Oh, Canada

After all of the planning and excitement, we are in Canada, GO seems as in awe as I am.  After checking into the hotel (brown, boring, ice and clean) we decide to go for a wander to get our bearings and try to get our heads around the city layout.  The hotel was in  downtown Toronto just off Dundas street and surrounded by saloubrious establishments, with the legalisation of Cannabis there were a lot of Smoke houses, cleverly positioned next to or nearby fast food restaurants.  We wandered around looking in the stores and made our first purchase, two large slushees from 7eleven.  They were just what we needed, cold and full of sugar.  We toured the Eaton centre browsing in the shops, I particularly liked Bath and Body Works.  I had an interesting conversation with one of the store assistants about why they don’t sell in Europe and he said it was because the legislation of what can be in products is tighter and so they can’t sell the products.  Good, if a little scary to know.  After watching the entertainment in Yonge Street, every Friday in the summer they have a mini music fest with different genres of music that you can stream online, we grabbed a bite to eat from a disappointing Popeyes and then headed back to the hotel for a well earned rest.

We were booked into the Chelsea hotel on Dundas Street, it was recommended by the travel agent and was a four star establishment, it was also huge and very busy.  There was a baseball game on over the weekend and conferences so the place was heaving.  Check in was a breeze, room 2434 on the 23rd floor, 23rd!!!  The room was fine, I have come to realise that in Canada and the Northern states, hotels are brown, beige and dark with loud air con all as standard.  I’m not good with hotels at the best of times and so have my own  quirky, some may say mental, strategies to get through a hotel stay.  Long sleeves and legged pjs tucked into socks and if I can’t bring my own pillow, which I did, I have a sarong that lies on top. Weird, but I don’t care. I soon came to realise that this would be one of the nicest hotels that we’d be staying in.  In all honesty I would stay there again if/when I return to Toronto.