02 Apr 09

21:01 EST (02:01 BST)

Well today we packed our bags and said goodbye to the Big Apple and made our way to LaGuardia airport in Queens, NY and after several hours waiting in the airport (our shuttlebus turned up 30mins earlier than an already very early departure time) we took a short flight of 1 hour and 10mins to Toronto. Briefly going back, our waiting in the airport was mostly spent getting hold of Canadian Dollars, reading, grabbing bites to eat and drink and S had a rather interesting conversation with a local Policeman about taxes and Barack Obama (he wasn't a fan!).

We landed into Toronto International Airport at about 15:00 and despite prior thought, there was no time difference (guidebook was wrong!!). We made our way through customs and managed to catch a rather luxurious coach to the centre of Toronto. We soon found our hostel which is really nice, we are in a double room with a shared bathroom but it is only shared with the only other private room, the hostel is quite busy but quite quiet when the neighbourghs arn't singing. The room is very cabin like, i am not sure mum would manage to get into the bed but it is very comfortable.

After we had spread some of our stuff about the place to make it feel like home we headed out to book a table at 360 resturant in the CN tower, then walked past the hockey hall of fame (already closed for the evening but i was worried for a second that that wouldn't stop S) and headed to the monster shopping mall at the top end of the financial district. After a quick (and i actually do mean quick, my feet were hurting again) tour of the 300+ shops we headed back down and up the CN Tower.

The first thing we had to do was pass through security which involved being blasted by air in a funny cubicle then we went into the lift which has a glass side door and roof and goes at 15mph to get up the 115 floors to the resturant. The resturant revolves all 360 degrees whilst you eat, we had the fix priced menu and actually had the same, an amoius bouche of fried corn bun with prawns, a starter of smoked salmon with rye bread and a main of american AAA class sirloin steak with veg gratin and mash. We did vary a little when it came to pud, i opted for the chocolate tower with winter fruit compot and S opted for the apple and ruhbarb crumble by which we had done the full 360 and the sun had set. we then headed to the main observation deck, then the glass floor which S decided was not a good idea and even i found it a bit unnerving. we then headed back down the tower and back to room.



So far Toronto does feel very different from NY, although the areas we have been too have been as dominated by sky scrappers many more of them have incorporated older buildings as their facades or bases which, as you walk the streets, give you a much different feel to NY. Anyway, tomorrow is breakfast in the hostel, the Hockey Hall of Fame and a couple of the other Toronto sites and also booking our trip to Niagara for Sat.