Toronto – The Metropolis

Birthday Lunch at the CN Tower

Before we reached Toronto, we first spent a long time in traffic and admired the skyscrapers. Bus arrival times in Toronto are a very vague indication considering the many traffic jams. Toronto is the boomtown and metropolis of Canada. This comes at the expense of charm. In the parts of the old town that exist, Toronto, like Ottawa, has a rather English flair, but for long stretches, the downtown seems to consist only of glass. On the outskirts, the city looks very different and is overall less charming than Montreal or Quebec.

The landmark of Toronto is the CN Tower, the 553-meter-high TV tower, which, when it was built, was the tallest freestanding building in the world, and it appears on almost every tourist article. However, there are hardly any tourist shops in Toronto. For Mr. Ärmel, a childhood dream came true when Ms. Waas invited him to the restaurant in the CN Tower for his birthday, where we slowly rotated while enjoying fine cuisine, overlooking Lake Ontario and the metropolis that seemed to extend further in all directions than even New York.

On one day, when we reached the nearby baseball stadium at 1:30 PM, the Blue Jays fans were already queuing in the blazing sun in lines over 100 meters long for the game against the Baltimore Orioles, which Mr. Ärmel had briefly considered attending. We checked when the game would start and found out that it was scheduled to begin 4 ½ hours later at 6 PM. Ms. Waas could not believe that the game would last another 3 ½ hours and expressed her deep sympathy for the poor spectators and congratulated Mr. Ärmel on his decision not to go.

Making Friends

We spent the first days with Raj (name changed by the editorial team) outside the city center. From there, it was almost a 2-hour walk to downtown. To the outskirts, it would have been even farther. Raj is a cosmopolitan from India with Arab roots, whose family lives in New Jersey and who himself is a Canadian with relatives in Sydney. We found Raj through beWelcome (a non-commercial and therefore better alternative to Couchsurfing). Since he had another overnight guest (a young Californian) and also had inquiries for later, we only stayed with him for 2 days, but it was very pleasant with him. So we met with him again on the last day of our trip and were invited to vegan Indian burgers and the best Japanese cheesecake in town. Yes, Toronto does indeed offer culinary variety. We had pizza with green tea dough at a Korean pizzeria. A much better choice than the infamous Poutine and definitely the healthiest pizza we have ever had.

Raj also gave us valuable tips, such as the recommendation for free admission to the art museum on Wednesday evening, which was completely overcrowded that day. This teaches us: when art is freely accessible, it reaches layers that otherwise cannot afford culture so easily.

We also gratefully took his recommendation for the quirky little shoe museum. When we arrived there, it was briefly closed due to sewer problems, but we were allowed to enter for free later when we returned after an hour and a half, as we had come all the way from Lummerland just to look at shoes. So we could leave the saved money in the museum shop and visit the nearby Ayurvedic organic fair-trade café selling healing herbs and healing crystals. (Everyone can decide for themselves what to make of this, but there are photos of the café and museum in this article.)

Shit – there's still breakfast!

After our time with Raj, we moved into the student dormitory (we are young again). This dormitory rents out rooms to travelers during the semester break. And this charm radiated from it. The rooms were... sufficiently clean; there was a ping-pong table and a foosball table on the ground floor, and there was a large cafeteria where we had our breakfast – meaning bagels, scrambled eggs, pancakes, lentils, and more. As for the quality, we refer here to the headline – an exclamation from Ms. Waas as we planned our day. A New Yorker also warned us on our further journey about the chlorinated Canadian tap water. Mr. Ärmel always brought his cup for breakfast to avoid disposable cups, and Ms. Waas decided to completely forgo chlorinated tea. Highly wise, as Mr. Ärmel found, who only drinks cappuccino in cafés in North America since the delicate tea aromas have little chance against the chlorine. The worst cola he ever had was also at Niagara Falls, as the syrup there is mixed with chlorinated tap water. This led us to develop the habit of always ordering no ice cubes, as the chlorine ruins the best drinks.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t see as much of Toronto as we wanted, as Mr. Ärmel had to go to the hospital's emergency room on 2 mornings. (He is doing well again now, despite the chlorinated breakfast tea.)

Online, he was able to view his blood results and received his doctor’s letter with EKG and blood values. The discharge letter also stated as a standard that the transgender woman who treated him as a doctor had introduced herself with her first name and preferred pronoun “she/her” and that she had repeatedly washed her hands during the examination.

Like everyone else in the hospital, she was very friendly and competent. But one should also expect something for their money, as one has to pay upfront if privately insured, and a visit to the emergency room typically costs 1,060 Canadian dollars. One must be able to afford such an illness after all.

This way, Mr. Ärmel got insights into Canadian culture that he had not planned for himself.

Unfortunately, there was so little time for the Theatre District, Church Street, and Cabbage Town or Lake Ontario. There was still so much that could have been done, but all the people we met in Toronto were very friendly and made the city a beautiful place despite the lack of architectural highlights (except for the dog fountain!!). There was only one annoying encounter when Mr. Ärmel, without ill intent, took a photo of a First Nations Gathering with tipis in a city garden and was angrily pointed out that it was a sacred assembly and that he must delete the photos.

However, on the last evening, we received a free concert with Indian music delivered right to our hotel room from the nearby square in front of Town Hall until 11 PM after a pleasant evening with Raj to close our trip.