I guess today is technically our first full day in Toronto, although Dan and I spent much more time awake and doing stuff yesterday, since we arrived in town at 6:30 AM and didn't sleep until 9 PM. Kind of shockingly and kind of unsurprisingly, we slept for a whopping 13 1/2 hours last night. And magically, it appears that in one night, I have overcome not only the difference in time zone, but my nocturnal sleep schedule that is offically over now that I'm done with ANTM. If I go to bed at a decent hour tonight, I could be in the clear when it comes to staying awake and actually experiencing Toronto.

We kicked off the day by eating in one of the hundreds of food courts underneath the city. Toronto is like, half underground. There is a massive labyrinth beneath downtown including shops, restaurants, coffeeshops, drugstores, and of course, the subway. You could navigate most of the city without ever seeing daylight if you wanted to. And boy, do I find that prospect appealing! LA could use a system like this, for when it's 100°F as it has been for weeks in the hell hole I call home. Interestingly, I seem to have brought a little heat wave with me, as it reached a muggy 90°F in Toronto today.

We visited the CN Tower, which, in case you don't know (as I didn't), is that defining spindle in the Toronto skyline. To my delight, we could walk there from the hotel without spending more than 5 minutes outside, thanks to a covered "Skywalk" that further convinced me that Toronto residents need to feel like they're underground even when they're above ground. Riding a glass elevator to the top of the CN Tower and enjoying a 360° panorama of the city was a somewhat familiar experience thanks to growing up in the home of the Space Needle, but it was still an amazing view of the city (though visibility was conspicuously limited thanks to a haze of smog and humidity).

At the top of the tower, there is an area with glass floor so you can see the city directly below your feet. You can imagine how well I handled this, although I couldn't not conquer it. But I did spend some time crawling on it before building up the courage to stand, and after that I cowered in the corner a tiny bit. One little girl ran onto the floor and immediately started STOMPING as hard as she could with both feet. What a surprisingly young age for a death wish.

Tonight, of course, we attended our very first TIFF screening, Starting Out in the Evening (8/8) on the opening night of my very first TIFF! Vickie met us for dinner and an entertaining discussion of Jessica Biel spin-offs ("Loving Annabiel"; "Spongebiel Squarepants"). You see, Dan and I invented a game called, "How could this movie be worse?" where you imagine Jessica Biel in the lead role of a movie, usually already terrible. Trust me, it's more amazing than Apples to Apples.

Vickie walked us to the Varsity theater, and along the way we spotted hordes of "industry types" crowding the area, with their little laminated passes proudly displayed even though they were just walking around on the street or checking into the Four Seasons. Of course we made fun of them, but of course I want to be one of them. Come on! I would make a great industry type. I already take myself too seriously and like to wear high heels.

The line at the Varsity was INSANE. There were multiple lines next to each other as well as combined with each other, as there were lines for certain movies and one line for whatever movies didn't have their own lines. After being misinformed, Dan and I ended up in the right line and snagged great seats before the theater got really crowded. And in addition to our first movie of the fest being ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, there was an illuminating Q&A with Andrew Wagner (co-writer, director, and producer) afterward.

Also, completely randomly, I ran into a girl I worked with at First Look Pictures (whose King of California is playing here at TIFF). Well, she worked there, and I was interning. But it was interesting running into her, because of how weird it didn't seem; as Vickie pointed out, this is like movie industry summer camp, which disguises the fact that we're 3,000 miles and an international border away from home.

After the film, Dan and I stopped in a nearby pub for some beer and poutine (french fries covered in cheese and gravy), which is possibly the most winning combination since beer and poutine. Did I already say beer and poutine? That's just how winning a combination it is.

We walked back to the hotel, fully satisfied with our first day of TIFFing. The days to come bring many more films, and I'm looking forward to exploring the city further now that it's fully in festival mode!

TIFF 2007

I’m writing this from my hotel room in Toronto, where I’ll be attending the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) for the next seven days.

This has been a huge dream of mine since I started going to the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) in 2001. I’ve always wanted to visit Toronto, I’ve always read Vickie’s amazing TIFF diaries, but I’ve never had the funds to get my ass across the continent to share in this amazing experience. Until now!

This is the year I decided to put every spare dollar towards making this Canadian dream come true. Back in April, Dan and I booked our flights and a swank hotel room for cheap. A few months later, we purchased some advance ticket packages. Last week, we scheduled our picks and FedExed the order form to participate in the lottery (!) that would determine whether we would see the films we wanted or not. Last night, we got on a plane and five hours later we were in Toronto. Airplanes are amazing! No wonder it costs so much money to ride them.

Dan and I are staying at the Hotel Victoria, which I would like the record to state I chose solely because it is named after Vickie (as well as being affordable and conveniently located, of course). Hotel Victoria is like, okay, maybe some hookers died in the exact spot where I’m writing this, but this place has really pulled itself together. Now it’s fancy and modern, but still has “character.”

After three hours of sleep on the plane, the first thing we did in Toronto was head to the TIFF box office to pick up our tickets and redeem a voucher for one more movie choice. Because nothing can ever go smoothly, we faced several issues here:

1) You must have a pick-up voucher to collect your tickets. You must have it. They send it to you with your order forms. YOU MUST HAVE IT. Needless to say, we didn’t have it. I’m pretty sure I FedExed it right back to them with our order forms, because I’m so smart.

2) When picking out your movies, you must schedule your screenings so they don’t conflict with each other -- but because of the lottery system, you might not get all your picks, so you must create a schedule of alternates that won’t conflict with each other OR your first choices. We ended up with tickets to three of our alternates, but for Thursday we didn’t get our first choice OR our alternate. So we had to choose another movie in person.

3) When we arrived at the box office, the line stretched out of the office, down the hall, out the revolving doors, around the corner, and down the outside of the building.

Fortunately, the abbreviated third act of this story is, they gave us the tickets without a voucher, we got tickets for another movie, and we didn’t have to wait in line AT ALL.

Later in the day, Vickie led us on a delightful tour of the area and all the TIFF venues where we would be spending so much of our lives for the next week. Unsurprisingly, Dan and I spent the final leg of the tour nearly keeling over from sleep deprivation, which is also why this entry is about to end so abruptly zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

My first TIFF starts tomorrow!

TIFF 2007