Last day at Toronto and Niagara Falls

My last day at Toronto was very quiet and I enjoyed that a lot. First of all after breakfast when Rene had gone to his last day of conference I saw a wild hopping squirrel outside my window which I found a bit weird but also cute.
After packing my bag I went to a new cafe that had been recommended on the internet: the R-squared cafe on Queen Street. I wrote my last blog here and a had a fantastic new kind of coffee: the Orange Mocha. I will definitely try that at home!
In this area there were also a few designer shops around. I bought a few wooden design souvenirs for our living room and looked around in a crazy shop with a bison head, a sharks head, new designer furniture and old telephones and type writers.
After doing a bit of food shopping I only went back home, did some clothes washing, relaxed, blogged a bit more and when Rene returned we cooked together and decided on our final route for the next week and booked all stays.

On Saturday we checked out at 11 AM and proceeded to the airport to collect our car. The man at the counter had a good look at Rene and then asked if we really wanted the economy car I had pre-booked. He said that he was going to give us a Fiat 500 and that Rene would not feel well in that small car. As I had imagined the car to be a lot bigger (I had seen an example photo while booking) I was quite surprised but finally we agreed to pay a little bit more and to get an upgrade to a VW Tiguan, which proved to be alright to sit in but the luggage could hardly fit into the trunk. After shoving it a bit it was okay, but I missed my old New Zealand car with the enormous trunk to fit in lots of bags and a tent and sleeping bags and more more more.
When we drove onto the highway around the airport we realized quickly that the highway system over here in Canada differs a lot from that at home. The lanes come and go, the information boards are sometimes a bit confusing as they first point out e.g. that it is the left lane to go to a certain direction and suddenly a few meters further it is the right lane. Also Canadians can take you over either on the right or left side which can be scary. So best stay in the middle and let them pass around you for the beginning.

With the average and maximum of 100 km per hour the traveling seems endlessly long.
Even my average 130 km/h at home seemed slow to m before. Now I really appreciate how fast it really is.
Anyway we reached Niagara Falls at around 4 PM. The sun was burning down on us and when walking towards the falls we had to pass a street down to the water that I can only call kid's Las Vegas or road to hell. It really was hell to us!
Unasked carnival in the middle of this hot day with lots and lots of tourists getting drawn to the slush machines, haunted houses, restaurants, carousels...
My personal nightmare.
But when we had left this street behind us, we saw them: the Niagara Falls!
Cool!
We arrived by the American Falls and Bridal Falls and could see the Horseshoe Falls in the back. Of course just looking was not enough. I had to get on board of one of the boats who drove right into the falls.
The initial Maid of the Mists tour was just on the U.S. side of the border, ours was the Hornblower Tours. So what, it was also a misty boat.
We received red rain coats and off we went. Rene and I were standing at the actual front of the boat and catching every misty drop that the Horseshoe Falls could throw at us.
It was soooo cool. The boat stayed on one spot and the mist whirled all around the boat and wet everybody on board.

After Niagara Falls we made a quick detour to Niagara-on-the-lake (on Lake Ontario). It was pittoresque with very clean, very coloured and cute-looking houses.
But we skipped taking a tour on foot as we were quite late already.
After a trip to the Walmart (I bought 3 jeans there) we finally arrived at Hamilton, a town between Niagara and Toronto to spend the night.
The house looked very rundown, but the host was quite nice and told us to make ourselves at home. He said he was coming and going all the time (we never saw him again). Our room was okay, but not the "deluxe" as it had been called when booking. It was also not a "lodge" but an old house, which badly needed a cleaning.
The kitchen looked like it had not been cleaned once in the last year and there was mold in our fridge (which had been disconnected from the electricity).
The surroundings scared me a little obviously and I had bad dreams even though the bed was absolutely okay to sleep in.
After having a quick breakfast in the morning we took off towards Toronto and beyond to the Thousand Islands in the St Lawrence River. Funnily the rest of the trip would be all the way next to this river up until Tadoussac where we wanted to go whale watching. All in all we would be going for about 2100 km in one week.

Toronto, Days 3,4,5

My plan before coming to Toronto had been to take 3 different walking tours.
A free walking tour is not initially free, the idea is that you spend as much as you want to, which means that the guide has to be good. So far, all tours I have attended in the past have Ben absolutely fantastic (my first being by a Canadian giving an English tour in Munich).

So it came to a surprise even to myself that I did not attend any at all. Instead I created my own tours all around town. The neighborhood we were staying at this week that seemed so shabby to me at first now has entered my heart. Shabby yes, but also colorful, international and with lots of design and cute little cafés. I am sipping my very first Orange Mocha today and it is great. Wanna know where to get that? R/Squared Cafe on Queen Street West.

