January 5th

I got up early, showered, had breakfast, packed my last few items and headed to central station. I arrived on time, grabbed a coffee and boarded my train for Toronto. Hopeful that the forecast snow storms wouldn’t actually affect my ability to get to my friend Nanette.

On the train I managed to get a window seat so I could watch the world go by. Unfortunately the world was not very exciting, snow-covered flat field after snow-covered flat field. Every now and then a little township poked up out of one of these flat snow-covered fields. It really makes you wonder why people live out there…it’s freezing cold and there’s nothing for miles around.

Thankfully the five hour train trip was over quite quickly and a family friend, Nanette, picked me up from the station. Nanette has been a family friend since she and my parents were all in their teens. She has been out to visit us in Australia, and we have all caught up in The Netherlands but this is the first time I have visited her in Canada, so it’s very exciting to get the chance to catch up.

Once we got to Nanette’s place we had a good chatterbox and enjoyed some wine and cheese, while investigating the things to see and do in Toronto, before enjoying a delicious healthy dinner.

January 6th

After a fabulous sleep I had a bit of a sleep in, and then got up and put on my fluffy robe. Nanette and I spent the morning drinking coffee and eating fresh muffins, before eventually getting dressed, de-icing the car and heading out to the Ontario Science Center.

At the Science Center we enjoyed and IMAX movie on the great white shark as well as learning loads about the human body and playing with few hands-on science experiments. It was so much fun, so interesting and such a well designed center with so many helpful staff! It was a great way to spend the day, with the added bonus of not freezing our butts off outdoors.

In the afternoon we headed back to the train station to pick up my friend Liv, who despite having lived in Canada for 18 months, hadn’t made it to Toronto yet. So she thought that it would be a great reason to visit and spend more time hanging out with a friend from home.

So Nanette, Liv and I spent the evening nibbling on tasty foods and chatting.

January 7th

With my sightseeing buddy by my side, we got up early, rugged up super well against the weather described as ‘brutally cold’ (the forecast literally included the warning that it would be ‘brutally cold’, it also warned that frostbite could occur in as little as 10 minutes) and headed downtown Toronto. The short walk from the subway station to the CN Tower was torturous, I think that the pain in my face from the icy winds was the worst I had experienced so far, but I was determined to see Toronto, and forged ahead.

The CN Tower is known for having queues of people with 2 hours wait time, but we strolled up to the ticket counter, and walked straight in. We zoofed up the outside of the tower in the glass elevator and were the only people on the observation deck. Though it was a freezing cold day, it was actually a very clear day with blue skies. The view across Toronto were fab! Particularly stunning was the view across Lake Ontario towards the Toronto Islands. The lake was almost entirely frozen and it looked brilliant to see the winds blowing the snow across the surface of the ice.

After visiting the CN Tower, we asked about underground walkways linking parts of the city and thankfully these existed, so once we had directions Liv and I parted ways. I headed along the skywalk (covered walkway) back to the subway station, where I caught the subway up to Museum. The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) had numerous good reviews, so even though I am not really into museums, this one was on my list.

The ROM is an interesting building, it is a stunning old building, perhaps sandstone, which has a very modern diamond shape building essentially plopped into it. From the outside white, angular edges jut out of the old building; it is like this inside as well. It probably sounds horrible but it is really an amazing combination of old and new and works really well. In the scheme of things, I walked through the museum fairly quickly. The main attraction for me was the architecture of the new part, the old part and the intersection of the two. The other exhibits were all well designed and interesting, but weren’t the highlight for me.

After the ROM, I visited another place that would not normally be on my list, The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). Again, the exhibits and art left me yawning, but the architectural features in the building were just stunning. The staircase was beautifully curved timber, a beautiful honey colour set against white walls, exposed steel and a glass ceiling. The shape  is basically nearly impossible to describe, so check out the pictures. The espresso bar on the second floor also made effective use of timber, steel and was a great spot to sit down and enjoy a tasty coffee.

By this stage it was early afternoon and things would be closing soon, so I messaged Liv to see if she was keen to head to Steam Whistler Brewing Company to go on a brewery tour. Freakishly, she was also in the AGO at the time, so she popped up to the espresso bar and joined me for that coffee.

