Day in Winnipeg

Slow morning again. Woke up at around 9:30am, read emails and blog comments (thanks guys) and then decided to hit downtown.

So did the storm.

On my way to downtown, approximately 10km drive from the motel I’m staying in, it was pouring real hard. First time it rained like that in my entire trip. My GPS told me of a local sandwich place so I hit it for breakfast. Finding parking wasn’t too hard. The place was inside a mall called “Portage Place”, I think its name was “City Submarine”. Not a brilliant sub, however good value for the money you spend.

I then decided to look for some espresso. Starbucks was right nearby but I figured I may want to give some of my money away to local businesses rather than giant worldwide corporations. A short wandering around downtown (it stopped raining and became sunny again) and I came across this place called “Fyxx”, right on the big BMO building in Portage Avenue.

My advice—steer clear. Service was very slow—there were 3 people in front of me on the line and it took them 10 minutes to get my order. I figured, hey, maybe it’s worth the wait. I was wrong. I was given a cup of latte that tasted pretty much like water, milk and very low quality espresso. I can’t describe the feeling of craving good coffee / espresso and getting rubbish instead. I recall Richard Bennett’s blog post from a few days ago about some “Fine Italian” coffee turning out to be neither fine nor Italian but some rubbish made in America. It’s a very annoying feeling.

It was so awful that I couldn’t even finish it.

A short stroll back to my car. I realized that I am going to have to do quite a bit of driving starting tomorrow so today may be a good time for some laundry. Found some laundromat on Notre Dame avenue. I’m pretty sure it was one of the city’s rough areas as people didn’t seem to pleased wandering around the streets. Anyway, my Shangri La T‐shirt, a part of my usual concert attire, is clean again.

Back to the motel, getting ready for dinner & the concert afterward. Whatever I have left to do must be done now, as I have to go to sleep early—very long drive to Minneapolis tomorrow.

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Isaac