Toronto tales

Right now I’ve just got back from a wonderful trip to Bangkok, and a post about that shall be coming very soon. First on the agenda however, is an update about my much-awaited trip to Toronto!
If only all had gone as brilliantly as planned….

So the flight out was non-stop, super hectic and very similar to my Seattle flight. After around 14 hours with just a 3 hour break in the bunks and not a single chance to sit down other than that (let alone to stop and eat!) we finally arrived in Canada! Once we got to the hotel it was evening time, so we made plans to meet up the next day for some sightseeing. I ordered room service and having never tried them before, I can now say sweet potato fries (chips) are the best thing ever!!

Bright and early the next day a few of us headed out to do some exploring. Our first stop was the St Lawrence Market, a short walk from our hotel.

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Yummy gingerbread latte to warm us up 🙂

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We browsed around and stopped for some breakfast as well. This market was actually named the world’s best food market by National Geographic in 2012! I would love to have a market like this in Dubai where everything looks so fresh and tasty! 

After breakfast (which was probably more like brunch by this time) and a free mini gingerbread latte from Starbucks we walked across town to find the Christmas market.

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As we arrived at the markets it started snowing! It didn’t settle unfortunately but it made everything feel so much more Christmassy 🙂
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Giant Christmas tree! 🙂Image

We browsed around the stalls and although none of us bought anything it was a lovely market. Our next stop was the CN Tower, which used to be (I believe) the tallest building in the world, until the good old Burj Khalifa came along! Trust Dubai to want to be bigger and better! 😉 

We got zoomed up to the 112th floor, and the view was of course beautiful. There was a little opening in the sky just over the water and we also watched a few planes take off from the small airport you can see from the window! 🙂ImageImageImageImageImage

Standing on the glass floor!

There’s also a glass floor at the top which is pretty scary! After spending a while admiring the view and taking plenty of pictures we headed back down. Our plan for the next day was to rent a car between 5 of us and drive to Niagara Falls, so we stopped by a couple of car rental places but none of them could get us a car until lunchtime, which would have been too late. As I’ve actually already been to Niagara Falls before I wasn’t that fussed about going again (especially not in the freezing cold!) so 3 of the girls booked a tour with the hotel which was a little more pricey but the only option after not being able to rent a car. After our quick pitstop at the hotel we decided to split up, and I headed out to the Eaton Centre, a massive shopping centre. By this time it was already starting to get dark outside and I did get a little lost trying to find it! 😀 Once I got there though I managed to get a fair bit of Christmas shopping done 🙂 ImageImageImage

Lots of Christmassy decorations inside the Eaton Centre 🙂

In the evening I walked back to the hotel and had a nice relaxing evening planning what to do the next day. If only that had happened…. I woke up super early not feeling well at all, and ended up getting worse and worse! I also got a message from one of the other girls asking if I had been ill, as she’d been up all night in the bathroom! We had eaten the exact same thing at the market so we were pretty sure it was food poisoning! 🙁 What a way to spend the only 3 day layover you’ve ever had…. 2 out of 3 days in bed! I called our medical emergency number and they sent a doctor to come and check and he confirmed that it was food poisoning, who would have guessed it in a place like Toronto! 🙁

So that’s that, unfortunately I don’t have as many exciting stories to tell as I would have liked to from a 3 day layover, but never mind! Next time 🙂
(I have to admit I’m pretty upset that I didn’t manage to buy a magnet this time, I’ll definitely have to try and bid for the trip again!)

I deadheaded back (aka flew as a passenger) along with the other girl who got food poisoning but I just slept the whole flight. Thankfully I’m feeling much better now and was pretty much back to normal by the time my next flight to Bangkok came around. More on that trip to come! 🙂

 

P.s. If you want more regular day to day updates of what is happening in my life, follow me on Twitter and Instagram @rachelwwilson!