Monday, September 14, 2015

Day 8: Hamilton

Woke at 6am after eight hours of sleep. One of our first discoveries was that the historical sites I wanted to visit were all closed on Mondays. I was thankful I had bothered to check their opening hours. Instead, we decided on walking along James Street to revisit sights we had been shown on our first night in Hamilton.

We began our journey at a Tim Hortons which yielded breakfast - very cheap and quite nice. It was wonderful to nurse a cup of tea and a sugar-dusted choc-chip muffin.

Then we hit James Street North! There we discovered more of the Monday Phenomenon - many shops were closed until Tuesday. We passed a church, the long barracks (which were closed for filming, much to my excitement - a sign warned the film crew not to park in there!), old buildings used as shops and finally LIUNA Station.


LIUNA was opened in 1931 before being closed in the 1990s. It is a grand columned building set behind beautiful gardens filled with flowers, statues (who look far too excited) and a nice fountain. It is now used an office and ballroom - very clever. The large space inside would be both spacious and grandiose, if it is anything like other large stations built at the time.

It has been used in many movies, including the aforementioned X-Men. Happily, we did not run into Magneto attempting to kidnap Rogue, nor did we see many people either.

Mutants not included.

We headed south, perplexed as to why everything on James Street smelled like cooking ham. Not much of note on this side, though we saw old buildings used as residences - they had a very distinctive style, many with round “towers”. Very quaint - I liked them, but they were not exciting after the first few minutes of walking.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch vibes, srsly.

We stopped at a pharmacy/post office to get stamps. Post boxes in Canada look like vandalised garbage bins - they are covered in weird sticky pink/red stuff. It is very easy to miss them on a street as they look like the sort of thing you’d find ripped posters and lost pet signs on. One we passed had “cock” scrawled onto it - this penis-obsessed miscreant continued onto other surfaces.

We turned back, walking down Bay Street instead (named so because it used to go to “Burlington Bay” which is now named “Hamilton Harbour”). Not much of interest to see - more houses. Paused at a road to let a car go past, but the drive insisted on waving us through first.

Canadians are very nice and polite people. It is a given that you will hold the door open for the person behind you. I like it here. The one thing I don't agree with is that in Canada brothels are illegal.

Did some more shopping. At this rate I won’t need to do laundry! I also bought Hersheys Hugs (another name for Hersheys Kisses haha) and returned to the hotel where relaxing lotions were awaiting us. The one to ease aching feet was super effective!

I made with Jon who I would be seeing in England. Read Tarkin which I bought here.

We had Subway for dinner. They have lobster subs here!

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