Canada Part 3: Adventures

So as I sit here sweating my butt off in 95 degree humid Cincinnati weather, I am wishing I didn't complain about how "cold" it was in Canada last week. While I try to cool off, I figured I could finish up my Canada post. Besides all of the eating and drinking we did on our trip, Shelby & I did actually get around to see some of what Toronto had to offer!

Roof top deck view of the condo complex we stayed in, pretty sweet. 

 Park in the middle of downtown--aka where we rested when we were tired of walking.

A man would feed the birds here and have about 50 pigeons around him, ew.

This rest was short lived once the birds started coming near us, everyone knows my love for birds.

 Fancy steak/piano bar we were too scared to go into.

 Patch of greenery with statues of cows in the middle of the financial district. 

Shelby was mad at me for having to stop and see this, and for having to listen to

my marketing lesson about my theory behind why they were in the financial district,

"cash cows" making sense to anyone else?

Cute strip of restaurants on King Street East.

 Free taxi that I wanted to take, but we didn't. A guy bikes you around, poor guy.

Great picture taking skills Stephanie, I'm like a 50 year old mom with my finger in it.

 Dundas Square-Torontos version of Times Square. Some weird Indian Festival was going

on while we were there. Dundas Square is off Yonge Street, which is a street with a lot 

of shopping but it gets sketchy reeeeal fast.

 Old City Hall

 Shelby enjoys vacationing with me.

 View of CN Tower from our walk to dinner.

Only picture we had someone take of us...we will be better next time.

Our experience trying the lovely poutine, ew.

 The Flatiron Building, my favorite building in Toronto. So cool!

 St Lawrence Farmers Market. 

 Just being a tourist.

 The Distillery District, my absolute favorite! Fell in love with all the cobblestone. 

 Cutest little shops!

 Antique first aid kit, totally wanted to buy it, but it was $159! 

Locks of Love.

Bookstore madness.

Sugar Beach & Lake Ontario! Walked all the way there, only for it to start raining.

 Scarborough Bluffs-we took a little adventure out to the suburbs and in the back of a neighborhood

we walked through a park, hopped a fence and this is what we saw....amazing!!!! 

What a hidden gem! And to think Shelby was too scared to go over the fence. 

Well worth breaking the rules and risking our lives,

since it said the bluffs can crumble at any moment and we went there right after it rained.

Also, I just want to point out that dirt path that looks like people

walk that far out on the cliff.....crazy!!

Casa Loma-oh hey, we saw a castle too! We came the the conclusion that Canada

is kind of a 'want to be' England, minus the attractive accents. 

Overall, we had a great trip! Toronto was a bit too "hipster" for me, not the place to wear pastel colored Jcrew. But other than that, it was right up my alley, I love going out and exploring on vacation; laying around at the beach gets boring and is something I personally don't really enjoy. Hope you enjoyed the glimpse into our trip! And for all of you that are wondering, crossing the US border was much easier for us. The security guard only asked me, "why did you ONLY buy 2 bottles of wine to bring back?" apparently they don't make you pay the tax unless you bring back gallons and gallons of liquor. Oh well! 

Canada Part 1: Where We Stayed

Shelby and I used Airbnb for our stay in Toronto. I have found that most people I talk to, do not know what Airbnb is. It is basically like the movie, The Holiday, if you have seen it. You can rent other people's apartment, condo, home or rent just a room in someone's place. It is much cheaper than staying in a hotel or using homeaway.com, plus if you stay with someone, you get to meet someone new and have a local who is able to give you advice on where to go.

We rented a room in a condo located in the 230 King Street East building, in the design district of Toronto. The condo complex we stayed in was beautiful! The girl we rented the room from works in sales and travels for her job, so she is currently living in London. We stayed in her room for the week. She had a roommate who lived with her. Not as weird as it sounds, we were gone most of the day and she worked so we didn't really see her much. She was very nice anyways!

