That’s Toronto pronounced “toronno” of course! Another sorta-sleep in until 9am and we were off (eventually) on our way to the CN tower. We have no car here; there’s no point, so it was a nice wander down towards the lake.
Up the tower (I’m used to this bit by now!) another amazing view out over Toronto. The city is huge, with so many great things to see, and you could see over to the island with a little mini airport runway and you could see the planes coming in and out. They had another glass floor section which was good, as well as an outside for a different view plus cold wind!
We embarked on a hunt for food after wandering around the streets some more and stopped off at a random no-name pizza/fast food place… The pizza looked good so we tried it out. The bill for 5 of us came to ~$20! A tenner for a huge slice of piece of pizza, 3 potato wedges (free?!) and a can of “pop” for 5 of us, pretty good. It was nice pizza too!
It was very hot and sunny; I’m a bit red today but pleased to be getting slightly more brown. We walked along the front of the lake-front past the shops and interesting things like a police station… for the lake! lots of cool police boats.
A lot of people were offering tours of the islands, and we picked a random one that looked quite good, but we were unsure of what to expect when we saw the small yellow boat playing loud music… but it was definately the right choice! We had an amusing and playful “tour guide”; a (probably) teenage girl who stood at the front as we drifted along the front. “We can’t go particularly fast here”, she said, “because when we get going we make such a huge wave people get really annoyed”! “also we like to wave at other boats because you know, it’s friendly and keeps a good thing going between us… because a lot of the smaller speedboats get particularly annoyed when we go a lot faster than them!”
So we looked at all the interesting buildings and learnt some Toronto history… and then took off! Well it was the fastest I’ve been on a small boat anyway, reaching a peak of 34.6mph (recorded by Aid’s GPS, hurrah!) with a lot of spray and the girl was right; the wave was pretty big! It was a great view away from the waterfront, and a good tour of the islands; we stopped to see a part of the island that was “birds only”, and there were hundreds! going everywhere. We learnt more and then pressed on. It was basically like going to a muesem, learning for 5 minutes and then going to a rock concert or something (they blasted us with loud music during the bits where she didn’t speak!). It was well worth the money, it was a good trip.
Our aim for the evening was to meet up with Aid’s cousin, who he hadn’t seen since his christening, so quite a long time! This involved a fun trip on public transport! We got on a tram towards union station, and then to the subway, a very familiar experience to the tube except their trains are huge, quieter, and beautifully cooled. It was good to do that whilst being here, it was nice to see what their public transport is like.
Tomorrow evening is time to come home, which is very sad but I feel I’ve had an amazing range of stuff here in Canada, and I’m definately glad I came. It’s fantastic to see what life is like a long long way away from home, and see their way of life.
Time for bed for the last time in Canada, tomorrow we’re off shopping at the MASSIVE Eaton Center, food, then airport.
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