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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
So after attempting to sleep a night on the chairs of Pearson airport, I woke up at about 3.15am to try to get on the 6.30am flight to Chicago. The desk didnt open until 4, and the line moved so slowly that I couldn’t get to a desk until 4.30.. just for them to tell me “oh, we can’t endorse your ticket here, you have to do that at the British Airways desk.. which doesnt open until 2.30pm”
Oh shit. Basically that means I have no feasible option to getting to Chicago and Detroit with enough time to even breathe, let alone see anything. And the BA desk was closed just like the rest of the airport when I finally managed to stumble into Canada. So, it’s now 5 in the morning and I’m stuck in a foreign country two days ahead of my itinerary. What to do?
After some more getting lost in the airport, I found my way to a bus direct to the centre of Toronto. I just stared at awe at the CN Tower looming in the distance, backed by the sunrise of Lake Ontario. I grabbed myself a seat right at the front of the bus with a perfect view of the road ahead. The bus dropped me off at Union Station, where after more wondering what the hell I was doing I dropped the evil duffel bag from hell [the wheel broke back in Barbados, and my attacking it with epoxy apparently wasn't thorough enough for the rigours of this trip], grabbed my daypack and romped around downtown Toronto.
First, I went over to the CN Tower. It was still early so I couldn’t get in, but I wanted to look at it up close anyway. I wasn’t expecting to be quite so ugly up close, the thing isn’t even painted. Just a very tall tower of patchy cement. I eventually decided to walk over to the Toronto Island ferry. If I wasn’t going to get to see skyscrapers in Chicago then dammit I was going to see a skyline of some form!
I was way too early for the ferry, so I chilled in the nearby park surrounded by hundreds of camp kids until we could board. The ride over was great though – being able to see the skyline come together into the “picture perfect” arrangement. The island itself was nice too – one big park – but I didn’t get all day to explore so I took the next ferry back to mainland and watched the skyline come together again
I then walked back into Union Station, got a ticket to Belleville [which is where my boyfriend is] and just waited in the food court. Managed to find an intermittent wi-fi signal to alert my sister and friends that I was in fact still alive, just minus credit on my cell phone. What a nice morning after a horrible night!