Toronto and Niagara Falls (1)

Hello all!

This was a little different trip than my usual. It was ORIGINALLY a trip with old (not actually old, but from many, many years ago!) friends, Anne and Larry, scheduled because I had not seen them in a year or so and we wanted to travel together. I did not want to spent much time domestically, since my goal is international as long as my health and back holds out. We had been to Toronto before and east Canada, but this trip’s highlight would be visiting Niagara Falls. I know — It’s strange that I had never been there before; but it was on my bucket list. So together, we planned to fly to Toronto, have a city tour, take a day trip to Niagara Falls, take a VIA train to Quebec City, take a city tour and a food tour, and the VIA train to Montreal, a city tour and then fly home. Jane, my travel partner in the Galapagos and Thailand, decided to join us.

It was all good until the fires. (Darn that Climate Change!!) While I was in Armenia, I get a call from Anne and Larry needing to decide to cancel or not 30 days out from our trip. Quebec City was on fire and the smoke was so bad it was the #1 worst air quality in the world at the time. The forecast said it would only get better with 5 straight days of rain in Canada. Disappointedly, Anne and Larry cancelled their trip.

Jane and I are crazier than they are, and decided to wait until July 17 to determine whether we would just go August 5 for three days to Toronto, since we had (1) play tickets to Hadestown (2) airline tix to Toronto (3) hotel for three days in Toronto (4) and day trip tickets to Niagara Falls. Canada DID get the rain and our Toronto trip was on without air quality problems!! Woo-hoo!

Jane and I were to meet in Atlanta. I clicked on UPGRADE on my Delta Airlines app for my flight from Daytona Beach to Atlanta. Ack!! They upgraded me from Atlanta to Toronto and I had to call Jane and apologize for leaving her in steerage while I would fly First Class!! She said she did the same to her sister-in-law on a trip to Europe.

When I woke up at 3:45 AM n travel day, my phone was telling me my flight was leaving at 10 am instead of 6 am …..so I wasn’t going to get to fly with Jane anyway.

Jane was already on her way to the airport and arrived in Toronto by 10:30 AM. I arrived at 4:44 PM.

Jane is SUCH a good traveler. She met a guy on the UP train from the airport (Pearson Airport) to Union Station, asking how to buy a train ticket. She had bought herself and me a train ticket online, so she sold the guy my ticket! Perfect! She did a little walking around the city, got into the room and when I took a cab to the hotel, she had already gotten the lay of the land and checked in.

I ended up with First Class on both flights!! Very underwhelming. Yes, there were only 2 seats instead of 3 on each side of the plane, but not a heck of a lot more room anyway. And since I was the last first class seat, I felt too guilty to push my seat back and squash the guy in steerage behind me. There was a little space where we each could put our glasses, so we didn’t have to pull up our hidden tray tables. But because these were 1- and 2-hour flights, no meals were offered. They DID serve drinks to us before take off, booze was free and mimosas flowed, and once in the air the drinks were served in real glass glasses. The snack basket had about 6 different snacks and you could take as many as you’d like. The flight attendant walked up to each First Class Passenger to apologize for the 4 hour delay. I know that doesn’t happen in the back of the bus! I also asked the girl next to me if they would let me go to the bathroom since we were already heading downward and she just laughed, as if to say “This is First Class!! We can do anything we want!” I am not comfortable with that attitude.

This is little Kylie Jenner hawking lipsticks in her kiosk — the girl who has made a billion dollars already. You GO, girl!!

On the way to the show, Hadestown, we found Basil Box. Because I’m a picky eater, I am happy with a place that let’s me pick the Korean base, vegetable, protein and topping. Delish!

We never went to a nice sit-down restaurant for dinner while there.

Our play was at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, a beautiful place. On our walking tour the next day, it was explained that the place is a 100 years old but the entire inside was refurbished at one point and it left less seats than originally. I guessed it was to make make room for a bigger stage; but I was wrong. It was because everyone is so fat/big these days and the patrons weren’t able to fit into the seats comfortably.

We had a leisurely morning and hit this cute little restaurant (Eggsactly?) We split this crepe everything breakfast in front of Jane and a baguette, brie, apple matchsticks.

Jane is a wonderful accountant. She’s great at adding who paid for what, totaling it at the end of the trip and deciding who pays who. After about an $1,100 trip each, Jane venmo’ed me $50. Easy Peazy.

We tackled the subway on the first day!! We were proud of ourselves and used it six times. Of course, it only had two subway lines — the yellow and the green.

The city of Toronto realizes they MUST do something about the 2-1/2 hour car trek into and out of the city every day.

These Are the Cities With the Worst Traffic In America

Feb 19, 2023: Chicago, Boston, NYC and Toronto

So they are building like mad more subway lines and underground walkways.

I joke that with all that digging underground, one day Toronto will implode into the spaces below.

We bought a PRESTO card for $6 and added $20 onto it. Then for $3.30 Canadian every trip, we could go as far as we wanted.

They were clean and I felt safe.

On our three hour Toronto walking tour, we learned an immense amount. These stars embedded in the sidewalk are supposed to be maple leaves, the symbol for Canada. They have the names of many famous Canadians. This one is for Alex Trebek. If it is signed at the top, they were alive when the slab was installed. Sadly we have lost a very sweet man.

