Travels With Brian

A Big Pointy Thing

Day 2 in Canada started with me hand washing my underwear at 5am (jet lag) and putting on my free 100% nylon t-shirt that was probably big enough to sleep a family of four. Well at least it would keep my arse warm.

I'd never ironed a pair of socks before, so that was a new experience, but ironing things was the only way to dry them out after handwashing them in the shower. I was ravenously hungry too, and the small packet of biscuits in my hotel room hadn't done much other than set my stomach rumbling. I have a naturally pretty high metabolism (or hollow legs as my gran used to say), so I was determined to get out into the city and find something to eat.

But before I did that I wanted to check on my luggage, so once my socks had stopped steaming I found my way back to the reception desk and was greeted by a pleasant lady with a smile an orthodontist would have been proud to have pinned to his wall.

"Good morning. Can I help you sir?"

"Good morning. Yes, I hope so. Hopefully my luggage will be arriving at some point either today or tomorrow. Would you be able to keep an eye out for it please?"

"Certainly sir. Not a great start to your trip, sorry about that."

"No worries, I'm sure it'll turn up at some point. But first I need some breakfast and a coffee, preferably something strong, black and mildly corrosive."

"Now that I can help you with sir."

I got about four hundred yards from the hotel and found the Tim Horton's coffee shop as directed. It was still only about seven o'clock on Sunday morning at this point, and I'd not realised that the TTC didn't start running until nine. Well the subway part at least.

I was happy with the Toronto subway, it made sense, ran on a grid and was rather clean, and of course I'd had the personal guidance of the inestimable Winston the night before so I was brimming with confidence about using it again. Buses don't always make sense to me for some reason. So, once I'd polished off my breakfast, Brian decided to walk south for a bit and see the city.

What a smashing idea.

I like walking, but Toronto is massive. And flat. And made up of lots and lots of chunks of concrete.*

* - the pavements/sidewalks in Toronto are cast in sections and each one is dated by year by the company who installed them. Sometimes they have neat little design around the date too, which I assume varies depending on who the contractor is who installed them. The oldest chunk of concrete I've seen is dated 1954, and is located in a side-street by the Wattpad office in downtown Toronto. The few colleagues I've pointed this out to usually give me a funny look for some reason.

I used to work in construction, give me a break.

After walking for a couple of hours I needed breakfast version two. Version one in Tim Hortons had been a cup of coffee and a biscuit,** but after heading vaguely south down Yonge Street***, I'd burned off the calories from the scone and was busting for a pee.

** - it was not a biscuit. It was a scone. But at the time I was more interested in eating it than worrying about making a semantic point about what it was called.

*** - apparently the longest street in the world. Bloody felt like it at the time too.

The walk did at least keep me warm, but as soon as the subway opened I was on it and riding south. Bugger the walking. My aim was to be a tourist for the day, so I was heading for the big pointy thing called the CN Tower. Apparently this rises over five hundred and fifty metres into the air, and was the tallest free-standing structure in the city from 1975 until 2007 (thank you internet). But I wanted to go and stand on the glass floor and I also needed to buy a t-shirt that wasn't 100% Nylon and wasn't going to electrocute me with static.