Up at the crack of dawn to make the journey into Toronto to drop off the beloved Focus. We'd been told that the 60km should be possible in about 90 minutes even accounting for traffic so an hour later when we'd managed 20 it was up to Rach to navigate us around the back streets to get us to the car hire place in time. And she did it, with 3 minutes to spare.
After that excitement (!) we hopped on the subway and after a hot yomp from the nearest station arrived at our accommodation for the next couple of nights, the relative luxury of the Global Village backpackers right in the heart of downtown Toronto. We'd wondered why there were random people directing traffic at intersections as we'd walked in and as we got to the hostel found out why. A large area of downtown was in the middle of a power cut. The afternoon was spent getting our bearings before the big event of the day, the Toronto Blue Jays against the Boston Red Sox baseball game. We had pretty good seats and the evening was very entertaining. Not so much for the game, complete load of nonsense if you ask me, didn't get exciting until the last 20 minutes and it's not the most energetic of games, but the extra entertainment that they lay on to create an atmosphere is very funny. We had the ball being delivered by FedEx at the start, some random woman throwing the first pitch, shots of the crowd in between each innings which led to some gurning man being the star of the show, and to top it all off a race between 3 grown men in chilli suits in a free-for-all fight/race with different sections of the crowd supporting different chillis. Our guy got slammed into the advertising hoardings and looked pretty dazed. It was 3 hours quality entertainment with some game going on in the background, Toronto won 6-1 by the way.
24/7: It's basically rounders with time for adverts
Thursday September 20th
A good lie-in to recharge the batteries and then off into the big smoke. A beautiful day ahead and we were bound for the CN Tower to do the touristy thing. We got great views from the top as there was very little haze or smog today so Lake Ontario looked grand. On a clear day they reckon you can see Niagara from the top although you'd need telescopic vision I think. Once back on terra firma we did our usual thing of just going for a slow wander and ending up walking miles. We looked around the various districts of downtown and came to the conclusion that despite not being city people in the slightest we actually like Toronto. I think we must have walked a good 8-10 miles again in the day but you do get to see the city for what it is by doing that. The day was rounded off nicely with a fantastic steak dinner and some beers, lovely!
24/7: We will slow down at some point
Friday September 21st
To round off our time in Toronto, and our time on the east side of Canada, we headed for the old town area of the city. There's a distillery site that they've used as a focal point for some actual regeneration, rather than the knock it down and rebuild that seems to happen everywhere else, and it's a pretty cool place. There's restaurants, bars, galleries and workshops and you could happily wander around them all. We also had a look at the waterfront and the gardens there. With the temperatures still in the high 20s it was very pleasant walking through the trees and taking it a bit slower. This is definitely somewhere that we could happily settle if the opportunity arose, it feels very safe and despite its size very easy to get around.
24/7: When I'm hungry I am completely useless!!
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