The two of us hopped on the subway and headed towards the waterfront. We made it just in the nick of time to get on the 4:30 tour. Our guide started off by cracking open a beer for each of us, before starting the tour of the brewery. The brewery was started by three guys who had worked for other brewing companies, which had been bought out and then they had been made redundant or fired. So these three friends some time later decided that they still wanted to be in the brewing industry, and one night over a few beers (of course), they decided to start their own company and would call it ‘three fired guys’. The wife of one of the men said they shouldn’t have a negative name, they ended up calling it Steam Whistle Brewing Company instead, but still secretly label every bottle with ‘3FG’. So these guys started up their own brewery and decided to do just one beer very well, so they learned the recipes used in the Czech republic and Bavaria, tweaked it a little bit and came up with a super tasty Pilsener. The tour guide was great and the beer awesome, so it was a great way to finish up the day.

January 8th

Our original plan for the day had been to go to Niagara Falls, but at the last minute the forecast for that area took a turn for the worst, with snow storms and closed roads, so we took the smart option and stuck around Toronto to enjoy a beautiful mild day!

Nanette had the day off, and knowing Liv and I both love architecture, she took us on a driving tour of the city. We drove around The Beach (the beach is a popular, and expensive, area to live in because it is on the beach. The beach looked amazing covered in snow, with mini icebergs lapping against the shore!), Leslieville, Cabbage Town, Riverdale, Yorkville, Downtown Toronto and Chinatown. We say so many lovely houses!!!

In China town we stopped for lunch as a cute cafe and I tried a traditional pie, tourtière, which had ground pork, mashed potato, raisins and cinnamon. It didn’t sounds amazing, but it tasted pretty good.

After lunch Nanette dropped Liv and I off at the harbourfront area, as it is an arty district with loads of cute galleries, but since its January and the middle of winter, everything was closed. So, Liv headed off to find other art galleries and I headed off for a wander.

I had a look in the CBC Museum which was tiny but quite interesting, then I wandered around Queen Street West, the downtown shopping strip, over to St Lawrence Market, through the adorable old part of town over to the Distillery District.

The Distillery District had lots of cute little shops and is such a beautiful old district. It was great just to wander around. As I concluded my wanderings, I headed to Tappo Wine Var to meet Nanette and Liv for dinner.

It was a beautiful old building, lots of exposed brickwork, polished concrete floors, timber columns and exposed steel. Very industrial but made to feel warm and welcoming. We had an AMAZING dinner together and enjoyed a glass of wine. For anyone in the area, I would definitely recommend having dinner there. We shared a seafood entrée of Octopus, Calamari and Squid, followed by a first course of wild boar pappardelle, and then we had a main. I had a delicious, tender, beef strip-loin dish served on roasted potatoes, Liv had a lamb dish and Nanette had Mahi-Mahi. We were all very impressed with the quality and the food and the amazing flavours! In addition to that, our waiter Eric provided brilliant service and it was just a fabulous evening out!

January 9th

With the weather forecast looking mild and clear, the three of us rugged up, grabbed our recently charged camera’s and hopped in the car. Traffic was pretty good and it took around 1.5 hours to reach Niagara-on-the-lake. An adorable little town with lots of cute little boutiques stores. We had a bit of a look around and stopped for a coffee at a cute English pub called the Prince of Wales. We sat in big leather arm chairs by the fire, it was so cosy! (Although considering the mild weather it wasn’t as necessary as on other days)

We jumped back in the car and drove along the Niagara Parkway admiring the stunning view of the frozen river along the way. At Niagara Falls itself, it was just STUNNING! A lot of the falls were frozen, as was the river below, but there was still a large quantity of water falling, producing a huge plume of mist and highlighting a beautiful full rainbow arcing across the river. It was breathtaking!

While most of the standard Niagara attractions were closed, we were able to do the ‘journey behind the falls’ where you take an elevator down to near the base of the falls and look out portals at the falls from the side and down to the frozen river below.

The beauty of Niagara Falls in winter is hard to describe, but it really was simply breathtaking!

Once we had taken hundreds of photos of this amazing sight, we jumped back in the car and headed for the US! Niagara is partly in Canada and partly in the US. So since we re so close to the border we had planned to head over so that Liv and I could do a little bit of shopping while Nanette visited a good friend of hers.

