Our trip to Toronto - day 3

Our first full day in Toronto! In the morning, we went up the CN Tower. The weather forecast was not too good for the rest of the week, so we thought we'd take advantage while the view was still clear.

Looking up, the tower is immense, impossible to capture with one camera shot in fact. Murray told me that he watched the tower get built from the ground up, that must have been quite amazing!

We learned that we were going up 345 meters, or 117 stories high (the entire tower stands 553 meters tall). The elevator had windows all around, as well as in the floor, really spectacular! We ascended for what seemed like hours (it was a few minutes) at a comfortable speed of 25 km/h, watching the world grow bigger and people get smaller, and finally entered the main pod. I can only say... you've got to see it to believe it! What a VIEW!! I have been on a few helicopter tours, but the difference is this tower doesn't move, so you can take your time quietly taking it all in. We could see all the way to New York State, as well as many buildings that look like mountains from the ground, but dwarfs from where we were. Cars are like ants and people like fleas. It is easy to notice how many trees there are in Toronto, especially on that second picture below.

Toronto Island:

We even saw our hotel!

 To be honest, the glass plate was a bit of a letdown. It was crowded with people, some jumping up and down, others lying down to take their picture and the ground far, far beneath them. I walked on it too (guess who didn't dare to?), that's me sitting down looking at the traffic far below. Funny enough, it didn't do much for me. The people jumping and stamping didn't frighten me either, I figured if those plates have been there for 30 odd years, with people probably trying their best to get through for all those years, I was certain it wouldn't suddenly decide to collapse on me now. All in all, that was the only disappointment of the tower, the rest is absolutely worth it!

In the afternoon we explored downtown. It was a cold day and Murray's old ski jacket with a broken zipper did nothing to keep me warm, so we went to Sears in the Eton Centre to get me a new coat. Of course we became best friends with Lesley, a lovely Irish saleslady at Sears. This is her and me in my new coat:

Watching the stores and buildings, I saw how chique Toronto really is. There is even a skyscraper with real gold embedded! What is most noticeable is now most people are dressed very elegantly, it is rare to see the "relaxed" clothing styles we are used to around our town...

Exhausted from the long walks, we went back to our hotel to rest a bit, then went out for an Indian supper. The day was over before we knew it!