Toronto, Day One - Thursday 9/4

Franca and I left the hotel at about 10:00 am and changed some money at the CIBC on Spadina and Queen. The teller was extremely friendly – not only did she waive our exchange fee, but also she pointed us toward Kensington Market only a few blocks away as a good place to grab breakfast.

Kensington Street has several funky clothing shops, (few of which were open yet), a delicatessen and a cheese shop. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to go into the cheese shop – we saw a news report later in the day that there had been a case of listeria reported there – but we felt fortunate that we didn’t wind up sampling Canada’s wonderful system of socialized medicine. We opted for omelets (with Canadian bacon, of course) and iced coffees at this very nice coffeehouse at the corner of Kensington and Baldwin.

Our walking tour of the city took us past both the new and old Toronto City Halls. Before we crossed the street to get a better look, we passed what appeared to be a wedding party for a civil wedding ceremony. The four all appeared to be in the mid- to late-40s, two men and two women – a bride, a groom and two witnesses. The men wore gray morning suits and the bride wore a lovely white bridal gown with veil. She appeared to be sitting on either a small stool or perhaps a milk crate. All four of them were smoking cigarettes, they all had the grayish pallor of someone who smokes heavily, and they all looked as though they had just finished the hardest day of their lives. I hope that we caught a glimpse of them after the ceremony and not before. That, or they’ve been living together for a while.

New Toronto City Hall

Old Toronto City Hall (much prettier)

It was such a beautiful day, and since there was rain in the forecast for Friday, we decided to take advantage of the weather and explore Toronto Island Park for a while. There are three docks on the island where the ferries will drop you. By our view of the map, it appeared that any of the three options would be okay to see everything the island had to offer. We decided to take the next ferry, which was the one that would drop us at Hanlan's Point, the westernmost dock near the runway of Toronto City Centre Airport. From there, we figured we would walk to the center of the island where there appeared to be the most activities.


After about 45 minutes of walking, I started to think perhaps we had misjudged the distance on the map. We (and by “we,” I mean “I”) did notice about a dozen signs pointing visitors toward the “clothing-optional beach.” The beach appeared to be off to our right away from the road we were following, but every 100 meters or so another sign would appear pointing our way to the naked people. Where I simply found the frequency of the signs amusing, Franca took my notice of them to mean that I wanted to visit the nude beach. Had we brought towels, I would have considered it.

We came across a little artist’s retreat called Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts. There appeared to be several classrooms and studios surrounding a courtyard area on three sides, but we couldn’t find anyone to provide us with more information. As we continued our walk, Franca noticed a path that had been cleared through the grass just east of the building. We followed it down to a rocky beach where we took off our shoes and soaked our feet in Lake Ontario.

The moment my feet hit the water, I was very glad we didn’t go to the nude beach. While the cold water was very soothing on my tired feet, I don’t care to think about the effect it would have had on the rest of my anatomy.
























We walked along the beach for a little while until we came back to the road. A little further along the way we spotted a school with many young children playing outside for recess. I had seen a sign earlier that said overnight camping was prohibited on the island. It had never occurred to me that there might be folks who actually lived there.

Once we reached the middle of the island we noticed a water playground. There weren’t any kids playing in it because the water was turned off. We thought that perhaps they just left it off until the weekend until I found the on button on a little red pillar. Within a few minutes, the four kids who were playing Frisbee nearby began tossing their disc through the sprays and a young mom brought her toddler over to run around in water.


We rented a quadribike, or pedal car, to continue exploring the east end of the island near the marina. A threesome in a quadribike ahead of us ducked off the road to the boardwalk and we followed suit. Just before my fillings had all come loose, we found ourselves in a little neighborhood. The houses were all rather small, but in place of roads there were sidewalks. I thought it might be how a city would look if there were no cars.

The advantage of a quadribike over a tandem biciycle is that your traveling companion is sitting next to you, giving you the opportunity to chat face-to-face as you ride. However, if you are over six feet tall (like me), your knees tend to hit the steering wheel while you pedal. If you have large feet (like me) your toes tend to hit the front part of the frame while you pedal; until you adjust your feet, of course, when your heel begins to scrap the back part of the frame. And if you have long legs (guess who), the seat is too low to get a really efficient pedal stroke, meaning that your legs never straighten out which puts a whole lotta stress on your knees.*

We returned the bike and decided to catch the next ferry to the mainland. We walked to the Centre Island dock. To get there we walked across the site where crews were setting up for Toronto’s Virgin Music Festival, which was taking place that weekend. Once on the mainland we went to the first affordable restaurant that we could find – The Overdraught Pub. Our server was a dancer performing at the Junction Arts Festival, which was also taking place that weekend. Although Franca had a plane ticket to NYC for Saturday morning, I was considering staying another night in Toronto and going to V-Fest, maybe going to the Toronto Film Festival, and now I had another event to choose from. Franca started thinking that maybe she would get a sub for her shift on the piano at Marie’s Crisis on Saturday night and stay with me.

Last picture before heading back to downtown Toronto

From the pub, we went to Second City Toronto for that night’s show, “Barack to the Future.” I am a big fan of improv comedy and was really looking forward to seeing a show up here. On our way to the theatre, we passed the CBC building where they were advertising a show on their station, “Little Mosque on the Prairie.” I am so gonna check this out.

All told, we walked about 24 km today.


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*For the record, I am transferring this entry from my notes to the blog on September 19, fifteen days after the quadribike ride. The pain is finally gone, but I can still feel the lingering after-effects. I’m sure that all the walking that day and the next didn’t help either.