Anybody that knows me will know that I will take any chance that I can get to go up and visit the big city just two hours away from me that doubles as Ontario's capital city. And when my friend Alex from high school invited me up to visit since he started subletting the apartment of another mutual friend of ours, I couldn't resist :) Yesterday I hopped on a bus headed straight for T.O, and decided to tweet a bit along the way.
(starting from the bottom and going up gives a semi-timeline of the beginning of my day)
Getting locked in a bathroom stall was certainly an interesting way to start off a trip, but it kept me on my toes - or in this case, it had me army-crawling on a freshly-cleaned (thank God) bathroom floor. The bus drive was more or less uneventful. I relaxed in my seat, listening to my audio book the whole way there (What Happened To Goodbye? by Sarah Dessen) while sending off the occasional tweet and messaging my friend Alex to make sure he was going to be meeting me at the terminal. Finally we arrived, I hopped off the bus, and Alex was waiting there for me!
As we walked inside and down through "the path" to avoid the rain, we caught up on what was new with each of us since the last time we'd seen each other, which had been January at a party with a bit too much hard lemonade involved to really catch up properly. When we ended up outside again, it happened to come up in our conversation about how I have an infinite love for book stores as well as comic book stores. Conveniently enough, we were right across the street from the Silver Snail, which I'd never been to before, so we went right on up into the amazing comic & board game store slash cafe. I didn't get any pictures inside, unfortunately, but I did get a wicked deal on a Fables graphic novel, so all is well!
My ultra-weird friends from high school. Alex is on the left, Kelvin is the one on the right.
After that Alex and I headed out (in the rain) to his current living quarters, which was actually the apartment of our friend Tristan who is currently traveling in Europe. Tristan's lived in Toronto for 4 years now and the first time I was seeing his place was on Alex's invitation, which is something I'll be bugging Tristan about when he gets back, I assure you :P
So I hung out with Alex, and now Kelvin, in the apartment for a bit, letting my phone charge after all the tweeting I'd been doing on the bus. The plan was that a few of their friends would be meeting us at a board game cafe downtown (since only 3 people for board games wasn't overly exciting). I was in heaven, since at this point in my life the idea of a board game cafe was as much of an urban legend as a unicorn with a rainbow-coloured mane. Even the idea of running out into the rain without my rainbow-coloured umbrella at hand couldn't keep my excitement at bay!
This is what Kelvin looks like when he has "Mr Sandman (Bring Me A Dream)" stuck in his head.
This trip was also the very first time that I have ever ridden in a street car, so that was exciting! I was in Toronto the first time I'd ridden on a subway too. And on a train as well! But that was on a different trip, back in my last year of high school. we ended up getting stuck in a shelter in the middle of the street for a bit as the rain poured down, but I didn't mind. I was still too busy taking in the city to be bummed out about the bad weather, even though my sandals were soaked through. This is where I came across something I found to be remarkable.
Across the street we saw a guy with a red cloak with a hood and some sort of long stick, whom we only noticed after Kelvin pointed out that he looked like he belonged in the realm of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. That's when Alex recognized who he was, and began to tell us the most interesting story.
Apparently, this guy shows up on this exact street corner, every Tuesday around the same time, and sings. But not just regular singing. What we eventually heard come out of this guy sounded like something from a Medieval period piece, like some sort of minstrel straight out of a history book. He had brought some sort of box to stand on, and he used his stick, and pulled down his hood as he began to perform. Unfortunately, that's when the next street car arrived, and we were kind of desperate to be safe from the rain, so we didn't really get to watch much of his performance. On the off-chance any natives to Toronto come across this post, maybe you know more about this guy? If so, please post in the comments below, because I'm dying to know more.
There's still a lot more that happened in Toronto - I haven't even gotten to the board game cafe yet! - but I think I'll leave it there for now. I've got more pictures and more of the story to tell you guys next time. So until then, I'll keep you guys posted!
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