I can’t believe it’s the last day of April: Toronto Day 8 (30 April 2014)

Facing another cold and probably rainy day, we again took it easy in the morning, but did set off around 10.30am, somewhat earlier than the previous day’s noon. It was a degree colder than that day when we set off – that is, 6°C – but it wasn’t raining and it wasn’t windy, so it felt balmy! How relative it all is, eh?

Travelling on streetcars

We had quite a long streetcar ride to get where we were going, a coffee shop in fact, so we sat back and enjoyed the ride. We were amused at one point when a woman, as she boarded, said to the driver “I can’t believe it’s the last day of April”. Now, she could have been meaning, “how the time flies”, but we’re pretty sure she meant “and when is spring going to start?” It’s really quite astonishing. If you look very, very closely at some trees you can see the odd bud, but none of the deciduous trees that we’ve seen look at all like they are blossoming or growing leaves – and yet, for example, Japan’s cherry blossom season is well under way.

Later in the day, as we were returning from our main activity and heading to a supermarket, Loblaws, we experienced more interesting streetcar interactions. First was the passenger with cerebral palsy. The driver waited patiently, as he should of course, as the man struggled up the stairs and didn’t take off until the man was properly seated. Then there was the very large man who hailed this same streetcar as it was about to leave another stop. The driver reopened the doors to let him on, then realised that the man was going to have trouble getting up the stairs and so asked for people to help. Two women standing near the front of the streetcar helped him up, and the man with cerebral palsy who was sitting in the front seat put out his hand to help steady the large man! Meanwhile, the large man, was jovially thanking all and sundry who had helped him on board, who had looked after his bag, and had made sure he had a seat near the front. This was all repeated in reverse at the very next stop when he got off again. “Thanks, Mum, yes, mum” he kept saying, with a big smile on his face, to the main young woman who was helping him. Everyone on the streetcar laughed. No wonder Canadians have a reputation for being polite. 

That said, our last streetcar driver of the day was a little less patient. She was honking her horn at who knows what, and muttering under her breath “what’s wrong with people today?” We reckon we knew – it was the last day of April!

Coffee time

It may be that we are learning to pace ourselves on our holidays, or it could just be that the weather precludes our doing all the walking around we would usually do, but we made this a pretty quiet day. We did though go to two cafes, one in the morning recommended by Hannah’s housemate Sarah, and another in the afternoon after our supermarket shopping.

Our morning one was way over the other side of town, and is called Rooster Coffee House. It was pretty packed when we got there around 11am, so much so that we started on the bar stools at the front of the cafe, though gradually Sue found a comfortable seat, and then Len, and then the two of us together. It’s one of those eclectic, cute shabby-chic places, with mismatched old arm chairs and kitchen chairs, and even old suitcases as side tables. It’s also a place where people settle in for a bit of a read or a talk. We had two drinks each, Sue a coffee followed by a hot apple cider, and Len a hot chocolate followed by a cappuccino.

Our second cafe, the Early Bird Espresso and Brew Bar attracted us with its street  sign that read “Great coffee, Awesome food, OK service”. It made us laugh so we had to check them out. And guess what? One of the items on their coffee list was Long Black. However, they also had Cafe Americano which we thought was pretty synonymous with Long Black in Northern America. The barista confirmed that we were right, except that the Cafe Americano was bigger, he told Len – 12 oz as against 5 oz for their Long Black. Needless to say, Sue had the latter. She likes coffee but not in large quantities.

It was at this cafe that Len commented on something he’d been noticing for some time – the prevalence of Macs, particularly Mac Airs, being used by patrons. In the Early Bird for example, 7 customers were using laptops and 6 of those were Macs. This has been pretty much the pattern everywhere – quite different to what we see in Australia. Of course, using laptops in cafes is not as prevalent in Australia as it is here where it’s pretty common for people to spend time in cafes drinking coffee and working/studying. It’s something we noticed when we visited Hannah in the USA in 2008, and is probably partly due to the general availability of free wi-fi in such places. It’s lovely really – at least we think so. And clearly cafes don’t move people on, though we remember one on our last visit having a notice requesting that people not hang around, if they are not eating and drinking, over the busy lunch period. Fair enough.

Arts Market

Besides riding trams and drinking coffee, we did do one main touristy thing this day, and that was to visit the little Indie Arts Market in Leslieville as recommended by Hannah. This market is like a permanent, but very small version of Canberra’s Old Bus Depot Markets, in that it comprises small individual vendor stalls selling arts, crafts and/or other goods like second-hand books. We had a pleasant little potter there, and made a few purchases.

En route to Riverdale and Leslieville, the streetcar took us over a fascinating old bridge, the Queen Street Viaduct (or Queen Street Bridge). According to Wikipedia, it is an example of a Pratt truss, but what interested us most were the words over the “arch” across the bridge which read: “this river I step in is not the river I stand in”. Hmm? We would love to have photographed it, but that’s not easy when you are on a streetcar. Read this blog for a discussion of the bridge.

Today’s slide show of only a few images …

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