Since the condo was on King Street, it was very centrally located to everything we wanted to do. Although the unfortunate part about it was that we were on the east end and most restaurants are on the west end, so we did a lot of walking! King Street is very safe and we never felt scared walking at night or anything.

Here are a few pictures of the condo we stayed in, right in the heart of downtown!

Barely Made It!

Let me tell you, a GPS is not set up to travel from one country to another. Shelby and I planned to leave at 6am in the morning for Canada, however, we ended up leaving an hour late because of GPS problems. I updated the GPS to make sure everything was up to date and updated the border states and Canada. Little did I know, that meant switching the region of the GPS to the border states and Canada, so when we were leaving in the morning the GPS displayed no map since we were in southern Ohio. We drive around for a while hoping it would show up, but ended up going back to the house to grab my laptop and change the region. We changed it back to the lower 49 states and it worked and displayed everything perfectly. We stopped in Toledo at McDonalds to change the region back to the border states and Canada so we could drive into Canada. All was good and we were making great time.

When we approached the border it was very strange because it looked like we drove into an airport lot, cameras everywhere and signs that are trying to be helpful but are more confusing. We had to pay a $5 toll to get on the bridge to the border. It didn't help that the speed limit was 32pmh.

Once at the border, it was mad chaos. Cars are everywhere, everyone is angry, nothing is moving, no lines are actually formed. I felt like everyone knew we had no idea what we were doing because we had an Illinois license plate instead of Ontario or Michigan. 

After about 30-35 minutes of waiting in line, it was finally our turn in line. You must stay back at a stop sign while the car in front of you is pulled up by the window. We pulled up to the window and handed the the police officer our passports while she asked us very seriously, "Where do you live? Where are you going? What are you doing there? How long will you be there? How do you know each other? Are you bringing in any tobacco or alcohol?" After all the questions, she handed us our passports back and then asked if we had any mace or pepper spray. If you know Shelby and I, we both carry little pepper spray bottles in our purses (paranoid much...). We said yes, she immediately asked for our passports back. She said, do not reach for the spray and shut her window. She explained to us that pepper spray is illegal in Canada and we could be arrested for it. I asked her if we just throw it away and she said no, we had to abandon it. She made us put our purses on the dash board, and filled out a yellow ticket and stuck it on our car (embarrassing), then showed us where to pull over at customs and immigrations.

So we pull over into this other area and were greeted by 3 manly police officers wearing bullet proof vests who told me to shut off the car, get out of the car, give him my keys and stand in front of the headlights. We both stood there feeling like criminals while we laughed as they searched our car. One officer was very serious and questioned us intensely about why we were here, what we are doing in Canada, where we are from, what we do as a career, etc. Two of the officers went through our back seat stuff and our luggages in the trunk while the other officer went in detail through our purses. Everyone knows I carry around about a 10lb purse with everything you could possibly need in it. Therefore, he pulled out a little baggy full of vitamins, which looked totally sketch, and asked what are these? What KIND of vitamins are these? Followed by little medication pouch--I whispered to Shelby, "Oh here we go..." He pulls out another zip lock bag with more colorful pills in it, asking what they were, I rambled, "Advil, Aleve, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Airborne, Tums and Synthroid" (can you tell I am well prepared and work in healthcare?). Every possible thing was looked through, way more intense than the border scene in We're the Millers! 

The officer took our pepper spray and asked if we wanted to pick them back up before entering the US or abandon them. We said we will just abdomen them. The offer then asked as we walked into the office building if we wanted him to fill out a form for each or put it on one. I said, whatever is easiest for him. He quickly remarked, "NO whatever is easiest for you"....um okay SIR. Anyways, we got a lot of good laughs out of our additional 1 hour delay despite feeling like such criminals. The best part about it is the report copy (which will be going in my scrapbook), the officer wrote, "hot pink pepper spray". What a wonderful way to start our trip!

But hey, we made it!!! Stay tuned for more, this already sounds like one heck of a trip...

PS-I don't think we can afford gas here