Winnipeg Wanderings

          I awoke this morning to a quite knock, and a voice, "housekeeping?" 

I groggily answered, "please come back."

I rolled over, and the clock read 9:12am… thanks HouseKeeping devil! I felt too awake to consider going back to sleep… and besides it's my only full day to see Winnipeg. I wanted to get up and explore. However, I switched on the TV, and watched some cartoons. The warm of the bed kept me from climbing out of it for at least an hour or two.

           By the time I left my hotel it was a little past noon. Using my fancy apps, I picked out a nearby breakfast place and headed North (pointed that way by my trusty phone). I was headed about four blocks to the Black Sleep Diner. Seemed pretty suiting for me:) I got to head in a new direction on my walk. I passed by the University of Winnipeg. It was a Giant brick building… not much else to say about it.. Nice bricks?

           Upon my arrival to the Black Sheep Diner, it was packed! There was a line-up literally out the door. Using my knowledge of restaurants, and my year as a hostess, I did a quick table count, and realized I wouldn't be seated for at least half an hour. At this point it was almost 1pm, and I really wanted to go to the Museum, which closed at 4pm (Damn Sundays). I didn't stay there… instead I looked up another place for breakfast and headed due West. 
          My walk there was pretty entertaining. I saw an Elmo dolls strapped to a truck. I thought it was cute… but then I wondered what they were trying to say with it. "If you fuck with us, we will do this to you!" OR "We like to strap things down!" OR "Let's make our truck a torture chamber of death!" What do you think they are saying with this??

          When I hit the coffee shop/breakfast place, it was closed… damn Sundays! Oh well.. At this point I had stumbled into an older part of town, and I could tell that some of the older buildings had historic significance. I admired the architecture, and realized that time was surely passing by. I headed back towards the downtown to see if I could find some food, and a cab to get to the musemum.

           I passed this theatre, that had an amazing brick wall with so many fire escapes to nowhere. I felt that people were going to appear out of somewhere, and start rehearsing for West Side Story. I started snapping, and doing the side-step walk and singing… I realized I was alone in doing this, and a family was backing away with horrified looks on their faces, so I promptly stopped. Jess, you were totally there with me, dancing right along!

          Without seeing any sort of cab or breakfast place I did the Canadian thing, and ducked into a Tim Horton's. No, my Rrrrrrrroll up the Rim to Win did not (win). It was just after 2pm now and I realized that not only was the musemum on the other side of town, but I would really only have about an hour to enjoy it. 

          However…. the Winnipeg Art Galley (WAG, hehehehe Wag!) was only a couple blocks away, and was open until 5pm. I felt a little bit like I was cheating or something, simply because I have never been to the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto). Well, anyways, here I am heading into this gallery.

           They had an exhibit on called the View. It was featuring a lot of art before the 20th century. There were a lot of cool hand painted, and hand crafted dishes from Canada, Britain, and China from the 1700s.

There were a lot of traditional paintings (mostly Roman, and British) from 1600s - 1800s. There were also some less traditional, more obscure paintings from the 1700s and a lot of these were Canadian. 

           I saw my first Emily Carr painting. Put a smile on my face to finally see some of the historic impact she has made. I've always heard the name, but didn't know anything about her.

          My favourite exhibit was called,"Through the eyes of Children". It was all artwork made by children. It would tell the name and age of the child. There were oil paintings, clay sculptures, schetches, decorations, forts, costumes, all sorts of stuff.

It reminded me how inventive kids can be.

          My two favourite pieces were great. One was a rocket ship/ airplane, made out of boxes, painted in different colours. There were stars and different designs stuck to all sides of it. The wings were like an airplane and painted with black and white stripes. There was a place for a small child to sit and "drive". There was a steering wheel created out of hubcap, and on the "dashboard", there were different leavers made out of handels, and the buttons to press were actually clothing buttons. This made me so happy. I wish I could have taken pictures in the Gallery, this place had such a happy nostalgic feeling.

          The other piece I loved in the children's Gallery was this boat. It was a five foot tall boat made out of paper machie. The front of the boat had a giant dragon's head. It had a full mass, and sails painted in matching colours. The crew were all little paper machie people. Most of which were Vikings all different looking. Their clothing and hair was made out of cloth and different materials. One doll had a total pirate get-up, eye-patch, peg leg, bandana, striped shirt. Another was wearing a traditional viking hat, with Pippi-longstockings type braids hanging out the sides. I must have examined this boat for at least five minutes or so.

          WAG was also doing a showing on Warner Bros. It showed a lot of the old illustrations from the 30s and 40s, as well as a little segmented section on each character. It was mainly Looney Toons characters… did you know Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig and older than Bugs Bunny?!? I never knew. There were a lot of write-up about all of the characters. Complete with tables on portions for illustrators to be able to redraw them. 

There was a create your own toon section, and I sat down with some children for a bit to draw and colour. There was also a wall were you could hang your art, and a lot of the pictures drawn by visitors were pretty good. 

Behind the drawing area, was a viewing area, they were playing Looney Toons traditional cartoons. There was more people watching the cartoons then anywhere else in the whole Gallery. I watched Silvester try to eat Tweety, and the Road Runner out smart Willi E. Coyote.

           The gift shop was a lot like the gift shop at the ROM. Selling thing that have nothing to do with an art gallery or musemum; like lamps, or vases. Umberellas, or napkins. But an entertaining little shop anyways. I wanted to be a dry-erase board of the paining "the scream", but I knew I wouldn't be able to carry it home in a couple weeks, so I passed.

            From there I continued wandering around downtown. I discovered this giant dog as he tried to eat SpongeBob. I came to his valiant rescue as I wrestled with him for my safe return of my Sponge. This dog is supposed to resemble these two different breeds of dog that were mixed in Winnipeg. The plaque said something like if they could survive here, then they could make it anywhere.

         In my wandering I ended up in Portage Place, and bought a couple tank tops. I realized that it's a bit colder than I would have hoped and they will be good to layer up and keep me warm. Also, I noticed… for a town that no one wear's heels, they sure have a lot of shoe stores!! In the same mall they had a Payless, ShoeWarehouse, Athletes' World, Steps, and two other no-name shoe stores… I felt like I should have bought shoes or something. I did see a single person wearing heels… she didn't speak a word of English, and I assumed she was also a tourist like me.

           After my shopping excursions I grabbed some dinner and headed back to my hotel. Also, my foot was killing me, having smashed it in a heavy door on Thursday before I left the city. It's pretty bruised, tender and swollen. Makes it a bit hard to walk around for more than six hours at a time.

            Knowing how sleep is on the train, I wanted to get in a good night's rest. I also have planned to get up early and grab breakfast before the train, which boards at 11am. I did play some Nintendo 64, and watch some bad movies, while I packed up my stuff.