Canada

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So it's been a while since I've been travelling as such, the last three years have been scuba diving holidays and for some reason unknown to myself I didn't blog !!

However, today is the first day of a 20 day trip travelling the east coast of ?? starting in Toronto. So after a lovely flight I travelled 45 mins to arrive at my homestay, where I was greeted by a lovely family, James, Jen and their two young sons. There are also 3 german girls who are studying to be teachers. My room is a cozy room on the third floor with a very comfy bed.

When I arrived they were all sitting around the table playing hangman with Wyatt the eldest boy aged 6, so I "hung" out with them for a couple of hours before falling into bed. Next morning I was up and out early after a lovely breakfast, first stop was downtown. I travelled on the electric street car and underground and after a painless first journey, headed to the waterfront.

I had a wander around, and just enjoyed getting to feel like I was on my hols. I caught a bus to China town and had a look round. I went into a camera shop to get a new battery for my camera and ended up buying a new camera? The Chinese supermarkets have to be seen to be believed...... chaos absolute chaos !!!

Then it was time to meet my Toronto greeter, a tourguide that is a volunteer and enjoys showing visitirs around their city...... best of all it's free !!!

My guide was called Ron, left Birmingham aged 5 (lost the ascent thank god ?) he's a retired school teacher and estate agent and does these tours a couple of times a month. Well we walked around all different areas for 3 hours !!! with all the gossip and info that only a local would know. We went to the distillery district, that expanded and prospered when America had prohibition, as they made the alcohol and smuggled it under the cover of darkness by sea. Its now lots of lovely moochy shops and cafe's and bars. We went to St Lawrence an indoor market that was gorgeous, full of beautiful fresh produce and obviously we stopped to have a latte and a cake, well it seemed rude not to.

I said bye to Ron and then headed out to the Royal Ontario Museum, mainly to see a blue whale exhibition that was on. In 2014 8 blue whales were trapped in the ice in Novis cosia and died. One of them was washed up on shore and the oceanoligists decided to take it apart but by bit so they could do DNA tests etc as no one had ever been able to get It before. So it took months for an army of men to strip it down to its skeleto, which is now displayed in the museum. It is really amazing, as you can see by the photos. I learned lots of blue whale facts ...... their heart is about 4 ft x3ft , it beats 10 times a minute and pumps 170 litres of blood with each BEAT. They have evolved from being land living creatures, and their mating call can be heard THOUSANDS of miles away ????

Then it was time to get home for tea with my new family, by this time my legs were dropping off, and I was looking forward to just sitting down. James made homemade beef burgers on the BBQ, delicious ?. Wyatt asked where was from and I said England, he then asked if I was the queen ?, after I'd shattered his little dream I said that even though I wasn't royalty I had been to the queens house ! And asked if he'd like to see some photos. When I showed him a photo of my mum outside the palace he then said "oh that's the queen" ........mum will be so pleased ?

So off to bed now, big day tomorrow....... I'm going up the CN Tower ?

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Comments

[karen Williams]

I dont believe it!!
You went to a distillary district and had coffee and cake???...Dohh!!!!