Canada Part 6 - Another 360 in the Sky

July 12


As we had our usual early hours post U2 gig celebrations we had a lie in next morning.  After a breakfast of chocolate biscuits I met up with Deb and Julie in the foyer and we went to the St Lawrence Market.  There has been a market on this site since the early 1800s.  It's a lively place full of atmosphere, sights and smells, including a stall that sold every kind of burger under the sun, camel, buffalo, kangaroo, you name it they had a burger made out of it!  I loved it there and if I lived in Toronto I'd be a regular customer.


Afterwards we chilled at the hotel before getting ready for our meal at the 360 restaurant at the CN Tower.  We treated ourselves to a taxi and met up with Dan And Dianne at the base of the Tower.  It takes 58 seconds in the lift to get to the restaurant, our ears popped as we watched a whole new view of Toronto appear below.  The CN Tower opened in 1976, and for over three decades was the world's tallest free-standing structure at 1,815 feet, only recently losing that distinction.  I've always thought that it's a very elegant building and it helps you keep orientated in the city too!

Me, Debbi and Julie in the 360 Restaurant

We were given a table beside one of the windows, and when we first sat down we had a gorgeous view over the Toronto Islands and Lake Ontario.  The restaurant does one full rotation every 72 minutes so everyone gets a chance to see both the fabulous lake and downtown views.  We were there for over two hours so we saw it all both in daylight and when the city was lit up like a Christmas tree.  Mother Nature even treated  us to a gorgeous red sunset!  The rotation of the restaurant was very gradual but it was both funny and disorientating to suss out where the toilet was only to find it was in another place when you wanted to go again!


We ordered from the fixed price menu ($55) as there was no way we could afford a la carte!  Dianne has snails as a starter, Debbi and I were curious about them and tried a morsel each.  My verdict?  A bit like mushrooms in consistency and taste (the snails were cut into small pieces) but with a slightly spicier taste.  I had a delicious caesar salad for starters, followed by pan seared fillet of applewood smoked Atlantic salmon, Saskatchewan wild rice, wilted arugula and water cress, sour apple beurre blanc.  The salmon just melted in my mouth, I had no idea what argula was (I later looked it up, it's rocket) but it went perfectly with the watercress and wild rice.  We washed it down with a delicious Valpolicella which should be good at $51 a bottle, (Dan kindly put the first bottle on his bill, thank you!) 

My heavenly dessert in the 360 Restaurant!

Then the big decision, what do I have for dessert?  Dark chocolate tower with summer fruits and raspberry vanilla creme Anglaise or maple walnut roulade with candied walnut meringue and vanilla bean creme Anglaise?  The chocolate won (it usually does).  It looked almost too good to eat, it was truly a work of art.  The mousse inside the tower was perfection and I loved every morsel!


The service was very good and the atmosphere relaxed.  Yes, it wasn't cheap but the quality of the food was excellent and I don't mind lashing out money on good food occasionally.  It was also the last night Dianne, Debbi, Julie and I would be together and what better place to be than the 360 Restaurant after all the good times we've had on U2's 360 Tour over the last three years?  It was the perfect way to .  end it.

Dianne, me, Debbi and Julie getting the cobwebs blown off
in the Red Zone!

After the meal we decided to go out onto the viewing platform It was a tad blowy to say the least, we didn't spend very long out there.  We then went to the area that had the glass floor.  It's strange but even though you know the floor is safe (there was a sign saying it could withstand the weight of 14 large hippos!)  there is an inbuilt primeval fear of stepping into the "void". I eventually did step onto it, well I actually also lay on it for a photo, must have been all the Valpolicella LOL!

Then it was time to say goodbye to Dan and Dianne, they were going home the next morning.  It's always sad when friends who live a long way away leave as I don't know when I'll see them again.  But we have shared great times and I'm sure there will be more.

Canada Part 5 - Hot, Hot, Hot and "Canada Shining Out Of My Backside"

11 July


We felt refreshed and ready for anything when we got up the next day.  We decided to go to the nearby St Lawrence Market and have some breakfast there.  However, it was closed on Mondays so we found a Starbucks around the corner and had coffee and cake.  While we were sitting outside a man tied his gorgeous little dog beside us while he went in to buy something.  The dog was so sweet, chilled and loved a tickle.  When the man came out I asked him what type of dog it was and he said it was a Maltese cross and that she was a lovely dog, she was called Poops (hopefully a nickname!)  It was so sweet to see how much he loved his little dog and vice versa.  


