My Trip to Stratford and Seeing Tommy

The rock opera Tommy. Maybe there was some guy named Tommy there too, though. I don't know.

Anyway, yeah, yesterday I went to Stratford Ontario and it was pretty fun. We went to see Pete Townshend's Tommy with my Dad for his birthday and Father's Day present. We went in the afternoon and walked around a bit before seeing the show, and saw some cool stuff. Unfortunately I'm not much of a picture-taking guy (that is the technical term I believe), but I did manage to get a few pictures, so I'll show those off and talk about some other stuff.

So we started out driving in and parking beside the City Hall, which is a really cool looking building. We saw a bunch of really neat looking old churches and other buildings too, giving the vibe of an old timey town. The illusion is kind of broken when you come across the Subways (sandwich shop), but y'know. Still neat. The Avon Theatre where we were going to see the show was nearby, so we went and scoped around there a bit, then decided to go checkout the river.

The river is supposedly kind of famous, and may have actually been carved out? Not too sure, but it's supposed to emulate the river going through the original Stratford in London, or something like that. ANYWAY, we were promised that swans would be there. And swans there were! Originally, we only saw one from afar, but decided to cross a bridge to the other side to get a closer look at it. Turned out it was a parent swan with four little swanlings. They turned out to be quite friendly, used to people being around I suppose. Check 'em out!

The mom was cool with us going right up to the babies. We didn't try to touch them, though.

The babies! So fluffy. Apparently young swans are called cygnets. Weird huh.

As we walked a little further down the river we came across what appeared to be a war memorial. It had a cool statue on the top, and the names of a bunch of people that fought in World Wars I and II. I was really struck by the statue, so I took some pictures of it.

A triumphant looking man and another with a broken sword and a sheet over his face. What could it mean?

Hell yeah. *salute*

The other side of the memorial with some more names. Cool stuff.

So after that we ate at Boomer's Gourmet Fries, which was just a stone's throw from the river. It came highly recommended, as it was on the Food Netword's 'You Gotta Eat Here'. Well, it lived up to the hype for me. I got what was called the Poutini Martini. It ended up being just regular poutine, except also with onion rings and a couple of olives (hah, get it). The onion rings were a genius addition, I couldn't believe I'd never heard of such a thing before. But they had tons of other types there too. If you're ever in Stratford, I can definitely add my recommendation to Boomer's.

So then it was on to the show. We had pretty good seats, on the balcony level but up towards the front and right in the centre. As I said before, I didn't really know what to expect, having never seen a rock opera was before, but it ended up being pretty much that. An opera with rock music. I don't know what I expected *Arrested Development*

It was great though. The music was cool, and the actors all did an amazing job. I was really impressed by how well they were able to sing while also acting and dancing around. The story was pretty good too, from what I interpreted. Kinda weird in spots...but I still definitely enjoyed it. One thing I wasn't expecting was how LOUD it was. I'm not much of a concert-goer at all, so that took me kind of aback, but it wasn't SO loud that I didn't get used to it quickly. However, there were a few times when guns were shot, and that was like next-level loud. Like, you could hear it from space. Yes I know that doesn't make sense - that's how loud it was.

So yeah, for my first time at a rock opera, and at Stratford, it was a great introduction. Definitely would like to go back sometime to see something else. And of course, as a person of suck weak will, I couldn't leave a place like that empty-handed. I bought a graphic novel version of MacBeth, which was one of my favourite Shakespeare plays that I read in high school. I also got a manga version of The Merchant of Venice, which I have never read before (and had actually not heard of before), but I thought the art looked cool, so I decided to give it a shot. It was ten bucks, so what the heck, right? Hopefully it'll be good.

Then finally, I bought something that struck me right when I walked in the door. In fact it was the last one they had, the lady actually took it off of the wall to give me to buy, haha. Check it:

If you hear the jingling of the bells, don't bother turning round. You're already dead.

Pretty cool, right? Sorry the picture is kinda dark and grainy (thanks Samsung), but I guess it kinda adds to the creepyness. And yeah there are little bells on the end of each of the...protrusions. But who needs stealth when you've got style, right?

Anyway, yeah. It was definitely a cool experience - it's always nice to get slightly more cultured. Apparently there's some Shakespearean festival that goes on there, but we didn't get a chance to check it out. I don't know the details but it sounds like that would be really cool to see one day.

*EDIT*
Crap, I forgot to put this in. BONUS DUCK

Quack.