My First Grown-Up Vacation (part two of a series)
We were assured by the lady on the phone from the hotel that it would be easy to find the Airport Express bus, which we thought was the only way to get from the airport to downtown Toronto. We also were quite sure (based on my experience with traveling in London) that our ATM cards would work in Canada – if only possibly on one of the accounts. So many lies in those sentences…
After an emergency pee (who’s going to use the bathroom on a plane the size of a short bus?), we walked up to the first ATM we found, looking for pretty Canadian money. No go. We found another. No go. At this point, Mike finally saw a sign for Airport Express. It led to an empty hallway. Desperation was starting to sink in, and then, as if with a choir of angels, the tourist assistance booth appeared.
Two very friendly people offered us maps, told us how to get to the Airport Express bus, assured us that they take credit, and then asked, “So, why are you taking the bus, anyway? The subway is only $2.50.” We looked at each other, and subway it was! They circled the appropriate stations and pointed us to the exchange window, where they happily took 30 of my American dollars and turned it into 30 Canadian dollars, some change, and a huge fee. This was by far the worst exchange rate of the century, but it got us some cash so we could get on to public transportation.
An express bus took us to the subway station, and we were once again lost. It was not exactly obvious how to get down to the trains, and would we need to pay again? But there was a different ATM machine. Desperate, we tried this one, and it gave forth shiny green twenties, at a much saner exchange rate, and with only an average ATM fee. Newly rich, we followed some other less clueless looking folks down some stairs, and got on the train.
The subway trains in Toronto make the T in Boston look like a decrepit underground crawlway. They’re clean, they look new, and they move fast. We took the subway east into the city, and after a very simple change of lines, we arrived at College Station, we came up some stairs, took note of another friendly-looking ATM machine, and found ourselves in a mall food court.
Huh?
We decided that we actually were hungry, and we would like to have lunch, thank you very much, so we took turns guarding the pile of luggage while the other went off in search of food. As I sat at the table, surrounded by bags, I took note of the surroundings. Business-types eating a quick lunch, solitary people searching the items for sale in the grocery store I just noticed, globs of people hurrying towards the subway entrance, a couple a nearby table eating noodles… Noodles… I like noodles… Ooh! There’s a noodle store! I had noodles for lunch.
Once we left the odd demi-mall, we found ourselves standing lost, yet again. We knew our hotel was only two blocks away – but which two blocks? We headed about a block in one direction, and Mike suddenly felt that was the wrong one, so we turned around. We got to a major intersection in the other direction, and I took the map and realized that Mike was initially right. Back downtown, and there’s the hotel. Thankfully, since that duffle bag was getting out of control.
I chatted with the first of many front-desk people, knowing that we were rather early for our 3-o’clock check in. She did a preliminary check in or some such thing, and handed us a reference number. She then pointed out the head bellman, with whom we could leave our luggage while we traipsed around the city for a while. The luggage tickets joined the reference card and map in my cargo pants’ pocket, and off we went.
Mike had some interest in the market that was supposed to be downtown by the lake, so we took off in that direction. We found instead, a very pleasant park. There was a fountain approximately 20 feet wide, with a wide path around it, and benches surrounded by annual flowers. Behind the benches a short wall went up to the level of the grass, where a few trees and other plants were scattered around, and where people laid out, soaking in the greenery. An adorable little dog was having an argument with a drainage grate, while his buddy just bounced around. I want a puppy.
After a rest, we continued on our trek towards the marketplace. When we finally reached it, it occurred to me that this was Monday, and markets are closed on Mondays. The whole area was dead, with the exception of a couple people taking out trash and sorting through boxes. Well, there went that plan. But we had seen another park next to the cathedral, so we headed back there for another relaxing moment. Well, mostly relaxing – there was some construction going on in the path in this larger green space. But we sat there watching the birds and squirrels for quite some time.
Eventually, we decided to head back to the hotel, since the lady had said that our room would likely be ready by 2:30. We arrived back at just about that time, and I went up to talk to yet another front-desk person. “Nope, not ready, but I’ll call the housekeeping people and make sure it gets bumped up the list.” I figure that’s okay, because check in is technically at 3:00, so we just sat on the sofas in the lobby for a while. At a couple minutes past three, I went back up to the desk. Nope. I asked how long it would be and she said an hour.
An hour?!
I heaved a sigh, and we decided to go back to our friendly neighborhood food court and get a snack. We discovered that this College Park is not a mall, not an office building, not a grocery store, and not an apartment building – but all of the above. It is totally a self-contained city within a city, complete with indoor access to the subway. These people go out of their way to make sure they never have to go outside in the winter.
We while our hour away, and return to the hotel. I talked to the fourth front-desk person of the day, and was able to tell her that she was my favorite, as she handed us our keycards. We collected our luggage (and tried to figure out how much and how to tip the guy) and headed up the red (not green and not blue) elevator to our room. More weary-traveler rest happened, and we got dressed in our Red Sox apparel (so carefully selected from umpteen stores within the week previous). We were headed downtown to the Sky Dome…