Yo, ya ma.

If I had to describe Toronto in one word, and one word only... It would be... "better-than-Thunder-Bay". Hyphens make more than one word into one word right? Good, I thought so :) The Greyhound ride to Toronto from Thunder Bay was actually not as harrowing as I thought it might be. Probably because we're getting used to these ridiculously long bus rides. If I had to guess. Still, there were moments when I thought I was going to go troppo. But it never happened.

The hostel we're staying in here is pretty awesome. Not far from the bus station, you walk past the University of Toronto and down the equivalent of perhaps Brunswick St and then you're more or less there. A short walk. It's been hot though, so we were absolutely stinking. Sweet everywhere. Yuck. Not to worry, we got to check in and put away our stuff no hassles. The "Much Music" awards were apparently happening on the main road, outside one of the major Canadian TV stations. As Hilary Duff, Avril Lavigne and myself have all had a falling out over a bagel recently we snubbed them and didn't go to watch the performances, had a bite to eat and generally pottered around.

University Street

The Monday however, we got our act together in the early afternoon and headed out for some sight-seeing. Not before some bacon and eggs, though. Essential sight-seeing food if you ask me. There seem to be a lot of statues around here. To be perfectly honest I got a little bit bored of reading all of the descriptions on them. So I stopped after the first one, but that didn't stop me from taking a ridiculous number of photos. I was surprised to find that me and my trusty steed Oreo had been immortalized in Bronze in the middle of a Canadian city park. We were pretty happy about that though (Oreo and I).

Whoa! Me and Oreo in Bronze

This city is actually really beautiful, and reminded me of Melbourne more than Vancouver ever did. The fact that it reaches as low as -30C on a regular basis during winter would probably convince me otherwise though. Still, we had a pretty sweet time walking around and generally checking out the tourist trail. Of course, we couldn't go to a city without checking out the brewery that was closest to our hostel now could we? The Steam Whistle brewery was only a stone's throw away, so we headed there for a well deserved pilsner and free bottle opener.

Inside Sweet Brewery

This brewery was pretty sweet, they fed us up with free samples, took us around, told us history and generally had a laugh with us. Not a bad craic at all. Lovely hospitality. bit tipsy and full of great ideas we decided to head up the world's tallest building as our very next activity. Of course, I'm talking about the CN tower. This thing is stupid large. I mean, like really stupid. What I found really interesting about the place is that someone actually bothered to drop an egg down the middle of the thing (obviously on the inside) and make it not break. Now, I'm not adverese to the occasional frivolous activity, but seriously... An egg... 300 meters of air... and the ground. "Gee, let's see if we can make it not break!" . I just hope tax payer $$$ was not involved!

Dreaming of falling?

A bit more walking around, taking photos and general pottering and that was our day. Sadly we missed the second brewery tour that we were planning on doing at another of Toronto's local brew houses, but we did pop and see the "Music Garden" that was designed with the help of Yo Yo Ma and some other notable music types. While not overwhelming, it was nice to see some purdy flowers and take some piccys and stuff. Didn't really see how the trees related to the garden, but seeing as I don't have perfect pitch and I can't read the sheet music that was on all the placards, I think I was always going to have trouble with that. After a real espresso coffee, a couple of pints of beer and some poo-tine, we now find ourselves in the hostel, looking forward to our dinner.

Hope everyone is well and having a nice time! Niagra falls and Montreal tomorrow!

Yo Yo Ma's Purple flower

Toronto, Canada