Heading across the border, our documents were taken from us and we had to head in to immigration. We had to wait half an hour or more before we were able to speak to the immigration officer (which was frustrating because the officers were sitting around doing nothing, while the people queued up), but the immigration officer we had was really pleasant and waved us through in no time. (Yay I have another stamp in my passport!)

So off we went, into New York State, headed for Buffalo. I tried to take a photo of the sign but an immigration officer got super cranky with me for getting out of the car, so I took a picture as we drove past the sign.

The shopping mall we visited was huge and there were so many great sales on! We were like kids in a candy store! But while it was loads of fun and we tried on lots of funky clothes, we both had our baggage restrictions for the flight home in mind and walked away with only a few funky items.

Soon enough it was time to head home. The man at the border was really condescending and treated us like rubbish, so that was a bit frustrating, but at least he let us back into Canada. So we got home around 9:30pm and soon after, headed to bed. It had been a very long, but amazing day!

January 10th

My last day in Toronto. While you may expect I would be cramming my last day full of sightseeing, as I had almost every other day. I was exhausted, and instead opted to spend the day catching up on some sleep, packing my bag, blogging and reading. I also completed a standard daily Canadian chore…shovel snow and ice off the sidewalk!

In the afternoon Nanette and I ran a few errands and did some groceries. At home we chopped loads of veggies and Nanette made a big wok of Bami Goreng.

We had a little dinner party with a friend Tonny, Nanette, Liv and I – it was a fantastic evening with loads of delicious food and fantastic conversation. After dinner was some last minute packing and an alarm set for 4am.

So ended the amazing Canadian adventure!
Thanks to all the friends and family who shared in my adventures over the last month!

December 30th

I grabbed a 9am flight out of Vancouver to cross the country and visit my friend Olivia in Montreal. The flight arrived early evening and by the time I met Liv at the bus station it was close to 7pm. We chatter boxed, made some dinner and then headed out to a nearby pub called Randalphs, where we met up with Liv’s housemate Spencer and some other people. Randalphs is an interesting place, you go there to play board games. The walls are lined with shelves covered in all manner of board games, we played something kind of like Chinese whispers, but you had to draw a picture to describe what someone wrote, the next person guesses what the picture is and writes it down, then the next person draws it and so on. In a group of nine people it was pretty funny to see what people started with and how those things ended up being interpreted.

After a few round the whole group headed back to Liv’s place to play a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity. That was pretty hilarious! A black cad would have a sentence or phrase on it, but be missing a piece. Each player then has to look at the white cards in their hands and select one to complete the black card’s phrase. The person who turned over the black card then had to select which one of the cards was the best fit.

By the time everyone left and Liv and I stopped chatting it was 1am!!

December 31st

I got up in the morning and layered up appropriately – thermal under layer, thermal mid layer, polar fleece, down jacket, stockings, ski socks, jeans, neck warmer, scarf, beanie and mittens – then headed outdoors to start exploring. Liv lives in the village and from her place we walked a few blocks before heading below street level to the underground city. The underground city is a network of shopping malls below street level. Because Montreal is such a cold place, there are underground malls designed for keeping people out of the cold. This is exactly why we went down there, not to shop, but to thaw out a bit.

Once we had warmed up a bit, we headed back outdoors, where we stopped at Victoria square, here they have a metro station which has signage that looks identical to the metro signage in paris. The signage was actually a gift from Paris to the city of Montreal. From Victoria Square we wandered into the Old Port, which used to be the original town centre. There are loads of beautiful old buildings in that area, it has a very European feel. From there we walked along the frozen river before making another stop to warm up, in Bonsecoures Market, where there were many boutique stores, many of which contained the work of local artisans.

Soon enough we were getting a bit peckish, so we stopped for lunch at Montreal Poutine to have some local beers and share a serve of smoked meat Poutine. Poutine is québécois dish, junk food – fries, cheese curds and gravy. We ordered one with smoked meat added to it. It looks really disgusting and as though its guaranteed to cause clogged arteries, but it certainly is tasty!!
With full bellies and warm toes, we continued on to Place d’Armes to have a look at Notre Dames cathedral. It is absolutely stunning, both inside and out. Inside was much more colourful than I expected and it really was beautiful.

By the time we finished up at Notre Dames the sun had well and truly set, everything was lit up with gorgeous twinkle lights and it was snowing. It was such a perfect evening. We pranced around in the snow and took loads of photos. Eventually our toes were once again rather chilly, so we headed in to a Chinese Tea House for some tea. It was a really adorable place and had the most amazing assortment of tea sets!

