Toronto

Hi all,

‘Tis the season! In an effort to experience our first white Christmas, we headed for Canada – more specifically, Toronto. Our hopes of a white Christmas did not come to fruition in the way that we hoped, but we definitely got to play around in some snow and see some other cool things.

Sunday 22 December

Our flight to Toronto was quick but a little quirky. The plane was very small, so small that my carry on suitcase (regular size) would not even fit in the overhead compartment. Also, the plane had panels on/for the wings at window level so you couldn’t see straight out. I was also in a foul mood because of losing my scarf, so I just wanted to land. As we approached Toronto, we spotted snow covered land and mountains beneath us.

We got off the plane, went through customs (which was very quick and not at all strict), grabbed our bags, headed through an underground tunnel taking us from the airport island (yes, it was on an island in the bay of the city) to the mainland, and then jumped on a shuttle bus taking us into Union Station which is further into the city. Once we were dropped off here, google maps was suggesting that our hostel wasn’t too far a walk away, so we started lugging the suitcases along the streets of Toronto. Well, what we thought was a short walk turned into 45 minutes of lugging suitcases through many inner city suburbs and was made even more frustrating by the damaged and bumpy footpaths, the hot sweats felt due to being rugged up in our coats and scarves, and general pissed-off-ness from being in a bad mood. Also, there was only remnants of snow from a snowfall a week ago on the streets and it wasn’t even that cold, so we were pretty disappointed since we’d come here for a white Christmas. It was a bloody relief when we finally made it to the hostel, but of course to top off our day we were too early to check in. I was obviously giving off such poopy vibes that the German hostel worker who was giving us a pre-check-in tour was scared of me lol. We filled in the hour and a bit until check-in by heading a block down the street to a kebab shop where some greasy wog food made me feel heaps better.

(The view from our hostel's rooftop lounge area)

At 3pm, we went back to the hostel to check in, and then we lugged our suitcases up two flights of stairs which was… fun. We had a tiny room with a bunk bed that was in a cluster with 3 other rooms where our 4 rooms shared a bathroom. The room didn’t have much floor space which presented an issue for laying out our suitcases, but we had a view of the street and it wasn’t dodgy so we can’t complain too much. We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out for a bit and mum did some washing (since we finally stayed at a place with laundry facilities) before heading down the street for some dinner. We were staying right near a massive Chinatown/Koreatown area so there were heaps of Asian options, and mum and I have been eating a lot of Asian lately so it suited us well. At the restaurant I had some cold noodles (which were pretty gross) and fried rice, and mum had some dumplings.

The rest of the night was spent watching the movie ‘The Imitation Game’ since the Spy Museum in D.C. had reminded me of it. Mum hadn’t seen it before so she watched with me and enjoyed it.

Monday 23 December

Today was set to be our sightseeing day in Toronto, and having purchased passes for the city sightseeing bus months ago, we headed out around 11:30am to our nearest stop, grabbing some Starbucks on the way. We jumped on the 12pm bus and rode the 1.5 tour through all 20 stops in the city. Toronto had some pretty sites and a few notable things, but there wasn’t really THAT much to do and/or that was grabbing us, and there seemed to be few people on the streets… Toronto seemed a little boring.

Relatively uninspired, we hopped off at the stop we’d boarded at earlier and I saw there was a H&M there and wanted to pop in. After browsing, we realised we’d found our way into a massive underground mall that was part of the 30kms of underground walkways and tunnels that Toronto has, and we found where all the people were (hiding from the cold). We browsed around the mall for a while, grabbing some Asian food for lunch in between, then made our way into a Saks store (which we very quickly realised was well out of our price range) and swiftly left.

(multi-level Christmas tree in the underground mall)

We then headed towards the only sight we really wanted to see, which was the CN tower. The walk from the mall took about half an hour, and by the time we got to the top, the sun was setting and we got to see a beautiful orange sky and Toronto all lit up. Other than the view and the rude, pushy tourists up there, that was about all the CN tower had to offer, so we headed back down, saw the tower lit up in green and red lights for Christmas, and went in search for some dinner.

We found a pub a few blocks away called Jack Astor’s Bar and Grill and ordered some Poutine (a classic Canadian dish made up of fries topped with cheese curds and gravy) for an entrée, and then fish and chips for main. Even though we asked for the poutine to come out first, we received our fish and chips first. It looked alright, but it was subpar (the English pub in Nashville did a way better job. I can’t wait to come home and have proper fish and chips). The waiter eventually brought us our bill and was obviously inattentive because he didn’t realise our poutine never came out, so I sent him back to readjust the bill because we were too full for it now.

