Toronto - not so exotic, eh?
We live on the 38th floor of a highrise, right in the centre of the 6 million inhabitant city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Our apartment is airconditioned and has about the same inside temperature summer as winter, even as the daytime temperature swings between 34 C (yesterday) and - 25 C, not that long ago.
The sunrises over lake Ontario and the sunsets over the city are spectacular.
We live close to CN tower, 527 m tall. During one thunderstorm, a few weeks ago, I counted 17 lightning strikes in five minutes. We, only 300 m away didn’t feel a thing - but the sound.
Today, we had a light breakfast on our quite large glass enclosed balcony. The view of the lake was fantastic and we spied the sailboats for rent just below our building.
We decided to go sailing with our next door neighbours. We walked 300 m to our local city-operated marina and rented a 23 ft sailboat for a few hours. ($ 172, tax included).
We motored our way through the sound between mainland and the Toronto downtown Airport. (170 commercial flights/day.) We set sails in open water and hid from the sun in the shade of the sails, all the time with the city skyline in the background.
At lunchtime we chose to sail in a direction where the boat leaned mostly to one side.
Later we docked the boat, lowered and secured all sails and rope before our short walk home.
After a quick shower we stepped outside the door to take the streetcar about 1 km north, to Chinatown. We dined at a well known and highly rated Chinese restaurant. They have no loud music there so we enjoyed talking to each other.
After dinner, it was a bit cooler, under 30 C (84 F) and we walked home. The crowds were great and we stopped for a couple of street musicans and an icecream at a “Hole-in-the-wall” icecream store.
The traffic from the nearby highway quietens down at night and we will sleep well. The sound pressure level meter showed 47 dBA in our bedroom at bedtime, very quiet by any standard.
We love living in the centre of the large city. Dozens of theatres, concert halls and even an opera house within 20 min walk. Rogers centre for baseball and football (48,000 seats) is next door and the ice hockey rink (28,000 seats) only ten minutes walk away.
The car is hardly used at all, we ride the streetcars, subways or even a have a bus line that stops right outside our front door. ($ 1.80 per one way ride, unlimited distance, paid with Presto-card that reloads itself.)
Toronto is one of the safest cities on the globe and we often go for long walks at night, especially in the summer. - So many nice people out then.
You should visit sometime, there are lots of American tourists here now. But most of the tourists these days are Chinese, far outnumbering the Amercians. Why do so many Chinese fly half way around the globe to come here when so many Americans cannot even drive 125 km out of their own country?
The Chinese are good spenders … they have money to spare.
Tomorrow we will go for a 25 km bicycle ride along the shore of Lake Ontario - no cars there.
Here are the pictures that I took during our sailing hours:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kYxK9DSB4AT9FtmT8
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If you want to read my memors, "The seasons of Man", find the book here:
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