A Day Out in Toronto

Yesterday I went to Toronto for the third time though this was the first time that I have been with a friend.

As I did previously, we caught a Greyhound into Toronto. I think I have previously mentioned how good the Greyhound service is but it really is true. Also now that it has got significantly colder it is nice that the Greyhounds have the heating on at just the right level.

When we arrived in Toronto we got a Starbucks and then went off to browse the fantastic Eaton Centre Mall. I’d forgotten how much fun it can be to go round shops with a friend. There will be a haul post about what I bought coming tomorrow. We had a really good curry for lunch in the Mall food court and then went out into the city for an exploration of the city. 

As it is now November most stores are getting ready for Christmas and there were some fabulous window displays. We also went down to the Old Town area of Toronto which is a new one for me but is definitely worth going down to for some really interesting looking old buildings.

After all that walking we decided that it was time for an afternoon break so we went to my favourite coffee shop – The Black Canary, comic coffee shop! I love this place so much, it is just so cool! This time I had a Black Widow to drink. I also bought a couple of comics which I shall share in My Haul post.

Once we had re-caffeinated and felt refreshed enough we decided to go back out and see some more of the city. Particularly this time we wanted to find out about the PATH, which is an underground walkway that connects most of Downtown Toronto. After several failed attempts and wrong turns we eventually managed to enter the PATH, now that we know where it is I would say that it will be worth remembering for when it gets even colder later on in winter.

The day was starting to get on and before we knew it we were having to start thinking about finding our way back to the bus station. We had dinner, a quick final browse in the mall and then walked back. Toronto looked really nice in the dark last night.

Both of us had a really good day out in a fantastic city. I love going to Toronto and I definitely want to go again. I’d like to go again soon once all the Christmas stuff is properly out as I suspect it looks fantastic!

I Went To Toronto!

I’ve been saying for a while that I am going to go to Toronto as it’s pretty close to the university where I’m studying. Yesterday was Homecoming Day, this involves sports and lots of drinking two things that I am not keen on. So therefore I decided that I wanted to just get off campus, and what better way to get off campus than to head out for a big city day!

I travelled via Greyhound which is new to me and a really good way to travel. We don’t really have anything like the Greyhound service in England. Not only was it a relatively quick journey but it was also a very comfortable journey, the Greyhound buses have a lot of leg room.

When I arrived I started in the Eaton Centre Mall, this is a really big mall with some great shops. It was good to wander around. I tried to restrain myself as I need to keep remembering that anything I buy over here is ultimately going to have to come back with me to England somehow but still I bought some stuff. (Of course I did!) I decided to have lunch in the Eaton Centre, I went to a Greek place in the food court which was really good value.

After I had lunch I walked over to the AGO (Art Gallery of Toronto). Over the years I have been to a lot of art galleries but I honestly think that the AGO is the best one that I have ever been to. It had such a good range of stuff on display. From paintings to sculptures to installations. The AGO has lots of ‘name’ artists like Picasso, Monet, Turner, Van Gogh, Brancusi, Matisse, Miró and Modigliani. Then alongside the classical artists there’s modern works that are both thought provoking and celebrating Canada’s First Nations Communities and the black community. I spent quite a while wandering around the AGO.

Afterwards I decided to walk down to the waterfront. It turned out it was a longer walk than I had anticipated. Although I found navigating Toronto on foot to be fairly easy, beforehand someone had hold me that everyone walks around Downtown Toronto and I can definitely see why. The waterfront is a really nice area. Had I not been conscious of the walk and the fact that I was going to have to do it again in order to get back to the bus station I could have spent a long time there.

Toronto is a great city, it is a busy city but it didn’t feel intimidating for someone on their own going there for the first time. I’d say that Toronto is fairly similar to New York in a lot of ways. However when I went to New York I found it to be dirty, bustling and a bit unwelcoming on the other hand I found Toronto to have more of a chilled vibe in comparison, once more Canadians prove the stereotype that they are generally genuinely nice people!

I really enjoyed my day in Toronto and I want to go again sometime. (Although even if I hadn’t enjoyed it I would definitely be going to Toronto again given DC are going to be filming there!) I kind of think of yesterday as a getting to know Toronto trip, it’s a big city and I only really begun to scratch the surface of it. I definitely want to go again so that I can get to know the city even better. 

Piecing Together The City

So I’ve recently arrived in Canada for my year abroad and for me one of the most important things to get sorted (after all the admin stuff) is to start to piece the city where I’m going to be living together in my head.

By piecing together the city what I mean is the way that as you start to get more used to a new city it becomes pieced together in your mind. For example how the university is situated in location to the nearest grocery store and then how that’s located in relation to the main shopping area and the mall.

I’m not sure if I’m just misremembering but it seems as if it’s harder to piece together the layout of a Canadian city than the city I go to uni in back in the UK. It could partially be because I haven’t fully explored all of the city yet. I think there’s also a part of it that’s harder for me to piece the city together because it’s just different from the UK! Definitely the roads are wider than they are in the UK. Canadian cities – a lot like American cities – are laid out in a grid system, this makes it quite easy to navigate.

On Friday a couple of friends and me had decided we want to go to Wendy’s for dinner (we don’t have Wendy’s in the UK so this is exciting to us!). However we’d assumed that Wendy’s was quite far away and given we’d had a long day we weren’t sure about walking that far. But it turned out that the nearest Wendy’s was only a couple of minutes further a long from Walmart which we’d been going to a lot since we’d arrived!

I don’t know if this is a general thing with cities in Canada but here it seems as if the Downtown area is mainly full of independent stores. The chain stores are mainly in the mall and on the street surrounding the mall. This is an interesting change from UK cities where chain stores are increasingly pushing the independent stores out of business and away from the Downtown/City Centre areas.

Also, I have now located the comic store which I am obviously very pleased about!