Terry Fox has one too. He is a HUGELY beloved hockey player who got cancer and had a leg amputated. After a year of rehab he decided there wasn’t enough funding for cancer research and decided to walk from one coast of Canada to the other. Soon news shows and media started following him and people were contributing money like crazy. At one point he started having problems with his lungs and had to stop walking. It was more cancer. He never finished his trek before he died. But then someone else decided to take up his cause, along with Terry’s mom, and more money poured in. They have an annual Terry Fox Day and have contributed more than $8,000,000 for cancer research. They love their Terry Fox!!

This is the Roy Thompson Concert Hall. It just goes to show if you have money to give to a building project, you can get your name on it.

The Toronto City Council’s rules for skyscraper architects is that if they are going to build a skyscraper, they have to keep a park-like space and they have to put some art in that space. They neglected to provide specifications for what KIND of art.

So here we have … bunnies? look at the tails. Dogs? look at the ears. I’ve decided they are burros. The builder thought these animal statues would be on the OTHER side of the hedge where the daycare children could ride them. But that didn’t work out either.

I think this is the stadium for the Toronto Blue Jays. The statue on the second floor is of people at the game showing their displeasure for the umpire’s call. They put this same statue on the other side of the stadium too. And in the 1980’s or 90’s the story that never dies is that on the other side of the stadium are several big hotels with their room windows looking down on the playing field. Many people get a room and watch the game from their hotel. Well!! One couple who thought the windows were of one-way glass appeared not to be that interested in the game and decided to have sex instead. The Jumbotron spotted them and the world saw what was happening in that room. Now that it’s a legend, many people get a room and recreate the scene, much like people who like to join the Mile High Club.

In the 1980’s Montreal and their French-speaking ways decided they would secede from Canada and start their own country. Many huge banks in Montreal, at that time the largest city in Canada, panicked and didn’t want any part of a new country. Many big banks, and hundreds of thousands of their employees moved to Toronto now making it the largest Canadian city by far.

In the new millennium when traffic into the city became unbearable, bank employees requested smaller bank offices be built in the outer parts of the city, making it easier for them to get to work. It worked well for the employees. But the huge skyscraper banks were empty, and that is when the big gun tech corporations moved into them, including Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Pinterest. A win for everyone.

Back when trains were a big transportation vehicle, they would come in from both Canadian coasts and have to turn around. Where they did this was called a roundhouse.

This got Jane and I talking about our childhood TV in Minnesota. We remember Roundhouse Rodney and Casey Jones. Then where was nurse Carmen in a Treehouse with, possibly, Alex. And something about a tootsie roll — which may just be a pun I remember. And I loved Miss Betty who would look in her Magic Mirror and see me and call out my name!! And then there was the nationally known Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans and a scruffy bunny. Ah, the memories.

This is the CN Tower. It was built in 1973 to be the tallest edifice in the city, since TV signals could not be broadcast in a city of skyscrapers unless the tower was taller than the buildings. It was only after building it for communication that it became a big tourist trap.

We hot-footed it down there on Sunday night to get to the top, only to be told all tickets were sold out. Jane got on her phone and bought tickets for the next day.

It is best to go up for the view at the end of your Toronto trip since you will be able to recognize everything you’ve seen and learned on the ground. Amazing!

I kept thinking I saw the lookout tower of the CN Tower moving up and down. But it was a figment of my imagination. It does not move.

How cool is THIS? A shadow of the CN Tower on another Toronto building.

Well…. it’s hard to kick out a cute little kid so I can get in the picture…. even though he cut in front of me.

Union Station is like NYC’s Grand Central Station. It’s where the subway, the UP train to the airport and real trains converge. But this photo is to highight the tall bank building on the right and the smaller gold building on the left. The gold building wanted to be taller bu was not allowed, so decided to coat their glass building in 24 carat gold leaf. Yeah, it stands out. It’s so bright during some times of the day that the customers in rooms in the hotel on the left had to be moved. The gold building settled a lawsuit with that hotel and apparently everyone was happy.

Here is some of the ugly art in the city. It STARTED out rusty!! And their hockey team. Jane is in front of someone everyone knows, except me. (Gretzgy? Messi? Labron James?)

This building’s art was the glass ceiling. Beautiful!!

This was a parking lot before they made all the cars park underground. They got a designer from Montreal–apparently where all the artsy people reside– and told him to design something applicable to the people of the city. He recognized that many people had dogs and half of them were pugs. Thus, a fountain of spitting dogs. And all the dogs in the pond are pugs.

Façade on the back of the Flatiron building to make the park prettier.

I love a market. Meat, cheese and stuff. Anthony Bordain made a bacon sandwich famous by mentioning the best sandwich he’s had came from this St. Lawrence Market. We tried to eat here but when we finally returned it was closed at 5 pm.

We walked, subway’ed and got to the Shoe Museum at 4:45. Closing time was 5 pm. We whipped through there at record speed taking pictures for later perusal. We even had time to buy a tiny pair of shoes in the Gift Shop for Jane’s and my display cases. Photos will be in the next installment.

Leave a comment if you’d like. I’m the only one who sees them.

Safe Travels!! Linda Jeanne

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