It’s getting colder each week and the leaves are really falling fast. The Weather Channel shows a two week extended forecast (more like a guess I think) and they show the average temp expected over that 14 day period. Every time we see it the two-week average is a degree lower :-), I think it’s still double digit, but only just. I hope I’ve mown the lawn for the last time this year, there’s not as much to cut as in Monbulk, but it’s a bit fiddley so it still takes a while. The leaves are turning awesome colours all around us, but it seems that every time we have a camera handy the light hasn’t been too good so no decent photos of natures display yet and time is running out.
This weekend has given us two great days with the sun nice and warm and few clouds around. Yesterday we decided that it was about time that we visited downtown Toronto so we packed up fairly early... okay we left at 10am but you know that’s pretty good for us. An IBM colleague, AJ a young bloke and developer on the project, had recently moved into an apartment on the harbour and had generously offered us parking if we came into the city. We hooked up with him, parked the car in his building and he walked us to the ferry terminal. We wanted to get over to Centre island, the main of the Toronto islands, but we found that the only ferry running was to Ward Island, looks like everything is starting to shutdown for the winter. We had to wait about 45 minutes so we went for a quick walk and went through a short section of the PATH, a series of linked underground walk ways and malls that can take you for 14klms under Toronto without you having to go outside. I expect that this is a very good thing in the middle of January. We made it back in time for the ferry and took a 10 minute ride over to Wards island. We had a nice stroll along the boardwalk and saw a few squirrels (the kids still go nuts when they see one :-)). Unfortunately there wasn’t that much to see, more indications of winter on the way, and with the ferry running only once an hour we didn’t want to get stranded there for too long. Next stop, CN Tower, after a 15 minutes walk broken by a stop for hot dogs. Nice dogs too with each one of us having our own combination of toppings ranging from olives to spicy pickled peppers and sauerkraut to sliced tomato.
The CN Tower is the highest freestanding structure in the world and dominates the Toronto skyline, you can see it from just about everywhere and because the surrounding landscape of so flat you can spot it from a long distance. Up close it doesn’t disappoint either really putting a crick in your neck and you strain to look straight up at it. It’s easily 1/3 taller that the tallest building in the CBD standing over 550m high. My Lonely Planet guide has this to say about the CN Tower - ‘its primary function is radio and TV communications, but relieving tourists of as much cash as possible is another priority.’ and they got that right. It cost us C$120 to get the family to the top. Being fair we did ‘spurge’ and pay around $5 extra each so we could visit the SkyPod, the highest viewing platform at 447m or an equivalent 140 storeys up. It was an amazing view and a great day for it although some haze meant that we couldn’t quite see the southern shore of lake Ontario, still fantastic stuff. Sadly photos and video just aren’t going to do justice to the experience, especially the GlassFloor which is pretty freaky. The glass panels are laminated and look like inch thick windows, apparently they can hold over a tonne of weight, but I didn’t see anyone trying to prove this by jumping up and down on them... I’m sure we all trusted the design and construction teams, but we’re not completely stupid :-). Naturally I showed my considerable nerve (read lack of judgement) by walking on the glass panels, but man it makes your heart leap when you look down... over 300m straight down! Of course Jo and the kids all had a go and were also freaked out a bit. We ended the day, after waiting for ages to get the lift back down, by stopping off at Tim Horten’s, a franchise coffee and sandwich store, on the way home for donuts. When I woke up this morning my legs were stuffed from all the walking, and Cam-carrying, I’d done the previous day, I don’t know how the girls managed, their walks to school much be toughening them up a bit... their Dad is getting a bit soft.
So Abbie has gone off to a birthday party today and Jo volunteered to help out so I’m amusing the other two kids (between typing this up). I’d say that we’ve pretty much settled in now, there’s only a few minor things that we’re missing (like bedside tables). I’ve got my Xbox running after buying a voltage converter and a wall in the lounge usually has TV projected on it every night. The wall is pale green in colour but you’d be hard pressed to tell with the projector doing a good job in fairly dodgy conditions. Even got a little/cheap 5.1 surround sound system, so you know that my inner-nerd is pretty happy. I swapped the rental car the other day as the GPS was costing me $10 a day and I can’t claim that expense through work. We generally seem to know where we’re going now with Toronto’s grid-like road layout being similar to Melbourne. If you know a few big East-West roads and a few big North-South roads then you can find your way around without much hassle. The new car is a Pontiac Grand Prix, and while the previous Buick was a bit quieter and smoother, the new car has a lot more power and is a bit sportier, nice. All-in-all we’re all feeling very at home here and all loving the experience, Toronto is a great place to be.
Enough already! Stiffy signing off ‘til next time.
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