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Published: June 23rd 2008
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CN Tower
Toronto's most famous landmark Thursday, June 19 - Saturday, June 21, 2008 7am….Ahhhh tough to get out of bed, but excited to get back on the road. It was a weekend we had been looking forward to since the beginning, and for Jen, it will be the first time in Canada. The ride over went pretty easily; under an hour to Detroit, a $4 clear pass through customs, and three and a half hours of sleepy Canadian farmland, and finally the CN tower came into view.
Once inside the city, our brief experience of trying to navigate through the 2.5 million people on the streets convinced us that we wanted nothing to do with the car for the rest of the weekend, so we found an underground parking garage across from the Sheraton that was a bargain at a mere $23 per/day considering the Sheraton charged $40 per/day. As we made our way from the garage to the hotel, we discovered a surprising underground civilization; or in Jen’s words ‘heaven’. Apparently Toronto is home to over 16km of interconnected shops, walkways, malls, and food courts, which just happened to be connected to our hotel; needless to say, that was a big
The Last Laugh Comedy Club
After the show...still laughing. plus. Imagine in the winter being able to walk from one side of the city to another without ever having to come above ground...you can access the subway, shop, eat…it’s super cool! Above ground, our hotel was luxurious and the location was perfect.
After settling in, we went for a run in the rain down by the Lake Ontario Harbor which gave us a nice feel for the city. We were happily surprised to find the entertainment district just two blocks down the road from our hotel too. We did some research and found a comedy club to go to, but we had no idea how difficult it could be to make a phone call in Canada! The hotel charges $2 per local call, our cells were roaming, and there was no courtesy phone anywhere nearby, so we found a payphone (after exchanging our money for Canadian money) Can you believe payphones are now 50 cents and U.S. money is also now equivalent to Canadian money? We would’ve probably made it to dinner, but the strap on Jen’s ‘gotta-have-it’ cheap dress from Ross broke, and it took way too long to fix it. So, we ate Subway. (for those
Canadian Friends
Our friends Cy and Theresa from Halifax, Nova Scotia...after 3 pitchers of you who may be counting, we figure it’s Subway stop #5 ).
Right away when we were greeted at the door and informed that good seating wouldn’t really be an issue, we could tell it would be an interesting night. He put us in the front row, though there were really only about 20 people in the room when the show began. The opener took some time to get to know everyone in the audience and where they were from, and that’s how we put ourselves in the hot seat by admitting that we were from the states (not the most popular country at the moment...thanks George W.) But, that’s also how we met Paul, likely one of the strangest men that any of the comics have ever encountered. Sort of a heckler, sort of a wanna-be comedian, his laughter was loud, hilarious, and obnoxious and he was a constant object of the comedians’ attention. We laughed non-stop, especially at Paul, though the comedians handled him rather well too; it was a lot of fun.
We met a couple named Cy & Theresa from Nova Scotia at the end of the show and we all decided to
Double Decker Bus Tour
Where we sat at the top go get a drink together at the Fox & the Fiddler, which of course turned into 3 pitchers and a very late night.
The next morning we set off to wander aimlessly around the city, but just across the street from our hotel we found a guided city tour on a double-decker red bus which gave us two tours at a great price. The first tour was awesome! We saw the city from north to south and took tons of pictures from atop the bus. The day was beautiful and we were so excited to learn all about Toronto that we thought we'd go ahead and do our second tour, a tour of the different cultural neighborhoods from east to west, immediately afterwards. But, the day was too clear and sunny; we didn't want to take a chance on missing the great views from the top of the CN Tower. At this point, our budget is officially blown. Not only is our dollar weak in Canada, but Toronto is really expensive! Carpe diem...we're only here for a short time, why not continue splurging and pay for a nice dinner to get us up to the top of the tower.
Toronto's skyline
Our view from dinner in the CN Tower The food was good, and the revolving restaurant views were very cool. We took some great pictures of the city and had a laugh (out of fear) with the glass floor that you can lie down on and take pictures through from 113 stories above Toronto. From there, we took a walk down to the pier and made a resolution to try and live the next few days a little cheaper; no more bars - 😞 so we bought a bottle of wine at the LCBO and devoted our late night to trying to catch up on our blog. (if there are still any readers out there after almost 2 weeks off - fingers crossed) The bummer was, no one would open our bottle at the hotel, and by the time room service made it to our room, we were pretty much asleep.
It was our last morning in the city - we ran for an hour, packed up, checked out, paid our parking tab, and hopped on board the double decker for our second tour. There is so much culture in Toronto and so many different neighborhoods to visit, but we already had another side trip planned before
Entering Toronto
on Gardiner Expressway downtown we returned to Michigan, so we walked around St. Lawrence Market, grabbed a bite to eat, then headed out of town - about an hour down the road to Niagara Falls!
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