20. Downtown in 9 words: The waterfront is nice, the rest, not so much.
21. The Exchange District reminded me a lot of Pioneer Square in Seattle (though bigger): A collection of turn-of-the-century brick buildings that want to be all nice and fixed up, and in a few cases are, or at least are trying, but it's also the city's "Skid Row" and unfortunately, the "Skid Row" aspect of it has the upper hand. So trying to get it fixed up is very difficult because not a whole lot of businesses or people are particularly interested in hanging out there for long. I think Seattle has had some better luck with Pioneer Square than Winnipeg has had with the Exchange District, but not only is Seattle a wealthier city, which helps a lot, but Pioneer Square is smaller which makes it a smaller problem to tackle.
22. I walked up and down Portage Ave quite a bit, and even went into Portage Place (which is a downtown mall that's recently started reconstruction). All I can say is, it reminded me of much of downtown Newark in the 80's, except for the fact I didn't see any wig shops.
23. The waterfront was great! I parked next to Union Station, walked up Waterfront Drive up to what I call
the Darth Vader building, then I did my "adventures" in the Exchange District and Portage Ave and environs, then came back to the waterfront. I went on the foot bridge across the river, wandered a couple blocks up Provencher Blvd, went around the block through another nifty old neighborhood, went back over the bridge and explored The Forks Market a bit. The Forks Market is somewhat like the River Front Market in KC, but it's right on the river and is more spread out. This is clearly the highlight of downtown.