Anyway on day 3 I took a leisure day. It was probably a bit of jet lag left that made me feel quite tired. So I just read a lot laying on the bed (a cool book by a former Runaways member named Cherie Currie). Then I went back to the Early Bird cafe to read a bit more and of course write my first blog entry, then returned to the room. When Rene was finished with his conference for the day we met up at Rogers Centre to watch my very first Baseball game ever! Toronto's Blue Jays against the Arizona Diamondbacks. I must be frank, I didn't know the rules much despite having watched an endless number of baseball movies. Rene knew a bit so he explained to me and the rest we guessed.
Unfortunately it seemed quite a lame game except 2 or 3 situations involving a home run and a ball being caught out of the air next to the back wall. The catcher crashed with it, but he still caught the ball! Wow!
The roof was open, the air was warm and we had a good look on CN Tower as well. A very cool experience for 20 dollars each.
And: I had missed my first opportunity in New York in 1999 to see a baseball game, so I guess it was high time to finally see one.

Day 4 started at AGO, the Art Gallery of Ontario. I couldn't find much art that thrilled me. Most of it were collections of private collectors, Canadian art and a lot of European art, mostly being from around 1600 until 1800. I am a frequent visitor of Art museums though, so I am a bit spoiled. Please don't take offense if you are from Toronto.
It is a great museum. I liked it's architecture a lot.

By accident my next stop was the Yonge/Dundas Square. What a collection of flickering screens and giant posters. I bought a hot dog at a kiosk there and then proceeded towards the center of the square, where I got a free "jerky". What is that you ask? It is a dried meat snack, in this case with dried ginger pieces on a stick. Nice but I wouldn't buy it. Way too expensive.
I took the metro southbound to King Street where I wanted to get cash from a bank. I discovered one, but the machines read "Instant teller", which confused me. I had expected "ATM" or "cash machine" or something like that. (Rene later told me ATM means Automatic Teller! Machine). As I still was confused I wanted to ask a clerk who came towards me with a great box. In it was a lot, I mean a LOT, of ice-cream and he offered one to me. So I got the cash and then seated myself in a leather couch and licked away happily inside the bank building.

In the vicinity was famous St. Lawrence market which I had a walk through. As I was not so keen on buying any fresh groceries I left quickly again and instead spend some time watching birds getting a bath in a small fountain in a park.

The last thing I did around this area was visiting the Design Exchange, a much praised must/do for designers. What I found was a small collections of timeless furniture objects, old radios and LP players. I had a fun talk with a guy about an LP player and an old telephone which made us rethink to the time when there were the wheel/dial phones. He said thank you, nice talking to you and left. Again I found it quite strange that people here in North America do this /for me strange/ kind of small talk.
How are you doing today? Nice talking to you. Nice dress, I like it (to a complete stranger in the street car)... I assume I fail at most situations being a shy and silent opposite.

In the evening Rene and I met at the Hard Rock Cafe at Yonge/Dundas and had a great meal. The ribs were the best I ever had eaten and the strawberry smoothies were delicious.

On Day 5 I had planned to visit the Toronto Islands. To get there I was on one of the newer street cars in town. There were two older ladies sitting next to me who were obviously no frequent street car travelers as they were confused about not being able to talk to the driver (which was possible, but unlike in the old street cars through a window) and who were not really sure where they were heading.
When one of the women announced the street car as being "sooo futuristic" I was smiling to myself. This kind of modern street car had been introduced around 2000 at my hometown of Bremen in Northern Germany...
As I found out the ladies wanted to go onto the islands as well, I gave them a hint on where to get out and where the ferry was. It astounded me, not for the first time, that I was finding my way around a new city better than people who were actually from it.

The ferry ride took about 20 minutes and showed some spectacular views on the skyline.
When arriving on the island I headed straight for the centered pier, where I bought 2 Pizza slices. I wanted to sit on the beach and eat them when suddenly I was attacked from behind by an enormous seagull, which swooped over my head. Out of shock I dropped one piece of pizza just as the shitty bird had expected, but I snatched it back and threw it away in a trash can, because I didn't want the bird to be successful. Still swearing I headed back to the pizza shack and ate the remaining piece there.

Next door was a bike rental. I received a heavy lilac bike with a huge handle bar and headed off towards Wards Island on the Eastern side. Every now and then I took some photos and rode the wooden track back towards the center. The wooden planks made a nice musical sound, when I was passing over, just like a xylophone.

The other side of the island towards Hanlan's Point, where the small city airport is situated, is quiet and green and full of boat and small yachts. I passed a cute quacking duck family which was just crossing the street when I came by and watching a couple of planes taking off over the skyline of Toronto.
As I was quite tired from carrying the heavy rucksack full of eventual needed things and cycling for approx. 12 km, I returned the bike, marched back to the ferry and went home to freshen up. An hour later I had to be at the campus to meet Rene and to catch the bus with everybody to the Conference Dinner.
It was a yellow school bus that took us to the Mill Street Brewery Pub at Distillery District.
The area looked quite cool, it was old brewery buildings with new shops all around.
The conference dinner provided interesting snacks for all the guests until the 3 main dinner self/service points were opened: there you could build your own hamburger or fajita or poutine set.
There was one free drink included. I took a delicious fruity cider originally from Toronto and it was tasting great.

When we decided to get back we experienced one of the older street cars being stuck in the middle of a crossing. It's electrical string had wiggled itself around the wires hanging over the streets. It couldn't move, even when the driver tried several times to pull it off. The traffic was starting to jam, our supposed street cars could not pass and we were still trying to decide where to head to get another ride when suddenly a wire from above the street hit the ground and several small explosions followed. People were still crossing the streets, until a fire brigade came and closed the site down. It was quite amazing.
So we had to walk down a few blocks and to catch another street car home.

