Crid's 1999 Grand Tour of Canada

3 weeks travelling by train from Toronto to Vancouver

Day 7 (Friday) - Winnipeg(Twin Pillars B&B)

Had a fairly small breakfast this morning.  They brought me the same amount of food as yesterday (ie. lots), but I really wasn't all that hungry.

Yesterday was cold, windy and it kept trying to rain.  The weather is better today - still cloudy but at least the sun has shown itself a bit.

Today I visited the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature.  There are three exhibitions in one there.  The first (and, I thought, the most interesting) was the main set of galleries.  These showed a lot of information about the landscape of Manitoba, the native people, and the settling by westerners.  Probably most impressive was a reconstructed version of the Nonsuch - one of the ships which sailed between England and Canada for the Hudson Bay Trading Company.  It is housed in a harbour area, complete with reconstructed period buildings.  Quite impressive.  The ship itself was surprisingly small.  Despite being a reconstruction, it was sailed around the coast of England (where it was built), then transported aboard a navy ship to Canada, where it was sailed around the various parts of the Canadian coast before  being donated to the museum.

I think the biggest surprise for me was the lack of audio-video presentations throughout the museum.  Perhaps this is an English thing.  I don't know.

The second exhibition was the Science Centre.  This was a bit of a disappointment for me as it's really aimed at kids.  The Science Centre in Toronto (which I visited last time I was in Toronto) was much better in my opinion.  (I lost myself for 10 hours in that one).

Lastly there was the Planetarium.  The show was about gravity and was pretty good, although the actor on screen playing Isaac Newton didn't seem to know and English accent from a Scottish one.

Met up with a couple of visiting Americans while I was waiting for the Planetarium to open.  The guy (who was probably in his 60s) was only trying to be friendly, but when he found I was English he felt he just had to recite a joke he knew about England.  I won't bother to repeat it, as it wasn't really all that good.

Tried to call Vance again this evening, but I still get the same recorded message saying I can't be connected.  Very odd.  I have managed to send him an email from the B&B's account, so hopefully he'll call me.

Once again I wasn't very hungry, so I visited the local Subway, which is on the corner of the street that the B&B is on.  Considering all the walking I've done lately, I should be starving.  Today I only had breakfast and the sub at the end of the day.  No lunch at all.

I have to mention a couple of funny TV commercials I've seen.  One was for Black Diamond cheese, which involves a baby in a baby bouncer and a dog.  Both work together to get the cheese from the table while mum is on the phone.  (Dog pulls the baby back so that the spring on the bouncer is taut, then lets go.  The baby grabs the cheese and then collides with the dog on the way back, because it doesn't get out of the way.  The final shot is of the mother looking at the baby, who is holding the cheese.  In the background is the dog with a litter bin stuck on its head).

The other one is for milk (their slogan, it would appear, is simply "Got Milk?").  This ad shows the outside of a farmyard barn with a cow stood outside.  The caption tells us that it's approaching midnight on Dec 31st 1999.  You can hear the TV as the New Year is approaching, and the crowd is counting down to midnight.  Then the lights go out and the farmer can be heard complaining "what happened to the light?".  Then the screen shows:

Cows

Y2K Ready

 

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