Day 9 -- still in Toronto

We packed and left the apartment and drove to meet V&M at 10 am. We parked the car in their guest parking and walked through some beautiful residential areas (Rosedale --one of Toronto’s oldest suburbs. It is also one of the wealthiest and highly priced neighborhoods in Canada. It is known as the area where the city's 'Old Money' lives, and is home to some of Canada's richest and most famous citizens ) and wooded ravines into an old brick factory converted into a weekend market. It was a farmer’s market with all kinds of veggies, fruits, foods, plants, etc. It was crowded with families with lots of kids and dogs. The area was lovely – trees, flowers, ponds with water lilies and turtles. Then we walked back through more ravines -- back to the car. At about 1:30 we set out for the rental car place. Even though we had been there twice before, we still had a hard time finding it because it is well hidden in a side street behind a Hilton hotel and you can drive around without ever seeing it. The flight was a bit late, but mostly uneventful and we got back home around 9 pm.

Day 8 -- Toronto

A rainy day. We woke up and it was pouring. Unfortunately neither of us thought of packing an umbrella. We were supposed to meet Victor and Malgosia at the Royal Conservatory of Music at 10 am, but they changed the venue to Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) at 11 am because of the rain. We got on the metro and bought an umbrella at the newsstand before getting out of the station so we could walk to the gallery. Traditionally, we had breakfast at Tim Horton’s and then met V&M at AGO. It’s an interesting building, a combination of an old Victorian mansion with a very modern addition by Frank Gehry. Together we saw a special exhibition on art and theater and then we wandered around the gallery while M&V had coffee in the members’ lounge. When we got out it stopped raining. We had lunch in a Turkish pancake place/gallery across the street and then walked through a different part of the city – University of Toronto campus. We parted at Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). We briefly considered going there, but the lines were around the block because Fridays are half-price and maybe because they had an exhibition of terracotta warriors from China, which we both saw in their natural environment in Xian. In the evening we went to dinner at Terroni Italian restaurant, a very popular lively and noisy place with good southern Italian food..

Day 7 -- Toronto

We contacted Bo’s friend Victor and his wife Malgosia who invited us to dinner that evening. In the morning we drove to the harbor, parked the car and took a very cool and relaxing boat ride through Toronto harbor and islands. They have a number of islands which are mostly recreational – golf courses, parks, yacht clubs, etc. You can get there by ferry, but cars are not allowed. One of the islands houses a small city airport and we saw planes taking off and landing there. After the boat ride, we visited an art gallery in the harbor housed in a converted power plant. The exhibition was interesting --- about coexistence of wild life and civilization. Then we drove a few blocks to Old Town Toronto, parked the car and walked as much as we could. The heat and humidity were record breaking. We went to Lawrence Market, a huge food market with all kinds of ethnic foods. The selection was amazing – cheeses, meats, fish, pastries. We loved it. After that we walked to a very funky art district called the Distillery. It was a real huge distillery converted to narrow cobblestone streets with art galleries, cafes, shops, flowers. It was really lovely. We walked around as much as we could and then drove back home, changed and took the metro to Victor’s for dinner.
They live in the most posh area in Toronto – Yorkville, near a street that is like Rodeo Drive so after dinner they took us through the Yorkville area and walked us to our metro stop.

Day 6 -- on the way to Toronto

Breakfast at the B&B with 3 generations of women guests – a grandmother from Rochester, NY with her daughter and granddaughter who live in Boca Raton in Florida. They just came for one day/night to see a play (Women) in Niagara-on-the-Lake, which has a very well known and respected theater festival every summer (Shaw Festival). The B&B owner Mahroo is a gourmet cook. It was fresh fruit salad followed by fresh baked puff pastry filled with salmon, egg, capers and covered with spiced asparagus. This was followed by freshly baked banana bread for desert. We then left for Toronto but stopped at 2 wineries on the way. Niagara on the Lake is a very upscale community with many large estates in the heart of wine country. The second winery enthralled us with the local wine. The guy who was doing the tasting was fantastic. He showed us how by combining a tidbit of common food with a particular wine a total different flavor emerges. For example, he gave us a rose wine, which by itself was quite unremarkable, but when combined with a piece of celery, it became spicy (a peppery taste). Then he gave us a white wine, which in combination with a piece of very sharp cheddar cheese became much more fruity (Grapefruit overtones). It was very interesting and he gave us much more wine than what we were entitled to.
The drive to Toronto was uneventful. We got to the apartment we rented from VTBO on the web and Bo and Al simultaneously said “what a dump. The owner was working on it so we dropped our bags and left. We took the metro downtown and attempted to walk around the city, but the heat was unbearable so we found a huge shopping mall right in the middle of the city (Eaton place) and walked inside at least for some time to cool off. We thought we would relocate after one night but it turned out to be acceptable. We found an internet café and paid for and printed a parking permit for our neighborhood.

