Friday in Toronto

Around eight thirty in the morning, I called Ethan in sick with his school. I had permission from his mother, who also authorized me to start his weekend a night early so we could leave early for Toronto. The concert we wanted to attend, bumped up their start time by almost an hour. That meant waiting for Ethan to finish school and then traveling from Hamilton to Toronto on time would have been impossible. So I figured why take him out early when we can just play hookie and spend the whole day in the big city Ferris Bueller style?

 

So Ethan and I left for Toronto around 9am, and we ended up arriving around 11am. I learned a very valuable lesson when I saw a concert in 2010 when I took a but at 4pm and traffic was so bad I still missed the opening act entirely. So from then on, I’ve always bused in early and made a day out of any concerts playing in Toronto.

 

So once we were back in Toronto, Ethan and I want for a little stroll walking from Union Station to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Took us about 25 minutes, but it was a nice walk. I had planned to hit the AGO a month ago, thinking Ethan would enjoy checking out some old and brilliant works, maybe even sparking some creativity in himself.

Turns out this was a great idea because the little guy and I spent nearly two hours looking at some amazing stuff, and I can see he was really taking it in. some of the works were very old, and very huge as well, and he seemed to take it all in rather gracefully.

We’re actually allowed to take pictures at the AGO just as long as there’s no flash, so here are a few pics that I took while Ethan and I were browsing around the gallery:

   

  

Yet my favorite part of the visit was seeing this amazing piece by Claude Monet:

I’ve always been a huge fan of Impressionism, and this was the first time I got to see a Monet original with my own eyes, which in itself was very moving and inspiring at the same time.

So after all that walking around and art gazing, Ethan let me know he was smitting for some lunch. I had him covered but told him we’d need to take another walk so we strolled another 20+ minutes until we reached our intended destination which was Hot Star, which is known on the net for making an epic cheese filled fried chicken.

I remember showing Ethan a video of the cheese filled chicken, and how he responded to it, saying he wanted to give it a try. When we arrived at the place, I reminded Ethan about this video and informed him this was the place that made him just as excited.

So we went in and ordered two cheese filled fried chicken breasts and one fries to split between us. We waited patiently and the wait was sooooo worth it! The chicken was oh so gooey and magical, basically everything we thought it would be. The pieces were rather large as well, almost the size of Ethan’s head!

So after lunch, we hit the Eaton Centre, and walked around and browsed a few stores to walk off our cheese filled chicken. We killed some time there but were starting to tire from all the walking we were doing, so we decided to take a break since my fit meter said we had already taken 14,000 steps since we got there! Ethan and I hit a Starbucks and grabbed a few Vanilla Bean Fraps and lounged out on some comfy chairs for a decent while and just gave our feet a break.

So after our rather nice break at Starbucks, we did a bit more browsing on Young Street before finally stopping a Hero Certified Burgers for Supper. After getting a burg and fries each, we walked at that meal off by strolling over to the Roger’s Centre (aka SkyDome) for the main event, the concert that inspired the whole day’s shenanigans. We made good time, arriving just 20 minutes before the show was set to begin.

To be continued in the next entry…

Peter