We caught a lyft home and chilled in the room for the rest of the night, and had an earlier one since we had to be up early tomorrow.

Tuesday 24 December

It was an early rise this morning as we had to be waiting out front of our hostel at 8:45am for a pickup, as today the city sightseeing company we used yesterday was taking us on a tour to Niagara Falls! We were picked up in a tiny shuttle bus with seats that were side-facing, and thinking that this would be our bus for the whole day, I was not impressed. However, after picking up a few other people from nearby hotels, we were dropped off at a coach bus which was our ride for the day. Much better. Since we were some of the first on, we also got first pick of the seats. All the other shuttle buses eventually dropped off their passengers and the bus became completely full. After our driver and guide (same guy) introduced himself and gave an overview of the day, we started making our way south of the city around 10am.

I slept most of the way having had little sleep, and I heard a little bit of the driver’s commentary the few times that mum had to elbow me to wake me up because I was snoring. Apparently a few people around us looked at me lol. We arrived at the town Niagara-on-the-lake around 11:30am, and were left to roam free as we pleased until we had to be back at the bus at 12:30pm. Our driver was funny when explaining the time we needed to be back, saying that he didn’t care if he left anyone behind and he’s done it before (he was a really entertaining guide). Mum and I headed down to the waterfront where we were able to look across and see Toronto in the distance, US territory just across from us, and the point in the water where Ontario River and Niagara merge/meet. There was also some residual snow on the ground and it was freezing. On our way back up to the main street we found a park and mum had a ride on the swings.

(You can initially see Toronto's skyline in the distance, then a slight colour variation line in the water indicating the merge between the two water areas, and then the land across the water is US territory)

We then browsed some shops along the street including a Christmas store. It was a very quaint town and I can see why several Christmas movies have been filmed there. We grabbed some lunch while we were here, finding a bakery that sold sausage rolls!! I don’t eat a heap of sausage rolls at home, but my friends and I kept talking about them at college because we couldn’t find them anywhere (they’re not a thing in the US) and it made me start craving them. I was so happy to find them, so I downed two of the suckers.

We jumped back on the bus and headed for Niagara College’s Wine Visitor and Education Centre as the college has two wine-oriented courses as it’s in a prominent wine region. We had a 30 minute tasting session where we tried three local wines that the students themselves produce, including one called ice wine which was my favourite of them all.

Around 2pm we finally headed for Niagara Falls, getting there around 2:30pm. We could see them as the bus was pulling up to a stop and they were massive, but I didn’t realise they were immediately surrounded by a town (I’d always imagined and thought that they were a little off the beaten track). Mum and I had purchased tickets to go up Skylon Tower (the observation tower) so the bus took us and the others who were going up the tower to the entrance and then we headed up. The view was pretty cool and we could see right over to Buffalo, New York and the town surrounding the Falls on the Canadian side. We then headed back down, grabbed some Starbucks, and made our way over to the falls.

(The view from the elevator as we were going up. You can see American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls)

(Looking away from the falls, this is the town that surrounds them)

We first looked at and took some pics in front of American Falls and the tiny Bridal Veil Falls next to it.

(The big one is American, and the tiny one to the right is called Bridal Veil which is often mistaken as being a part of American)

We then made our way over to Canadian Falls (which are named Horseshoe Falls) which were spraying water and the wind was blowing it everywhere, so you were basically being rained on when you walked near those falls. The sun came out a bit when we were over here so several rainbows developed and it was really beautiful seeing them dip into the falls! We also got to get really close to the edge of the falls and see the water tip over the edge. It was going soooo fast!

Overall I really enjoyed the falls and they were beautiful. I wish we could have stayed later and seen the sun set over them, but we had to be back on the bus at 4:30pm to head back into the city. The bus trip back went really quick as we were going against Christmas traffic, and our driver made a few stops to drop everyone off (and you just had to get off at the one nearest your hotel). Ours was last, and the stop ended up being a good 20 minute walk away from our hotel which was quite annoying.

We stopped into the kebab shop again for dinner tonight, and while we were in there we facetimed the family as it was Christmas morning in Australia and they were all still at their breakfast gathering. The rest of the night was spent chilling in the room and organising what we wanted to do tomorrow as we wanted to find some snow to have an actual white Christmas since there was none in the city. We also tried facetiming a bunch of family members to wish them a Merry Christmas, but the wifi in the hostel was terrible and it became too frustrating so we eventually gave up.

