Vacations

Chicago, Arlington House Youth Hostel, Friday, October 21, 6:05 am

So here I am again, on another short excursion away from home. I’ve been awake for an hour already and decided the best thing is to get up and put my first impressions on paper. Since there is only a one hour time difference between Toronto and Chicago I decided yesterday I wasn’t even going to change my watch over. So when I came down this morning to use the free computer at the Arlington Youth Hostel in Chicago, I realized it’s not 7 am, but actually only 6 am. Well, even better, that’ll give me more chance to explore.

A trip to Chicago has been in the works for a while. I have been here twice before, once in 2001 with 3 of my friends, and once in April of 2003 to meet my friend Linda who I have known from back home in Austria since we are 10 years old. You realize you are getting old when you can say to someone that you have known them for 30 years…

So Linda, who now lives in Indiana, and I decided to reunite in Chicago again, so she is planning to come in today at 10:25 with the South Shore Railway Line. I, on the other hand, decided to fly this time, instead of driving or taking the train (15 hours from Toronto!!!) as I did the last two times.

As I’ve done several times this year already in my trips to New York City and Vancouver/Victoria, I decided to use my Airmiles to come down to Chicago on a free flight, and what a great decision that was since the flight is just over an hour long. With the help of Airmiles, this is shaping up to be a really reasonable and cost-effective weekend getaway in a great city that will allow me to keep my costs as low as possible.

Yesterday, I flew out of Pearson International Airport at 4:45 pm and arrived at 5:30 Chicago time. Chicago’s O’Hare Airport is the world’s busiest airport, and judging by the size of the terminals, I can only concur. After walking what felt like miles I reached the level where the subway trains depart, and I bought a 3-day visitor ticket for US$12.00. Chicago, similar to New York City, has a great transit system, with a large network of interconnected buses, subways and elevated trains. I am fascinated by the “el-train” system that runs through the downtown area and the “Loop” as it is called. The train on stilts has been in existence since the early 1900s, and it allows you to see some of the beautiful architecture that Chicago has to offer.

My destination was the Arlington House Youth Hostel, a place I had already stayed at during my earlier two trips. At US$56.00 per night for a private room for 2 people (albeit with a shared bathroom), you can’t beat the pricing. The Arlington House is located in the beautiful neighbourhood of Lincoln Park and literally just 15 minutes from downtown by el-train or bus. It took me 45 minutes by train to get to the Washington Station downtown where I changed over to the red line which just took about 10 to 15 minutes to get me to Fullerton.

I am usually pretty proud of my ‘highly developed sense of orientation’, but when I left the Fullerton el-train station it was dark already and I promptly ended up walking westwards on Fullerton, in the opposite direction of where I was supposed to go. I managed to successfully delay my arrival at the youth hostel by about 45 minutes due to walking in the wrong direction and not being able to connect with anyone who might have known where the youth hostel is. None of the DePaul university students that I asked had any idea of where the intersection of Lincoln and Fullerton was, they were probably all new in town themselves. I finally arrived at the next larger intersection “Ashland” and realized I had walked about 2 or 3 km westwards, in the wrong direction.

Pretty tired from rolling my suitcase around I decided to catch the bus back east on Fullerton and arrived at the Arlington House not much later. The Arlington House with its large entrance hall full of young (and older) travellers and its absolutely spartanic rooms (no closets, no night tables, no table lamps, no chairs, no desks – just a metal bunk bed for our private room) is always an experience. But I love it, it makes me feel young again to hang out with all these world travellers and adventurers of different ages.

I had originally planned to head downtown, but due to my detour I was pretty pooped and decided to just go and eat something locally. I strolled south on Clark Street which has many lively little restaurants and plopped myself down in a place called Ranalli’s where I had an extremely filling soup, salad and tiramisu dinner. After all this running around it was nice to sit down, read the paper, including the events calendar and try to figure out what adventures could be in store for this weekend.

Today I got up early, actually an hour earlier than I thought since I want to do some exploring before my friend Linda comes into town. I am planning to meet her at 10:25 at the Randolph Street train station, so I have a few hours for exploring before she comes into town.

I might take a bus north, or go south into the Old Town Neighbourhood, close to North Street.

It’s going to be interesting…..

One of the reasons people are so overwhelmed when trying to save for a vacation is that they think traveling is so expensive. While this can be the case, you can take a great trip for just a few hundred dollars a person. There are also many ways to cut down the cost of traveling so that you dont have to spend much at all to have a wonderful vacation. Here are some ways to cut down the cost of your next vacation, so that your money can go farther.

Pick a location based on what sales are going on during the time you’d like to go. Sometimes different locations have huge sales, and if you’ll consider going there, you can save a lot more on your vacation. For example, this past January had huge cruise sales on almost all cruise lines for almost all cruises. This would have been a perfect time to book a cruise for later in the year.

Go off-season. Not only will you save a lot of money, but also places won’t be as crowded! This can make your trip a lot more enjoyable. For example, going to Disney World off season in September or October means that not only will there be much shorter lines, but they normally have huge sales so you will spend a lot less on your trip!

