Modern day travel is amazing; I climb into an metal tube in Vancouver and 4.5 short hours later I step out of it in Toronto! ...I won’t mention the 3hr delay and 4:20am arrival in Toronto, that’s just an Air Canada ‘bonus’.
Having only just arrived in Vancouver ten days earlier I turned around and headed back for Ontario last weekend. Elena’s uncle from the UK was flying into Toronto to visit with us and meet me for the first time. Due to unmovable events last May, uncle Bill, was unable to join us for the wedding. As his visit had been arranged prior to even being contacted by VANOC I was absolutely decided to fly across the country so soon after having arrived to meet my new in-law.
It turned out to be the meeting of travelers in Toronto, as uncle Bill came from London, Elena from a business trip to Boston, and I from Vancouver. Unfortunately, uncle Bill would be the first of the three of us to arrive to our house in Toronto. Kindly Elena’s mum met her brother at Pearson and accompanied him down to our place on Friday evening. They enjoyed dinner on King street, she showed him where to find the coffee in our place and tucked him into our guest bed ...my taxi dropped me off at 5am and I snuck upstairs so as not to wake him. A short nap later I came down to meet my new uncle-in-law, still wearing my jammies. We enjoyed a nice morning coffee by the fireplace and awaited Elena’s arrival home from Boston. She’d been on the first flight that morning (she got up at 5am as I went to bed) and arrived home in good time for a nice brunch at Jamie Kennedy’s new place,
Gilead Cafe, literally around the corner from us. We followed this up with a great trip to the AGO. Wow, really cool new entry and the Thompson collection was incredibly interesting to see; especially with Bill as he seemed to be an expert on everything in the collection. He was even supplying the gallery guide personnel with information they didn’t even know.
The evening was a trip to our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Rodney Bower’s The
Citizen. Like Elena, Bill is a foodie and enjoys the carefully prepared meals; ...as he always does, Rod certainly provided the goods. He was even there that evening and sat with us for a bit, giving Bill a chance to not only sample the cooking of our wedding’s chef, but also to meet
the great guy that Rod is; when he first came over to the table he even provided me with a short back massage ...how many other fine restaurants does the head chef provide that kind of service?!?
Sunday was much more casual with a trip to another local favorite, Morning Glory. Excellent Sunday brunch spot; but don’t pass that info around as it’s tiny and we don’t want to have to wait for a table in the future. ...seems to be catching on though as we had to wait this time. We then treated uncle Bill to an afternoon at the farmhouse. Penelope joined us as we ventured west down the 401 and lit the wood stove and brewed some hot tea at the snow covered farmhouse. Heaven in my mind! This trip also gave Bill a chance to also see where we got married and have a nice walk in the Ontario countryside.
Monday morning came all too fast and next thing I knew I was saying goodbye to Elena, standing outside Pearson at 6am, on our six month wedding anniversary. It was a tough goodbye and I don’t anticipate the goodbyes getting any easier. Atleast that magical metal tube can help to alleviate some of our sorrows given those short 4.5 hours, plus a little patience.
444 days to go...
C.
Apparently I’ve been gaining a TINY bit of flack over at Attackpoint for my lack of blog posting. It’s tough when there’s just so much to do in this adventure paradise by the sea and mountains. I infact just got back from a evening hike up to Dog Mountain with friends, where we had stunning views of the lights of Vancouver and I got to play in the snow for the second time this year; the first being when I shoveled our walk at home during a Toronto weekend visit a few weeks ago now.
