That Tall-ish Tower in Toronto

30^th June Thursday

We had to check out of the hostel at 12pm today so naturally Gillian and Bessie rolled out of bed and about 11:38am and had to run around packing and taking a shower to get ready in time. Alice had already been up for a long time so she went down to the kitchen to make the most of the free breakfast on offer (yes she did steal some free bagels for us to eat later).

After checking out of the hostel we walked to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). Here we walked around on our own for a bit before bumping into a tour that was going round, so we tagged along. The tour guide, an old German man, was very funny and extremely enthusiastic. He talked about a painting of a ginger woman, the Tom Thompson exhibition (he was a Canadian artist) and the Henry Moore exhibits. The last place we went into was the Galleria Italia. This was a long, naturally lit walkway along the side of the gallery. It was built using funds donated by the Italian community in Toronto, who had their names engraved on wooden beams spanning the walls of the gallery. We would have had our names engraved there too, but unfortunately none of us had a spare $500,000 lying around. Aesthetically, the gallery’s glass walls were built to look perfectly curved but in reality only one beam went straight up. All the other beams sloped into the middle to give the impression of perfect curvature. In the centre of the gallery was a 200 year old cedar tree which had fallen in a storm several years ago. The tree was partially hollowed out to leave only the original sapling exposed in the very centre of the giant trunk. Not a very good description, but here’s a photo, and as you can see it must have taken bloomin’ ages.

Our guide said that Michelangelo once said, he didn’t create marble sculptures, God had already created them. He, the artist, merely chipped away the stone to reveal the sculpture beneath. This was very true of the tree- the sapling was just hidden by the tree which had grown up from it.

By the time the tour ended we were all in a funny mood. We sat down in one gallery and started talking about the colours in the paintings, then the symmetry in our faces, then the shape of Alice’s nose, and then our hands. At one point Alice was chanting “Empire State, Not Empire State” as she turned her hand from one side to the other. She was referring to the pyramidal shape of her fingers when viewed from one direction, and the uneven pyramidal shape when viewed from the other. Obviously. If you’re confused at all by this, don’t worry, we are a bit too.

After some odd looks from the security guards we made a hasty getaway and went to Kensington Market for some desperately needed tea and coffee. The place is very hippy and stylish, but you could tell it was once a very run down area. Alice reckons that once people started to become ‘at one with the whole hippy vibe’, then the area became stylish (her words, not ours).

We then dragged our suitcases halfway around town (do you see a recurring theme here?) to get to the next hostel we had booked- HI Toronto. We spent ages preparing our butternut squash soup. Alice put pepper in it, Bessie put peppercorns and they both put in chilli powder. This was too spicy for Gillian (especially after biting into a few peppercorns!) but she said it was delicious anyway (it was). With our soup, we ate our (stolen) blueberry bagels. Can’t say we’re not being economical! We even had leftovers, which we kept in the fridge to eat at another time.

We headed out into the night to make our way to the CN Tower. We could see it towering over the skyline in the distance as we approached. The whole structure was lit up in the colours of the rainbow to commemorate Pride Week. Here it is in blue:

To ascend up the tower we had to first pass through security. There were the most bizarre sensors which we had to walk through. They looked a little like metal detectors but blasted air at you and took three successive photos while you were inside the booth; photos of us with our eyes squeezed shut against the high wind speed). Thank goodness we were all wearing shorts and trousers and not skirts! Not entirely sure what kind of security that was, but they deemed us non-terrorists, and let us go.

We squished into the elevator (Bessie is telling us we’ve turned into true North Americans by using this word); we were packed in like sardines. A few ear-popping moments later we emerged some way up in the air, in a large, round pod.

We admired the spectacular views for a few minutes- we watched the Roger’s Stadium’s roof close, and marvelled at the blackness of the Ontario Lake. You honestly couldn’t see it at all. It was pretty odd seeing all these skyscrapers which have towered above you impressively all day long, being reduced to miniature looking structures below. We wandered around, then ventured outside, before returning inside to walk around staring at the floor. It was made of glass, and you really could see ground, the whole 350 feet (that is a random guess by the way, we can’t remember exactly) below.

Having descended back to a more normal height above sea level, we walked back to the hostel. On the way, we passed a whole load of people walking in the entirely opposite direction. At first we thought we must be missing out on some top secret event no one had bothered to tell us about, but turns out they were actually just a bunch of people dispersing after seeing a Katy Perry concert nearby. Gillian had had Katy Perry songs in her head all day, so maybe we’d all picked it up subconsciously. Either way, next stop was to get our second dinner- a hot dog. We sat and ate it on a wall, people watching. Then we headed to bed.