The "Once" We Went Away For A Weekend!

        This past weekend, my wife, Doralyn, surprised me with an overnight stay in Toronto and tickets to the new musical, "Once", as my birthday gift!
   Leading up to the weekend, she had told me that we were going to be going away and staying in a hotel somewhere but that's all she told me---no details, no destination, no nothing.
   The night before we left, she actually came and presented me with a couple of little scrolls, all tied up. One of them was a blurby on the hotel we'd be staying at and the other was the tickets!

   "Once" is a theatrical adaptation of the 2007 movie of the same name. It is actually one of our favourite movies! It tells the story of how a young man in Dublin comes together with a Czech immigrant woman and then start making music together. They both are in the midst of broken relationships with other people but the woman recognizes the man's musical ability and believes she can help him win back his former lover with it. She takes this on as her mission but, of course, the two of them fall in love and there's the complication. To tell you any more would be a disservice.
   In the movie version, the leads were played by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, who were a real-life couple at the time. Hansard wrote the music and he and Irglova won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Falling Slowly", from the movie.
   The play had been getting great reviews and the two of us had already talked about how cool it would be to see it and now we were!

My lovely dinner date!

   We spent the night at the Isabella Hotel, about half an hour's walk from the theater and the Eaton Centre. After we found parking (no mean feat) and checked in, we headed down to the Eaton Centre for a little retail therapy. We walked and walked but were unable to find anything we were interested in. Being hungry, we decided to stop in the massive food court, find some Thai and chow down.
   The food was actually much better than we were expecting (for a food court) and we couldn't believe we finished our huge plates of food (maybe it was all the walking...)
   

After dinner, we decided to take in a movie. We checked online and found a Cineplex only about a block away and headed there to see "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". This is a sequel to "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", which we had seen and loved, so it was kind of a natural choice. If you saw the first one and enjoyed it then you really need to see this one!

The foreground was better than the backdrop...

   After the show, we walked back to the Isabella. The Isabella Hotel was originally a large mansion which then had a more modern and taller addition built. The room we had was probably the smallest hotel room we've ever been in but nice and cozy at the same time. The staff were also very friendly and quite accommodating. The only negative was the parking---not enough designated hotel spots meant you had to find a local parking lot. And pay for it.

My beautiful lunch companions---Sherri, on the left, and Doralyn!
How appropriate that it happened to be International Women's Day!

   As it happened, Doralyn's brother James' girlfriend, Sherri, had also purchased tickets for "Once" as a birthday gift for him, too! So we all ended up going to the theater together! Doralyn and I arranged to meet Sherri for lunch at a jazz bistro before the play, as James was busy at a home inspector conference. He was able to join up with us at the bistro shortly before the performance started.
   The play was magnificent! The music was awesome and the actors all were perfect for their parts. There were equal parts humour and pathos and the laughing you did was balanced by the misty-eyed, lump-in-your-throat feeling you had by the end of the play. Doralyn and I couldn't recommend the performance enough. Go see it!
   After the play, James and Sherri headed for home and Doralyn and I began our walk back to our hotel. When you walk, you get a totally different perspective of a city. You get to stop and take a longer look and you notice and can appreciate things you probably would have missed in a car.

Massey Hall

   On our first trip down to the Eaton Centre, I realized we had to walk right past legendary Massey Hall. Massey Hall is much revered in Canada as a performance venue and has hosted many of the greats in its tenure. You can read a little of its history here. In spite of its fame and history, I had never seen it and didn't even really know what it looked like! So I was amazed as it loomed up in front of us that first night!

The Isabella Hotel

   Our walking route also took us several times through the Church and Wellesley area of Toronto. This area is described as an LGBT-oriented enclave and is home to Toronto's Gay Pride Parade. Rainbow colours are everywhere---the crosswalks, streetsigns and art pieces are festooned with them and it's actually pretty cool passing through.

   There were also some interesting sculptures near the Isabella and I managed to get a couple of pics as we passed---upside-down wolves and deer all over the place! I even found my own personalized mural at a construction site!

One of the best things about
walking with Doralyn!

   All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend a birthday weekend! And Doralyn was the perfect person to spend it with, I find myself thanking her for so much in my life and this weekend was just one of the many things!
   Love You, Babe!