Toronto, My Days Are Numbered…
With one week to go before I depart Toronto, I decided to check out an area I’d read about in Lonely Planet known as The Beaches. After all, being Australian, how could I resist?
Catching the overpriced streetcar from downtown, my surroundings became littered with pawn shops, strip clubs and abandoned buildings. Enclosed in my red & white cage I powered on until all the other passengers had jumped ship, at which point I was thinking ‘Damn I better get off too’.
The stores and architecture down Queen St East reminded me of quintessential small-town Ontario; plenty of café’s, antiques and boutiques, however chains such as Swiss Chalet and Blockbuster Video quickly remind you this is 2006. Being a Saturday, the streets were packed with mostly families and old-couples. Few younger people roaming the streets made me realise this was probably representative of the local demographics.
Needing nourishment, as I had only woken about a hour before, I headed into the first greasy spoon I could find that served all-day breakfast (it was 3pm). Pancakes, sausages and bacon, washed down with a black coffee at the Beachside Grill totally hit the spot, though the service was somewhat lacking (is that not part of the charms of the greasy spoon?).
I headed down through Kew Gardens to see what the actual beaches looked like. At the park’s opening, real Christmas trees were on sale, children were playing in the park & a makeshift game of baseball was beginning. Of course, I would have joined in, except United Airlines kicked up a stink when I tried to bring my baseball bat on the plane with me (carry-on luggage my ass).
By the time I got down to the sand it was almost dusk. The water was more bay than beach, but I wasn’t going to correct decades of local history. A board walk & cycle path ran along the edge of the sand. I couldn’t help but notice a jet-ski passing by. You couldn’t pay me to get in that water as it was 6 degrees celsius outside. What I found most interesting was a raggedy old fence which sliced the beach in half as far as the eye could see. Few openings (supposably for human traffic) broke this chain, but it did leave we wondering why it was there in the first place?
So as the sun set I headed back up to Queen Street to hitch a ride on a streetcar back into town. I do wish I had come down here earlier…. but alas, Toronto had one last surprise for me just as I was packing to leave.
Check the photos out here.
November 26th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
As an unbiased reader who has never met or knows Andrew, I think this is a really good article and would recommend it to anyone who likes sand, the Internet or words. After reading not just some, but the entire article, I found it to be of high quality and told several people at my work about it. Once again, it is really really good and would encourage people to not only read it to themselves, but to other people as well.
November 27th, 2006 at 12:06 am
My first comment is about ‘Michael’ - if you knew Andrew you would know that he does not normally converse with his friends like this.
Dear Andrew,
As a friend i would like to request that you cut the bullshit and bring out some of your personality in your writing.
It was very pretty and well written but it was simply not you!
xx
November 28th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Yeh I’d like to order a triple cheeseburger meal with raspberry fanta and a short blond.
November 30th, 2006 at 5:24 am
Andrew, very well structured and im very suprised in the maturity expressed in your writing no cwords or dirty b’s expressed in this blog entry - very unlike yourself! Was it you that wrote it or someone posing as you. Maybe the canadians have toned you down a bit and we will see a new you when you return!