Visiting Toronto

This weekend (well, make it a long weekend) I decided to try tourist in a closer city. I went to TO, visited some friends, tried to buy some ski boots, more on that later.

First off, Via rail is a sad cousin to what I rode in Europe. It is so slow, it pulls into cities so slowly. It's comfy though, and even 2nd class has electrical plugs so those are two pluses. The city of Toronto is *huge* compared to the nice compact city centres in Europe. Plus it seems very tall and unfriendly.

While in TO, I met up with an old friend from highschool (unexpectedly popped in and we went out for lunch). I saw lots of babies. I went to the AGO (new design) and it was great. Probably the only art I was missing in Europe was Group of Seven. I like the style, it's like the French impressionism combined with Canadian Wilderness Awesomeness. One photo I saw looked a lot like a hike I was familiar with in BC. After Europe I'm convinced that every market in a painting must be that one I saw in Delft, or that Cathedral I visited in Italy. So I convinced myself it wasn't Lake Garabaldi (but it was).

On Tuesday I was going to visit the ROM, but it was too expensive. I saw tons of great collections in Europe. Instead I wandered around the malls and bought a guidebook about Switzerland (more on that later). One neat thing about Toronto is the PATH system. Many of the downtown buildings are connected by these underground tunnels. More accurately, it's like a giant underground mall. There are food courts everywhere and at lunch time all the office buildings above drain into the basements and everyone grabs their food.

After the mall, it was another slow train ride back home. I am going to have to make another trip to buy my ski boots. Not only is it too early in the season but MEC doesn't stock different sizes of telemark boots. I'll have to purchase them, get them sent to the store, find what fits and then return the rest of the purchases. Ouch, that's going to be a monster credit card bill!