Heights and Depths

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I am terrified of heights. Literal heights, that is. So what better activity than ascending the tallest building in Canada? I like to try going up tall buildings to prove to myself that my acrophobia won’t control me. It always gives me a fright, but I feel that actually doing it makes some kind of statement. Frankly, I wouldn’t have done the CN Tower if it hadn’t been included in my City Pass booklet. But since it was, I was determined to tackle my anxiety. Going through the security, the ticket line, and even into the elevator was no big deal. But they crammed that elevator full, and there were two glass-covered holes in the bottom so that we could see the cables and everything. And naturally the main doors to the elevator are glass. It takes a full minute to ascend the structure. I looked out of the doors for about 2 seconds before I turned my head to face the other passengers. I was regretting this decision with every passing second. And then we got to the observation deck.

Being inside that enclosed observational deck was very reassuring. I wasn’t afraid at all. There were some parts of the wall that were glass completely from floor to ceiling, and those gave me a slight trepidation. Elsewhere, though, the glass only covered half the distance from the floor to the ceiling, with a short wall at the base.

You can see all of Toronto and beyond from this deck. And I got my first real glimpses of the Toronto Islands out in Lake Ontario. Everything really does look so small from up there. If you take the stairs down one level, you come to three things worth mentioning: the elevators back down; the Glass Floor; and the outer walkway. You can go outside of the glass protection and feel the chill and the wind, if you like. It extends the entire distance around the Tower. But there’s fencing around the whole thing, so no fear of falling over the side. The Glass Floor, while being perfectly safe, scared the hell outta me. People walk on it, take pictures looking down, etc. You can see the roof of Ripley’s Aquarium down below, as well as the length of the Tower itself. I got some pictures, but there’s nothing much else to say about it.

If you want the FULL tour, you can pay another $50 to walk around the upper edge of the observation deck. True idiots can walk out there, harnessed and shackled, but you only get to walk on the edge itself. Yeah, no thanks.

I probably spent 30 minutes up there, looking out at the world below. Then it was time to move on. I was surprisingly not as bothered by looking out of the elevator when we were going down as I had been when we were going up. Small victory?

On the ground, I had very few things left to do for the day. I wanted to see a couple of parks, a market, and some Art Deco buildings. I took a streetcar to near Toronto’s First Post Office, but they were hosting a school group and told me to come back in half an hour. It was getting to be near lunchtime, so I decided to walk over to the St. Lawrence Market. It was more what I had expected a market to look like, as opposed to the Kensington Market from Wednesday. Plenty of vendors, all under one roof. Lots of food, but more of it to take home and prepare yourself than pre-prepared food. Some tourist shops. My favorite shops were the cheese vendors, even one calling themselves Cheesemongers. What a great job, eh?

I strolled around – they have “streets” set up that crisscross the market in a nice grid pattern. I finally settled on an Italian place that had pizza by the slice. And they were big slices. Reminded me of Italy. The taste was just okay, but the portions were enough to fill me up for the rest of the afternoon.

A block away was Berczy Park, and I couldn’t remember why I had it on my list of places to see until I got there. A gigantic fountain of dogs. Three tiers, with a bone at the top. All the dogs were looking up at the bone and shooting water from their mouths. Oh, and there was one cat statue that wasn’t doing anything except looking away from the whole sight. It appeared to be a popular spot with both rest-takers and photographers and had plenty of benches for resting one’s feet.

My next stop was unexepected but definitely a foot-rester. I checked out Atomic Blonde at a cinema across the street from St. Lawrence Market, in a very tall building that looked like part office building, part apartment building. It was odd to find a movie theater in such a place; the lobby with ticket booth was on the ground level, but all of the screens were downstairs, as were the concessions. The theater was quiet and dark, and there were quite a few people there. Not a full house at all, though. And there was a portly older gentleman who kept falling asleep and snoring very loudly. Still, it was a good movie. I wouldn’t call it an Oscar-contender, but the soundtrack was great (80’s music) and it kept me entertained.

After that, I stumbled across St. James Park – not nearly as naughty as the one in London that Lord Rochester wrote so raunchily about. It was small and bright – lots of fun flowers. But I had determined to go back to the Post Office "museum." It was only a 5-minute walk, but I really should’ve saved my time. There wasn’t much to see. There was a small room where you could try your hand with a quill, which is harder than you might think. There truly was an art to it. Past this, they have one room devoted to a diorama of York (the name of Toronto before it became Toronto) in the 1830s – when the post office was opened – and a few panels with lithographs and such. I’m glad it was free to enter.

My final big site for the trip was Toronto City Hall. The old city hall was meant to be imposing, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it would’ve been. It looks like a stone fortress/castle. But I guess when all these skyscrapers began to appear, it didn’t look so imposing anymore. Now they have a funky building (or is it 3 separate buildings?) at Nathan Phillips Square, across the street from the old City Hall. From the sky, the new City Hall looks like an eye – two sets of semicircular lashes around a round building in the middle. Next to it is the big “Toronto” sign with some arches across a pool. It makes for good touristy photos and postcards. I milled around, but my real goal was next: the Art Deco walking tour that began a block away from City Hall.

It was a self-guided walking tour that I found online, which one of the guys who used to work for the official Toronto walking-tour people put together a few years back. He actually led the tour at the time, but they don’t give it anymore. For the most part, modern Toronto’s skyscrapers have cannibalized the old buildings from pre-1950. So you see these cool early 20^th century structures literally surrounded by glass on both sides and then extending hundreds of yards above them. So you have to look up to see a lot of the Art Deco architecture, but not all the way up. Typically no more than 5 or 6 floors. The highlight of the tour was the Bank of Nova Scotia building, which is weird. It wasn’t built until 1951, or about a decade after Art Deco went out of style. But they had designed it in the 1930s and had to wait until after the war to build it. The interior is the best part – it reminded me of several of the buildings I had seen on the Chicago walking tour back in March. It was glorious, though I think it still serves as a banking establishment. So I imagine they all saw me taking pictures and assumed I’d be back to rob the place in the near future. I certainly hope that’s not where my life takes me.

Tomorrow, I’m heading to Ottawa. I haven’t heard about any big changes in dad’s condition, other than they were treating him for pneumonia and were wanting to keep him there for observation and treatment, especially breathing treatments. There’s plenty of people there to watch over him, though that doesn’t always make me feel the best with me being in another country. But at least this isn’t one of my multi-week or multi-month trips that I just started on. Only 4 days left!

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