Toronto
- First stop, Toronto.
Move finally made it, after a year of paper work, extra deadlines, far off dreams and many major money worries I’m finally here! Kicking off my year abroad with a little backpacking trip from the airport to St Catharines and my first stop- Toronto!
Toronto is beautiful, the closest I’ve seen to describe it is London but to liken it to London wouldn’t do it justice. To start, everywhere is Huge. Buildings tower over you and even looking up doesn’t often allow you to see the top when standing underneath them. But don’t let that put you off, for these buildings are impressive- and even clean! There is a Tim Hortons on every corner which has rapidly become my new found coffee place. Many little niché restaurants and shopping outlets litter the sidewalks and it’s nice that things aren’t shoved under one roof. I had the surprise of not being able to find alcohol in a supermarket and having to go to a specific liquor store which was stupidly exciting. The most impressive building I saw today was the CN tower, taking the elevator up and standing on the glass floors were moments I will not forget, feeling the gravity and seeing the whole city beneath my feet just waiting to be explored. I used the opportunity to make a mental map of the places I wanted to see. Throughout the day I visited the aquarium, post harbour restaurants wayy outside my student budget, city landmarks, markets, the waterfront, harbour centre, walk of fame, hockey hall of fame, beautiful gardens, a little beach hidden amidst the enormous buildings (they tried :’) and I appreciated it greatly), smoothie shops and many other things. Safe to say that being up from 6am due to jet lag wasn’t a bad thing!
The next thing on my todo list while in Toronto is the Islands.
Safe to say I have full blown travel bug and I’m going to keep exploring and finding beautiful places to be and learning new lessons along the way. Lesson from day one: Don’t say toilet, they will not understand and you’ll spend the next five minutes exchanging various words for the loo while holding it in. For future reference- washrooms. They call them washrooms!
