17 November 2009

One More Long Day

My last night in Toronto, and I am worn out! It has been an interesting conference, but the days have been rather long and I feel like I just need to nap.

An annual general meeting tomorrow and then we will zip off to catch the 5 pm train back to Montréal. (Our choice was to rush less for the train, but take the milk run and get in at almost midnight, which didn’t appeal to me.)

As I promised last time out, here are a couple of shots from my hotel room window in the daylight.


Osgoode Hall, home to the Law School and the Court of Appeal (my Toronto friends will correct me if I mixed up what actually happens in there).

Toronto’s very distinctive city hall, with its curved towers. As many times as I have been to this city, this is the first time I have been in this neighbourhood. I had never even seen the old city hall, right next to the new one (but out of my picture). It is a very lovely brown stone building with delightful gargoyles sticking out from the four corners of its clock tower. Here is a lovely photo of it that I picked from the web, specifically from here:

2 comments:

David McHep C said...

It looks like you were at The Sheraton (unless it has a new name now, they keep changing them). The only thing I can think of about Osgoode Hall off the top of my head is a memory of some guy running in and throwing paint on some of the old paintings there. Can't remember why he thought that Sir John A or others looked better in red. I found it very Canadian. The big security laps at the courthouse was to vandalize some paintings. You must have been next door to the new Four Season's Opera House. I like the old City Hall too, but am not a huge fan of the war memorial in front of it. I just can't get past that "To our glorious dead" line. I have this issue with being dead and glorious at the same time. The New City Hall (a baby of several decades is an icon. Most people I know like it, but I haven't been the biggest fan. I do like the Moore sculpture and fountain/rink in front though. Too bad that the days were so full, but that seems to be the way they always organize these events. I know that I don't have the energy for days like that anymore. Perhaps in the future. Cheers, David

Ken Monteith said...

HaHa! Hilton, actually. I believe it is the Sheraton on the right side of my photo of City Hall and the Four Seasons Opera House (well, the roof) at the bottom of the photo of Osgoode Hall.

I also have an issue with thopse memorial things. mWhen I passed by, it was still fresh with wreaths from the week before. They were both glorious and dead! ;-)