Dotting the i's, Crossing the t's

Ever since Sicily, my trip's been taking me to places that I've visited previously - sure Pisa and Switzerland and Quebec and Ontario were all new, but they don't feel quite as radically new as, say, finally reaching Africa and seeing the Pyramids in Egypt. It's more like going through and picking up the pieces that I'd missed before. But before that all starts sounding boring and mundane, never fear - the particular pieces I've been picking to see are pretty damn appealing in their own right - so...

I'd been to Paris several times before (most recently to buy a certain mini automobile), and I've seen all the big museums - Louvre, d'Orsay, Rodin, Versaille, but never the Center George Pompidou, perhaps the premier modern art collection in the world:

June 2010, Check!

The collection the Pompidou houses is certainly amazing and huge - I appear to have developed a greater degree of appreciation for modern art lately, but even I found some of the French exhibits a bit too weird for my tastes...

Moving on - There's lots of bridges around the world, I've seen some interesting and famous ones - some more famous than others. So, I couldn't leave New York this time without having walked the Brooklyn Bridge

consider yourself crossed, t!

In a similar vein, it was about time I finally caught a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty!

There are some crazy, crazy, weird statues all over the world (especially in South and SE Asia), so I can't possibly be going home without having seen what is arguably the best known statue in the Western World. Certainly in North America...

I didn't go to Easter Island. But I really want to go! So, instead I went to see an exhibit dedicated to it at the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History

The CN Tower of Toronto, Ontario rises to a fairly mind-boggling height of 553 meters above ground

I've seen some of the tallest buildings in the world, but I hadn't seen what, until recently, used to be the tallest of them all (Burj Dubai surpassed it earlier this year) - Toronto's CN Tower is certainly the grandest (and tallest) of the city's landmarks. Unrivaled in height, probably rivaled in appeal by all the restaurants Toronto has to offer...

Hockey - Canada's national past time. And the Stanley Cup, the prize for becoming the champion of the National Hockey League

Sports I've gone to see along the way: muay thai (Thailand), rugby (Fiji), footie (a.k.a. Australian Rules Football), sumo wrestling (Japan), tennis (Argentina), football/soccer (Bolivia), cycling (Bolivia), horse racing (Hong Kong), baseball (USA). I went horse back riding in a few places too, but that hardly looks like a sport when I'm the one doing it... So, what I really should have done is catch a hockey game while in Canada, but it's the NHL's off-season during the summer, so I settled for a visit to the hockey Hall of Fame here in Toronto for a glimpse at all the glory and history of the game...

Moving right along... waterfalls! The Iguazu falls in Argentina are undoubtedly the most awesome waterfall (or a collection of falls rather) in the world. I should see the Victoria Falls in South Africa before making these assertions (Venezuela's Angel Falls too...), but I'm pretty confident. After all, I did go to Buffalo, New York to see the Niagara Falls, the greatest waterfall North America has to offer, and while I wasn't disappointed (was mightily impressed, in fact), Niagara surely pales in comparison to Iguazu!

I recruited Amie to come play my local tour guide... Last time we hung out was back in January, on the beaches of Koh Tao in Thailand - six months later, Buffalo and Niagara Falls! Apparently she now has a job too...

Speaking of big tall buildings, the skyscraper was invented in Chicago, and the city is home to American's tallest building - the Willis Tower (which used to be known as the Sears Tower, until apparently the Sears corporation started running out of money).

I felt Ok about the Sears Tower though, since I'd seen it before...

The locals in Chicago, however, apparently prefer the John Hancock Tower (merely the sixth tallest building in the US), so I made my over to see it.

Actually I met Cynthia for lunch at the Signature Room on the 95th floor, with its amazing views of the Lake Michigan shorelines - the best part about "crossing the t's and dotting the i's" is that traveling in civilized places like Europe and North America, you get to meet up with lots of friends wherever you go!