Weekend - Part 2

So after the show we went back to the hotel and a very nice hotel it was! I was in charge of picking it since I know more about Toronto than either Nath or Amy. Ron always used to take care of that kind of stuff so it was a new-to-me thing to do. But I think I did good. We stayed at the Marriott in downtown Toronto. It was right next to the Eaton Centre which made it nice and close for shopping.
We settled in and got to know each other better – since due to the late train it was just rush and go.
Again Nath and Amy are both so cute and nice. We stayed up and watched TV and well – read.
We were all up by 9:30 and slowly started getting ready for Cindy to join us for some heavy duty shopping.
You probably remember I’ve met Cindy and Bob. Cindy is just as bubbly in real life as she is in her blog! And I have to say I’m always so impressed that Bob understands and gets Cindy’s passion for books. All husbands should be so understanding. There he was perfectly fine to wander downtown Toronto with 3 maniac women in search of books.
The weather couldn’t have been any better! It was cool enough and sunny. As Cindy already said in her report, we stopped first for breakfast but either she didn’t notice or she go confused – but I was also feeding the pigeons we didn’t’ know we weren’t supposed to feed.
After breakfast we hit The World’s Biggest Bookstore. I don’t know if it’s the worlds biggest or not, I think Chapters can certainly rival it these days, but what it does have is older copies of books you normally don’t find in bookstores. This suited me just fine since I had a bit of a dilemma. You see, I’m headed to the RWA in a few weeks (can’t think about that too much, otherwise I’ll overload and explode) and there is a rumor that books may be plentiful there. So I didn’t want to get a lot of new releases in case I already have copies when I head to Dallas.
So I wasn’t expecting to buy that many at TWBB. Surprise! Since they had older books, I managed to get quite a few of them. And with the buy 3 get 1 free – well – I scored 8 books! My real find there though were Enticed by Hope Tarr and Of Darkness Reborn by Alexis Morgan.
After dumping them off back off at the hotel and showing Cindy and Bob the messy room, we started off for part 2 of the shopping spree. We walked, and we walked, and we walked. We found a number of used bookstores and I managed to find books in every one we stopped at. I was kind of disappointed though. I think I’ve been spoiled by the UBS’s in London where most have huge separate romance sections. The ones on Saturday either didn’t have a romance only section so you had to hunt them out among all the other fiction or the romance sections was almost negligible. But since the main point of the trip was to meet Nath, Amy and Cindy – it was all good.
We also got stopped by a parade. Like Cindy, I thought it was the Gay Pride parade and when it was done I couldn’t help think ‘that was it?????’ It’s supposed to be famous and it was the most pitiful excuse for a parade. But then I later found out that was only a pre-parade and the big one would be the next day. Like Cindy, I was fascinated by the street cleaning machines that followed. I’d never seen anything like them before and they looked like something out of a science fiction movie. If I’d been on the ball I would have taken pictures because they were very strange machines.
Cindy and Bob headed out soon after that. I was delighted that she joined us as long as she did since it was a heavy duty walking and shopping excursion. After they left, Nath and Amy were all ready to continue on, even though Amy had done something to her foot and could hardly walk. I don’t know how they did it!! Those two are SHOPPERS, let me tell you. By this time we’re miles from the hotel and I’m ready to drop. That expression ‘shop to you drop’ took on new meaning. We stopped in for a little while at the internet café and then they were ready to continue. Eventually I think they must have taken pity on me and decided it was time to go back. I was exhausted, Ames could hardly walk because of her foot and brave Nath was carrying most of our purchases in her backpack and was looking a little turtle-like. They had the brilliant idea to take a cab back to the hotel and oh my, was that a welcome relief to me.
Once we got back, we took pictures of us with our purchases (pictures to follow) and headed out for dinner.
Low and behold, just across the street from the restaurant we went to was…..
The World’s Biggest Bookstore. So of course after we ate we had to go back for a second visit and we each made more purchases.
We talked about doing different stuff in the evening, but since I’m a good – oh 5 years older – than either of them and had walked more than I had in years earlier in the day, I was fine to just keep the books company. Nath and Amy must have felt the same so we spent the remainder of the evening watching TV and reading.
It’s so nice to be able to sit and read when there are other people around and not feel guilty. Ames had just a couple of pages left of the book she was reading before she could turn off the lights and Nath and I could totally relate. It was the same thing in the morning. We were all reading for a bit and it was just so nice to do that around people who are the exact same way, cause you just never know when the compulsion to read will overtake you. If you’re with non-readers, you have to control those impulses and behave in a quote – normal – unquote way and not let the people know you can talk and read at the same time. You might miss a sentence or two if you’re in a real good part – but for the most part, I think we can multi-task pretty good. But it just looks rude to others.
So it was very freeing to be able to do both.
Well – I’m way over my word count so this is going to have to go to part 3.

‘til later