I live in Texas and have always wanted to visit Toronto. DH and I went for my birthday in November.
As always, it's very stressful for me to plan for a trip. I take supplements at many times during the day, so organizing them is a big deal for me, as well as all the other things I have to do to get ready for a trip. It always feels so great to finally have all the packing and planning done and to get on that plane.
Toronto was fabulous. For my b'day, DH gave me a pair of noise cancellation headphones, and they are the best thing ever! They prevented me from committing murder on the way from Dallas to Toronto because the man in front of us talked nonstop to the woman sitting beside him and didn't even pause as they ate. Yak, yak, yak!!!!! They did not even know each other. Had I not had the headphones, I would have stabbed him with my fork.
Once we got to Toronto, there was almost a disaster. We went downstairs to get processed for coming into the country, and before we got in the long line, I told DH I wanted to stop a minute and get out my passport. It wasn't there!
You can't enter a country without a passport. They have a holding area at airports for people who try to enter a country without a passport, even if they are simply boneheads like me who lost theirs. I didn't want to go to passport jail!
We had to inform an employee, and he called the airline to speak to someone from the flight. About 15 minutes later, a flight attendant showed up with my passport. It had slipped out of my purse during the flight.
Thank God it showed up! I was so stressed that I think my major organs were starting to shut down. If my passport had not been found, we would have had to turn around and go home, canceling the trip and also losing a lot of money. I would have never forgiven myself.
It was 19 F (-7 C) when we got into Toronto. It warmed up some as we were there, but it was much colder than Austin. I did fine with my heavy coat, scarf, gloves, and an unattached silk and wool cowl that I can pull over my head.
I loved the cold weather, and DH endured it. I've never known anyone as cold averse as he is. Still, he really enjoyed Toronto, too.
We stayed in a condo in a Ukrainian neighborhood, which was an easy subway ride downtown. It's so nice to stay in a place with a kitchen so you don't have to get dressed for breakfast. I don't remember what our neighborhood was called, but our subway stop was Runnymede.
I loved the subway. When it stops, it stops for only seconds, so you have to have your stuff and be waiting at the door. I like this because it makes things go so much faster. The seats are more narrow than any seats I've ever seen on American public transportation. Perhaps they don't drink sodas from buckets the way their southern neighbors do.
We went to 2 fantastic museums: the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario. I loved looking at ancient relics at the ROM such as pictographs that were around 12,000 years old.
The ROM also had an exhibit of characters from Rodin's The Gates of Hell. On display were Adam and two of the Burghers of Calais. I'd love to have brought one home. I'd only take one Burgher instead of two, so as not to be greedy.
Lots of people over the three days we were there were wearing red poppy pens on their lapels to honor veterans since we were there over Remembrance Day, what they call Veterans Day. All kinds of people wore them, from tots to teens to hipsters to older people. Contributions go to help veterans and their families.
We ate some wonderful food, Indian, Greek, Spanish, and Canadian. Toronto has 2.7 M people, and 1/2 of them came from other countries, so it's very multicultural. I loved talking to Uber drivers there. They are very proud of Toronto.
On my b'day we went to an Indian restaurant, where we had the best dish of our trip. It was a vegetable chaat. It had vegetable strings, puffed rice, pomegranate, green apple, mango, chutneys, and yogurt.
The Greek restaurant was wonderful, too. It was a big, noisy restaurant packed with Greek families.
It was the day after my b'day, but DH blabbed that my b'day had been the day before, so a waiter sang Happy Birthday to me. He sounded like a wounded water buffalo. Here's a youtube of this guy singing another time at the restaurant:
The next time we go to Canada, we'll go to Quebec City. It's supposed to be beautiful and have a really European feel. We will go after July 2018 because that's when recreational pot will be legal throughout the country.
I usually get really sick about a week after I return from a trip, but I didn't this time. I took lots of precautions, including IVs of glutathione, zinc, C, and magnesium both before and after the trip. I won't be as nervous about traveling next time.
