Canada in a glass.
Well here we are at the last stage of our epic holiday! We decided we wanted to see Niagara and happily Toronto is close by, *and* it's in a slightly more hospitable time zone, so we had a few days here as the first stage of the way home.
Mostly we did some city touristy stuff which was basically museums and museums and walking round streets. Kinda like Chicago way back at the beginning, but with less tired people.
Episode 1 of 'pose like the thing you're standing next to'
On our walk to the city centre (aka downtown, but downcity doesn't really work) we passed through a nice little sculpture garden with *incredibly* pretentious descriptions of a sculpture which was just large concrete blocks. Not very photogenic except with the addition of a cheeky 3 year old.
We walked through to the St Lawrence market which is a nice covered food market and good for wandering around and sourcing treats. Just down the road is the Flatiron (our second flatiron experience of the holiday, rather different to the ones in Boulder). Kinda cool in a way that buildings don't tend to get built in our cities.
Episode 2.
We were meandering towards the CN Tower. Having passed up a tall building opportunity in Chicago we decided to go to the top of this one. Not the very top, but pretty high up.
It was brilliant watching a city from this vantage point, with its transport tycoon-like trains and planes.
But yes, I learned again that heights are really not much for me. Here's the famous glass floor, which was fun at least in standing back and watching the various different sets of interactions people had. On the whole the look on faces was of nervousness, even if the panes of glass could each hold half a dozen moose (heavier than polar bears, I did not know). Our children either like heights or haven't learned to fear them yet. I hope the former for their sake. I did do one rapid transit of the corner of the area though, and feel that this was plenty.
Windy. What a funny lot.
Playing choo choo in the train yard outside.
Dinner one night was at the snappily titles Yonge Dundas square (I think they need a better name if they want to be more Times Squarey than they're managing). More fountains, but really the 10 or so fewer centigrade degrees in Toronto than Chicago or Boulder should have stopped Marisca more than it did. I supported Tom's more cautious approach.
These kids *love* escalators. I reckon we must have done approaching 100 on our trip, so I had to get a photo of one. This one, in the science museum, wasn't great as they didn't have their suitcases to make farty noises on the entry and exit rumble strips.
Highlight of any science museum - playing with the Bernoulli effect.
There were loads of cool things - we spent a while here. Never photographed was the thingbob that chucked tissue into the air. Not sure what the science was now I think about it but it was effective fun.
I will genuinely give a prize to whoever can work out why Elspeth is looking pleased with herself in front of this thing.
We also went to the aquarium which had some great sharks and jellyfish, and to the Royal museum which had some great stuffing.
Then our last day - Niagara. It really was very cool. The constant haze of water vapour over the falls, the all-encompassing nature of the horseshoe when you're down on the boat, the sheer perpetuality of it when behind the falls. We went, we were touristy, we enjoyed ourselves immensely.
And we wrapped up the day with some Timbits. [Note: insert second bird/bakery theft issue here].
So that was it. No mention of how many loops Tom watched of the aeroplane's CBeebies video in what was the middle of the night by anyone's timezone while the girls snoozed peacefully in the row behind. That certainly doesn't qualify as holiday.
Thank you for the brief visit Canada, we'll see you again.
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