As it got later we headed back towards home. We had planned to cook dinner but every store we tried to go to had shut 5 minutes before we got there! So we gave up on the idea of cooking and went to Pub St-André where we had a beer degustation (I had four blonde beers, Liv had 4 brown beers), BBQ chicken wings and some pizza. It was great!!

Walking the last few blocks home we managed to find a corner store that was open, so we grabbed some beers, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, pop corn and a selection of candy bars (we grabbed each candy bar that we hadn’t tried before eg. Mr Big, Oh Henry, Eat More, Turtles…) Back home we settled in on the couch with beer and junk food to watch some movies, and we cheers’d at midnight. It was a fantastic, low-key way to see in the new year!

January 1st

After having a late night, we started the day with a bit of a sleep in. Once we were up and about, we rugged up and headed out. We walked up to the plateau, past some super cute houses, painted all sorts of lovely colours and through St Louis Square, down Prince Arthur before ducking in to a Starbucks on Parc to thaw out. We warmed up with a gingerbread latte and a pumpkin spice latte. It’s interesting to see all the ‘Christmas’ flavoured coffees on offer, some are delicious and others less so. I was surprised at how tasty the pumpkin spice latte was!

Once we could feel our fingers and toes, we continued walking up the hill to Parc Mont Royal. Which is a small mountain with a view over the whole city. It was stunning to wander around the snow covered park, but also nice to pop in to the chalet up the top and warm up by the heater with a hot chocolate.

As the day wore on, we headed back down the mountain past beaver lake, down Ramezay Avenue and St-Sulpice to admire the beautiful houses, many of which looked like old English manor houses. By this stage my feet had gone beyond numb to the point of pain, so we hightailed it to the nearest indoor mall. Once my feet were functioning again, we jumped on the metro and headed home to chill out for the afternoon with hot chocolate and blankets to warm up.

Although we were warm and relaxed at home, we rugged up once more and braved the outdoors, to go ice skating down at the old port. There is a large outdoor rink, and also around that the frozen river which you can also skate on. Spencer, Liv’s housemate came with us and aside from the occasional frozen toes or fingers requiring a brief break indoors, we all carved up the ice skating rink and had an absolute blast! There were beautiful twinkle lights everywhere, funky tunes being pumped out and people enjoying the outdoors together.

January 2nd

So perhaps some explanation of just how cold it is may assist in understanding why so many clothing layers and indoor ‘thaw-out’ stops are required. The forecast for the day is -22 degrees celsius, but once you factor in windchill it becomes -39 degrees (a few days later we read in the paper that it was the coldest January 2nd Montreal has had since 1968). So when you step outside you cough as you lungs protest against the icy air, within 30 seconds your nostril hairs freeze (you can feel them move in and out as you breathe) and your eyelashes freeze. So while the layers of clothing are helpful against the cold, it doesn’t protect you completely, so after 30minutes or so outside the cold has seeped through to numb your fingers and toes, and not long after that it goes beyond numb to just pain. So I have to say that I am loving Montreal, I adore the snow and the city is just gorgeous. But sightseeing really does have to happen in short bursts.

So we spent the morning at Liv’s art studio, partly because it is nice and toasty warm and partly because she has to pack up all her stuff in preparation for her move back to Tasmania (she has been living in Montreal for the last 18 months).

Just after midday we braved the cold weather and headed up to the plateau to meet a friend, Mira, for lunch at a retro looking diner that made great burgers. We had a fantastic chatter-box.

After lunch Liv and I wandered the area and checked out a few little boutiques, but soon enough we decided it was just simply too cold, and we headed home for a couple of hours. We went via the supermarket, to get some groceries as we needed to prepare a dish to take to a potluck dinner.

In the early evening we once again, donned all the warm layers and braved the cold to make the dash to Emily’s place. Emily and her husband Nic hosted a potluck dinner at their place. We met up with a nice assortment of people and had some random conversations. Emily made a traditional Acadian (Acadian’s were the french speaking people originally inhabited the maritimes ie. Nova Scotia area) dish called Rapeau, which was a grey mush containing chicken, mashed potato and bacon. While it looked pretty horrid, and was described by someone as grey snot, it was delicious!

