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Started the day with breakfast at Mr. Greek (the hotel restaurant/bar). The breakfast prices are about the same as at Elsie's back in Minneapolis, and the quantity and quality are good. The fact that it's Canadian Dollars, rather than US, makes breakfast a real bargain.
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| North side of the Legislative Building |
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Well, I've been in Mr. Greek three times now and while they do have twenty of the old-style NTN boxes, I've never seen anyone using them. I'm guessing the fact that they're still allowed to have the "buy-'em-once" boxes up here is the only reason they still have trivia in that bar.
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| The Golden Boy |
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Checked out the Legislative Building. There are entrances on all four sides, but the east is under contruction, and the south and west are pretty much "employees only" entrances. Even though there's park running north (memorial park) and south (leading to the river) of the building for a total of six blocks or more, this is another building that turns its back on the river. Or perhaps to follow the official line a little more closely, looks toward the promise of the north
. The building itself is H-shaped, which makes it a little hard to judge the size of it, but it ends up feeling a lot like the State Capitol in St. Paul. They both have fairly large parks surrounding them, and while the Capitol in St. Paul has a more neoclassical feel, the Legislative Building here in Winnipeg wasn't finished until after WWI, and the fact that they're from different eras shows. But they've recently re-gilded the Golden Boy, who stands atop the building, and he's pretty shiny in the morning sun.
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| South side of the Legislative Building |
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Tourist season in Winnipeg ends on Labour Day (the first Monday of September). There are no tours of the Legislative building without a group of ten (a problem for a single traveller), so I walked up to see the rotunda and take a picture of that and the bison, and that's about it. And it turned out to be too dark to get good pictures, so you don't get to see the inside of the building at all.
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| Statue of Louis Riel |
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Says here that the Riverwalk was done in 1995. Sounds like Winnipeg started rediscovering its rivers about the same time the Twin Cities did.
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| Ducks on the dock at The Forks |
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The River Spirit (pdf) boats (a water-bus that runs on the Red and Assiniboine Rivers) would be really handy, but again, the fact that I've come after tourist season is hurting me. The boats don't start running until noon, and I'm trying to use them in the morning. Feh. At least they're not disturbing the ducks.
So I walk across the Provencher Bridge (after spending a while trying to get around the construction leading to it). The river road which will lead me to the Cathedral is closed for construction, so I end up walking through some residential neighborhoods. I notice there's a few B&Bs here, and that might be a good alternative for a stay in Winnipeg. Not sure what evenings would be like in St. Boniface, but it'd be worth investigating.
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| Cathedral St. Boniface |
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I approached the Cathedral St. Boniface from the east (passing University College St. Boniface). It's not the standard approach to the building, but I kind of liked it. The first thing I saw were the new buildings with the cathedral façade in the background. They've done something pretty interesting with the cathedral. When the original burned down in 1968, they built a new (and considerably smaller) church within the ruins of the old building, completing it in 1972. The façade of the original building still stands, and the nave forms a courtyard in front of the entrance to the new church.
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| Cathedral St. Boniface |
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As I'm wandering the grounds, a service lets out, and an older woman stops to talk to me. She makes a comment in French and then repeats herself in English when I give her a puzzled look: beautiful bells, aren't they?
I agree. She goes on to say that it's a shame they're all electric now, though. Her father used to ring the bells in the original cathedral, and when she was a child, he'd take her up to the top. I think this is one of the benefits of travelling alone. It would be odd for a woman to strike up a conversation with two strangers, but one guy alone, even someone as funky-looking as me, is easier. And I found talking to her fascinating. I wish I could have spent all morning digging bits of history out of this woman's brain, but I'm not outgoing enough to have even asked.
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| Cathedral St. Boniface |
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The Museum St. Boniface is built in the former home of the Grey Nuns, and is next door to the cathedral. It's not large or imposing, but it does have a bit about the history of Louis Riel and the Métis. There's also artifacts from early life here in Manitoba, but that wasn't all that different from early life in Minnesota (especially in areas where trapping was common) and I can take or leave it.
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| Cathedral St. Boniface |
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Since the River Spirit still isn't running, I walk back across the Red from St. Boniface. I suppose I could have caught the 110 bus (which seems to run fairly often), but I'm not sure what bus fare is (CAD 1.75) and I'm fairly certain I don't have exact change (I didn't). As I get back to the Forks, I see that they've finally opened the ticket window for the water-buses, so I guess I could've waited and eventually caught one.