At lunch time Debbi, Julie and I walked to the Radisson Harbourfront Hotel where we were meeting Dianne and her husband Dan for lunch.  It was nice to see Dan again, he's such a lovely man.  I had a delicious salad with goats cheese and strawberries, a perfect combination, just the thing in the hot weather.


We walked the short distance to the Rogers Centre which was beside the still elegant (after 35 years) CN Tower that dominates the city. We waited for the band's arrival, we only saw Bono smiling and waving from his car.  It was an extremely hot day, and Toronto was the hottest place in Canada  - at one point the mercury hit 33 degrees centigrade!  Add to that the humidity created by the Great Lakes and it was unbelievably hot, for me, an English rose from northern England that was very, very hot, but somehow I survived it!


We didn't want to go into the stadium until the as late as possible so we ended up back at the Radisson and had something to eat outside on the patio overlooking Lake Ontario, there was a nice breeze coming off the lake so it was pleasant there. Even with the heat I was loving Toronto, it's such a handsome city, fabulous location, lovely vistas, great new and old architecture, for me it beats Montreal any day.


Then it was off back to the Rogers Centre.  It was all well organised, no Fan Jams, easy to find seats, toilets, food etc, in other words, how it should be!  We had cheaper seated tickets this time so were quite high up, but each row of seats had a metal bar in front of them so it felt safe and helped my vertigo!  The stadium was round rather than rectangular and very high,earlier in the day the retractable roof (it was the first in the world) was closed as a storm had been forecast, but it was now open as the storm hit further south.  This was one of the few stadiums the Claw didn't peek out of.  Opposite us stood the CN Tower soaring into the sky.  It was still very hot and humid and sweat stood on my brow the entire evening.


U2 started at the usual time and as usual we were up out of our seats and bopping away only to realise most of the people around us had their arses firmly planted on their seats!  Though a U2 audience is always very mixed age-wise around us it was mainly young people and I just could not believe they were so boring!  As the seats were so steep we didn't block people's view so we just stayed stood up.  Even in the pit around the Claw people seemed not that into it.  Bono worked really hard to get the crowd going and they did improve but were not a patch on the two Montreal crowds.

For the Toronto band intros Bono apologised for the year's delay caused by his back injury last year referred to the changes in the members during the tour. Adam "became a father for the first time." Larry was in a movie with Donald Sutherland; and Edge wanted to write a musical about a "superhero? scientist?  - being bitten by a spider and becoming a nerd." He rambled on, "Who can fathom the workings of this man's mind? A genius on guitars and everything else... very good at train sets."  To which Edge mumbled something about modesty LOL! 


During City of Blinding Lights Bono got a boy up on stage and walked an entire circuit of the walkway with him, the lad imitating Bono's stance etc. prompting him to say, "you're not a shy boy are you?"


All through the show the Claw had a rival unique to Toronto for special effects - the lights of the CN Tower.  Lights of varying colours pulsed and rippled around and up and down the tower, often in time to the music, it looked great!   


At one point Bono said he had "breaking news" and the stadium became amazingly quiet and he continued to say that over the last two years two million more Africans had been saved from AIDs-related illness in the last two years.


A one point Bono was on one of the bridges and someone threw a Canadian flag at him.  He picked it up and put it in a back pocket of his trousers, "Canada shining out of my backside" he laughed.  He briefly mentioned the moon, saying we couldn't see it, but that it was, "smiling down on us."  Strangely Bono didn't mention the tower, maybe he couldn't see it from the stage.


The set was the same as the first night in Montreal, I was hoping for Bad but it wasn't to be.  It was a good show, but not a great show.  I think part of that for me was due to the lacklustre crowd around us, don't know why they pay good money to sit in their seats for a rock concert! 


It was also my last 360 Tour show and I felt a bit sad as I watched the band leave the stage.  360 had been a part of my summer for the last three years and it was now finally over for me.  Lots of travel, fun, highs and lows, sun, rain, wind, magic U2 moments, good friends - what wonderful times we have on these escapades.  Now I'll have to start saving for the next tour!
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