Wednesday 25 December

Merry Christmas! Mum and I had a casual morning getting ready and heading downstairs to the kitchen to grab some breakfast. In addition to the cereal and bagels they usually have on offer here for breakfast, they were also offering waffles today as a special Christmas treat. Also, as we headed out of the kitchen, we were told there were some presents for us under the tree – how cute! We each received a small box of Lindt chocolate balls and a magnet, which one of the staff explained to us was because many people who stay at this hostel use it as a temporary home until they find a place to live, so they were like housewarming presents.

We headed out of the hostel around midday and decided to try and work out the tram system. It ended up being quite simple, except for temporarily reverting to Australian ways and waiting on the wrong side of the road for the tram. We took the tram to the main Union Station, and when there we purchased our tickets for the station we’d agreed to head towards, found the train just in time, and boarded. It was a double decker train and had nice comfy seats like a V-Line train. We didn’t really know anything about where we were heading or whether there was even snow there; our only logic for the decision was seeing that the line went north of Toronto and we assumed there’d be snow there, so we crossed our fingers that we made a good decision. Heading out of Toronto was pretty boring because all we saw were factories and inner city suburbs, but about 20 minutes into our journey, we finally started seeing fields of snow. Like literal farm fields that were completely covered in snow!!! We were so pleased that we’d made a good decision. On the 30 more minutes of the train journey we saw more fields and towns covered in snow and got more and more excited.

The end of the line was a town called Aurora, and as we were arriving into town, I noticed a football field and park area that was completely covered and exactly the type of thing I was hoping to run around in, so once we disembarked, we headed down the street to it. Mum and I had a heap of fun playing around in the field, taking many photos, throwing snowballs at each other, running around, cartwheeling and making snow angels. We felt like such little kids!

We spent about 40 minutes here enjoying our little bit of white Christmas, and then headed back into town to see if there was anything. Everything was shut and it was a relatively small town anyway, so we headed back to the station to get on the next train which was arriving shortly, and we took that back into Toronto city. We said goodbye to the beautiful snow fields, appreciating them for letting us have the white Christmas that the city couldn’t give us.

By the time we got back into Toronto, it was around 4pm, and since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, we went out in search of something that was open. We didn’t have a whole lot of luck, but we eventually found an Asian place. Mum had noodles and I had chicken and rice.

Not really having much else to do, we headed back to the hostel and chilled out for a few hours before heading out around 8:30pm to get something to eat. I decided on Popeyes and ordered some chicken tenders, mac and cheese and fries.

Thursday 26 December

We had a casual morning as our flight today was later on, so we didn’t check out of the hostel until 11am and then we headed to Tim Horton’s (a popular Canadian McCafé-type chain) for a little something before catching a tram into the city. Mum ended up getting herself stuck in a long conversation with a very odd Jamaican man. Thinking we could just head back to Union Station and get the shuttle to the airport (the one that had dropped us here when we arrived in Toronto), we were told at the station that these only took passengers one way (which is a bit stupid if they’re heading back to the airport anyway). Mum was convinced that the ferry terminal near the station was the ferry that took us to the airport, but when she found out it wasn’t and that it was a 20+ minute walk to the airport from where we were, we ordered a lyft to take us the rest of the way.

We arrived at the airport plenty early and were settled in the departure lounge just after 1pm where we sat around chatting, eating some muffins and I finished off my Popeyes from last night. Mum ended up scoring a bottle of Canadian Club for $15CAD from duty free and she was so ecstatic. Our flight started boarding around 2:40pm for a 3pm departure.

Our little Christmas trip to Canada wasn’t all that we hoped it would be, and we were actually quite underwhelmed by Toronto, but we’re grateful we got to see another part of the world! And Niagara Falls was definitely better from the Canadian side. I’m glad we ended up getting to have a white Christmas, even if it was only for about an hour, but it was a little sad being away from family. But now it’s time to head back into the US (fingers crossed my new visa isn’t declined since leaving the US ended my student visa, so I had to apply for a visa waiver approval to come back in, but I’ve heard stories about this type of scenario complicating things in the US systems). Where we’re headed next will be our longest stop so far and of the entire trip and it’s the city I’ve been most excited for. Fingers crossed it’s everything I hope it to be!

- Emily xx