Walking back at night, through the snow, was lovely, even if freezing! Some houses still sparkled with christmas twinkle lights, and the snow made very entertaining squeaking noises under our feet.

January 3rd

As Liv had to work in the morning, I bundled myself up and headed out for a morning of solo adventuring. I started by catching the metro to a little island in the river called Ile St Helene, which is connected by bridge another little island called Ile Jean Drapeau. This is where world expo was held a number of year ago. I went out there to look at the biosphere when was originally one of the pavilions, but is now an environmental museum. The museum was shut, but I had just wanted to look at the sphere itself, so that wasn’t a problem. the steel framed dome, looked stunning against all the crisp white snow and clear blue skies.

As I wandered around I noticed steam rising from near the bridge connecting the two islands, so I went to investigate. Flowing rapidly down the river were large chunks of ice, banging against each other and the river bank as they went. With the ridiculously cold weather the entire river has been frozen, so I am not sure if it was all broken up because it the weather had warmed up a few degrees, or if it happens simply due to the force of the water flow. Similarly I am unsure as to what caused so much steam. No matter what the cause, the cracking and clunking noises paired with the steam and fast flowing river were very interesting to watch and listen to.

Having just out my camera away, I turned to walk back to the metro and trotting along the bridge was a fox. It stopped about a metre from me, we briefly looked at each other, before the fox turned it’s head and continued on its way. It was a very bizarre moment.

As I had been wandering in the snow for some time, I jumped on the metro an d headed downtown to grab a coffee. I stopped in Myriad for a super tasty latte, before wandering the streets of downtown, checking out some of the sales. I also checked out a gorgeous cathedral, Marie Reine du Monde. It was quite different to the Notre Dame, but quite beautiful in its own way.

Once again my toes were really cold, so I popped into the Starbucks inside Chapters (Chapters is a big book store). I got myself a Creme brûlée latte and found a spot by the window, where I took my shoes off and warmed my feet on the heater.

By this time I got a message from Liv asking if I wanted to meet her for a lunch of crepes and hot chocolate…what a silly question! So of course I jumped  on the next metro and the two of us headed to Juliette & Chocolat for some super tasty treats. We shared a savoury buckwheat crepe with cheese, ham and mushrooms, before tucking in to a sweet ‘dessert’ crepe with salted caramel. They were both amazing!! We paired our crepes with grandma style hot chocolate, which is a super thick hot chocolate, that is so thick you almost have to spoon it into your mouth. Nom nom nom!

From our late lunch we wandered into Old Montreal and checked out a few more of the cute boutiques (Old Montreal was a lot busier than new years eve when almost everything was closed), before enjoying some Spanish wine in a tapas bar.

Liv’s friend Catherine met up with us and the three of us headed to the theatre to see a fringe festival production called Little Orange Man. It was a single actor, who acted out the most hilarious and random story about her grandfather. She did a fantastic job and had the audience involved in several events in the play, as well as in stitches of laughter throughout the duration of the play.

We concluded our evening with a delicious meal at a polish restaurant called Stash, where we shared a few dishes like pierogies and bigos.

January 4th

After yet another late night (with me having struggled to keep my eyes open during the play the previous night) a sleep-in was in order. So we dozed until after 10am. Then we got up and slowly but surely made our way out the door on the hunt for some brunch. We grabbed a takeaway coffee from some cute espresso bar along the way, got sidetracked by various adorable boutiques before eventually getting to a cafe called Sparrow, in an area called Mile End.

Sparrow is a super cute cafe, which was clearly popular as we had to wait half an hour for a table. The decor was adorable, as was the crockery and we had really good service to go with it. With so many awesome sounding dishes on the menu we once again decided to share a savoury and a sweet dish. We started with a lumberjack breakfast: pancakes, poached eggs, beans, Italian sausage and maple syrup and chased it with red velvet waffles served with poached pears and chocolate mousse. Oh my goodness it was AMAZING! We both waddled out of that cafe!

We spent some more time wandering around Mile End, St Viateur and the Plateau area, appreciating the architecture, street art and adorable boutiques. But as the sun sank in the sky we headed back to Liv’s place to fluff around and for me to sort out my luggage for the next leg of the journey.

Once it was dinner time we headed out to meet Spencer at a restaurant called Poutineville for some poutine and beer. The last hours of the day involved the three of us and some board games.