Clare the Explorer

The tourist cap went back on for the weekend folks…

On Saturday I tried for the third time (don’t ask – I don’t know why I found this so hard!) to visit Greektown and this time I actually succeeded. It is a nice neighbourhood – full of souvlaki restaurants and cute little shops and we had a nice couple of hours poking around the area. I finally bought a hat – very attractive jobby with a pom-pom and ear flaps – I figure if I am going to look bad in a hat it may as well be REALLY over the top! We finished the afternoon off with some hummus and pita and the obligatory souvlaki and it was all delicious. This means the only one of the ‘neighbourhoods’ I have not actually visited yet is little Portugal so perhaps I will try for that next week.

Saturday night there is normally a sports event or something that the hostel gang get together for – sadly our events co-ordinator finished up last week so at the moment we are fending for ourselves and in rather unoriginal fashion went to the pub. We did branch out slightly though and managed to avoid visiting Upfront (where we seem to end up every day at some point) so that was something! I called it a day about 12.30 but the “young ones” pushed on to the nightclub area where they apparently walked around for a couple of hours and came home again. Hurrah for being a nana and not wandering around in the cold for hours says me!

Sunday morning I listened to the All Blacks game (well some of it anyway) with Kiwi in the kitchen before heading out to do some shopping. I was keen to go and watch it but $20 just to get in the pub seemed a little steep when no-one really wanted to come with me! Hopefully we will manage to get a few people together and go for one of the games before the end of the tour though because I haven’t seen any rugby for months and I am having a little bit of withdrawal!

Anyway – shopping focused mainly at the Department stores this week. I am starting to get most of my stuff together for Christmas so just wanted to pick up a few things, including some wrapping paper and cards. The two big stores in Toronto are Sears and the Hudson Bay Trading Company, and they both have amazing in-store Christmas displays and decorations, plus really impressive windows set up already. Apparently here once Halloween is over it is officially the Christmas season – I can’t quite get my head around it yet but it is good to have some help getting in the mood since everyone’s presents will need to be in the post in about three weeks!

Sunday afternoon was lovely and sunny for a change so Patrick and I went to visit The Beaches. We caught the street car through the slums of Toronto and I was starting to wonder where the heck we were going when you suddenly arrive in a lovely, leafy residential area. The beaches (on the shore of Lake Ontario) are sandy and quite big – I can imagine that in summer they get huge crowds out there. It was very pretty with the last of the fall leaves around and hopefully I will be able to put some of the photos up for you soon.

Well better go but I hope you are all well and talk to you soon!