Rochester Trip, Part 3 - Toronto!

I saw a total of two rainbows on this trip. The first was floating somewhere over Toronto. As we approached the city, I got a little apprehensive, though. The lush, green drive we had just 15 minutes earlier was slowly turning a bit more brown and unexciting. I told Chris that I hoped this was not an indication of what awaited us. He assured me it was not. Our final destination there, The Rex (which calls itself the place "where jazz musicians come to hear jazz" or something-er-other), was to be in a nice spot downtown. We had specific directions to get there, but as we pulled in to the hustle and bustle of the traffic in the city, I turned to my left and demanded that Chris pull over! Look! We need to stop!

Dear Chris maneuvered us through a complicated situation across traffic with impressive ease and turned into a parking lot, turned off the car, and we walked out to this:

 

The sad part about the above photo is that I'm missing about half of it. My memory card somehow hand-selected the most impressive, beautiful photo out of hundreds of others to mutilate. You can still get the general idea. Originally, there were many more yachts and water along the bottom, much better balance, etc. Oh well.

Chris has a much better arm than I have for the self portrait. I let him take care of this next one. At least this didn't get eaten by the memory card bug, and you can see a little more of the background, too.

 

And for the next 5 hours I fell in love with Toronto. So fun to walk around the city, dodge the trolleys, use loonies, find fun little places to window shop, sit in a cafe and watch three guys make crepes as you drink your coffee with your bestest friend, all the while anticipating JAZZ! Woo-ee!
Here he sits at The Rex, responsibly drinking a Coca Cola, knowing he'll need that caffeine later.

 

And the band that was the catalyst for our trip - Rutter, from NYC. The best concert experiences are ones like these, where you know that not a single soul in the band is pretentious, but instead, everyone aims to please, knows how to balance and complement each other, makes the crowd excited, and then when they're done with a set, they just walk around the bar and hang out. I love that.

 

Somehow, while enjoying the music inside, we had not a clue before we walked out of the club that it was pouring down rain. We made it back to the car slightly soaked, and we took the Midnight Express back into Rochester.