well that didn't suck

I spent Friday night getting my urban-fix as I met friends for dinner in the Little Korea area of Toronto. Spent some time wandering through the huge Korean supermarket on Bloor by Palmerston, and dinner at Korea House. The food portions are huge, but the price is great. We split a bottle of soju, which is pretty much a bottle of sweet potato vodka. A wander through some nice College St. neighborhoods, a stop in at Soundscapes record shop and I was back in the burbs.

Saturday was a good day. I went to visit some old friends in Peterborough, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. Well, i knew that visiting Greg & Mich would be fun, but Peterborough has some nice places to hang out. Alas, we couldn't track down a karaoke bar, but we did check in at the town's only martini bar, The Saphire Room. Really nice space which reminded me of the smaller lounges I enjoy in Toronto. The drink menu had some depth to it and the bartenders were quicker than I thought they'ld be with the more complicated cocktails. There seemed to be several bachelorette parties wandering through the downtown too, like some universal constant: wherever there are bars that serve "Slippery Nipple" or "Sex on the Beach", there will be a bachelorette party and a bride-to-be with a tiara and an inflatable penis.

It hadn't occured to me that Peterborough is a university town until I got into the downtown area. It reminded me pleasantly of Guelph, with it's preserved downtown buildings and lines of boutiques, bars, second hand book shops, and mom & pop stores. Also the $2.75 drink night at the Trasheteria would have surely rekindled some fond memories if we had gotten our second wind.

The Trasheteria has two locations I know of, one in Peterborough and the other in Guelph. Most of my early bar-going experiences were at the Trasheteria in Guelph, where Retro 80s nights went hand in hand with my first Rye & Ginger. Nostalagia rather than common sense urged me to try the Peterborough Trasheteria for old time sakes.

"Greg, we have to got to the Trash! Come on! If they're playing Bauhaus we just have to go!". Greg was willing to take me up on that condition, but there were no strains of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" to be heard, so we moved on down the road. Perhaps another time.

The only downside to the night was the perplexing behaviour of the cabs who would drive around with their top lights on even when they had a fare. They must have been passing us by so they could go to Trent University for larger fares.

Most of my previous Peterborough experience was marketing a cottage life magazine at the Peterborough Fair and Tractor Pull, so it was nice to experience more to my tastes.