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| Downtown, as seen from St. Boniface |
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The Forks Market - I decide to have lunch here. Well. That was the plan. I end up walking around, and the only thing that strikes my fancy is a small Ukrainian Foods stall. CAD 2.75 gets me two pirogies and a cabbage-roll. The cabbage-roll is smaller than the egg-roll you get in most vietnamese restaraunts in the States, so I guess that explains the cheap price. But the bottle of water to go with it is CAD 1.50 and I leave with a sour taste in my mouth (even though the food was fairly tasty). I should know better than to eat in "touristy" areas.
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| St. Boniface from the St. Mary's Bridge |
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After a brief (and thoroughly disappointing) stop in the Explore Manitoba thing at the Forks (they do have a computer with Free Internet Access, but it's in use, and I'm on vacation from that sort of thing - the brochures are the same things I've seen in other places, and you really should hire friendly and outgoing people to staff these sorts of places and they haven't), I take the Downtown Spirit (pdf) bus back toward my hotel. There are two buses that run the same route, one clockwise and one counter-clockwise. It's a pretty handy way of getting around downtown, but beware that the posted schedules are usually the summertime hours, and the runs are less frequent during off-season (though not a lot less frequent, since a fair number of locals seem to use it).
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| The Forks |
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On the bus, we go past the Fish Pond, the home of the Winnipeg Goldeyes. I didn't check to be sure, but I'm pretty sure they're out of the playoffs by now, and it looks like the grounds crew is out getting the field ready for winter, so I suspect they're done. It's a much nicer stadium than Midway, and I can see why the Saints are after nicer digs.
I stop by the Tourism Winnipeg office downtown to ask about a some sort of book about Winnipeg history. The woman there points me to Portage Place, where McNally & Robinson should have something that'll appeal to me. It's three blocks west. Along the way, I stop at a Yewch's hot-dog stand and get a smokie and a soda. They've got the tasty Vietnamese hot-sauce that Kate introduced me to years ago, and that, plus some ketchup and mustard on a sausage makes for a real taste-treat for lunch for CAD 3.50 plus a buck for a can of soda.
Portage Place is a city-centre mall, and seems to be pretty hopping. Nothing earth-shattering -- it's just the sort of convenience I expect to find in a downtown.
After lunch(es), I nead back to the hotel to drop off the book I bought and rest my feet for a while. I end up taking a three hour nap from 1:30 to 4:30. I'm not really missing much, as I'd only planned to see Dalnavert House, and wasn't all that jazzed about that, plus it appears I was pretty tired and needed the sleep.
Post-nap I try the Elephant & Castle Pub in the Winnipeg Delta Hotel. I'm not that impressed. The prices are no bargain, and the atmosphere is nothing like a real pub. I find myself wondering if maybe that's why Guinness recommends that people buying their "pub starter kit" (like Keegan's did) hire some Irish-born help.
So with that crossed off the dinner-list, I decide to head back to the Pony Corral (where I ate dinner last night). Kathrine is waiting tables again, and I'm glad to see her. She's a cutie and did a good job yesterday. The food and prices aren't great, but they're okay, and good service and an okay atmosphere make a world of difference. And it doens't hurt that the bartender knows how to mix a manhattan.
I think about the idea of meeting someone to hook up with while on the road as I'm waiting for my food. It's an attractive fantasy, but I don't think it's very realistic for me. Even when I know I find someone interesting, I kinda sidle up to 'em. And while travelling, by the time I've done much sidling, it's time to move on. I actually had a bit of conversation with Kathrine at the Pony Corral about my travels, and she'd be a candidate. But I wouldn't even feel comfortable asking her out until after some more conversation.
Keith's seems to be the Leinie of Winnipeg. It says it's an India Pale Ale, but it tastes almost lager-like. Tasty enough beer though, and it's in a lot of places and not too expensive.
Kathrine says that even the high of 30 today isn't unseasonably warm -- we get a warm snap like this every September
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I'm finding I've already settled into something of a schedule: play tourist until suppertime, and then find someplace comfortable to jot down the last few notes of the day and wind down. Then back to the hotel about 7 or 7:30, work hard on the notes until 8pm (when the prime-time movie comes on) and then spend the next couple hours watching TV and typing up the notes during commercials. I get done before the movie does and I won't have to spend months trying to get the vacation notes in order once I get home. And the writing doesn't feel too much like work. It's become part of who I am.
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