As always, it's very stressful for me to plan for a trip. I take supplements at many times during the day, so organizing them is a big deal for me, as well as all the other things I have to do to get ready for a trip. It always feels so great to finally have all the packing and planning done and to get on that plane.
Toronto was fabulous. For my b'day, DH gave me a pair of noise cancellation headphones, and they are the best thing ever! They prevented me from committing murder on the way from Dallas to Toronto because the man in front of us talked nonstop to the woman sitting beside him and didn't even pause as they ate. Yak, yak, yak!!!!! They did not even know each other. Had I not had the headphones, I would have stabbed him with my fork.
Once we got to Toronto, there was almost a disaster. We went downstairs to get processed for coming into the country, and before we got in the long line, I told DH I wanted to stop a minute and get out my passport. It wasn't there!
You can't enter a country without a passport. They have a holding area at airports for people who try to enter a country without a passport, even if they are simply boneheads like me who lost theirs. I didn't want to go to passport jail!
We had to inform an employee, and he called the airline to speak to someone from the flight. About 15 minutes later, a flight attendant showed up with my passport. It had slipped out of my purse during the flight.
Thank God it showed up! I was so stressed that I think my major organs were starting to shut down. If my passport had not been found, we would have had to turn around and go home, canceling the trip and also losing a lot of money. I would have never forgiven myself.
It was 19 F (-7 C) when we got into Toronto. It warmed up some as we were there, but it was much colder than Austin. I did fine with my heavy coat, scarf, gloves, and an unattached silk and wool cowl that I can pull over my head.
I loved the cold weather, and DH endured it. I've never known anyone as cold averse as he is. Still, he really enjoyed Toronto, too.
We stayed in a condo in a Ukrainian neighborhood, which was an easy subway ride downtown. It's so nice to stay in a place with a kitchen so you don't have to get dressed for breakfast. I don't remember what our neighborhood was called, but our subway stop was Runnymede.
I loved the subway. When it stops, it stops for only seconds, so you have to have your stuff and be waiting at the door. I like this because it makes things go so much faster. The seats are more narrow than any seats I've ever seen on American public transportation. Perhaps they don't drink sodas from buckets the way their southern neighbors do.
We went to 2 fantastic museums: the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario. I loved looking at ancient relics at the ROM such as pictographs that were around 12,000 years old.
The ROM also had an exhibit of characters from Rodin's The Gates of Hell. On display were Adam and two of the Burghers of Calais. I'd love to have brought one home. I'd only take one Burgher instead of two, so as not to be greedy.
Lots of people over the three days we were there were wearing red poppy pens on their lapels to honor veterans since we were there over Remembrance Day, what they call Veterans Day. All kinds of people wore them, from tots to teens to hipsters to older people. Contributions go to help veterans and their families.
We ate some wonderful food, Indian, Greek, Spanish, and Canadian. Toronto has 2.7 M people, and 1/2 of them came from other countries, so it's very multicultural. I loved talking to Uber drivers there. They are very proud of Toronto.
On my b'day we went to an Indian restaurant, where we had the best dish of our trip. It was a vegetable chaat. It had vegetable strings, puffed rice, pomegranate, green apple, mango, chutneys, and yogurt.
The Greek restaurant was wonderful, too. It was a big, noisy restaurant packed with Greek families.
It was the day after my b'day, but DH blabbed that my b'day had been the day before, so a waiter sang Happy Birthday to me. He sounded like a wounded water buffalo. Here's a youtube of this guy singing another time at the restaurant:
The next time we go to Canada, we'll go to Quebec City. It's supposed to be beautiful and have a really European feel. We will go after July 2018 because that's when recreational pot will be legal throughout the country.
I usually get really sick about a week after I return from a trip, but I didn't this time. I took lots of precautions, including IVs of glutathione, zinc, C, and magnesium both before and after the trip. I won't be as nervous about traveling next time.
