So while the last days have mostly consisted of driving around Burlington and the towns around today would be different. We decided to give Toronto a first try.
Some sidefacts: 2.6 million inhabitants, biggest city in whole Canada and the Capital of Ontario. Also it’s the center of Canadas economy and internationally quite important in regards of finance.
We were dropped of close to Toronto by our aunt on her way to work and took the subway to get into the center and downtown. First thing to do was get some coffee and breakfast as we had to get up real early (5 am is usually way too early, I get into bed at times like this but luckily the jetlag was still present enough to help us get up) at starbucks and show Sebastian a little bit how to take pictures with my camera.
Then we roamed a bit through the city, down to the lake and through the streets to catch the feel of Toronto, get to see interesting people, locations and have some pretty good talks. It’s amazing how being on your own but still together in a new location totally opens your mind, makes you suddenly talk about topics you never though you could talk about anytime.
One thing I really love about Toronto and other comparable cities is their closeness to water. Marseille for eg while being completely different is located close to the sea, Aarhus where I used to live half a year as well. There’s something wonderful about being able to escape the stress of a big city and lay down close to water and waves so this is what we did, eating some spaghetti we brought with from home and having some more deeply satisfying conversations.
But of course we didn’t come to Toronto to just lay around and lurk for wifi at starbucks so we got ourself a citypass which allows you to visit five popular attractions for a reduced fare. Although the subway isn’t expensive at all, with only 2 CAD for students and young people, we decided to walk to the first location, the Royal Ontario Museum, to get to see a bit of the city’s other parts.
When arriving at the museum we were surprised to see a brass band performing right in front of it so we stopped for 15 minutes to listen to them. Check them out on instagram they’re really good! The museum itself was quite interesting although not too much new things to discover except the part about Canada’s First Nations. It’s incredible interesting to learn about a country’s history and about the people that used to live there long time ago and still do till today.
Of course there were some funny moments and laughters to share like e.g. one woman who took a picture at every single exhibition piece. But not like you’d expect but with herself in the corner of each picture #exhibitionselfies
We were so impressed that we decided to give it a try too – what do you think? 😀
Joke aside, we had a pretty good time in there and I’ll just leave you with some more pictures before we continue further…
It was already around 5pm and we haven’t had food for the whole day so we decided to walk to Kensington Market and Chinatown with one stop and walkthrough at the university and campus.
The university is distributed over the whole city but the main campus and all the old buildings are quite close to the museum and gosh they really do look like some of them where taken straight out of a Harry Potter movie.
Also I was really impressed to see that Toronto university was part of the first movements fighting for more sexual diversity and acceptance.
Real close by (for Canadian standards) now is Kensington Market, an old part of the city with lots of little shops and people performing on the streets, lots of tourists but also a pretty nice feel and flair. To give you some impressions here are some pictures:
One building that catched mine and Sebastians attention was this university building next to the main street. Christian studies and beer, perfect combination I guess!
Located right next to Kensington Market is Chinatown of which I sadly didn’t take any pictures except some with my smartphone as it was raining and we where really hungry so we just had some food at a nice small restaurant and then hurried to get the GoTrain back to Burlington!
At around half past 9 we arrived back at home and although we were really tired because of such a long day we were also happy to have seen and experienced so many interesting things. Over and out for today!
