Going Solo in Toronto

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Thursday morning dawned grey and drizzly and chaos reigned in the Kemp household. Gordon had the unenviable task of getting 3 excitable kids and 2 tired WWOOFers ready to leave the house and take the trip down to Toronto to respectively catch a flight to Halifax to see their mother, and be let loose into the wilds of the big city. Even so, he managed to surprise us with a last breakfast of apple waffles! The man really is Supermom.

The ride down to Toronto was interesting for me - chatting with Gordon, listening to his eclectic and sometimes interesting music selection and watching the scenery from the front seat. Ro meanwhile had to contend with an “interesting” conversation with a 7 year old. Sorry Ro! Gordon kindly dropped us at the GO Transit stop nearest to the airport and then sped off with the kids. You could almost see the burnt rubber on the station forecourt. Leaving us sitting on a freezing cold platform wondering when the train would come to take us to the centre... An hour later it finally did come (after a bit of a false start when it came through the station on the outbound leg and we were momentarily confused) and we were transported on a double decker train through the pouring rain into Union Station.

Union Station is supposedly a beautiful building and an icon of Toronto architecture. Just not the bit we arrived in which resembled an underground building site. But we were starving (again) so dived into the first fast food joint we could find and ate dirty burgers like they were going out of fashion. Sated, we ventured further and discovered the “true” Union Station which was rather impressive and had a rather nicer fast food place! Dammit.

It seems Ro and I are destined to meet and part at airports and stations. When she came to see me (and others of course) last year, I met her at Heathrow and left her at Victoria. This visit she met me at Winnipeg airport and left me at Union Station. Having spent the last 3 weeks with her, with so much having happened in such a short time it was really sad to be saying goodbye again. We don’t see each other very often and I really felt like we’d caught up properly on this trip and got back to knowing each other as well as we did back at Uni and on the road in South Africa. Which suggests that I need to make rather more effort to keep in touch going forward and make the journey over to Nova Scotia when she settles there at the end of her odyssey! Thanks for a great trip Ro - I wouldn’t have considered doing anything like it on my own, but I’m so glad I did 😊

So we parted and I trudged my way through the still pouring rain to my pre-booked very lovely hotel on Queen St West - the Hyatt Regency. After nearly 3 weeks on the road I was ready for Luxury with a capital L 😊 Although they perhaps weren’t prepared for me to turn up avec rucksack and dripping wet all over their nice marble flooring... Takes me back to a certain motorbike tour of Ireland in 2004!

Having been starved of city life for all of 2 and a half weeks I decided to spend my evening in the cinema. Which proved slightly disastrous as I managed to trip spectacularly up the steps in the auditorium, spraying popcorn and Sprite all over the place and badly hurting my big toe in the process. I carried on regardless, assuring the concerned citizens sitting there that I was fine and that it was only my pride that was hurt (not entirely true, but the full horror wouldn’t hit until Friday) and sat through Inglourious Basterds trying to ignore the pain. The film was good if a bit gory for my taste, and rather long too. Back at the hotel I drowned the pain of my toe with a couple of beers (apparently not recommended with my antibiotics but what the hell) and some rather tasty calamari in the hotel bar, and happily people watched as a couple of nutty women racked up a sizeable bar bill and then fled, leaving the poor bartender trying to track them down.

Friday morning dawned grey and miserable again and my toe was now hurting a lot. So instead of the planned shopping day I had a lie in, wandered (read hobbled) for what seemed like miles in search of a cafe with WiFi (eventually ending up in Second Cup right opposite the hotel!), had many cups of hot chocolate and coffee, and finished up with room service and hotel internet. Not the best use of my day, but in rather more comfort than Ro, who I found out was sleeping in an unheated trailer on her next farm!

By Saturday the rain had stopped so I ventured out for a bit of sightseeing in Toronto. The toe prevented me from the planned walking so I hopped on the Hippo to get the highlights. It’s kind of like the Duck Bus in London (which I must go on when I get home - can I borrow someone’s children please?) and was really good fun. It was a 90 minute guided tour and took us round the main spots in the city which saved a lot of walking and kept me dry! The water bit was OK but not as interesting as the land based stuff and you did have to “encourage” the hippo to go for a swim... aimed at kids but did what I needed it to do! Armed with a bit more of an idea of the city’s layout I headed to the CN Tower to make the obligatory ascent - great views from the top, spotted my hotel and many of the sights I’d seen from the Hippo so another good touristy thing to do.

And that was about all I got round to doing in Toronto! Not the most productive trip, but then I claim injury 😞 Overall impression was that it was a city I could easily spend more time in - there seemed to be a lot of bars and restaurants which would be fun to explore, plus a decent smattering of theatres and comedy clubs to liven up the evening’s entertainment. And they speak English, which after 6 months in Sweden is heavenly 😊

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Comments

[Rowena]

finally!
Finally I get to hear that you had a good time:-) Am very glad you came too. People actually commented that in my blog postings I sounded like I was having a lot more fun. Thanks. Now where next?

[ClareJ76]

Finally?!
What do you mean finally?! I told you when I was there :-) Let's do NZ next... question is when?