Blogs from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, North America - page 28

Hi All, sorry for delay, but it has been a busy week. We arrived on Sunday at 1.30pm and half an hour later our dear friends from SA Pete and Lil Manser, whom we have known for 32 years arrived. We spent the afternoon catching up on family news. On Monday Dave & Pete attended a workshop while Lil and I walked around Toronto. There is a great water front area which is always busy with various activities from markets to water taxis, day trip cruises and small ferries. It has been very hot here with temperatures from 27 to 31 degrees so I am struggling with the heat, but Lil says Italy is much hotter so not sure how I will cope. Toronto is full of sky scraper apartment blocks which seems to be the ... read more

We spent our last day in the area walking Yonge Street, the busiest street in Toronto. Shae and I got Starbucks coffees and Mom, Dad and Shawn got some McDonald’s Cafe thingers. Then we went shopping, we spotted some cute dresses, saw some crazy looking people, and eventually bought some sneakers for Dad, Shae and me. Then we left Mom to do some shopping of her own and continued on to the Hockey Hall of Fame. In the hall we saw amazing exhibits including some on Roger Neilson, Marice ( The Rocket) Richard, Sidney Crosby featuring the net and gloves from the Olympic Gold Metal Goal, and one one the 2010-2011 Stanley Cup Playoff Finals. After looking at everything and playing some games, and watching a video about Ryan Kesler we headed upstairs to see 2 ... read more

On the way to Niagara my friend told me how earlier that week a driver had been pulled over by an officer on a HOV lane (High Occupancy Vehicle). This lane, meant only for cars occupied by 2 or more passengers, was being misused by a single driver pretending to have a passenger (a fully dressed one, may I add) who actually was no more than a blow-up doll. Full story here. Pretty smart and funny if you ask me, especially for the officers involved... But let me get back to my arrival in Canada first... I had flown in from Fort Lauderdale FL on westjet, a really nice flight with informal announcements, I liked that. Unfortunately I couldn't buy anything on board as ONLY credit cards were accepted. The landing into Montreal Trudeau airport was ... read more

Geo: 43.6485, -79.3854So here's the plan: both DH and I are going to retire early, put our finances in order, sell our home of 17 years, sell most if not all of the contents, put our wills and various other legal doc's together, arrange for extended health insurance, sell our cars on the day we leave on our worldwide trip, and do it all within a couple of months so we could hit our hard coded departure date. In our spare time we travelled to Morocco, Winnipeg, Cleveland, and Nanaimo.What could possibly go wrong with this carefully crafted and somewhat delusional plan?? Real life perhaps. After a somewhat difficult acceptance of a conditional offer on our house via the Staples in Nanaimo, we started questioning how easy it would be to wrap up our legal affairs ... read more

We woke up at 7 in the morning to get ready for a day at Canada’s Wonderland. When we got there we saw a stunning array of roller coasters in every style, make and color possible. Dad, Shae and I went on two right away - the wooden Mine buster, and the biggest coaster in Canada the Behemoth with a 291 foot 85 degree drop. Then we got a large fries and went to meet Dad’s friend Fab. Shae and I went to hang out with Fab’s kids Nick and Megan. We went on a bunch of rollercoasters, rides and got some food. They left early so Dad, Shae, Mom, Shawn and I went on a few more rides - including a stand-up roller-coaster with loop-de-loops - and finished off with dinner from a drive-in. We ... read more