Dinner 101:

How to have great (incredibly cheap) Indian food in Toronto:

1. Pick up Marion and Flora in your car, start driving across town towards Narula's in Little India for Toonie Tuesdays*

2. Suddenly, run out of gas at Sumach and Gerrard Street** (and by "at" I do mean in the middle of that intersection)
3. Get Marion and Flora to push your car out of the intersection, and park
4. Take the streetcar to Little India and eat fabulous food despite adverse conditions
5. Flag a cab, drive around to find gas and bring it to the car
6. Rejoice when the car starts!
7. Get gas at the most ironically titled gas station possible

A classy establishment:

*Non-Canadians, this translates as "cheap"
**Not the most delightful neighborhood (can I say "Ghetto" on the Internet?)

It's so Medieval:

I'll bet you the Pope already has one of these puppies, even though it is supposedly still a "concept" piece.

Rock on, Beni, Rock on.

But seriously, what could one, in good conscience, play on this? I'm particularly amused by their suggestion of Madonna. I'd just be worried it might bust into flames when producing the dulcet tones of Justine Timberlake's "Future Sex"...

Thanks to Greg and Gizmodo for the pretty shiny thing.

These should come in handy...

Just what we've all been waiting for: The Intern has pointed out these new warning signs, which I'm thinking may be very useful in future.

I hate it when this happens:

Beautiful Ontario

In an effort to dissuade me from my pursuit of an academic career, Amy and Greg came to visit me this past weekend! I just love to show Toronto off, and it was a great excuse to be a tourist in my own town, as well as to eat ridiculously huge amounts of food and flake around like I don't have a real job ... oh wait ... I don't.

They have the seal of UW Madison in the Great Hall at UofT!
(And they don't have Georgetown ... what's up with that?)

Chinatown is always a fun excuse to do "American Gothic" with giant kitchen implements

Or .... to brandish an enormous whisk.
(fear me!)

And here's an example of the delectable eats to be found in Chinatown:
This is the classiest Dim Sum I've ever had (to be found at Dynasty) mostly because I actually knew what was in this stuff.

We also got out of Toronto and saw a bit of Ontario's Wine Country. The area around Niagara is gorgeous and also full of fun little wineries. We had a great day full of sampling the various varieties, and I finally got to try Icewine! We also went to the falls, which were completely awe inspiring!

Amy and Greg about to try the wares at the Konzelmann Winery

The Canadian side of Niagara Falls:

Greg and I next to the really impressive rushing waters ...

We even got to go under in the falls, through creepy tunnels.
(The extremely fashionable slickers do nothing to reduce the creep-out factor)

At the end of the tunnels we got a view out into underside of the rushing waters! It was unbelievably scary, although this concept does not transfer well to the film medium.

Horray for Friends! Horray for Tourism!! Horray for weird kitsch you can buy at Niagara Falls (yes, Intern ... you should be afraid, very afraid)!!