Category Archives: Toronto

More highlights and milestones

connections, Food, Leisure, Museums & galleries, Toronto, , ,
  • Eating Poutine, a cholesterol laden Canadian snack speciality consisting of fries (chips), gravy and cheese curds. I wasn’t sure about the idea, but actually we really enjoyed it and will now seek out more authentic renditions.
  • Becoming annual members of the Art Gallery of Ontario – this will allow us gradually to enjoy and absorb what is a really interesting and well curated collection. The new Gehry Galleria Italia is a fabulous space, currently housing a magical sculptural exhibition of trees re-visioned (we loved this)
  • Buying my first pair of ‘leisure skates’ – my UK figures boots are just too uncomfortable!
  • Skating on a natural rink in Glen Stewart park at the foot of a ravine that drops a way just below where we live – steep wooden steps lead down into a magic woodland walk by a stream, currently flowing between snowy banks we were the only people on the ice – magic!
  • Commitment (voluntary) to a local community arts/regeneration project, Art of the Danforth, an art walk planned for April (I’m sure I’ll write more on this as things develop!)
  • Entertaining our first guests in our new home on Friday evening, genuinely a delight!
  • Getting our OHIP cards – we are now covered by the Ontario Health scheme. But with a shortage of family doctors, finding one is the next challenge.

Coming up we have:

  • Toronto’s Winter City festival – spectacle, music, multi-culturalism and more!
  • Winterlicious, (part of the above) Toronto’s winter food festival, a fabulous chance to try new restaurants at very affordable prices. We have, over the two week period, booked two lunches and two dinners, including lunch at Canoe, arguably Toronto’s top restaurant (Jess ate there back in September and is still raving about it!)
  • Music and multi-media show at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts

Loving Toronto

Toronto

I just came on a list of 175 Reasons to Love Toronto – we haven’t yet begun to do more than skim the surface of this wonderfully diverse, vibrant, human city, so only a few resonate right now. But I’m looking forward to referring back to the list to inspire our exploration . . .

Things to do before I get too much older . . .

Christmas, Leisure, Toronto, , ,

I refuse to think in terms of ‘things to do before I die’, but I do have a list of ‘things to do before I get too much older’. On Saturday evening, I was able to tick one of these off!

Having read Noel Streatfield’s White Boots avidly as a child, I fell in love with ice skating and skated regularly at Bournemouth through the school holidays. But I’ve always longed to skate in the open air.

On Saturday we found ourselves on the ice under the freedom arches of Nathan Phillips Square, Christmas lights twinkling all around use under a brilliant frosty moon. We craned our heads to follow the fireworks as they scaled the twin towers of city hall in the opening ceremony for the annual Toronto Cavalcade of Lights to triumphal strains. Then, as the applause subsided, skated for over an hour among the throngs to a DJ mix of Michael Jackson and contemporary R&B. Even with hire skates, it was the best skate we’ve had in a long time – in the Canadian vernacular, ‘awesome’! We are looking forward to skating in our local parks when our own skates arrive, as well as on the harbourfront.

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At 10.30, after the best Pitta Gyros we’ve had outside Greece, we headed towards home through streets still bustling with families past the animated Christmas windows of The Bay.

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Either I’m seeing the world through fresh eyes or the spirit of Christmas really does seem to be stronger, more full of the wonder that echoes childhood memories. And we haven’t even had snow yet . . .

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Highlights (week beginning 2 November 2009)

Museums & galleries, Sightseeing, Toronto,

It’s been such a busy time doing that I don’t get to write things up! So here is a brief summary of the ‘firsts’ and highlights from the last week.

  • Buying a house (OK, I did report on this one)
  • Venturing downtown for the first time since we’ve been here to see Where the Wild Things Are at the Imax (as Imax is a Canadian technology, this seemed appropriate) and drifting out of the cinema into a bookshop where we browsed until well after 9.30 pm.
  • Quigley'sFriday night at our local (Quigley’s), doing our usual half-time swop between  risotto studded with PEI (Prince Edward Island) Mussels and bursting with calamari, scallops and prawns, tomato and basil and a spicy chicken, bacon and chipotle pasta, washed down with Creemore (a fine drop of beer from a small town we visited in July) and accompanied by live rock, much of which took me back to my early 20s.
  • Going to the mall (another first) and investing in a really good mattress – the Brick (a major furnishing store) had a one day 50% sale on mattresses.
  • Scarborough Bluffs – where sculpted cliffs rise steep and tall and, on an unseasonable November day, I basked on a rock in the sun, savouring the shore’s soothing susurrus and the dancing diamond path across the water to a sliver of silver tranquility on the horizon.

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Doris McCarthy Trail to Guildwood Doris McCarthy Trail to Guildwood
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  • Saturday night supper – eating Catfish, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We have promised ourselves that we will try at least one new food each week when we go shopping!
  • Our first trip to ROM (the Royal Ontario Museum) and a magical exhibition of unusual gems, Light & Stone: Gems from the Collection of Michael Scott (one of the founders of Apple). This included some stones neither of us had heard of in raw form and as jewellery or sculpture – fabulous! We also took one of the museum tours to get an overview and went to photographic exhibitions of Vanity Fair portraits and key Canadians photographed by Michael Dickinson. Thanks to Paul’s brother Robin and his wife Justine who gave us a year’s membership, this should be the first of many visits – we have yet to take in the current major exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
  • Wandering back to the subway through upmarket Yorkville – Prada, Louis Vuitton, Max Mara ( you get the picture) – to be explored at our leisure, particularly Holt Renfrew, an upmarket department store.