A Day in the Big Smoke, Toronto, March 2012

Wednesday 28th March – I decided that it was finally time to get out of the house for the day… there’s only so much pottering you can do before you go stir-crazy! Jason (Frenda’s son) and I had also made tentative plans to meet in Toronto on the Wednesday, and I had a few errands to run before hitting Cuba, so it all just fell together nicely. Unfortunately the day turned into a comedy of errors, but not every day can be perfect, I guess! There were a couple of highlights though – specifically a pilgrimage to DeGrassi Street!!! Wooooot!!! JOEY JEREMIAH AND HIS JEAN JACKET!!!!! 😉

I got up at a realistic hour, got dressed and started the journey to the train station. Adrian had mentioned that it was a fifteen-minute walk away, so I left about half an hour before the train was due to depart to adjust for his long stride versus my little steps! Unfortunately, as it turned out, even though I was walking at a pretty good clip half an hour was not enough. I realised this just a little too late; I jogged for about 5 minutes and then full-out sprinted for another five, but it was simply not enough to get to the train. It pulled into the station as I entered the humungous commuter car park, and I had to buy a ticket before getting on; I missed it by less than a minute, and I was fuming because the next train was not for another hour. WHEN will people realise that public transport needs to run well and often?!? I was sweaty and pissed off, so I just sat on the floor heaving for breath, trying to calm down. There was no point in turning back; there was nothing nearby and nothing to do, so there I sat, grumpy and cross-legged like the Psammead, right on the concrete on the forecourt, desperate for some sun. Not a good start!

Eventually the next train came, and I got some joy (as usual) out of the shape of the Go trains. They’re green and white, and narrower at the ends than in the middle; it’s hard to explain but fairly distinctive. I sat on the train for an hour and, on arrival at Toronto Union station, experienced my next farce – not having any more cash, I had to walk a few blocks to an ATM before I could go BACK to the station to buy my daily ticket before LEAVING the station again. A daily ticket costs around 10 bucks; surely there’s some justification there for an EFTPOS facility?

Anyway, grumps aside, I decided that I should probably go to the CN tower. It was a clear day, and I’ve been to Toronto many times before and never paid homage to its biggest icon, so I guessed it was time to do so. I started the walk, but of course the direct link/Skywalk between the station and the tower was closed for renovation so I had to go the long way around. I have to say… the whole experience wasn’t much cop. I paid to go to the top but the walkway was closed, so in the end I got a view of about 45 degrees (the rest of the top circle is taken up by a restaurant), looking away from the city, across an industrial area/airport and over the lake. Still, I felt a sense of achievement in having ticked the CN tower off the city ‘to do’ list, and decided to go and freak myself out by walking over the glass floor area on the lower deck. When I got there it was, not surprisingly, very crowded and, more surprisingly, in bad nick. The glass was scratched, dirty and difficult to see through clearly, and the view down was directly over a nondescript building site. I’m sure that there are times when it’s bloody brilliant up there, but I must’ve just picked the wrong season and the wrong time. Give it a few months and that building site will probably be a beautiful garden or something! Sigh. A little disappointed, I wandered out of the tower in search of better adventure.

Boy, did I find it. I love being a nerd. I hopped the #504 streetcar down King Street, headed to the eastern suburbs, and got off just a block or two away from the infamous DeGrassi Street! Yeah, yeah, I KNOW that the school isn’t real, and I KNOW that all the good stuff got knocked down years ago, and I KNOW that Joey Jeremiah is now a bald, fat has-been, but I was still excited. DeGrassi, fergawdsake! Childhood legend! Spike! Wheels! Snake! THE ZIT REMEDY!!!! Okay, I’ll stop using exclamation marks now. I’m guessing from the area that it was once a working-class hub, but has since become a bit trendy (due, in no small part I’m sure, to its TV infamy); later investigations on my part into houses on sale on DeGrassi Street revealed prices of $900,000 and upwards. Yikes! I have to say, though, that the houses were beautiful; old-style multi-storey brick duplexes mixed with even older bungalows with little porches. I passed the corner where Yik Yu (ha ha ha) called the agony aunt on the radio; I passed the corner where, allegedly, the DeGrassi grocery store used to be; I passed a couple of the kids’ houses, I passed the primary school, and I passed the park. I was in dork heaven.

After thoroughly exploring the street from end to end, I stopped to watch the squirrels playing for a little while and then walked down to an interesting corner that I had spotted on the tram on the way in. Here, I found a little clutch of vegan bakeries, health food shops and a Caribbean jerk joint, called The Real Jerk; it looked pretty damn good. Unfortunately I wasn’t really hungry enough for a giant meal and I felt like I was running a bit short on time if I wanted to meet Jason after he finished work, so I just stopped for a delicious snack at the LPKs Culinary Groove, a vegan bakery. I had a chocolate soymilk smoothie with bananas and strawberries, and two cookie sandwiches – one double chocolate and one chocolate chip… I couldn’t figure out the filling (vegan cream? I think not) but the girl explained that it was a vegetable shortening that they used instead of a dairy one, and that they just topped it up with sugar and other good stuff to keep it tasty. Not bad at all!

From there, I raced into the city and headed for the Eaton Centre to run my errands; I had to buy suncream, bug repellent, shampoo and pyjama bottoms (my favourite ones, which I had brought with me, died a terrible, holey death in Vegas… I tried stitching them but they tore again!). I hate shopping at the best of times, but the hunt for pyjamas was the worst. I just wanted some el cheapo ones but everywhere I saw was asking $40 and above, and only sold them as a set with a top. In the end, I managed to find a thoroughly ugly pair in Sears for $12, which was on sale because it was part of a Christmas-themed set and the top had been nicked. Bargain… I think! :s

I was done by 5ish and set about waiting for Jason to get in touch regarding dinner. I waited and waited, but come 6:15 I still hadn’t heard from him. I called and left a message, but there was no answer, and by 7:15 I’d kind of had it. It turns out that in this day of comedic errors he had not received my earlier texts and had gone to play squash instead; by the time I called Frenda to tell her I was coming home, he was on the other line wondering where I was. In the end, after a bit of to and fro chaos and a rush to find a phone booth (not a simple matter in this age of mobile phones) so that I wouldn’t be spending gazillions on roaming charges, I did get the chance to see him. I got the subway out closer to his place and we had Korean food for dinner, which was really nice, but I had to leave fairly quickly to get the subway and then the train back to Burlington (and besides, he had work the next day too). What a fiasco. By the time I got to the station in Burlington it was nearly midnight and I was freezing and desperate for the bathroom; I called the local taxi number that Jason had given me and it turned out to be a number for some Chinese doctor’s answering machine. Thank god there was a man just finishing his shift at the station; he spotted that one of the digits was wrong, and gave me a coin to make the call (as I had spent the last ones I had on the calls in Toronto and the call to Doctor Wang). What a way to end the day.

Still, as I said, I enjoyed myself thoroughly on my walk around the DeGrassi area, and I enjoyed catching up with Jason, brief as it was, so the day was not a total loss. I went to bed that night confident in the knowledge that the next day would be better!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

Tags: canada, toronto, travel