Toronto :: Canada
Summer is upon us.
Places: Toronto
Coolest thing I did: Took the very quick ride out to the islands.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: Said islands didn't come apart from Toronto itself until the 1800s. One big cyclone and viola!; islands.
I hinted that it was getting a little bit warmer last time, but the extreme change from May to June is something you have to feel to belive. The last fortnight has seen the mercury rise will into the 30s every day and the humidity would put Singapore to shame. While I'm much happier in the extreme warmth than I was in the extreme cold I am finding that Toronto itself has some nasty side effects when it gets hot. I work in a building with a fine view of the CN tower on most days but since the heat turned up a mixture of polution and mist have made it either invisible or very faint recently. After that one magic week of heat and clear skys the smog has settled in and I'm a little concerned it's here to stay for the duration of summer. It may well be a part of the cities character but it's hard to be enamoured when a jog feels like running underwater and after 20 mins your mouth tastes like rust.
However, like I said, I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. I'd much rather have the heat.
So with this in mind I took my first trip out to the islands that have been taunting me since arriving. Between the waterfront of Toronto and the rest of Lake Ontario three large sand islands are all you can see on the near horizion and it makes you naturally curious. From the CN tower you can make out the airport on the western end of them but not much else. After an aborted attempt every other warm weekend we've been in Toronto I was deremined this time to take a look.
So after a crammed ferry ride over (on a ferry that smells disconcertingly like urine) through the early morning haze we found ourself on what is a pretty pleasant parkland spread over the three islands. While the central one has been covered in amusement park rides and (of all things) a farm, the others are still lightly forrested leading onto a nicer set of beaches than can be found on the mainland. I seemed to be a little cooler than the city side, perhaps because there is enough space for a decent breeze to crop up over the lake itself.
I'm still not convinced Lake Ontario is safe to swim in (it looks pretty murky to me) but they do love their beaches over here when they get a chance to use them. There is even a bunch that go so far as to try out the 'clothing optional' beach, which I've decided means 'nude' beach. Could you imagine what would happen if you showed up there fully clothed and just hung around looking at all the nudies? It may be peace and understanding most of the time but I'll bet it can get nasty once you decide not to conform to the nudist ways; "we respect your right to do as you please but GET YOUR DAMN PANTS OFF!".
We hired the gayest looking bikes in the universe (mine even had a basket!) to get a good ride around the place and the vistas of the city itself are damned impressive once the morning smog clears by lunch time. You find yourself constantly stopping to take a picture of it from another angle. It's alot more interesting a skyline to look at once you've been here long enough to work out what alot of the buildings are. However if it wasn't for the tower and the dome of the Rogers Center (note the new North American spelling?) it would look pretty much like most other cities. I think a skyline needs a good unique feature or two to give you that instant recognition that only a few cities really boast. If it wasn't for St Pauls then who could tell London from any other flat city?
I love the Torontians attitude to summer. People really seem to get out there and do things when they get their chance. The streets are packed, you can't walk through a park without being mowed down by someone on roller blades/a bike/both and their iPod blasting their eardrums out. I guess if you got 8 months of bitter cold a year you'd get your full use of the weather too. I think we may be a bit jaded in Sydney in this regard. There's always another perfect weekend around the corner if you're too hung over to go out to do something. I kind of like the extermity of the change here.