Lessons Learned

We had a bit of a lazy start to today since we are traveling with a 16 year old who loves his sleep.  While he continued to snooze, Danica and I planned out our agenda for the day.

First Stop - St. Lawrence Market

Walking in, Duncan immediately said that this was what he expected Kensington Market to be like.  Right away, we noticed Paddington's to our right and since it claimed to have the best peameal sandwich in Toronto, we decided this would be breakfast, not that we had any idea what a peameal sandwich was.

Let's be honest, though.  Duncan doesn't like eggs and had no idea what peameal was so he had a hamburger.

Next Stop - The Distillery District 

Afterwards, we walked to the Distillery District.  It was a rather warm trek and we were planning on finding a place to have a beverage but then found ice cream instead.  Duncan and Danica both chose 'It's Chocolate. It's Hazelnut."  Instead of a chocolate flavour which is usually my go-to as well, I tried the 'Cajeta Swirled Goat Cheese' which was truly delectable.

We wandered a little more and stopped at Spirithouse for a beverage.   To be honest, we were trying to go to the Spirit of York Distillery but got a bit tricked.

This is where our lessons come in....

1)  Large Objects are MUCH, MUCH farther than they appear.  Since we could see the CN Tower, we thought it would be a quick little walk.   Maybe there was a shortcut, but we didn't take it.  An hour and a half or so later, mind you we stopped in a couple of shops en route, we decided to go into the Boston Pizza across the street because we were dying of thirst and a bit peckish.   I should mention that we did have a bottle of water with us but Danica somehow dropped it into a garden and it was irretrievable without jumping fences and climbing into bushes.

On the way, we stumbled across this fountain I had read about but didn't know that we would be able to find.

And we walked by The Hockey Hall of Fame which meant absolutely nothing to my non-sports-loving kids. 

Danica had a chat with Glenn Gould too.

This brings us to:

Lesson 2)  Know when the Blue Jays are playing and time your visits accordingly.   At the exact same time as we left Boston Pizza to cross the street to see the CN Tower, 3 billion Jays fans left Rogers Centre to walk the opposite direction.   The kids were a little overwhelmed by the volume of people.   It was literally a sea of blue.

This was the thinned out crowd.

I have to say that our decision to avoid Union Station and instead go to St. Andrew Station to catch the subway back to our hotel was a good one.  It was still crowded but no one was touching us and we could breathe and hold on (my standards are low).

For dinner, we met up with my friends Rebecca and Ryan at a fun, quirky restaurant/bar for geeks that was a short walk from our hotel.  It was so great to catch up with them (I don't think I had seen Ryan in 15 years or more).  The atmosphere was great, the drinks were fun and my food was pretty yummy too.  The kids also enjoyed rolling the dice to determine what their Dungeon burger would look like and what it would be named - Chaotic Good for Duncan and Chaotic Evil for Danica. 

For the record, the bartender forgot to make my drink glow so the server brought Rebecca and I glowy cubes after.

My Appa Korean Fried Chicken Burger

Another fabulous day in the books.

I almost forgot lesson 3.  Of course, it may not actually be a lesson since we're clearly doing something wrong.  I meant to ask Rebecca and Ryan tonight bit forgot.   We bought 2-trip TTC tickets.  When we go to enter the subway, we have been using the 'exact change/ticket/token only' line since we don't have a presto card to tap.  We can't find anywhere to put our tickets but the gates just open for us as we enter.  After buying our tickets today, I decided to check our other tickets and they still have 2 rides on them.  Essentially, we have been riding the TTC for free, except that I have purchased tickets.  I may skip on purchasing tickets tomorrow since we still have 4 rides each left.