by Larry Richman
September 8, 2006 2:50 PM

Once I got used to the rumble of cars and trucks on the highway outside my window I was able to fall asleep for a few hours. Oh, it's not the 401 Highway. It's the 2, or the Gardiner Expressway, or the Queensway. No, it's not that I'm not sure which it is, it's actually all three. They give their roads several names here, so you can't get lost. Up bright and early, I popped on the Weather Channel to see how to properly dress myself for the day. It was 16° going up to 26°. Hmm..oh yes, they speak Celsius here. Fortunately, my alarm clock switches back and forth, and since it was 70°F in the room and that translated to 20°, I realized that I was glad I brought shorts. I headed into downtown Toronto to pick up my ticket package and goodie bag. I discovered that there's no easy way to get into the center of the city other than traveling local streets for miles. A 6 mile drive took about a half hour, even with my talking map. But at least I'm prepared for the 10 days to come.

First stop, the Manulife Center, location of the main box office. The building also houses a shoppng mall, offices, and an 8-screen multiplex which is "one" of the festival venues. There's also a nice big garage underneath, which would be my staging area for the festival. One thing I learned -- ATMs in hotels do not give cash to Americans. ATMs in malls do. So I finally got same Canadian dollars. The lines were beginning to form outside the box office, mostly populated by locals looking to purchase individual screening tickets. I was only exchanging a voucher for a package. I was instructed to wait in line. When I finally made it into the room, I was told that the vouchers were only being accepted at the College Park box office, a "10 minute walk" away. Ha. So I headed back out towards the other box office. By the way, that would only be the first of what would be many mixups on the part of the festival staff. Granted, this is a huge undertaking and it's just the first full day. Still, nobody seemed to have a clue where to send me. And what I was not prepared for was heat and humidity. It's like midsummer here. I was sweating buckets. When did they move Toronto to Florida? Maybe that's what all the rumbling was overnight. They were moving it. But I can't complain -- it could have been cold and rainy. So the "ten minute" (more like a half hour) walk wasn't too bad.

I arrived at the College Park box office. This is in another shopping mall with offices. I entered the huge complex and was directed to the box office on the northeast side of the building. Which wasn't there. No, it was on the southeast side, which is quite a ways away. Off I went. I finally found the correct line for picking up ticket packages. But by the time I got to the table, the bags were gone. I can do without the "goodies," but the bag is essential. Fortunately, the same room housed the store, and I was able to buy a bag. Hmm...coincidence? I think not. But the machine wouldn't accept any of my cards. The helpful clerk asked, "American, right?" What happened to "Visa, good the world over?" After trying various methods for about 10 minutes, the helpful clerks finally realized that they could accept cash. Aha! That I have. Nope. It didn't work. It seems the system knows when an American is standing there. Maybe it's some sort of radio waves we give off. The cashier broke down in tears. No seriously, she did. A manager finally came over and figured out how to do it. Turns out she was charging me for the wrong bag. Then she accidentally gave me $20 too much in change. But I'm an honest guy and gave it back.

While waiting, I learned about the subway system here and figured out all the logistics: where I'd park, how to get from theatre to theatre, and what my route would be each day. Things are starting to fall into place. I then had to go across the hall to another room to exchange some vouchers for films I was supposed to see that they had oversold. I actually had no films scheduled for today because of that. So I waited in another line. But by the time I got to the counter, the show which had been sold out and then was un-sold out and had tickets available had now sold out again. I left the room, threw some darts at the big board, and went back in line and eventually got tickets to two films tonight. Yay! I'm going to the movies!

The only thing I needed was the parking pass which would allow me to use the Manulife garage all week so I wouldn't have to deal with driving around downtown all day. The folks up at Manulife had told me that I could get the pass down at College Park when I picked up my tickets. Well...nuh uh. "We don't have them here. You have to go back to Manulife." Okay, so after starting at Manulife and being sent to instead to College Park to get my tickets and pass, I now had to go back to Manulife and get the pass that I could have gotten earlier. No biggie, right? "You have to wait in line again for that," the helpful festival staffer told me. "How long is the wait ?" I asked. "Oh, only about 45 minutes." Okay now, I can deal with errors on the part of staffers on the first day of a monster logistical nightmare, but no way am I waiting on line another 45 minutes because they sent me to the wrong place. Well, I won't tell you what transpired after that because it will get someone fired. But I got my pass.

So the process of heading into town to pick up my package and come back to the hotel only took about 5 hours. But, hey, I'm ready to see some films!

I must say, Toronto is beautiful. People are courteous and yield to pedestrians, and nobody honks their horns. Where I come from, you score points based on how many people you run down. There is a lot of construction going on and the buildings are a wonderful mix of old and new. It's definitely a friendly place. I had lunch in a courtyard behind the College Park building, which is really a big park with a sculpture garden, lots of nice places to sit, and a huge fountain which doubles as a skating rink in the winter. There appeared to be lots of kids sitting around having classes. That's when I made the connection that it's called College Park for a reason. It sits on the edge of the University of Toronto campus. I didn't want to leave, but with 4 hours to kill before my first film, it seemed like as good a time as any to post to the blog.

My first film is at 6:45 at the Varsity, which is one of the theatres at the Manulife Center. The next is at 10:00 at the Bader Theatre, which is just a few blocks away. So I got lucky with logistics tonight and I won't need the subway.

I'll be seeing 7 Ans (7 Years), a French entry in the Discovery category, followed by Suburban Mayhem, a film from Australia that's part of the Vanguard series.

Although I have 4 films scheduled for tomorrow, the first isn't until 3:30 PM so I should have time later tonight or early tomorrow to report on them. Hopefully my blogs from here on will be about the films. Of course, color commentary may be tossed in depending on what I encounter (or who). Stay tuned!