Toronto Rocks my Socks (or at the least the 1 pair that was in my carry-on luggage)

Top 5

5. Toronto has food that is not potatoes.

a. There are street vendors aplenty.  Highlights include soft serve ice cream trucks and the fact that every hotdog guy had a veggie dog option and the most impressive condiment bar I’ve ever seen accompanying street sausages. 

b. I got to have sushi one last time before 2 months of potatoes and conversations in which people try to convince me that just because something has pork in it doesn’t mean it’s not vegetarian.

 c. There are coffee shops everywhere.  This is a much healthier respite than the Eastern European afternoon option.  There are bars everywhere.

4. Canadians are nice.  Really nice.

a. Take the subway for example.  First try, token doesn’t work.  Tell the guy behind me to go ahead.  He tells me to try it a few times, sometimes they don’t work right away.  I get nothing.  He waits patiently and then says, alright, then come on, and we make our way through the turnstyle as a twosome.  Illegal, perhaps, but really nice.  Then a 7-year old boy gets up and gives me his seat.  This would happen in Chicago if I were 95.  Maybe.

b. Everybody here either talks with a French accent or says “eh” all the time.  Both of which are highly entertaining. 

3. Toronto cares about the planet.

a. It is impossible not to recycle on the street.  There are no free-standing garbage cans, only receptacles with 4 compartments labeled for mixed paper, bottles and cans, Styrofoam, and trash.  There is even a written explanation of what can go into each. 

b. Their buses are all hybrid and they run electric streetcars.

c. Their home disposal program comes with 3 bins - one for trash, one for recycling, and one for composting materials.  These get collected every week and then in the spring, trucks come through the neighborhoods and drop off big piles of fertilizer made from the compost for people to use in their gardens.  How on earth does Chicago make it on to "Green Cities" lists?!?

d. You have to pay for plastic bags.

2. Toronto has a shoe museum.

a. The goal in foot binding for Chinese women was 3 inches?!!? 

b. The Dutch not only made clogs for walking, they made clogs for roller-skating. And yes, they are called roller-clogs.

c. Those Dutch again….during WWII they made clogs that had heels carved into the front of them so they could smuggle rationed goods across the border to Belgium.  Tricky.

 

1. Toronto is not an airport bench in Frankfurt.

a. Toronto has beds and showers. This point is self-explanatory.

b. Toronto is new, international, and not what I was expecting; yet directions, signs, and menus are all in English.  This was about all the exploration of a foreign land I could handle in the mental state brought on by the thought that ¾ of the things I need for my work / family in Lithuania is lost forever.

c. Toronto has Lithuanians.  The most notable among them is my “Aunt” Laima. She took good care of me these last few days and I dare say our visit was worth the flight fiasco.  She even made my favorite Lithuanian soup for dinner.  I bet I won’t have a better version, even when I finally get there.  Oh, irony.