Day 5 -- Niagara-on-the-Lake

We took a very picturesque route and drove to Niagara on the Lake. It is a beautiful little town in the Ontario wine country. Our B&B was nice and the owner gave us coupons for free wine tasting. We walked with Bo’s friends into town and stopped for lunch in an Italian café. Bo’s friends then left to return to their home in Windsor. We walked around the picturesque downtown stopping at 2 wineries in town where we sampled local white, red and ice wines. Then we walked to the edge of town where the lake meets the river. The temperature was pushing 100. We walked back to the B&B and rested before driving back to town for dinner. Dinner was eventful. I ordered trout and they brought 2 slabs of pink fish. I told the waitress I thought it was salmon and she said “you are the second person who told me that this week”. We had a visit from a beautiful skunk. It had a lot of white and a black stripe. It showed up a couple of time leaving a faint smell, but not too bad.
(Note: Lake trout is quite different from brook trout. Lake trout can weigh 100 lbs. Later we saw lake trout at Lawrence Market in Toronto and it was indeed big and pink)

Day 4 -- Niagara Falls

. It was a work day for our hostess and she was gone when we got up. Andrew fixed breakfast for us and we set out for Niagara Falls, about 120 miles away. For lunch we stopped at Tim Horton’s, which has now become our favorite venue as well. When we arrived in Niagara Falls, it was hotter than hell. We checked into our hotel, an interesting round structure perched on a tall base (column) with only 4 floors with rooms (floors 26-29). Then we went and viewed the falls and walked around in sweltering heat. We were really grateful for the cooling mist from the falls. We got back to the hotel at the same time as Bo’s friends – Lucy and George. The four of us walked around the town together. Lucy and George used to live in Niagara Falls for about a year right after they emigrated to Canada twenty years ago so they showed us around and took us through a tacky tourist strip with all the touristy shams. We went out to dinner at the local Keg, which was not as good as The Keg in Oshawa. We decided there was no sense in spending a second day in Niagara Falls and with some difficulty we changed our reservation to 1 night.

Day 3 -- Kingston

We set out for Kingston and 1000 islands. The first stop was Tim Horton’s. This is a Canadian staple -- coffee and snack shop which is everywhere. According to everyone we met, Canadian’s can’t live without their Tim Horton’s and we can understand why. The coffee and food is great – fresh, prepared to order and inexpensive. Kingston is a very picturesque town. They had an art fair right by the lake so we walked through outside vendors and found a flea market. Bo bought two pairs of earrings.
The boat trip around the islands was pleasant but we only saw about 4 islands, which was a far cry from the thousand islands we were promised. The largest, Wolf Island, is quite large – over 30 km long. The trip back to Oshawa was not pleasant. Lots of traffic. It was the end of a holiday weekend for Canada so it took us a while to get back. We stopped in the local Keg restaurant for dinner and had good steak and lobster.

Day 2 -- Oshawa

We toured the local area. We saw the old downtown and the Polish hall. Oshawa is quite multiethnic. In addition to a big Polish community, there are also Greek, Ukrainian, Caribbean, French Canadian and some other ethnic groups. Each of them has its own hall, in which they meet and celebrate their holidays, serve their ethnic foods and practice their traditional music and dances. Every year in June, there is a fiesta week, during which all the halls serve food and provide performances of ethnic dances. Andrew’s daughters, Olivia and Claudia, participated in a Polish dance group for many years. The town has a nice beach on the lake with a pier and a lovely, large lakefront park. We saw flock of Canadian geese as we were walking along the lakefront, not to mention lots of people who flocked there to enjoy the weekend and the gorgeous warm and sunny weather.
Their house is walking distance to Lake Ontario and there is a nice lake front walking/biking path that goes along the lake for miles and miles. In their backyard there is a plethora of flowers and fruit. We sampled raspberries, red and black currants, and gooseberries.
In the evening Bo’s cousin Les and family arrived. We had dinner for 10 outside on the deck. Polish is only spoken 5% of the time so Al is not left out.

Day one - arrival

The trip getting there was the easiest of all our trips. 4.5 hours from John Wayne to Toronto. Toronto airport is big and modern but they must have saved money on signs. We had to ask for directions to find the exit from the airport and we had to ask directions 3 times to find the rental car place. It was an easy trip to Bo’s cousin’s (Andrew) house in Oshawa (a Toronto) suburb. Oshawa is about 60km from downtown Toronto. It’s a city of about 150,000 with a huge automotive industry. The biggest plant is the GM plant, which also produces parts for Honda. Andrew told us that at its peak, the plant employed over 17,000 people, but now it’s been reduced to 6,000 or so. Both he and his wife work in this plant.

Preamble

This is our 22 trip together. Bo has never been to Niagara Falls and since she has relatives and friends in the Toronto area, we will do both. Last month John Wayne became an international airport with an Air Canada flight to Toronto. That is very convenient.