Weekend trips

After exploring the close-by area, I wanted to see a little bit more, explore the big cities!

First, Toronto: I have a friend in Toronto who did an exchange in Helsinki two years ago, and she was so kind to host me for a weekend. So, I went over to Toronto by bus on a Saturday morning to meet her. The first stop was the CN tower, which was once the highest standing building in the world, until Dubai topped it. It is 553 m tall and you can oversee the greater Toronto area from up there, which is pretty amazing! On one side there is the huge metropolitan area, on the other side the huge lake Ontario, which looks like an ocean. And they have a glass floor integrated in the tower, from where you can look straight down! Although expensive, it was worth to go up there, and I would say you should do it once in a lifetime :) Afterwards, I then met my friend Michelle and her boyfriend and we went out for lunch. I had my first very Canadian Poutine here, which is a portion of fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. It is super filling! And because simple Poutine is boring, we decided to go for an additional spectacular Poutine-duck-pizza! We shared those two dishes with three, couldn’t finish them and were filled up for the rest of the day! My review: yummy and filling, but super unhealthy :D After that we saw China town, the alternative and cute area of Kensington, museum of arts (from outside), the famous shopping center The Bay including the tallest Christmas tree in Canada, which is inside of that. I should mention that it was the Black Friday weekend, which means that everyone out was crazy about shopping! They indeed had some good offers there, but definitely not worth the trouble, at least in my opinion. Then we went on to the university, where Michelle and her boyfriend study. They have a similar college system to the universities in Oxford and Cambridge there, which was surprising for me. The university and college buildings were beautiful and old (old is not easy to find here in Canada). We walked a lot that day and also saw a lot! In the evening, Toronto lit up the Christmas tree on the market place and for that occasion they had fireworks. Of course, we wanted to see that and watched it, accompanied by some good music – wonderful! I spent the night at Michelle’s place, which was great! Met her dad, her sister and their hyperactive dog :) On the next day, I then went back to the city center and explored Toronto island, a piece of nature in front of Toronto in the Ontario lake. They even have an airport there! It was not at all crowded, because the winter season already started, and that was nice after the big-city feeling that I got the previous day. Honestly, there are so many skyscrapers that it was too much of a metropolitan feeling for me at some point. That change of scenery was a good decision and I had a panoramic view of Toronto’s skyline. The afternoon/evening programme was then still the Christmas market, which is organized in the Distillery District. On weekends, you have to pay to get entry to the market, but I still wanted to see it and get into the Christmas mood a little. It was a nice market, full of food and drinks, very crowded with people. The distillery district is lovely and I would like to see it some time with less people. I wanted to get a Glühwein/Glöggi, which is traditional in Germany when you go to a Christmas market, but they were very hard to find and when I found them, one glass was more expensive than 2 bottles that I could buy in Germany… so none for me that day. I got a delicious hot chocolate from a chocolate store instead. After walking so much during that weekend, I was very happy to be home again and had some hard time walking the next days at work. Toronto, this was certainly not the last time!

Next weekend, Ottawa: Because it was the only suitable date for my German friend Felix and me before Christmas, right the next weekend I visited him in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada! Felix works there now since summer and invited me over. It took me 7 hours by car share to get there, after being stuck in Toronto traffic for 2 hours on Friday evening. Now I know what metropolitan traffic, especially the Toronto one, means: 6 lanes on the motorway and nothing moves! And there was not even an accident. After arrival, I was picked up by car from Felix’ girlfriend Elli and him. After some drinks, we got to sleep only a few hours and already got ready for the Saturday hiking. One of Felix’ friends had his birthday and his friends organized a surprise party in a national park for him. So, we went out for a hike and arrived at a little, or rather big, hut, and decorated everything nicely and spread out the food that everyone made. After acrobatics, taking some pictures, more acrobatics… the birthday boy arrived (he was taken out ‘for a jog’ by his friend) and had a big smile in his face when he saw all his friends there. They were easy-going and sporty people, and it was fun to get to know them! After a little nap in the afternoon we still went climbing in an indoor climbing hall. Felix has been doing that for a while and also showed me a few times in Finland (he was an exchange student there, that is how we met). I really liked the climbing part and thought that I might pick it up here in Hamilton! Sunday was then reserved to get to know a little bit of Ottawa, such as the parliament, the museum of arts (again, only from outside) and the ByWard Market. And I saw Felix’ workplace, which is amazing! I could probably write a whole chapter about it. Let’s just say that this is a place that really takes very good care of their employees! I had my first Beaver Tail at the market, which is another typical Canadian thing. It’s a very sweet, deep fried pastry topped with anything you want. As we are in Canada, I chose Maple butter, very good! Unfortunately, the weekend went so fast, and I went home again in the afternoon, this time only 5 h of drive. It was a fun weekend and I hope to visit them at least once more during my stay here. Maybe they will also come and visit me in Hamilton.

Two weekends, two trips, the rest of the time I now stayed in Hamilton during the weekends. We had some dinners with colleagues, a movie night, and the Christmas parties, see my next blog entry for that.

Pictures will follow here later:

See ya!