Try different ways of pricing things. Some places will give you a discount for booking travel and hotel together, while other times you can save more by booking them separately.

Consider going somewhere that you can drive to. Going on vacation doesn’t mean you need to get on a plane, train, or boat. There are some places that are a day’s drive or less (no matter where you live) that can be a great vacation spot, and where you can have a lot of fun. Since you will be driving, your transportation costs are already a lot less, so your whole trip will cost less. An entire family can go on vacation for just a few hundred dollars this way!

If you spend some time researching before you book your vacation, and while you are on vacation, you will see that you can save quite a bit. You can still have a great, relaxing vacation, without spending a bundle.

Hello From Toronto Free Music, Great Food And Street Life At Torontos Taste Of Little Italy

Festival season is in full swing. Summer is a great time to be in Toronto since there are multiple events going on at the same time. I had just heard about the Taste of Little Italy street festival and decided to partake of a little free-admission Italo-style celebration.

When I got there yesterday at about noon the restaurants and bands were still setting up. Streets were closed all the way from Euclid to Shaw and everyone was working feverishly to prepare for the 3rd and final day of this years Taste of Little Italy. All the major bars and restaurants had big screen TVs to beam the live Brazil-Australia World Cup match to a crowd of avid soccer fans.

At the heart of Little Italy is the CHIN Building, headquarters of Torontos first multicultural / multilingual radio station, founded by famous Italian-Canadian entrepreneur and community leader Johnny Lombardi. CHIN broadcasts in more than 30 languages in Toronto, in more than 18 languages in Ottawa/Gatineau and is available via satellite all across North America.

Little Italy is one of Torontos most popular entertainment areas with a great variety of Italian restaurants, trattorias, bars and cafs. Other cultures have also made culinary inroads and youll find Japanese, Mexican, Peruvian and Portuguese eateries as well.

Since the festival wasnt quite off the ground yet I decided to treat myself to a little lunch and chose a nice window seat at El Bodegon, one of Torontos foremost Latin restaurants. Although the menu is dominated by meat and seafood, I opted for a light meal, combining a savoury avocado salad with fried plantains, one of my favourite vegetables. I had a perfect view from my little table by the window and caught a glimpse of two celebrities making a brief appearance: Jack Layton, federal NDP leader, and Olivia Chow, now a federal Member of Parliament. Torontos foremost political power couple, made an appearance on their bikes at the street festival.

At about 1:30 pm the music started to get going and right across from my lunch spot a two-man band started to play Latin rhythms and flamenco. After a very satisfying mid-day meal I started strolling through the area and chatted with a few of the bands. One of the music groups, Los Imbakayunas, is from Peru and tours all throughout Eastern Canada during the summer months and plays at various street festivals and special events. The hot Peruvian rhythms and melodic sounds of the pan flute were enchanting the crowds and hips were started to gently sway. Even a woman in an electric wheelchair started to dance exuberantly to the music.

I talked to a gentleman from the Coro Folcloristico Italia di Toronto who informed me that his group has been singing for more than 15 years and their repertoire includes the whole gamut of Italian folk songs, from the north to the south. I also had a brief chat with Pablo Terry, bandleader and flute player of Sol de Cuba who has been brightening up the Toronto music scene for the last 11 years.

Across the street was another band playing Latin Jazz, followed by a group playing contemporary Italian music. A few steps down from Terry was the Jeanine Mackie Band who got the street cooking with their funk, blues and R&B tunes. Further east another Italian choir, the Coro Abruzzo, was setting up for its performance.

A street festival always attracts interesting people. An older gentleman on a bike decorated with a tiger tail, a green plastic superhero adorning the handlebar and a tyrannosaurus rex made an appearance. Of course I had to talk to him. He said his name was Mickey, hes retired now and he figured decorating his bike would be something to do in his retirement. From dressed-up dogs to dogs in baskets on bikes, everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.

Various entertainment areas were set up for children: young ones were running back and forth inside a very large inflatable train, a soccer challenge was set up and at Hoop It Up people could test their basketball skills. Various games of chance were enticing the crowd to try their luck.

Low-cost shiatsu massages were available and henna tattoos could also be obtained. Many of the local stores participated in the festival by providing special sale-priced items on the street.

The Nicorette girls, dressed in devilish red dresses, adorned with diabolic tails, were handing out free stop-smoking chewing gum, trying to entice the smokers to give up their filthy habit.

More freebies were to be had in the form of clodhoppers, a truly delicious concoction of fudge and graham wafer crackers. I have to admit I walked by the Clodhoppers truck four times just to scrounge up another free sample of these delicious sweet treats. Another bunch of people were handing out free taste bags of Doritos, containing the new Jalapeno flavour. Later on I bought a pop at Kalendar Koffee House and was promptly given a free hot Nutella sandwich. The generosity was appreciated.

Freebies were available everywhere, free music and very reasonably priced food samples (costing between $1 and $5) made for a great low-cost outing on a hot June weekend.