Greetings from Toronto,
It was after 9 pm when our train arrived in downtown Toronto. This is a huge city - fourth largest in North America, First is Mexico City, then New York City, and then Los Angeles. Chuck was here in the early 90’s and couldn’t believe the difference. The city has many, many new huge skyscraper buildings filled with condo units. Plus they are beautiful buildings.
Today’s lecture was about the forming of Canada from 1700’s including the building of the railroad which was the carrot offered to British Columbia to get them to join Canada. Very interesting lecture. This afternoon the five of us took the Hop On Hop Off bus to tour Toronto. The first challenge was finding where to purchase tickets. We hopped off to see the CN tower which was built in 1979 and is often used as the symbol of Toronto. It is a very popular site, hence there was a line for security, a line for tickets, a line for the elevator to go up, and a line to get the elevator down. The event was very similar to going up in Willis (Sears) tower including that we could have done sky-walking on the outside ledge at the top. I am sure you will be surprised to learn that we opted out of that! However, there was a group of five brave young people on the elevator with us when we came down. Two of the five had just gotten engaged while sky-walking!! Now that was special. We continued our adventure with hopping back on the bus (eventually) and heading to the hotel.
This evening Chuck who always likes a culinary adventure wanted to go to a Moroccoan restaurant, the Sultan’s Tent. S. Joined us. They were featuring Summerlicious which is a program that a number of Toronto restaurants participate in. For one price, you price you pick out an appetizer, entre and dessert. We each picked a different item in each category and had a great time tasting. But wait, there was also a belly dancer! Who could ask for more?
Tonight we pack for three days on the train. We are each allowed two small bags. We are each taking a backpack and sharing a wheeled carry-on. We check our other bag through to Jasper. Should be an adventure. There is little to no Wi-Fi on the train so the blog will be delayed.
Observations (before I forget them): there are many, many bike riders in both Montreal and Toronto. Toronto reminds me of Texas—everything is the biggest, the tallest, the fastest, the newest!
It was after 9 pm when our train arrived in downtown Toronto. This is a huge city - fourth largest in North America, First is Mexico City, then New York City, and then Los Angeles. Chuck was here in the early 90’s and couldn’t believe the difference. The city has many, many new huge skyscraper buildings filled with condo units. Plus they are beautiful buildings.
Today’s lecture was about the forming of Canada from 1700’s including the building of the railroad which was the carrot offered to British Columbia to get them to join Canada. Very interesting lecture. This afternoon the five of us took the Hop On Hop Off bus to tour Toronto. The first challenge was finding where to purchase tickets. We hopped off to see the CN tower which was built in 1979 and is often used as the symbol of Toronto. It is a very popular site, hence there was a line for security, a line for tickets, a line for the elevator to go up, and a line to get the elevator down. The event was very similar to going up in Willis (Sears) tower including that we could have done sky-walking on the outside ledge at the top. I am sure you will be surprised to learn that we opted out of that! However, there was a group of five brave young people on the elevator with us when we came down. Two of the five had just gotten engaged while sky-walking!! Now that was special. We continued our adventure with hopping back on the bus (eventually) and heading to the hotel.
This evening Chuck who always likes a culinary adventure wanted to go to a Moroccoan restaurant, the Sultan’s Tent. S. Joined us. They were featuring Summerlicious which is a program that a number of Toronto restaurants participate in. For one price, you price you pick out an appetizer, entre and dessert. We each picked a different item in each category and had a great time tasting. But wait, there was also a belly dancer! Who could ask for more?
Tonight we pack for three days on the train. We are each allowed two small bags. We are each taking a backpack and sharing a wheeled carry-on. We check our other bag through to Jasper. Should be an adventure. There is little to no Wi-Fi on the train so the blog will be delayed.
Observations (before I forget them): there are many, many bike riders in both Montreal and Toronto. Toronto reminds me of Texas—everything is the biggest, the tallest, the fastest, the newest!
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