these images above from my nighttime iPod camera of Eugene Levy & Victor Garber, you have great eyesight!!

NYC Central Park Proposal...

Late Sunday afternoon, myself, Maneesh, and Maneesh’s cousin Mandip were having dinner down by Broadway. I’m not sure exactly how the conversation arose, however we started to talk about weddings… me being the hopeless romantic made a comment about how it would be so romantic to be proposed to in NYC Central Park – Maneesh being the opportunist said lets do it – Me having the spontaneous “I’ll try anything” attitude, I handed Maneesh my diamond ring that has often been used as an “I’m engaged – back off buddy” ring ;o).

We headed over to Central Park, near where Maneesh lived. I sat in front of the Columbus Circle fountain and he stood in front of me. Mandip stood in the background with the camera ready… next thing I knew Maneesh was on one knee with the words following, “Fiona, I have something to ask you”… I have never felt so excited and nervous over a created fantasy. What I loved most about this experience was the intimate interaction it gave others around us. Of course we received applauses from viewers and many smiles – to which made it worth the tiny white lie. I hope that these people continued the joy by them telling others of their experience in Central Park on that quiet Sunday evening. Maybe I should make this my travel thing! I could see how many posed proposals I can achieve – one in each country visited? Maybe spice up the drama with the odd out burst refusal?... OR maybe next time it will be the real thing (hmm… words from the wishful thinking hopeless romantic)…

P.S. For those whom wished me a happy engagement on Facebook (many thanks), and questioned who the mystery man was - sorry to disappoint...

Networking the Neighbourhood of Downtown NYC

Whilst in the city I wanted to meet locals, so what better way could I do this than use my 2 familiar understandings; Couchsurfing meeting events and a Marketing Networking event. I met a few Couchsurfers in NY however what interested me was 

On August the 10th I was invited to a networking marketing event at a bar called The Liberty. With key speakers and attendees in the industry, I felt at home. 

The photo to your right is myself, Maneesh, and a lady I met called Coral. Coral is the founder of an online NY magazine called The H Style. She was explaining to me it's an online magazine to provide health benefits that incorporate fashion - the launch is TBC, however I look forward to this and wish her all the best. We seemed to share similar opinions and interests. She was a very positive and bright women, originally from the Dominican Republic...

After the event had finished, a few of us then ventured to another bar to continue our discussions at The Cafeteria. I really liked The Cafeteria - it had an interesting alternative vibe to it... Serving of exceptional American comfort food (here I tried my FIRST meat loaf... shared with companion, Prescott), with a contemporary twist (I do remember the amazing cocktails). It had a very electric, modern, yet intimate ambiance. The perfect place for us to gather, to top it off it had a 24hr opening and was located in the heart of Chelsea. 

NYC - Where dreams are made of

I decided to go visit my friend Maneesh in New York City. Maneesh and I met over a year ago in Berlin, I had been saying I wanted to visit him for a while now and I’d always wanted to see NYC… I gathered that a $98 return bus ride was cheaper than a £700+ flight from the UK. With a 12 hours bus journey ahead (oh my), I was looking forward to reading my book and listening to music… instead a man from Israel sat next to me. After an hours talking I felt like his shrink! He was on his way to NYC to break off his relationship with his present fiancé. He was explaining to me that it was an arranged marriage that was just not going to work… It all became a very deep conversation for a first meeting. After this episode I felt like I maybe I should consider changing my career path ^^ Interesting way to start the trip!

Anyway… 12 hours later I arrived in NYC Times Square, a quick taxi ride later I arrived at Maneesh’s place on the South/West corner of Central Park – perfect location. Broadway and Columbus Circle (nice one Maneesh)…

The first 24 hours was pretty much for tourist exploring and getting to know the feel of the city: Times Square, The Empire State Building, Central Park, Madison Square Garden, NY Public Library, The High Line, etc, etc... The fast pace environment reminded me a lot of London, and so many sites were recognisable from films and TV shows. 

I knew immediately it was love at first sight!

NYC truly is a concrete jungle that never sleeps! There aren't many places in the world you can head home from a night out and catch a coffee or smoothie at 4am in the morning. Everyone seemed so focused and driven. If I had the opportunity, I'd love to live in NYC, especially in my 20s - the possibilities could be great. One thing that did surprise me however was the size of Central Park - 843 acres - that's one hell of a park and pretty damn impressive (makes up for all the concrete, I guess)! 

On my second day of visiting I decided to continue my tourist attitude and join the Rockerfeller "Top of the Rock" tour. I'll be honest, I had NO idea who John. D Rockerfeller was... The only times I had really referenced "Rockerfeller" was from the Rockerfeller NYC Christmas Tree and from my friend Jasmine who's surname is Gfeller, (when it comes to spelling their family name, her dad simply says "it's like Rockerfeller but with a G and without the money")...

I'm not normally a tour guide type of traveller, but sometimes it is fun and useful - I learnt a lot on this tour. I'll give two examples of the facts I learnt; Fact 1. JD Rockerfeller's net worth in today's money was $340 Billion, approx. £206 Billion with today's conversion rate ;o) CRAZY amount! Fact 2. Air Conditioning used to be called AW - Artificial Weather, AND it was invented by an Englishman (I know this because one of the Rockerfeller buildings was the first building in the world to have AC/AW)... interesting hey?

Cheery Beach Party, Summer Time Toronto

Every Sunday (and sometimes the Monday if it’s a national holiday), there’s a private beach party down at Cherry Beach Toronto. I was invited by some friends I’d made to party on the Sunday. I believe that not many people know about this party venue as it’s not hugely advertised. Once you get to Cherry Beach, you pay a small entry fee of $5… At the beach there’s a DJ and dance floor to get the party started, the best thing about the party was the bar... or rather no bar :o) You could take as much drink in with you. Of course, we came pretty well equipped with a chest full of drink. I thought it was a pretty awesome idea. Swim, dance, drink, and party, just like every other Sunday afternoon?

You can check out a video here