So, I wake up on Sunday in my high-above-the-roundhouse hotel room, whipped open those curtains. Lovely day. I had the whole day open, and had done a lot of basic touristing last year, so could be more specific. I thought about doing a hop-on-hop-off bus thing, which had worked so well for Dad and me in December in Vegas and SF, but I looked at the route and realized I’d been to half the spots already and I’d be better off just going straight to the places I wanted to go.
I wasn’t hungry yet (so weird! thank you, Zepbound!), so after morning routine and getting cleaned up, I took the subway straight up to Queens Park. It’s really just a nice park, not a lot going on, except the Ontario Legislative Building. I did get a nice pic of Queen Victoria.
Walked north to the end of the park, then back down to do a comprehensive route through the University of Toronto campus. I love a college campus and this is a particularly nice one. Worked my way down through the ‘quad’ (which I’d walked through last year as well), then walked west on the south border. By then a bit peckish, I stopped at Tim Horton’s, where I had a very tasty breakfast wrap, a cruller and a cappucino.
U of T has very helpful maps posted on particular streetlight poles and such, and when I looked at the map, I noticed this one extremely-odd-shaped building complex. Oo, have to see that, so I worked my way up the west border to the New College. Look at this!
Isn’t that cool? I went in the courtyard – not really a good way to take a picture that captured it all, but I thought it was pretty groovy. There was a plaque outside celebrating the 50th anniversary of the college, so clearly the architecture is a product of the late ’60’s or such, when architecture was fun.
Side note: I was trying to pin down why I find Toronto and particularly the architecture so delightful and I realized because it all seems like it’s deliberately designed to entertain you. You just look around and you end up with a big ol’ grin on your face.
Finished up the campus and headed to the ROM. One thing I love about traveling by myself is I can take museums at my own pace (usually quickly) and not feel (that) guilty about looking at a room of exhibits, thinking ‘nah’ and moving onto the next. One thing I found interesting is that the ROM is a a museum-museum and a natural history museum. The top floor was the old pottery and stuff like that, but the part I liked most was the design section. Although I got sad-face when I saw them exhibiting some Danish modern stuff that I absolutely remember actually encountering in the wild from my childhood. That’s right, grandpa, your everyday stuff is in a museum now.
I went through the natural history stuff enough to look at everything, but that’s not really my cup of tea, plus lots of little kids. But it was cool and well done, and of course there’s a big-ass dinosaur skeleton on the first floor. Feet now hurting, so I headed back to the hotel for a break before round 2.
Round 2 was Eaton Centre, which I remembered having explored the first couple times I’d been to the city (late 80’s, early 90’s). It’s a big shopping mall. I’m not much of a shopper, and even the fancy stores are ones we have in NYC, so… but I did walk around (and have another snacky handheld lunch-type meal). I was looking for something specific and crafty, and they didn’t have any stores like that. Oh well.
Then down to the St. Lawrence Market, which I hadn’t made it to last year, although I must have walked by it when I went to/from the Distillery District because I remembered the dog fountain. The market is pretty much exactly what you’d expect, a great place to visit if you’re food-shopping or are hungry, neither of which I was, but hey.
Grabbed a coffee, and ouched back on tired feet to the hotel to rest up for the dinner cruise.
I didn’t have inflated expectations for the dinner cruise, but I had to eat and I love a boat ride and wanted to see the skyline. About a 15-20 minute walk from the hotel down to the dock, and went right onboard with no fuss. They definitely seemed puzzled by a lone traveler, and they put me at a little table in the corner with a somewhat-obstructed window view, but it was fine and I could see all right and could also see across the restaurant out the windows on the other side. The ship had two restaurant decks – I was on the lower one (which had a dance floor), the upper one had more of a bar, and the top-level (which had a smaller space which was being used for a private party). My level had a small deck at the stern where you could go outside and sit on benches or at tables and look around (which I did from time to time), and the upper deck had much more of a large observation area.
I ordered a cosmo, which was really good. (Exuberant young man with his date at a nearby table: ‘what is THAT!?”) Food was as expected – not thrilling, but just fine. I had a caesar salad, then a teriyaki chicken dish, and then dessert later (carrot cake, I think). They didn’t bring bread, although I guess I could have asked for it. For dessert, I wanted herbal tea and all they had was regular black tea, which I thought was odd (I had it anyway). How hard is it to include herbal teabags in your tea order? #notinthehospitalityindustry
I didn’t dance or anything, but I chatted with some of the other folks and spent some time outside.
We went basically west, then back east, and got back to the dock at 8:30. And I realized I’d really been looking forward to seeing the skyline at night and it wasn’t even dark when we got back, so didn’t get to see that. Anyway, a perfectly pleasant experience, but maybe do it at a different time of year so you see the skyline at night.
Back to the hotel, had more time than I thought I would. This is where I discovered that the TV was set up so you could actually start watching something on Netflix or whatever on your phone and ‘cast’ it to the TV. That makes sense, I guess – I’d already discovered during the Pinafore casting sessions how easy it is to display your laptop screen on a wifi-enabled TV set. But I had never had a need to do that, and I thought that was really cool. I ended up watching the first episode of Ransom Canyon. It’s really cheesy. It actually looks like a lot of the romance novels I read, except everyone looked like they were made of plastic. Josh Dudamel, you’re handsome as fuck, but no cowboy running a ranch looks that unweathered.
(which is not to say I won’t keep watching it. but it’s really cheesy)
Next up: Eric cosplays as someone paying attention to his career, and another dinner with friends.
The Toast Point Page 