It'll Do

We landed in Toronto at 2 p.m. today. X-man was pretty wiped on the way to the car, so when we got to the hotel in Markham (a suburb outside the city and where the Apple offices are), we had an hour of quiet time watching Canadian PBS. X-man was enthralled. Totally different, and yet, the same.

Afterwards, we took a swim in the hotel pool, which is strangely attached to a gym that operates out of the hotel. There were some tiny, tiny lap lanes set up in the pool, and it was filled with non-English speakers doing the slowest laps of breaststroke you ever did see for about 3-5 minutes at a time and then they'd get up and go into the hot tub for 10 minutes... Very curious. Maybe that's what's wrong with my workouts. But they were so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop when we walked into the pool area. And then boom, out comes my child, "CANNONBALL!" and into the non-lap swimming area he goes.

Yeah, he knows how to liven up the place. A few minutes later a Dad comes in with his two small children. A boy about X-man's age and a 2 year old in a swim diaper. I was the only one in the hot tub, so the dad brings them in with me for about 10 minutes. Then I climb out and he takes the toddler out and the five year old jumps into the pool, comes up near the wall and hand walks his way down the wall by X-man.

"Hi! What's your name?" X-man asks.

The boy just keeps on going.

"Hey! How old are you?"

No response.

MacTroll explains that the boy doesn't speak English.

"WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER?"

(So from birth, Americans innately think that to speak louder at people who don't speak their language will somehow help them understand.)

Then the boy climbed out and returned to his father.

:-) Markham is not a pretty place. It reminds me of Kankakee or the west side of Rockford. Sure there's stuff around here like a movie theater and a roots, but it's wide apart, and you get the feeling that although there are sidewalks -- no one has ever used them.

After swimming, we came upstairs and played Fireman Sam, i.e. we unplug the hotel phone and X-man gets fake 911 calls from MacTroll and I about emergencies in the area. Apparently, Fireman Sam was only into fires today, because when I called with an injury -- he said, "We don't do that and hung up." Great, 9-1-1 customer service, X-man.

We ate dinner at a stir fry place up the road that was decorated like a cave. It's called Fire and Ice. I got my heap of vegetables on and MacTroll got his beef and noodles going. X-man didn't eat much. He was way too tired. He could hardly sit up right. Of course, on the way there we passed a BK with a GIANT play place in it. X-man is demanding that we go back.

So between a hotel pool, the paintlounge, and the BK, Markham is apparently not a destination of choice for me, but X-man thinks it's just dandy. :-)