28.) There for a Moment - Toronto

28th Stop.  I’m doing a lot of traveling this summer, so I’ve decided to share the moments, the places I found unique and special.  I’m calling them ‘There for a Moment’ because as I travel I’m not just experiencing a place, but I’m experiencing that place at that particular time.  If I went back two years later, both that place and myself would be different and I would see and experience it differently.  I want to share these experiences with others so that maybe they will be inspired to see a place they might never have thought would interest them.  Due to my travels I don’t always have instant access to internet, so some of these might be posted on top of each other, my apologies in advance. 

I left early from Grand Island and drove a couple hours to Toronto then spent the day walking around the city.  I loved the city.  It’s strange because I won’t say that Toronto is beautiful like some cities but once you’re on the sidewalk with everyone else cruising around there’s a vibe, an energy that people here are happy that they like where they live.  Toronto and Buffalo are equally as grey and in a lot of ways industrial yet Buffalo lacked that feeling of being alive, even with as many different people showing it to me as I had.  Toronto I was all on my own and there was something there that was undefinable that made it one of my favorite cities on the trip. 

I parked in a garage near city hall.  The parking garage gets award for being the most confusing parking garage I’ve ever been in.  I entered on one street found a parking spot and got out.  I saw little green signs with stick figures walking and arrows pointing, so I followed them to an exit door that was locked, confused I looked around and saw more green signs pointing further down, so I walked to the next door they pointed to and found it locked too.  Looking around the garage a woman saw me and told me nicely that you didn’t follow the green signs but the red ones, they led to the elevator.  The red signs only had big arrows on them nothing else.   Not only don’t the colors make sense to me, but the pictures on the signs!  Anyway I take the elevator to the bottom floor and instead of it dropping me off in a lobby at the street it opens up in the middle of a store similar to Walmart.  From there I exit out of the store onto the street, looking around I don’t recognize anything, I found out later I was three blocks over from where I originally entered the parking garage at.  Well that’s just great when I’m in an unfamiliar city and my phone can’t give me directions unless I pay for it.  So I pick a direction and start walking, I find a six story mall, that is definitely impressive.  Walk through it to the other side and down the street where I find the old city hall and the new one with the big Toronto letters in front.

After a few pictures I head down through the business section toward the water.  I got to see a lot of unique and interesting architecture because of the long walk.  The only thing interesting on the water is that the airport must be close because the landing planes come in low over it before disappearing where I can’t see them.  Besides that there’s nothing all that great on the water so I weave my way back so that I can cut across to China town and Graffiti Avenue.  In the process I see OCAD, a design school I considered going to briefly before I started at SCAD.  I had honestly forgot about the school having looked at it over four years ago, if I had remembered I knew a professor that had a lot of friends there who had wanted me to come up originally when looking at the school.  Oops, my bad.  Looking around the school and the city, I could see that it was an area that was into design of all kinds and that if I had applied there and gotten in I would have been very happy in this city.  In the end I didn’t apply because while their program for Industrial Design looked great they had no classes specifically to learn materials, which I felt was an important part of what I needed to learn.

It takes me a bit to find Graffiti avenue because even though its talked about like it’s on the main street, true to graffiti art you have to be willing to look beyond normal life to find it.  Just as I was about to give up I happened to look down a side street to see something art worthy.  Following it I found the entire back section of the businesses were covered for over ten blocks with every type of graffiti imaginable, tags, stencils, free form, painted, icon inspired, cultural, etc.  It was some of the best I had ever seen, and there was a ton of it.  I found about five other people back there like me, taking pictures cruising happily through the dirty back alleys enjoying the art of it all.

Since I was in China town I ate at a romen place, it was good but not the best I’d ever had.

Trying to leave Toronto I broke down and finally turned on my roaming data, I couldn’t get out the way I came in because of construction, detours led to other detours and finally I found myself right back where I started.

I know I was only there a day and that it wasn’t snowing yet but I liked it and could see myself going back for a more permanent time.  I have never lived in the snow, and have never exactly wanted to live in the snow, it seems like a lot of work and missed sleep to dig my car out every morning so that I can be on time to work.  I know everyone says that you get used to it but like I said I would have to really love a city to be willing to do that, there are plenty of amazing places to live without having to deal with snow.  But like I said I’ve never lived in it, so how would I know?