LINK TO Baseball stadium Toronto movie clip

LINK TO Riding the planks on Toronto Island


LINK TO Aircraft taking off over Toronto skyline

LINK TO School bus ride in Toronto

Toronto, Day 1 and 2

After packing our things very slowly over the last day (Saturday) we have left for the airport FMO very early this morning. My back was still killing me - it had started hurting for 3 days in a way that all of my upper back muscles were so tight that even slicking hard food was painful on every bite. I have no idea what this was or where it came from but in no way did I want to let it get in the way of our Canada trip. If you hurt then consequently you need to yoga more and that's what I am doing. So far we had an agreeable flight in a small Lufthansa machine to Frankfurt. My God, how long it has been since my last Lufthansa flight. The flight attendant was twittering away into her microphone, I was wondering if in an emergency she would twitter as happily: Ladies and gentleman, unfortunately we will be crashing shortly. Thanks for flying Lufthansa today. I wish you all a veeery happy day!
Still I liked to be back. And somehow my trust into the Lufthansa captain was a lot bigger that on any Ryanair flight. Interesting...

After landing in Frankfurt a tank vehicle approached our plane and a cool guy with a rubber duck (dressed as a pilot) on his cap emerged from the car and starting to install the kerosine hose.
Then we taxied over the entire airport which made it possible to get a good look at all these large aircrafts everywhere around.
4 hours later we started our flight towards Toronto.

The flight went by without any incidences, but we needed to wait one hour before taking off which made it a total of 9 hours in our cramped seats in economy class.

When we arrived it was already around 11 pm at home while in Toronto the sun was shining (it was 6 hours earlier).
At the baggage claim we ran into a German professor on behalf of whom Rene would participate at his conference at Toronto in the first place.
So we headed towards the city train together.

After about half an hour traveling by train and a good old fashioned street car, we finally arrived at our motel studios in the vicinity of Chinatown. The neighborhood looked a little rundown. The shops on Dundas West where the street car had been taking us all along were all quite small and dingy but I liked them a lot. No shiny fronts, no expensive stuff, just regular colourful neighborhood shops. Cool.

As it was now way after midnight at home, Rene was feeling very tired. Mysteriously I was not. We went out for shopping (nothing there) and then went to a Vietnamese joint to have traditional pho soup and my beloved ca phe sua da (coffee). Delicious!

The next morning I was awake veeeery early, at 4 am Toronto time, and tried to sleep again. Not possible though. Rene slept through until I woke him up with a coffee. That was all we had and what the hotel provided. I had had time enough of course to go looking for supermarkets and breakfast joints nearby on google maps. I proposed a café on Queen Street West, the Early Bird. It is quite stylish and as we were soon to find out: the coffee and falafel/hummus sandwich were simply delicious!
I am actually sitting here now writing about our first day at Toronto.
The cafe was very silent though. Literally everyone was staring at his or her laptop and taking a sip of coffee every now and then.

Opposite the cafe was a post office where we bought stamps. I was handed a few stamps with an undefined animal on it that reminded me of an ugly goat. As I was recalling my trip to New Zealand and its sheep I asked the man behind the counter: Is that a goat or what is it? He answered that it must b a moose and suddenly I saw it. It was a female moose with a goatee. I laughed and said: Oh and I was wondering since when Canada is famous for its goats... A moose makes much more sense!

Just around the corner from where we just were was the famous graffiti alley (Rush Lane). It looked exactly like that kind of backstreet lane where you get yourself murdered at night in a movie but since there were a few tourists present I felt alright getting my camera out and exploring. There were a lot of word graffitis but a few cool images as well.
After coming out at the other end on Spadina Ave we asked somebody for a mall that should have been nearby. We were told that there was the Eaton Center Mall, just a fifteen minute walk away. A classical wrong, once again. I can't tell how many people I have met asking for directions who had no idea that the way they described as a short walk was actually quite a long distance. As was the case here.

We walked and walked and walked, it was hot, until we decided to take a street car...for just 2 more stops. The Eaton Center is gigantic and so we limited ourselves to getting Canadian SIM cards and taking a look at an HMV music/film store and 1 or 2 other shops.
When we tried to leave the Eaton Center we ended up in Saks Fifth Avenue. Th 2 malls were connected in the basement level. There was so much glitter, gold and Versace I felt totally misplaced and glad when we found the exit.
We took a street car back towards the direction of our hotel, found a super market and stopped at another cafe where I had a Cold Brewed coffee. That's the latest coffee trend in Northern America, which has already reached Europe this summer. I can recommend it with Tonic water.
After returning to the hotel and chilling for a bit we left again to get to Rene's conference meet and greet, where we enjoyed some light conversation with a colleague of him and some snacks before heading all over campus to take a bus towards the water front. We had a look at the water towards the islands where I am intending to go to one of these days at Toronto. Beautiful clouds passed by and we watched several ferry boats coming and going.